There's hope that the U.S.-sponsored event on Tuesday will lead to tangible results. | AP Photo Terror attacks complicate Obama's refugee push

UNITED NATIONS — The New York-area hunt for an Afghan-born bombing suspect cast a pall on this week's gathering of international leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, a session U.S. President Barack Obama plans to use to rally support for helping the world's refugees.

Instead, the search for and eventual capture Monday of 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami gave a fresh talking point to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who wants to dramatically curtail U.S. admissions of refugees and other immigrants and who has criticized his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's more welcoming stance.


"I just saw that and wanted to weep," a U.S.-based refugee advocate told POLITICO as news spread of the manhunt. "Trump is going to be all over this bullshit."

And he was.

"Think of it," the real estate mogul told Fox News on Monday morning. "Hillary Clinton wants to allow hundreds of thousands of these same people that are, you know, they have such hatred and sickness in their hearts. It’s sickness, but it’s — it’s sickness and it’s hatred, and she wants to allow hundreds of thousands."

Clinton responded, in a hastily arranged news conference on an airplane tarmac near her New York home, with a reiteration of her call for stricter "vetting" of immigrants and an "intelligence surge" to better identify terrorist threats.

"So I am absolutely in favor of and have long been an advocate for tough vetting for making sure that we don't let people into this country, and not just people who come here to settle, but we need a better visa system," she said.

But she sought to distinguish between terrorists like the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and refugees in general, while taking a shot at Trump for good measure. "These were not refugees who got into airplanes and attacked our city and our country," Clinton said. "So let's not get diverted and distracted by the kind of campaign rhetoric we hear coming from the other side."

Authorities were still piecing together details about Rahami, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan but whose last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey. According to media reports, he was wounded in a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey, but taken into custody by noon Monday. He is wanted in connection with a blast that hurt 29 people over the weekend in the Chelsea area of New York City, as well as other bombs found in the city and in New Jersey.

It was not immediately clear how Rahami reached the United States, or whether he even arrived as a refugee. But activists acknowledged that such nuances would likely get lost in the debate this week as terrorism will likely become an even more prominent issue than it already is.

This year's General Assembly, and the many events on the sidelines, are tackling issues ranging from how to stop growing microbial resistance to antibiotics to climate change. The bloody civil war in Syria, the battle against the Islamic State terrorist network and the dilemma over North Korea's nuclear program are also key topics.

The world's refugee crisis — in which an unprecedented 65 million people are either displaced in their own countries or sought help in other states — is receiving special attention, however. On Monday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon kicked off a summit of world leaders to discuss the topic. And on Tuesday, Obama will host his own refugee summit. Of huge concern is the plight of Syrian refugees, hundreds of thousands of whom have trekked to Europe to escape the despair of refugee camps.

During his opening remarks on Monday morning, Ban, who will leave the secretary-general's seat in just a few months, called on nations not to be afraid of refugees fleeing violence and persecution. "Refugees and migrants are not to be seen a burden; they offer great potential, if only we unlock it," he said. "Acting together, we can respond to rising xenophobia and turn fear into hope."

As the U.N.-sponsored summit kicked off, millions of people in the New York area received alerts on their cell phones about the search for Rahami, who authorities warned was likely armed and dangerous.

Refugee advocates say they have mixed feelings about the two summits. They believe the U.N.-sponsored event Monday is falling short of concrete steps groups such as Amnesty International and Oxfam sought. The leaders gathered Monday adopted the so-called New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, but the statement puts off much of the heavy lifting of coming up with a new strategy for handling mass migration crises until 2018.

There's more hope that the U.S.-sponsored event on Tuesday will lead to tangible results, including serious commitments from the private sector on ways to assist refugees. But activists are disappointed that while Obama is calling on other countries to double their intake of refugees, he isn't willing to lift the U.S. intake as much.

Obama has set a target of 110,000 refugee admissions, including a significant number from Syria, in fiscal year 2017; some activists had hoped for 200,000. Opposition among Republicans in Congress, which controls funding for the U.S. refugee resettlement program, likely stayed Obama's hand.

Clinton said last year that she'd like to see the U.S. accept some 65,000 refugees from Syria; but in the year since, she's stayed silent on any numbers. Her campaign stresses that while Clinton believes in keeping the U.S. refugee resettlement program intact as a symbol of American generosity, she believes newcomers must be properly screened.

Her relative reticence on the subject — at least as compared to Trump — has rankled some refugee advocates, who now wonder whether, with the latest attack in New York, whether she will become even more shy.

"It's really important that Hillary make a strong statement supporting the fiscal year 2017 admissions goals set by President Obama and make a commitment to continue to increase our annual refugee admissions once she's elected," said Yasmine Taeb of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby. Taeb acknowledged the "tough political climate," noting "the rise in anti-Muslim and anti-refugee rhetoric." But she urged world leaders not to "turn our backs on innocent women, men, and children fleeing violence and persecution."

Trump, Clinton and Obama were all set to hold bilateral meetings with world leaders in New York on Monday. Clinton and Trump are due to meet Egypt's president, while Clinton also will meet Ukraine's president and the prime minister of Japan. Obama's meetings include one with Iraq's prime minister; the pair will likely discuss ways to keep up the fight against the Islamic State.

Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.

