Trump announces ‘extreme vetting’ plan for refugees

During a visit to the Pentagon today, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a new “extreme vetting” system for asylum-seekers. His goal? Keep out radical Islamic terrorists. “We don’t want ’em here,” Trump said. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people.” Trump administration officials did not immediately provide a copy of the executive order, but a draft released to the media temporarily halted refugee resettlement in the United States and banned all visitors from some Muslim-majority countries for 30 days. The draft also put a 120-day freeze on refugee entries, indefinitely blocked all refugees coming from Syria, and put a hold on all visa requests coming from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen for at least 30 days. Last year, the United States resettled 84,995 refugees, but Trump wants to scale the program back to 50,000.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.