Trump administration urges Australia to deport terror threats as US travel ban widens
He said hate speech laws should not subvert liberal democracy and that it is often difficult to assess whether someone is contravening those laws. However, they can also be targeted through alternative means.
“If a person can’t be deported because he’s a citizen, do what Americans call the Al Capone approach,” Vidino said. “Go look at their taxes. Go see if they filed their papers correctly. Did they comply with parking laws? Immigration papers. You can make their lives very difficult… just follow the existing laws.”
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Former FBI special agent David Zimmermann, who has been in contact with Australian authorities, also agreed that this was “definitely the way to go”.
“If there’s someone who’s at the edge of the envelope and we don’t have enough, we’re going to look at their taxes, their finances,” he said.
Zimmermann, who currently works at George Washington University, said that the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut Tahrir in the list of terrorist organizations was “long overdue.” “It’s a good thing to make sure people can’t support themselves financially. It’s going to save lives, it’s going to protect people.”
But Jason Blazakis, director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said defining terrorist organizations would largely “not improve the situation.”
Blazakis said gun reform “could help at the borders,” but combating radicalization will ultimately require long-term investment in local offices focused on prevention within communities.
He noted a unit in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security known as CP3 that focuses on preventing domestic terrorism; however, this unit faced cuts during the Trump era. Appointing a 22-year-old university graduate.
“Prevention is a better approach, as opposed to bans and designations,” Blazakis said. “These are long-term solutions and it will be difficult for politicians to do this instead of choosing the easy way.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday his government was prepared to do more, including to crack down on hate speech. “We banned hate speech that could lead to violence. If we need to review it [the laws]”If they need to be strengthened, we are ready for anything,” he said.
The foreign advice comes as Republicans seize on the Bondi terror attack to advocate for tougher bans on Muslim immigration and travel to the United States.
Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said in a post on channel X that the attack “should not have come as a surprise to anyone” and was “the direct result of the mass influx of Islamists into Australia.”
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“Islamists and Islamism are the greatest threat to the freedom, security and prosperity of the United States and the entire world,” he said. “It’s probably too late for Europe and maybe Australia. It’s not too late for the United States.”
Florida congressman Randy Fine and Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville were among elected Republicans who called for some kind of ban on Muslim travel to the United States and, in Fine’s words, “a radical deportation of all mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants.”
On Wednesday (AEDT) Trump expanded the ban on citizens from certain countries entering the US, adding Muslim-majority Syria, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso to the list, as well as South Sudan and Laos. It also banned entry to anyone traveling with documents issued by the Palestinian Authority.
Speaking at the Hanukkah event held at the White House, Trump once again sent love and prayers to the Australian people and the victims of the Bondi attack. “All nations must stand together against the evil forces of radical Islamic terrorism, and that is what we are doing,” he said.
