President Donald Trump has said he is considering issuing a “brand new” executive order on immigration by next week, even though he expressed confidence that he will win the legal battle over the immigration ban on nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.
“We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order,” Mr. Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Florida.
Asked if his plan might be to issue a new executive order, Mr. Trump said: “It very well could be. We need speed for reasons of security, so it very well could be.”
Mr. Trump said that “in honour of the (9th US Circuit court) decision” he will likely wait until next week to respond with any action.
“Perhaps Monday or Tuesday,” he said.
The new executive order on immigration would include security measures, Mr. Trump said.
“New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting. I call it extreme vetting and we’re going very strong on security. We are going to have people coming to our country that want to be here for good reason,” he said.
Speaking at the White House Mr. Trump said: “We will be doing something very rapidly to do with the additional security for our country. You’ll be seeing that sometime next week,”
“In addition, we will continue to go through the court process and ultimately, I have no doubt we will win that particular case,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a joint news conference on Friday with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“We are going to keep our country safe. We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe. We have had decision which we think will be very successful with, it shouldn’t have taken this much time because safety is a primary reason,” Mr. Trump said.
“One of the reasons I am standing here today, the security of our country, the voters felt I would give it the best security,” he said indicating that, despite the court setback, he would continue with his efforts for the safety and security of the US.
“While I’ve been President, which is just for a very short period of time, I’ve learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely President,” he said.
Mr. Trump said there are tremendous threats to the country.
“We will not allow that to happen, I can tell you that right now. So we’ll be going forward and we’ll be doing things to continue to make our country safe. It will happen rapidly and we will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people,” he said.
Meanwhile Mr. Trump declined to respond to a report in Washington Post that his National Security Advisor General (rtd) Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia’s Ambassador to the US before he was sworn in as National Security Advisor.
Mr. Trump said he was not aware of the report.
“I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen it. What report is that? I haven’t seen that. I’ll look into that,” the President said.
He cautioned Iran when he was asked how he plans to respond to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had earlier said that any nation that threatens Iran will “regret” it.
“He better be careful,” Mr. Trump said.
