Trump Seeks to End Visa Program He Blamed for Allowing New York Attack Suspect Into the U.S. By PETER BAKER NOV. 1, 2017 WASHINGTON — President Trump … called on Congress to cancel a longstanding immigration program that he blamed for allowing the man into the country. … “I am today starting the process of terminating the diversity lottery program,” he said. “I’m going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program.” “Diversity lottery — sounds nice,” he added. “It’s not nice. It’s not good. It hasn’t been good. We’ve been against it.” He added: “We have to get much less politically correct. We’re so politically correct that we’re afraid to do anything.” The president also denounced “chain migration,” meaning the ability of immigrants to sponsor family members, and promised to toughen sentences against terrorists without specifying how.

Mr. Trump’s comments came hours after he blamed the attack on Senator Chuck Schumer, the senior lawmaker from New York and the Democratic leader in the upper chamber, because he supported the diversity visa program enacted 27 years ago. … “President Trump, where is your leadership?” Mr. Schumer asked. “President Trump, instead of politicizing and dividing America, which he always seems to do at times of national tragedy, should be bringing us together and focusing on the real solution — antiterrorism funding — which he proposed cutting in his most recent budget.” At a news conference updating the public about the attack, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York chided Mr. Trump for his Twitter posts, saying they “were not helpful,” were not “even accurate” and “tended to point fingers and politicize the situation.” “You play into the hands of the terrorists to the extent that you disrupt and divide and frighten people in this society,” said Mr. Cuomo, who is a Democrat. “And the tone now should be the exact opposite by all officials on all levels. This is about unification, this is about solidarity.” The diversity visa program cited by Mr. Trump was created in 1990 by a bill supported by Mr. Schumer, passed by bipartisan votes and signed into law by a Republican president, George Bush. Democrats noted on Wednesday that Mr. Trump was quick to assail his political opponents and immigration policies less than 24 hours after the New York attack, even though his own White House declared it unseemly to talk about gun control policies in the immediate aftermath of the massacre in Las Vegas, in which a heavily armed American citizen shot and killed 58 people and injured hundreds of others.

The suspect was identified as Sayfullo Saipov, who came to the United States in 2010 from Uzbekistan and has a green card that permits permanent legal residency. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that he arrived through the diversity visa program. The program creates a class of immigrants called “diversity immigrants” from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.

In his remarks, Mr. Trump stressed that he wanted “merit-based” immigration, suggesting that Mr. Saipov was let in without consideration about whether he had skills that could benefit the United States. In fact, the program requires potential applicants to have the equivalent of a high school education or have been employed for at least two years in jobs approved by the State Department.

The attack on Mr. Schumer offered a timely way for Mr. Trump to change the subject from the special counsel investigation that unveiled its first criminal charges this week against three campaign advisers to Mr. Trump.

From the New York Times: The NYT leaves out that Trump said that preliminary investigation found that the terrorist was listed as the contact person for 23 family member immigrants.I think it’s even-handed to say that Diversity Visa program is the Bump Stock loophole of immigration policy.In other words, this program service to build beachheads in the United States for long-term chain migration from countries like Uzbekistan that don’t have many people who would qualify to move to American on grounds of potential value to the American citizenry.So the Uzbek Uber driver was practically Enrico Fermi.Trump’s Luck: it’s almost as if Trump has spent a lot of his life watching the news on television and has a rough sense of how often different kinds of events happen and adopts his platform accordingly. In contrast, The Establishment watches the same news, but they know what views are Appropriate to hold: e.g., terrorist truckdrivers are all Confederate flag-flying good old boys.

[Comment at Unz.com]