Trump trains gun on immigration, both illegal and legal

WASHINGTON: Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump is gradually expanding his intent to staunch all immigration -- illegal and legal -- to the United States, citing potential terrorist infiltration.

At a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, on Friday, Trump named a host of countries -- including Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Morocco and Yemen -- some of whose nationals are accused of conspiring against the United States after acquiring American citizenship, to make a broader argument against immigration.

''We're letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn't be allowed because you can't vet them,'' Trump told a predominantly white crowd that broke into chants of “USA !USA !” at his diatribes against immigration, foreign trade, and other nativist themes that he has begun to crank up on his campaign trail. ''There's no way of vetting them. You have no idea who they are. This could be the great Trojan horse of all time,'' he added.

Maine is the whitest of all American states (96 per cent white) and Trump used the resettlement of Somali refugees in the state, some 10,000 of who have settled in and around the town of Lewiston, to make the case against expansive immigration policies that has formed the basis of the modern American state.

Except for about 3 million Native Americans (one per cent of US population), the rest of the country, including Trump’s own forbears, are of immigrant stock. Nearly 14 per cent -- 43 million -- of the current US population comprises foreign-born immigrants, according to migration experts.

Trump’s nativist-inspired rants are now bringing all of them, including those who have US citizenship, particularly the country’s 3 million Muslims, under scrutiny. ''People don’t want me to say 'Muslim.' I guess I prefer not saying it, frankly, myself. So we’re talking about territories,'' Trump said in a recent interview, after expanding the scope of his proposed travel and immigration clampdown to cover countries such as France and Germany.

Although he has implicitly said the ban will apply first to Muslim travelers and immigrants, his tirades against Mexicans, and more broadly against immigrants, suggests an open season against non-white, foreign-born immigrants. In fact, he has indicated that any country whose policies are not consonant with his ideas on immigration – and consequently ''invites'' terrorism -- could be on a US ban list.

Typical of the crude, bigoted outlook that now characterizes his campaign, Trump mocked what he considers one-sided America security guarantees to allies, telling a mirthful nativist crowd in Iowa that if the US is attacked, all Japanese would do is ''sit home and watch Sony television.''

''You know, we have a treaty with Japan where if Japan is attacked, we have to use the full force and might of the United States (to defend it). If we're attacked, Japan doesn't have to do anything. They can sit home and watch Sony television. What kind of deals are these?'' Trump asked at an election rally in Des Moines, where a typical Trump-fanboy crowd cheered his takedown of US foreign policy based on seven decades of establishment consensus that the maverick candidate now sees as going against American interests.

Washington provided security guarantees to Japan in exchange for -- among other things -- for demilitarization after World War II. But such subtleties – and history – is lost in a Trump rant where foreign policy is reduced to a business transaction.Japan, Trump said, should be forced to pay 100 per cent of America's military costs for protecting the island nation, not the roughly 50 per cent it pays now.

The Republican nominee continued to make a fool of himself on the campaign trail, offloading bizarre explanations for his frequent outbursts, leading even conservative commentators such as Peggy Noonan (a Reagan speechwriter) to suggest he is essentially a narcissistic, infantile, crackpot.

''When you act as if you’re insane, people are liable to think you’re insane. That’s what happened this week. People started to become convinced he was nuts, a total flake,'' Noonan wrote of Trump, pronouncing he was not going to change.

In the past 24 hours, Trump reversed course to announce he was endorsing House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator John McCain in an effort to restore some order to his floundering campaign and attempt to reunite the party. He also began reading from notes and cue cards -- instead of his extempore rambling -- to bring some coherence to his speeches, in which he often mocks Hillary Clinton for using teleprompters.

Just when critics thought he was getting his act together, Trump dropped this clanger. Asked in an interview on Friday about the women he would include in his cabinet if he were to be elected President, Trump rambled about so many talented people to choose from, but could go no further than naming his daughter Ivanka. ''I can tell you everybody would say, “Put Ivanka in, put Ivanka in,” you know that, right? She’s very popular, she’s done very well…'' he said.

In another meeting, he denied having evicted a mother with a crying infant from a campaign rally, accused the media of distorting what he claimed was a joke, and then compared the baby’s crying to the operatic tenor of Luciano Pavarotti.

''This baby could have been Pavarotti. In fact, I’m going to find out who that baby is. I’m going to make a deal with the parents because we can take that baby to training school and it’ll be the next great Pavarotti,'' Trump said, in what was possibly another joke.

Incidentally, Pavarotti's family has asked Trump to refrain from using late singer's Puccini aria ''Nessum Dorma,'' which roughly translates as ''None Shall Sleep.''

Trump's riveting, rollicking campaign is ensuring that.