McKenna: The U.S. needs intelligence to thwart terrorist attacks

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want to just increase security in the United States, he wants to keep people of a certain faith out.

Trump announced that if he is elected he would keep Muslims out of the country, at least until the government feels safe enough to open its borders back up. After all, if President Roosevelt could send people to internment camps, why couldn’t Trump keep people of his choosing out of the country?

But would Trump have the power to do that? KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross wonders. He went to former state Attorney General Rob McKenna for the answer.

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First of all, what Roosevelt did was never really challenged by the courts, McKenna said. At the time, the internment of Japanese-Americans was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I think if Trump tried to issue such an order today, it would be blocked or overturned in the courts,” McKenna explained.

On the other hand, if Trump decided to be more critical of people of a certain faith coming into the country, it could be done. Immigrants from other countries are not citizens by definition, McKenna said. The rights that apply to citizens of the U.S. do not apply to non-citizens entering the country. Therefore, border control can ask more questions, including those about faith.

“But that doesn’t make it good or wise policy,” McKenna said.

It makes it a tricky situation for law enforcement. Could one make the argument that because many of the terrorists professing a form of radical Islam are Muslim, law enforcement should consider anyone wearing similar garb suspicious?

“What you’re describing is profiling,” McKenna explained. “In our own country, mass shootings are not committed by one person or a single group, which tells us what really matters is good intelligence.”

In summary: McKenna said what really matters is having an extensive background on people, including where they’ve been and who they’ve met with. That, he said, is how a country is successful in thwarting major terrorist attacks. It has to be more sophisticated than branding everyone of a particular religion as a suspect.