Trump’s Muslim Registry: President-Elect Urged To Target Religious Group Like New York After 9/11

Potentially fueling the worries of fearful Muslims around the country, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-New York) reportedly encouraged President-elect Donald Trump to create a federal surveillance program to monitor Muslims similar to the one New York instituted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Newsday reported.

Saying “political correctness” should be avoided, the Republican Congressman who met with Trump Thursday told reporters he had ideas for the FBI and Justice Department to “ be more leaning forward when it comes to investigating Islamist terrorism.”

King cited the work of former New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly, who had the program in place as early as 2002 and employed the NYPD’s Intelligence Division and a number of other divisions to monitor Muslim communities and mosques within 100 miles of the city, the American Civil Liberties Union explains.

While stating he didn’t ask Trump about his feelings on a new national surveillance program, King did tell Newsday that Trump agreed the country needed to step up its battle against terrorism. During the roughly hour-long meeting, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and CIA Director-nominee and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) were present along with two other officials.

The revelation could incite real fears that have spread around Muslims communities both during Trump’s campaign and following his victory last month. The billionaire’s path to the White House was built on his stance on a number of issues, but his anti-immigration platform and use of the term “radical Islamic terrorism” were seen as two of his most controversial talking points that prompted critics to label Trump as a racist. Many also believe it helped Trump sweep up a huge swath of the electorate in the south and Midwest.

The FBI and other agencies have used the terrorist watch list and the no-fly list – as well as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration system that was ended in 2011 due to concerns it was unfairly targeting Muslims - to monitor potential threats around the country. Those tactics were employed after the terror attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in New York and Washington D.C. However, Trump has repeatedly spoken of either outright banning Muslims from entering the country or making a registry.

In order to pull off such a task, Trump would need at least some cooperation from the country’s leading technology experts. More than 1,200 employees from some of the top innovative companies like Google and Twitter have vowed in an open letter not to help the new administration build any sort of registry.

"We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans, immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the incoming administration’s proposed data collection policies," the letter posted at neveragain.tech reads. "We refuse to build a database of people based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs. We refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable."