Washington, January 28 (RHC)-- U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that authorizes extreme vetting of immigrants and refugees, a move aimed at keeping what he refers to as “radical Islamic terrorists” out of America.  

Speaking at the signing ceremony has he penned the directive at the Pentagon on Friday, during the inauguration of Defense Secretary James Mattis, Trump said: "This is big stuff."  The U.S. president added that the new measures would keep what he called radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States.

Trump did not provide more details on the executive order, which is titled “Protection of the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States.”  A leaked draft indicated earlier that the executive order blocks the entry of Syrian refugees and suspends the entry of any immigrants from Syria and other Muslim countries like Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen.

Viewed by the Guardian earlier this week, the draft pointed to a 120-day ban on refugee resettlement program in the U.S. as well as an indefinite ban on accepting refugees coming from Syria.  It also limited the total number of refugees entering the U.S. in 2017 to 50,000.  This is nearly less than half of the previous year’s 117,000.

During his presidential election campaign, Trump had called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."  He is also reportedly moving ahead with a plan to create a database of Muslim Americans.