Careless Trump crony exposes strategic planning papers to media

Here’s part of the Trump plan for choking immigration. pic.twitter.com/rvEEtIQuIh

— Mike Monteiro did not pay for 👉🏽 (@monteiro) November 21, 2016

And just as indecent. Gripped within the hands of Kris Kobach, a frontrunner to serve as Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, are pages labeled “Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days.” The visible text is profoundly troubling.

“forestall future lawsuits” This is why we need to help the @ACLU. Give like your life depends on it. It does. https://t.co/tBeYVJSVuJ pic.twitter.com/ohM4zKNt7u

— Mike Monteiro did not pay for 👉🏽 (@monteiro) November 21, 2016

At Esquire, Jack Holmes recounts the text that Kobach’s carelessness left viewable:

While much of the text is obscured, we can make out a few bullet points quite clearly:

• “Update and reintroduce the NSEERS screening and tracking system (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) that was in place from 2002-2005. All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked.” ([Esquire] Editor’s note: The system, put in place following 9/11, was shelved in 2011 because it was ineffective, costly, and often seen as harassment.)

• “Add extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution.”

• “Reduce the intake of Syrian refugees to zero.”

Farther down the page, things are murkier. The next header appears to call for some course of action for a “record number of criminal aliens in the first year.” Later, a plan for that famous wall along the southern border with Mexico invokes the PATRIOT Act. What could go wrong?

An NBC News report on Kobach says he “helped write the book on creating a federal Muslim registry in the name of national security” and “is renowned as the mastermind behind the Republican Party’s heavily contested anti-immigrant bills and restrictions on voter registration.”

This is right in alignment with Trump’s campaign, during which he took an extreme hardline on immigration, including a purity test for immigrants and, of course, the wall which became the centerpiece of his platform.

Every indication continues to suggest that Trump will not moderate while president, but will instead double down on his terrifying promises.