US should consider profiling Muslims, suggests Trump
AP
Donald Trump is suggesting the United States should seriously consider profiling Muslims inside the country as a terrorism-fighting tool, the latest example of the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting increasingly backing positions that could single out a group based on its religion, reports AP from Washington.
We really have to look at profiling, Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation. Its not the worst thing to do.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee added that he hate(s) the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense over political correctness.
Trumps proposal runs counter to Justice Department policy, which explicitly prohibits profiling on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity and national origin. That profiling ban applies not only to federal agents but also to local law enforcement officers who participate in federal task forces.
Trumps increasing embrace of policies that could isolate Muslims in America is extraordinary for a candidate assured of his partys presidential nomination. The proposals have been roundly dismissed and criticized by many Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan. Civil libertarians, Muslims and others also have strongly disagreed, arguing that profiling is unconstitutional and often constitutes unlawful discrimination based on race, religion and other factors.
Law enforcement should remain allied with groups that might have helpful information, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in an interview that aired Sunday.
It is very important for to us maintain our contacts within the Muslim community, because, often, individuals, if theyre from that community and theyre being radicalized, their friends and family members will see it first. They will see activity first. And we want that information to come to us, Lynch said on CNNs State of Union.
Trumps statements are consistent with his other, long-expressed views on how to stop terrorism in the United States, including a temporary ban on foreign Muslims from entering the country until the U.S. can figure out what is going on. But hes intensified his approach since Omar Mateen carried out the worst mass shooting in modern American history on June 12 at a gay club in Orlando, Florida. Forty-nine people were killed in the attack, which stoked a mix of fears about terrorism, guns and violence against gays.
Mateens motive isnt clear, but a letter from the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said Mateen wrote on Facebook that real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the West. He also pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, his ex-wife said he was mentally ill and his father suggested that gays had angered him.
Trumps response to the tragedy was, in part, a pointed confrontation with Muslims, whom he singled out for knowing where terrorists are and not turning them into authorities. In the same speech, he also expanded his ban on Muslim immigration to include people from regions with a history of terrorism.
On Sunday, Trump also said the government should investigate mosques in the U.S. in much the same way the New York Police Departments Demographics Unit spied on Muslims and mosques around the city with help from the CIA. The group assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed, infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques and monitored sermons, The Associated Press reported in 2011.
