Washington: Former US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he will reinstate and expand a travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim nations, if he is elected to the White House again in 2024.
Addressing a campaign event in Clive, Iowa, on Monday, Trump also announced that he would suspend refugee resettlements and aggressively deport those having “jihadist sympathies", CNN reported.
Citing the attacks by Hamas in Israel, he raised concerns about a potential assault on the US as he sought to make the case for his hard-line immigration policies.
During his presidency, Trump’s travel ban was a signature policy that limited travellers from Iran, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
The administration later extended the ban to include several African countries. But it was revoked by President Joe Biden when he took office in 2021.
In his address on Monday, Trump also said that he would implement “strong ideological screening of all immigrants to the US” and said Washington would block “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs to get residency in our country.”.
The former President added would again ban travel from "Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya or anywhere else that threatens our security”.
Trump further said he would revoke student visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners” enrolled in American colleges and universities and deport them, reports CNN.
While criticising pro-Palestinian protests, he said he would send Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to what he described as “pro-jihadist demonstrations”. “We have to protect our own country,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates have also called for revoking student visas and deporting foreign nationals in the US who have aligned themselves with Hamas in the wake of the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel.
“Anyone who stands up and says they want to kill Jews, they support terrorism, they should have that visa revoked,” CNN quoted Tim Scott of South Carolina as saying in an interview on Monday
While endorsing a similar proposal, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that he thought if someone on a visa expressed support for Hamas, “you don’t have a right to be here on a visa, you don’t have a right to be studying in the US".
With inputs from agencies