Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Tuesday he would recommend using U.S. troops to implement a safe zone for refugees in Syria and Turkey to protect Europeans from accepting terrorists embedded as asylum seekers.
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions said the move would prevent Europe from having to continue to accept the millions arriving at its borders. It would also help the U.S. remain within its annual immigration caps.
“It just cannot be the policy of the United States that when there’s a war-torn area everybody’s entitled to come here,” Sessions told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren.
The Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest chairman said he has asked the Defense Department to consider his plan, but the Pentagon has not reached a decision about creating a safe zone or using U.S. troops to help guard it.
The Republican senator’s call comes hours after the State Department renewed its European travel warning to American tourists who will visit the continent from now through August 31.
“The large number of tourists visiting Europe in the summer months will present greater targets for terrorists planning attacks in public locations, especially at large events,” the May 31 alert said. The initial alert was issued following the March attacks in Brussels, Belgium.
Sessions said that creating protected places in the Middle East would give those who have fled their homeland the ability to return home and not be displaced far away from their country once the Islamic State has been defeated.
