The longest serving commissioner of the New York City Police Department Sunday praised President-elect Trump’s policies on police and terror.
In an interview with John Catsimatidis on 970 AM in New York, former NYPD Chief Ray Kelly said he supported Trump’s proposals to increase vetting of immigrants who want to come to the United States.
“We need some deeper vetting … I think it is necessary in this day and age,” Kelly explained. “Certainly, I think the public wants a higher degree of comfort as to who’s coming in at this time, and I think we are going to have to devote additional resources to examining the backgrounds of individuals coming in, where they live, where their relatives are … I think it’s absolutely necessary to do a much deeper dive on people’s backgrounds.”
Last week, Trump appeared to stand by his plans to establish a registry for Muslims and create a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants to the U.S.
Kelly, who spent 47 total years in the NYPD and also served in the Clinton administration, also praised Trump for putting forth pro-police policies.
“Hopefully we’ll see in the next year or so a turnaround as far as pro-active policing is concerned,” he said.
Kelly also spoke about a recent New York Times op-ed by Mehdi Hasan of Al Jazeera, which attacked the “proposal to crack down on the civil liberties of law-abiding American Muslims” after Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., met with Trump and said he said he “suggested a program similar to what Commissioner Kelly did here in New York.”
Kelly explained that his program, which he called the NYPD’s Demographic Unit, was falsely accused by Hasan of being a secret operation and one that didn’t develop any leads.
“It’s purpose was not to develop cases or leads, but to rather information about the citizens and the neighborhoods to determine where people might go who came to New York to do us harm,” he said, adding, “It’s a perfectly legal function of government.”
Listen to the full interview here.
