Donald Trump's call for barring Muslims into US sparks widespread criticism

The billionaire Presidential candidate has also made comments about other minority groups

Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner in the American presidential elections, is in the spotlight again over his comments calling for a ban on entry of Muslims into the US.

His remarks came in the backdrop of the San Bernardino shooting, where a Muslim couple carried out a mass shooting at a centre for disabled people, killing 14 people.

Trump, according to a MSNBC report, on Monday called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on.”

The remarks evinced sharp bipartisan reactions and criticism. White House press secretary Josh Earnest, according to The Washington Post’s report, said on Tuesday that Trump's remarks proposing to ban all Muslims from entering the US "disqualifies him from serving as president."  

Speaking to Bloomberg, US Vice President Joe Biden criticised Trump’s remarks on Tuesday and dismissed them as “showmanship”. However, Biden cautioned that Trump’s comments were nonetheless “a very, very dangerous brew for America”.  

Top Congressional Republicans also hit out at Trump’s remarks. The Washington Post reported House Speaker Paul Ryan saying, “Freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional principle. It’s a founding principle of this country ….  This is not conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for. And more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.” According to the same report, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that any proposal to bar visitors based on religion was “completely inconsistent” with American values. However, both leaders said that they would support the Republican nominee. 

This is not the first time that Trump has made outrageous statements. At a campaign event last month in Alabama, Trump claimed that on September 11, 2001, he “watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands of thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down”. 

His claim that Muslims had cheered the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings had evinced similar criticism. According to a MSNBC report, Trump defended his comments on an ABC News show by saying: “There were people that were cheering in the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations…They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down.”

Politico.com had quoted Trump last month from one of his interviews, where Trump said that US would have "absolutely no choice" but to close down some mosques where "some bad things are happening".

Trump has often opined that building a wall on the US-Mexican border was the need of the hour to stem illegal immigration. A Daily News report quoted Trump’s tweet last month on reports that a group of Syrian families had tried to enter the US from Mexico. “Eight Syrians were just caught on the southern border trying to get into the U.S. ISIS maybe? I told you so. WE NEED A BIG & BEAUTIFUL WALL,” tweeted Trump. 

In an interview to Business Insider in July this year, Trump had made his position of immigrants from Mexico clear. Trump defended his previous claims that Mexico was "sending people that have lots of problems" to the US, including "rapists" and people who are "bringing crime" and "bringing drugs."