Profiling of Muslims: Will Trump’s suggestion reduce terrorism or increase hatred
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NEW YORK, June 20 (APP): Profiling of Muslims: Will Trump’s suggestion reduce terrorism or increase hatred
Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has proposed a ban on Muslim immigration into the United States and surveillance of mosques, is now calling for "profiling" Muslims as a response to terrorism.
"I think profiling is something that we're going to have to start thinking about as a country," Trump said on CBS' News Sunday programme 'Face The Nation'.
"You look at Israel and you look at others, and they do it and they do it successfully," he added.
While hurrying to add that "I hate the concept of profiling," Trump said that "we have to start using common sense and we have to use, you know, we have to use our heads."
Profiling is an oft-criticized law enforcement tactic. The US National Institute of Justice -- the research and development of the Justice Department -- defined racial profiling as a "practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin."
African-Americans and Hispanics have long protested police profiling that ranges from traffic stops to questioning about alleged crimes.
Trump has stepped up comments about "radical Islamic extremism" in the wake of last week's mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, and his proposals have drawn criticism from opponents.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the Muslim migration ban and other proposals would help the Islamic State and other extremists recruit new members, and alienate Muslim nations who are helping the U.S. fight terrorism.
Trump's approach "is un-American," Clinton said last week. "It goes against everything we stand for as a country founded on religious freedom. But it is also dangerous."
In the interview, Trump said France also places mosques under surveillance.
"They're doing it in France. In fact, in some instances, they're closing down mosques. People don't want to talk about it. People aren't talking about it. But look at what they're doing in France. They're actually closing down mosques," he asserted.
Civil rights activists, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos and others condemned Trump's statement, saying that profiling is unconstitutional.
The billionaire businessman previously called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims" entering the United States. He has also called for a database to track Muslims across the United States, and he has also said that the US would have "absolutely no choice" but to close down mosques.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned the Orlando nightclub shooting that left dozens of people dead last week, and called for unity among all Americans and warned politicians against exploiting the tragedy to score points.
Omar Mateen, armed with assault weapons, stormed the Pulse Club on June 12, killing 49 people and injured 53 others at the gay club, marking the worst ever mass shooting in US history.
The 29-year-old suspect was an American-born US citizen born to parents of Afghan origin. He was allegedly a Daesh sympathizer.
At a speech in New Hampshire last week, he talked about taking a hard-line on certain people trying to enter the US, and promised to "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the US, Europe, and our allies."
"The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here," he said, referring to Omar Mateen's parents, who had immigrated from Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama doubled down on Trump with stinging criticism in response, telling a Tuesday press conference that the Republican's proposals "won’t make us more safe."
"We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States to bar all Muslims from immigrating into America," Obama said.
"Language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence, do Republican officials actually agree with this? " he added.
"It won't make us more safe, it will make us less safe, fueling ISIL's [Islamic State, ISIS] notion that America hates Muslims."
