Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump defended on Tuesday his proposal to ban all Muslims – including tourists, students, other nation’s leaders and potential immigrants – from entering the United States. The controversial measure would imply to have a religious test for admission into the nation and has led to criticism from American Republicans to European leaders. Trump’s idea became stronger after the San Bernardino attack took place last week, when a radicalized couple killed 14 co-workers at a holiday party.
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victim of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Trump stated on Monday December 7.
Critics say the billionaire’s plan of barring people because of their religion would certainly be unconstitutional, but his spokeswoman Katrina Pierson declared that the U.S. Constitution only applies for citizens, according to MSNBC. This means that Muslim Americans would be allowed to enter the country once they come back from abroad.
Trump, a Republican front-runner for the November 2016 presidential election, has been warning that further and larger-scale attacks could happen if officials do not act first. He claimed that his proposal was similar to the measure from President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, when he ordered certain foreigners to register themselves as “Aliens of Enemy Nationality.” However, the candidate said he wouldn’t support internment camps, referring to those where Japanese descent were sent to as part of Roosevelt’s plan.
‘Donald, come home’
Just a block away from the place where Donald J. Trump grew up, two dozen men gathered on Monday night in Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, to pray and talk about the candidate’s latest declaration. They were shocked by his reaction after the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Ali Najmi, a 31-year old immigration lawyer who co-founded the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, said that people always ask where the peaceful Muslims are. Najmi affirmed they were right there in Donald Trump’s first neighborhood and encouraged the billionaire to go back home so he could realize that real Muslims are not terrorists.
U.S. Political leaders reject Trump’s anti-Muslim ideas
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday that Trump was disqualified from becoming president because his proposal clearly showed he was not aiming to guarantee the preservation and defense of the U.S. Constitution.
All other democrats are obviously against Trump’s anti-Muslim ideas. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Trump was promoting hate and that Republicans had been building it for him.
House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters after a meeting with GOP House members that Trump’s proposal was far from conservative and did not represent the party’s or the country’s values.
Sen. Ted Cruz, also a Republican presidential candidate, refused to criticize Trump but did remark that he did not agree with the extreme measure. Instead, he clarified that his own proposal to restrict refugees from regions involved with Islamic State forces was very different from Trump’s plan to prohibit all Muslim entries.
World leaders’ reactions
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls tweeted that Mr. Trump was helping raise hate and misinformation. Even after the November 13th Paris attacks were 130 people were killed, the leader refuses to reject people based on their faith.
In the United Kingdom, a spokeswoman for British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed Trump’s speech was “unhelpful and quite simply wrong,” because it was encouraging division. The polemic candidate has an honorary degree from Robert Gordon University in Scotland and a group has started a petition to revoke it, as Reuters reported.
A spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia, also denounced Trump’s comments.
Creative criticism
The Philadelphia Daily News released its cover with Trump’s arm extended and the headline “The New Furor,” referring to Adolf Hitler’s title – Führer – in Nazi Germany.
In Florida, the Democratic mayor of St. Petersburg, Rick Kriseman, sent an ironic tweet that stated, “I am hereby barring Donald Trump from entering St. Petersburg until we fully understand the dangerous threat posed by all Trumps.”
And in Britain, Harry Potter saga author J.K. Rowling also wrote on Twitter that Voldemort, the Dark Lord of the acclaimed series, “was nowhere near as bad” as Trump.
Source: Reuters