Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson slammed Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for what he called “inflammatory” comments on Muslims.
“We’ve spent a lot of time building bridges to American Muslim communities as you know because the Islamic State is targeting those communities to carry out attacks, to conduct attacks in the homeland,” Johnson said when asked about Cruz’s Monday op-ed in the New York Daily News about his call for increased patrolling of Muslim neighborhoods.
Johnson said that while he agrees with the Texas senator’s assertion that “we cannot fight and win without identifying and confronting the enemy,” he does not agree with the means Cruz has identified to do so.
“So we spent a lot of time working with Muslim communities, American Muslim communities, and they’re not a monolith; there are many of them across the country, to help them help us in our homeland security efforts,” Johnson said, adding that, “[I]t is critical that we build bridges to American Muslim communities, not vilify them, not drive them into the shadows and encourage them to work with us.
“I believe that inflammatory comments about, patrolling and securing Muslim neighborhoods or barring Muslims from entering this country, having an immigration policy based on religion is counterproductive to our homeland security and national security interests,” Johnson said when asked about the comments by Cruz and Trump, who has called for a ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S.
According to Johnson, a majority of American Muslims “are very patriotic people and want to be part of the fabric of our nation,” adding that DHS remains concerned about radicalization nationwide, particularly in prisons.
“I think we have to be concerned about the Islamic State’s active efforts to recruit and inspire people here in the homeland,” he said when asked about radicalization in the U.S.
