Jeb Bush called Trump’s proposal “abhorrent”. He said that while “Islam itself is not necessarily our adversary”, Americans are justified in seeing threats from Muslim refugees and the USA shouldn’t “completely change who we are as Americans just so we can look like good people”.
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“I’m a big fan of Donald Trump’s, but not a fan of government registries of American citizens”, he said in Sioux City, Iowa.
Reporter: “Would you go to mosques to sign people up?”
The rebukes came after Trump voiced support for a mandatory database for Muslims while campaigning Thursday in Iowa.
According to The New York Times, when asked how such a database would be different from Jews having to register in Nazi Germany, Trump repeatedly said, “You tell me”, until he stopped responding to the question altogether.
“By mainstreaming Islamophobic and unconstitutional policies, Donald Trump and Ben Carson are contributing to an already toxic environment that may be hard to correct once their political ambitions have been satisfied”, CAIR’s Robert McCaw said in a statement. Is he someone you might consider for a role in the Trump administration? “But it’s all about management”.
While Bush has suggested that the United States vet Christian refugees, fellow 2016 presidential hopeful Donald Trump said he isn’t sure if the U.S. would be able to prove someone is a Christian or not.
But Cruz said he opposed a Muslim database on the grounds it would infringe on American religious liberty. “We must defeat Islamic terrorism & have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America”, Trump tweeted on Friday. “I want surveillance programs”.
“I think we have to keep in the forefront minds that we first must respect the human dignity of people especially people in desperate need”, stated the cardinal.
Earlier in the week, Trump suggested that the USA should close down some Mosques.
Trump stated he has seen a support increase after the Paris terrorist attacks last week.
Trump, leading the polls for the Republican nomination, has made several belligerent remarks about Muslims and Syrian refugees in the wake of last week’s attacks in Paris claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The U.S. House passed legislation this week essentially barring Syrian and Iraqi refugees from the United States.
On Twitter, he said the idea didn’t originate with him. Conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh pointed out that Trump had simply shifted the discussion to other subjects when he was asked about a potential Muslim database.
“This is way beyond the pale, this is basically a call to persecute a religious minority based on nothing other than their faith”, Hooper said. “You can use neutral criteria to identify terrorists”.
Religious freedom is one of the founding tenets of our nation. “That won’t fly in any court”. Trump said at the rally Saturday to loud cheers. “At some point you have to ask yourself, is that the kind of country we are?” Sanders called the statement “outrageous and bigoted”.
Trump’s initial suggestion that he would “certainly implement” a database to track Muslims drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans.
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“One of the hallmarks of America is that we treat everybody the same”, he said.
