Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Wednesday that the solution to terrorist attacks like Tuesday’s strike in New York is more money, rather than more restrictions on immigration.
Mr. Schumer demanded President Trump cancel his push to trim anti-terrorism grants to states and local governments, saying New York City needs national taxpayers’ money to combat threats.
And Mr. Schumer, who represents New York, also said Mr. Trump is failing the test of crisis leadership by attacking an immigration program the suspect in the New York attack used to enter the U.S.
Mr. Schumer contrasted Mr. Trump’s approach of tweeting against Mr. Schumer to that of then-President George W. Bush, who in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks invited Mr. Schumer and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton to the White House to pledge cooperation.
“President Bush, in a moment of national tragedy, understood the meaning of his high office and sought to bring our country together. President Trump, where is your leadership?” Mr. Schumer said.
Mr. Trump has identified a soft immigration system as the root cause of Tuesday’s attack, saying he’s ordered more “extreme vetting.”
“I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!” he said on Twitter.
And he said the attacker entered the U.S. through the diversity visa lottery, a decades-old program Mr. Schumer has backed that doles out 50,000 green cards every year based on chance rather than through family ties or selection based on merit.
Mr. Trump called the program “a Chuck Schumer beauty.”
In recent years the lottery has been a target for elimination, with even Mr. Schumer, as part of the Gang of Eight senators who wrote an immigration bill in 2013, backing its elimination.
On Wednesday Mr. Schumer didn’t address the diversity visa lottery, instead defending immigration in broad terms.
“I have always believed that immigration is good for America. I believe it today,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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