US President Donald Trump seized on the New York City truck attack to press his call for tighter immigration measures to prevent terrorism.
Trump asked Congress today to end the visa programme under which the Uzbek immigrant accused in the incident entered the United States.
But Democrats accused Trump of politicising the incident after the Republican president tried to assign some blame to one of their senior lawmakers, Chuck Schumer. In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said Trump should stop "politicising and dividing America" at times of national tragedy.
Donald Trump wants to get rid of the visa lottery system which picks a maximum of 50,000 people to receive US visas a year.
Trump said the suspect entered the country through the so‑called diversity visa programme, which was created by Congress in 1990, and signed into law by a Republican president, to provide a path to US residency for citizens from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
Source: Reuters
