Republican USA presidential candidates swiftly condemned Donald Trump’s call for requiring Muslims in the U.S. to register in a national database, drawing a sharp distinction with the front-runner for the party’s nomination.
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The daylong furor capped a week of one-upmanship among Republican presidential candidates as to who could sound toughest about preventing terrorism after the November 13 attacks in Paris. The real estate mogul was asked by an NBC News reporter about the prospect of a database and whether Muslims would be required to be registered. In the past, Trump has advocated higher taxes, supported affirmative action, called for a government-run, single-payer healthcare system used by Canada and Britain, and backed the Supreme Court’s Lowe decision that gives government the right to easily seize private property for private businesses. Asked if there should be a database system for tracking Muslims in the United States, Trump said, “There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases”.
Given his general Islamophobic worldview-and his specific suggestion that he’d be willing to shutter mosques in the United States and keep closer tabs on Muslims-a registry is nearly the logical conclusion of his bigoted bluster. His periodic eruptions have seemed to power his campaign; he has denigrated Sen. Through it all, his supporters have held firm. “There are comments.by leading Republican candidates that harken back to the dark days of the 1930s”.
According to Yahoo, Trump also suggested he would consider no-warrant searches, saying, “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before”. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. Later that day, as Mr. Trump left a campaign event in Iowa, an NBC reporter followed up.
Asked about the effect that would have, however, he replied, It would stop people from coming in illegally perhaps suggesting that Mr. Trump, who has vowed to build a handsome wall along the Mexican border, was not focused on the question.
Mr. Trumps remarks took hours to circulate widely over social media.
Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, responded on CNBC by saying, You talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people thats just wrong.
Religious and civil liberties experts said Trump’s idea is unconstitutional on several counts. And Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said, “I’m not a fan of government registries of American citizens”.
Reporter: Would they have to legally be in this database? Trump: They have to be-, they have to be-, the key is people can come to this country but they have to be here legally. “Everybody should go through the same clearing process”, he said, “but I can tell you that persecuted Christian families, uprooted in the community, whether in Iraq or Syria, with family members beheaded due to their faith, they’re not Islamic terrorists”.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Trump and Carson, have participated in the mainstreaming of anti-Muslim sentiment.
Senator Cruz said in Iowa that the US Constitution “protects religious liberty and I’ve spent the past several decades defending the religious liberty of every American”. That ought to alarm every American.
But Trump’s remarks on Saturday – interrupted by his criticism of the press and comments on his appearance on Saturday Night Live – left room for interpretation.
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And with the race expected to focus more heavily on foreign policy after the terrorist attacks in Paris, a few have questioned whether Trump’s temperament and lack of foreign policy expertise will lead many Republicans to disqualify him as a potential commander in chief.
