Donald Trumps proposed Muslim registry, explained

[ericson00]

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/16/13649764/trump-muslim-register-database

The difference between a “Muslim database” and a “database of particular people in the US from particular countries, which happen to be majority Muslim” might seem like a meaningless distinction, something to give a gloss of neutrality to something clearly discriminatory. But that gloss of neutrality matters a lot. It’s the reason the federal government was able to keep a database for a decade. And it’s probably the reason you might not have known that database existed at all.

Under NSEERS, certain “foreign citizens and nationals” in the US had to come into immigration offices for fingerprinting, photos, and interviews — and then had to check in again at designated intervals.

But this “special registration” system was selective. It only applied to people on non-immigrant visas (including tourism and work visas). It only applied to men over the age of 16. And it only applied to people from a list of countries the Bush administration considered “havens for terrorists.” There were 25 countries on the “special registration” list. Twenty-four were majority-Muslim countries. The 25th was North Korea.

Democrats should probably be very careful about how they approach this. If Trump were really proposing a registry of all Muslims in the 50 states and dependent territories, citizens included, it would be unconstitutional and evil. What this article describes is something that, quite frankly, because it doesn't apply to citizens (as in the people who do have legal constitutional rights), is probably going to be hard to fight both in Congress and in the public imagination.

What Democrats should do is ensure that if Trump does get it thru, its done with no false cases or mistakes. Any mistakes should be harshly punished. Remember, terrorism kinda helped decide this election for Trump.