Free Republic

President Trump may be ready to intensify his antagonism of Muslims. Reports suggest that the White House is considering an executive order directing the State Department to assess whether the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Some Republicans, including Trump’s erstwhile rival Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), have been pushing for this for a long time, and it will have ramifications far beyond the Middle East, where the group primarily operates. The result is likely to be intimidation, harassment and smears of Muslim and Arab groups here in the United States. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt...

3 Questions to Keep Muslim Terrorists Out of America How to screen Muslim immigrants for Islamic terror. January 27, 2017 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. The Nonimmigrant Visa application form filled out by the 9/11 hijackers asked, “Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization?” They checked the box that said, ‘No’ and they were in. The current incarnation of the form asks the same perfunctory and generic question. An actual terrorist is as likely to check the box as he is...

3 Questions to Keep Future Muslim Terrorists Out of America Posted by Daniel Greenfield The Nonimmigrant Visa application form filled out by the 9/11 hijackers asked, “Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization?” They checked the box that said, ‘No’ and they were in. The current incarnation of the form asks the same perfunctory and generic question. An actual terrorist is as likely to check the box as he is to finger a rosary while eating a ham sandwich and singing Hava Nagila. But since 9/11, the terrorist threat has evolved from foreign cells penetrating this country...

Trump himself was often critical of President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has proposed a bill to call for declaring the Brotherhood a terror organization. In the past, it has been accused of supporting terrorist groups around the world, and several countries, including Muslim nations, have banned them. If the U.S. declares the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, it would make it a criminal act for Americans to fund the group, ban banks from processing money for it, bar people with ties to the group from coming to the United States and make it easier...

Saudi Arabia has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, in a move that could increase pressure on Qatar whose backing for the group has sparked a row with fellow Gulf monarchies. The U.S.-allied kingdom has also designated as terrorist the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, whose fighters are battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Interior Ministry said in a statement published by state media. Friday's move appeared to enforce a royal decree last month in which Riyadh, which backs some rebel groups in Syria with money and arms, said it would...