A.G. Gancarski
Congressman Ron DeSantis, running for Senate on a message heavy on national security, takes a hard-line position when it comes to the global war against ISIS. His recently filed legislation, the Terrorist Refugee Infiltration Prevention Act (TRIP), reflects that.
The bill, claims a media release from the DeSantis campaign, “blocks refugees from coming into America from countries like Somalia, Syria, and Yemen that have significant territory controlled by groups considered terrorist organizations like ISIS.”
Ted Cruz, among the upper tier of GOP presidential hopefuls, has a similar bill in the Senate, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which quotes DeSantis saying, “Congress must take action to secure any vulnerabilities within our refugee resettlement program that terrorists could exploit to harm the American people.”
While one can expect nearly unanimous GOP support for such a measure, that of Democrats is a more open question, and DeSantis’ campaign operation sees this bill as an opportunity to gauge whether his Democratic House colleagues, Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson, both of whom are also running for Senate, are willing to stand with him against the terrorists.
“I’m hopeful that Alan Grayson and Patrick Murphy will join me in supporting legislation to protect against the exploitation of the refugee program by terrorists seeking to do harm to Floridians,” DeSantis said. “ISIS wants to use these programs to sneak militant radical Islamists into our country. I’ll be steadfast in defending our security in the U.S. Senate and I’m proud to lead the fight in the House on this important legislation.”
This call to action across the aisle serves a couple of important purposes. There is the practical aim, of course, of garnering support for the bill. And then there is the political jiu-jitsu of exploiting an opportunity to muddy the waters of the Democratic primary campaign on the other side, forcing a candidate (Murphy, most likely) to pivot to the right, away from elements of the Democratic base.
