Trump: Allow those into U.S. who ‘want to love our country’
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump has lunch with troops while visiting U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. Trump, who spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, stopped for a visit to the headquarters before returning to Washington.
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. >> President Donald Trump today vowed to allow into the United States people who “want to love our country,” defending his immigration and refugee restrictions as he made his first visit to the headquarters today for U.S. Central Command.
Trump reaffirmed his support for NATO before military leaders and troops and laced his speech with references to homeland security amid a court battle over his travel ban on people from seven majority-Muslim countries. He did not directly mention the case now before a federal appeals court after a lower court temporarily suspended the ban.
“We need strong programs” so that “people that love us and want to love our country and will end up loving our country are allowed in” and those who “want to destroy us and destroy our country” are kept out, Trump said.
“Freedom, security and justice will prevail,” Trump added. “We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism and we will not allow it to take root in our country. We’re not going to allow it.”
Trump touched upon various alliances in his remarks, noting, “we strongly support NATO.”
He spoke Sunday with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. A White House statement said the two “discussed how to encourage all NATO allies to meet their defense spending commitments,” as well as the crisis in Ukraine and security challenges facing NATO countries.
Trump once dismissed the trans-Atlantic military alliance as “obsolete,” and he would decide whether to protect NATO countries against Russian aggression based on whether those countries “have fulfilled their obligations to us.”
Earlier, Trump sat down for lunch with a room full of troops in fatigues from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as senior members of his White House staff.
Trump made small talk with some of the soldiers, discussing everything from football to military careers.
“Gonna make it a career?” Trump asked one person.
“C’mon, you have to stay,” he urged another.
Trump also hailed New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, saying he “cemented his place” in football history after his fifth Super Bowl win Sunday.
Trump, who is also commander in chief of the U.S. military, stopped at the base on the way back to Washington after his first weekend away from the White House. Trump spent the weekend at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, with first lady Melania Trump, who had not appeared in public since shortly after her husband took office.
At MacDill, the president was briefed by CENTCOM and SOCOM leaders. A number of his advisers, including Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, also attended.
Trump met with Florida Gov. Rick Scott before delivering his remarks, telling the crowd at CENTCOM that Scott’s endorsement of his candidacy for president “makes him a better friend of mine,” adding that with those who don’t offer their endorsement, “it’s never quite the same.”
CENTCOM oversaw a recent raid by U.S. special operations forces on an al-Qaida compound in Yemen, the first military operation authorized by Trump. A Navy SEAL, Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens, 36, of Peoria, Illinois, was killed, making him the first known U.S. combat casualty under Trump.
Three other U.S. service members were wounded in the operation. More than half a dozen suspected militants and more than a dozen civilians were also killed, including the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and U.S. citizen who was targeted and killed in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike.
Trump made no mention of Owen or the raid in Yemen during his remarks Monday, but he paid recognition to the sacrifices of American military families and the spouses of American soldiers, vowing his support to those who risk their lives for the country.
“We protect those who protect us, and we will never ever let you down,” he said.
7 responses to “Trump: Allow those into U.S. who ‘want to love our country’”
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The big threat from immigration is the greater the number of people that don’t share American values or don’t appreciate them or oppose them, then the less America can remain America. When people come for the freebies instead of the freedom that undermines America… when people come as settlers as opposed to wanna be Americans that undermines America. For that matter, the indoctrination of Americans themselves in the merits of collectivism undermines America. And this is a huge shame because the American way (individualism over statism) is the best way.
The fact is that there are millions of individuals around the world that now want to come to America, and NOT for the same reasons as the Irish, or Italians, or Polish, or Scots, or like the many melting pot groups that shaped Hawaii a hundred years ago–there are massive hordes of under-educated individuals from less-advanced countries who want to come to America merely for convenience, or to take advantage of what they see as a nation they are entitled to extort.
They do not want to BE Americans.
They do not embrace our values.
They do not embrace diversity.
They do not embrace democracy.
They do not embrace true freedom.
They do not embrace our Constitution.
And they DO NOT EMBRACE PATRIOTISM.
They think that America, being wealthy and powerful, is OBLIGATED to feed and house and clothe and medicate them, hence the protesting and rioting you’re seeing when big bad mean Trump says they can’t just waltz through customs at our airports and straight to the welfare office to claim some free cash.
And then, to top it all off, you hear them spouting off about their “constitutional rights” being violated.
YOU ARE NOT A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. YOU DO NOT HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AFFORDED YOU BY OUR CONSTITUTION.
This country does not BELONG to the world, and certainly not the THIRD WORLD.
If you LOVE our country, LOVE our Constitution, LOVE the American miracle and would DIE defending it, then fill out an application, get in line and maybe we’ll consider letting you in.
Everyone else? F— OFF.
Escaping starvation, poverty, oppression, lack of opportunity or war are exactly the reasons why the Irish, Italians, Poles, Scots, and myriad other ethnic groups left their homes to find a better life in America.They were generally, not the well-educated nor the privileged and had to work to find acceptance and make a life for themselves and their descendants. Suggest you brush up your historical knowledge a bit.
IRT CelloDad, agree with your post 50 years ago and disagree today. Today, it must be “You can come to the United States as a refugee if you take an oath to become an American citizen in two years”. J-1, E-1, H-2A, H-1B, and EB1 through EB5 will continue, but will be monitored closely. You overstay your visa, you lose your right to a USA Visa. And, it’s always best to have sanctuary zones in war zones.
Trump got blasted by agenerals Kelley and Mattis because they opposed Trump’s order. Trump blocked thousands of people who deserved to come including many who fought with us and risked their lives and families to help us– General Mattis and Kelley wanted language changed to let these people in, but Bannon ignored them and had Trump sign– this comes from several officers trying to help refugees and immigrants– as reported by a Trump supporter, Army Major and Middle East vet and author of a book about the danger of ISIS. Trump and Bannon are fools who think they know more than 4 star generals.
Think before you speak. Read before you think. The Fran Lebowitz Reader
HALLIE JACKSON, MSNBC: President Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin is really back in the headlines in a big way. You heard what he said about Putin and Bill O’Reilly’s comments that Putin is a killer, something of course that Vladimir Putin has denied. How concerned are you about not just with what the president is saying but the relationship that that means the U.S. is going to have with Russia, where that’s going to go from here?
RET. GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: Hallie, I’m actually incredulous that the president would make a statement like that. One could argue that’s the most anti-American statement ever made by the President of the United States, to confuse American values with Putin, who is running a criminal oligarchy, who kills people abroad and at home, who imprisons journalists and takes away business property, who shares it with his former KGB agents, who invades and seizes Crimea in eastern Ukraine, this is an astonishing state of affairs. It’s hard to know what to think about it.