President Donald Trump declined to lay out a timeline on his administration’s planned pause on offers of asylum regarding 19 countries “of concern.”
Trump defended the pause — but did not say when he might relax it — while speaking with reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday. The president said that the United States is better off without accepting refugees from the targeted countries.
The 19 countries “of concern” included in the asylum pause are Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
“We don’t want people. We have enough problems. We don’t want those people,” the president said. “You know why we don’t want them? Because many have been no good, and they shouldn’t be in our country.”
Asylum claims that will be blocked under the order are from countries that are “not friendly to us and countries that are out of control themselves–countries like Somalia that have virtually no government, no military, no police. All they do is go around killing each other, then they come into our country and tell us how to run our country,” said Trump.
The president pointed to the case of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who has long been suspected of committing immigration fraud by marrying her brother. The president suggested that Omar married her brother to illegally immigrate to the United States, and that if the accusation is true, Omar should be thrown “the hell out of our country.”
Omar has previously denied those claims.
Trump first announced the pause on accepting asylum claims from 19 countries in a pair of posts on Truth Social on Thanksgiving Day. The president added that he plans to investigate and remove foreigners who are not citizens residing in the United States who are not a “net asset” to the country.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization,” said Trump.
