In an MSNBC program recorded yesterday, hosts speak with a group of guests about Donald Trump’s proposals concerning immigration, basing their information and opinions on outdated claims which Trump made in the past rather than on his current modified proposals which are much more workable. A guest claims that Trump’s immigration proposals would “cost as much as $100 billion” while actually basing his projection on vetting every person who would visit the U.S. rather than the suspension of immigration from countries that have been compromised by terrorism.
At the beginning of the clip, old footage (December 2015) is shown of Donald Trump saying the following: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” but they fail to note that Trump has changed his stance since then.
Then they show a more recent July 21 2016 clip: “We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism, until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place, we don’t want them in our country.”
Following are excerpts from the conversation which ensues:
ARI MELBER (who claims he spoke with over twenty homeland security experts): “There’s been questions about whether this is legal, whether it’s a good idea. We dug in because he is the major party nominee on what it would actually take. … [ Here are ] quotes we got talking to people who are ICE, DHS, border security, they say: ‘impractical, unworkable, impossible, not doable.’”
HOST: “Did anyone tell you it could be done?”
ARI MELBER: “Some people looked at the price estimate, I can show you that there are 189 million entries to the U.S. in a year that are non-immigrant entries [ people who temporarily visit the country with passports ]. So if you take that and you say actually that you want to patrol and vet those people for their beliefs or their religion, you have to start looking at what the top Muslim nations are. … A ballpark figure right now, we spend about $21.5 billion dollars on immigration enforcement. We were told by officials that … it would be up to $100 billion just to set up a kind of global vetting system to look at people’s beliefs.”