Reuters, Washington :
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States in the most dramatic response by a candidate yet to last week’s shooting spree by two Muslims who the FBI said had been radicalised.
“We have no choice,” Trump said at a rally in South Carolina, warning of more Sept. 11-style attacks if stern measures are not taken.
Trump’s statement on “preventing Muslim immigration” drew swift and fierce blowback from many directions, including the White House, rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, who said the idea “goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”
“Donald Trump is unhinged. His ‘policy’ proposals are not serious,” Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said in a tweet.
Other social media reaction led hashtags such as #racism, #fascism and #bigot to trend heavily.
Withering reaction also came from Ohio Governor John Kasich, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Trump, the billionaire developer and former reality TV star who frequently uses racially charged rhetoric, called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Trump said.
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, asked in an email if the shutdown would apply specifically to immigration or more broadly to student visas, tourists and other travellers to the United States, replied: “Everyone.”
In Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Trump dismissed his critics. He told a rally that mosques in the United States should also be scrutinized. “We have to see what’s happening,” he said.
Trump went farther than other Republican candidates, who have called for a suspension of a plan by President Barack Obama to bring into the United States as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees fleeing their country’s civil war and Islamic State militants.
Trump’s remarks followed last week’s massacre in San Bernardino, California, by a Muslim couple. The husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, was U.S.-born. The wife, Tashfeen Malik, was born in Pakistan and came to the United States from Saudi Arabia. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday the couple had been radicalised.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton tweeted that Trump’s idea was “reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive.” Keywords trending on social media after Trump’s statement included Hitler, shutdown and immigration.
But conservative pundit Ann Coulter wrote “GO TRUMP, GO!” on the social media site.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, blasted Trump.
“This is outrageous coming from someone who wants to assume the highest office in the land. It is reckless and simply un-American. Donald Trump sounds more like a leader of a lynch mob than a great nation like ours,” Awad said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told MSNBC that Trump is “seeking to tap into a darker side, a darker element, and try to play on people’s fears in order to build support for his campaign.”
Obama on Sunday night in an Oval Office address called on Americans to be tolerant of fellow citizens regardless of their religion.
Trump’s aim is to bolster his position among conservative voters who have kept him atop opinion polls of Republican voters for months, to the point that establishment Republicans fret he could win the nomination and do so poorly in the general election next November that Republicans could not only lose the White House but also control of Congress.
Whether Trump will pay a price for the move is unclear. He has shown a proclivity toward insulting people with no penalty, from saying a storied Vietnam veteran, Senator John McCain, is not a hero to blasting Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found stark differences between Republicans and Democrats in how they view Muslims. The poll, which was conducted after last week’s San Bernardino, California, attacks, found that 69 percent of Republicans expressed at least some fears of Muslims, compared with 39 percent of Democrats.
Trump said in an interview on Fox News that his proposal would not prevent Muslims who are serving overseas in the U.S. military from returning and would not apply to people already living in the country, “except that we have to be vigilant,” he said.
To support his proposal, Trump pointed to data from the conservative think-tank Center for Security Policy indicating that a quarter of Muslims in a poll thought violence against Americans was justified.
The centre’s president, Frank Gaffney Jr., has been critical of Muslims in America, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, calls him “one of America’s most notorious Islamaphobes.”
South Carolina’s Graham tweeted that Trump has “gone from making absurd comments to being downright dangerous with his bombastic rhetoric.”
Ohio’s Kasich said: “This is just more of the outrageous divisiveness that characterizes his every breath and another reason why he is entirely unsuited to lead the United States.”
A spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, Doug Watts, said Carson did not believe that religion should be a litmus test for entry to the country but said everyone visiting the United States should be monitored during their stay, saying that is the case in many countries.
BBC Online adds: – There has been a storm of condemnation from Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans after the presidential candidate called for a ban on Muslims entering the US.
Rival candidate Jeb Bush called Mr Trump “unhinged”. Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney said it “goes against everything we stand for and believe in”.
The White House, UN and Muslim leaders also criticised Mr Trump’s statement.
Mr Trump said many Muslims nursed a “hatred” towards America.
In a campaign statement, he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.
His campaign manager said that would apply to “everybody” – would-be immigrants and tourists. But Mr Trump told Fox News it would “not apply to people living in the country”, adding that Muslims serving in the US military would “come home”. Mr Trump’s statement was delivered as the US comes to terms with its deadliest terror attack since 9/11.
Last week a Muslim couple, believed to have been radicalised, opened fire and killed 14 people at a health centre in San Bernardino.
Mr Trump garnered loud cheers when he repeated his ban pledge at a South Carolina rally hours after his initial statement.
Some of his Republican rivals – mindful, perhaps, that Mr Trump’s more outlandish proposals only appear to have bolstered his poll ratings – were more nuanced in their responses.
Carly Fiorina used her response to take simultaneous aim at President Barack Obama, saying his “overreaction is as dangerous as President Obama’s under-reaction” – while Ted Cruz said: “Well, that is not my policy.”
Ben Carson said visitors to the US should be monitored, but added: “I do not and would not advocate being selective on one’s religion.”
But a handful of supporters cheered Mr Trump on, with controversial conservative commentator Ann Coulter tweeting: “GO TRUMP, GO!”
The BBC’s Anthony Zurcher, in Washington, says Mr Trump, whose poll ratings have risen after other hardline statements, has set down a marker that will force his fellow candidates to stand with him or risk his ire.
Mr Trump’s comments were contrary to US values and its national security interests, a statement from the White House said.
“Donald Trump sounds more like a leader of a lynch mob than a great nation like ours,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“These are not just words… Trump and Carson’s mainstreaming of Islamophobia in the election is inciting discrimination, hate crimes, violent attacks against Muslims and mosques. This inflammatory rhetoric is putting the lives of millions of American Muslims and their children in danger.”
“We’re entering into the realm of the fascist now,” said Ibraham Hooper, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Meanwhile, the Democratic mayor of St Petersburg, Florida, announced to Twitter fanfare that he was “hereby barring Donald Trump from entering St Petersburg until we fully understand the dangerous threat posed by all Trumps”.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it was concerned that the rhetoric was putting an “incredibly important” resettlement programme for vulnerable Syrian refugees at risk.
Spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said remarks not just by Mr Trump but by a number of US state governors could undermine a programme designed to help the most vulnerable refugees.
The US currently accepts several thousand refugees for resettlement each year, following a rigorous security screening which lasts around two years.
Mr Trump’s statement to reporters on Monday said polling by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think-tank, suggested that 25% of Muslims in the US believed violence against America was justified.
“Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why, we will have to determine.
“Until we [do]… our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad.”
On Sunday, President Obama made a rare Oval Office address in response to the San Bernardino attack and warned against the US falling prey to divisiveness.
