On the back of the terrible terrorist attacks in Brussels, Republican Party presidential candidate Ted Cruz proposed that police in the U.S. should “patrol and secure” any Muslim neighborhoods in the region. This proposal received a lot of backlash from civil rights groups and congressional colleagues alike.
Ever since the terror attacks in San Bernardino and Paris, both Cruz and Trump have been trying to outdo one another when it comes to proposing more stringent scrutiny on refugees and Muslims coming into the country.
It was on Tuesday that Cruz released a statement calling for the current U.S. government to “immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence,” countries like Syria and Iraq. He furthered this by saying that there was a “need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”
While these comments were met with anger by groups such as the Council of American-Islamic Relations and the American Civil Liberties Union, Cruz’s spokeswoman Catherine Frazier released a statement saying “We know what is happening with these isolated Muslim neighborhoods in Europe. If we want to prevent it from happening here, it is going to require an empowered, visible law enforcement presence that will both identify problem spots and partner with non-radical Americans who want to protect their homes.”
