By PAULETTE GINDI
Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited New York on Thursday to warn that the U.S. government would use “all lawful tools” to prosecute terrorists, including in federal court or at Guantanamo Bay, in wake of the deadliest terror attack to hit New York City since 9/11.
His speech in many aspects seemed to ratify President Trump controversial reactions in tweets and statements to the attack in Lower Manhattan Tuesday when an Uzbeki national used a rented pickup truck to plow down a bike path in Lower Manhattan, killing eight persons and injuring 11.
“If anyone has any doubt about that, they can ask the more than 500 criminals whom the Department of Justice has convicted on terrorist-related offenses since 9/11,” said Sessions at a press conference at the headquarters of Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim, which is located just a few blocks east of where the vehicle terror attack took place.
Sessions voiced strong support for Trump’s immigration and national security policies, such as Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from some Muslim-majority countries and Venezuela.
“The countries covered by this order have failed—or are unable—to provide us the information necessary for proper vetting of their nationals,” said Sessions.
He also appeared to back Trump’s denigration of the lottery visa law by which the accused terrorist, Sayfullo Saipov, entered the U.S. in 2010, blaming it on Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York who backed the measure in 1990 when he was a U.S. representative.
“The President has also laid out a set of principles for immigration reform that would make us safer,” Sessions said. “By building the border wall and requiring legal status to get a job, this plan would dramatically cut down on the illegality in our system.”
Sessions said Trump would “abolish the Diversity Visa Lottery”, which is a U.S. mandated lottery program, selecting 50,000 permanent resident visas at random annually, and issuing them a green card. He said that Trump plans to replace the lottery program with a merit-based system called the RAISE act, similar to the ones they use in Canada and Australia.
“We don’t use random chance in college admissions and we don’t roll a die to hire people,” Sessions said. “A lottery tells us nothing about who would thrive in this country.”
Sessions urged Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an act which maintains the ability to surveil overseas, which expires at the end of the year.
“Section 702 has been proven to be effective,” said Sessions. “In 2009, the FBI stopped Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan national, from executing his plans to bomb the New York City subway system.”
Photo by Paulette Gindi
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