On Friday morning’s edition of Breitbart News Daily, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) explained why she supports presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to limit immigration from terror-exporting nations.
“It comes in line with plans and proposals that we have in the House,” she said, continuing:
The House has stepped forward this year and passed several different measures to deal with this, including a measure that would halt this migration. We also have my legislation that’s yet to move forward, H.R. 4218, that would temporarily pause the migration of individuals who are coming from countries with terrorist ties.
Blackburn said her bill’s sponsors believe it is important to take a “time out” on immigration from those quarters, and “Mr. Trump is right in having that as his focus.”
“It is a focus that we in the House have, and we share, that you have to have a ‘time out’ and figure out what the vetting process is going to be. As in my legislation, it would require the president and the secretary of Homeland Security to sign off that, indeed, this vetting process is correct.”
SiriusXM host Matt Boyle noted that, contrary to cries from Trump’s critics that a temporary ban on Muslim immigration would be an unprecedented outrage that threatens the rule of law, existing law does, in fact, allow the president, putting it in layman’s terms, to “temporarily halt any alien or class of aliens from entering the United States, if they deem them to be a fundamental threat to the United States.”
“It’s a common sense approach,” said Blackburn, elaborating:
Anyone who is running an organization or a business knows, if you have something that is out-of-kilter, or is not working right, the common sense thing to do is to step up and to say, “Look, we’re going to pause this until we can figure it out.” In essence, that is what we in the House have said and what Mr. Trump is saying.
“Pause it. Let’s make certain we know who is coming into our country,” she urged “It’s important for our sovereignty. It’s important for our national security. We need to make certain that they are not coming in to do harm to American citizens.”
Blackburn thought it was significant that in this election season,“the number one issue on the minds of the voters is national security, and they equate that national security now – because of having terror cells expected to be in all of our states – they equate that with making certain their communities are safe, that their schools are safe, that their churches and places of public gathering are all going to be safe for them and for their children.”
Blackburn praised the House Homeland Security Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), for asking tough questions of the FBI after the Orlando shooting, such as, “How can you let someone fall through the net of local law enforcement?”
She urged:
Tell us what constrains you. We’re hearing political correctness from local law enforcement or citizens that tell them, “I was afraid to say something because I was afraid someone may accuse me of holding prejudices or racism or whatever.” Those are the things we need to look at and ask the questions, and then turn to our Homeland Security officials, and our FBI, and our local law enforcement, and say what barriers need to be removed, and what tools do you need in the toolbox to make certain that we root this out.
Responding to the bitterly partisan speech President Obama delivered at a memorial for the Orlando victims – in which, as Boyle noted, Obama was visibly more angry at his political opponents than the jihadi who did the killing – Blackburn said, “You and I would look at that and say, ‘Oh, my goodness, let’s not be mad at those who are on Team USA. Let’s look at why we have had this uptick of terrorist activity, and then let’s make these assessments.’”
“We know that we came out of Iraq the wrong way. Everyone has agreed to that,” she said, presumably using “everyone” to mean “everyone except President Obama.”
“We know that there have been missteps in Afghanistan and in the Middle East,” she continued. “We know we have had a faltering foreign policy under Secretary Clinton and President Obama, and that even our allies are saying, ‘Where have you been?’ Look at the relationship with Israel. You need look no further than that.”
“We know all of that is out there, and the President should say keeping the American people safe is the top priority. Providing for the common defense, that is our priority,” Blackburn said, adding:
Now, let’s talk about how do we best do that. How do we execute this? It would be great to see the President take some leadership on this, and to send a message to those who do not wish us well, that we are going to hunt them down, and we are going to destroy them, and we are going to destroy their network.
She recounted attending the Baltimore County Republican Party dinner the previous night and hearing people “talk about terrorism, the threat of terrorism. Their hearts break for these families in Orlando.”
“People wonder how someone like this, who has been radicalized, could have slipped through the net. They’re asking the questions, the right questions, that we all need to be asking.” Those questions include, she said, “How do we keep this from happening? How do we root this out? How do we make certain that we do not destroy the security of freedom that we have enjoyed in this country.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
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