Statement on controversial policy disappears from website shortly after election
In December 2015 Donald Trump suggested total ban on Muslim migrants
The promise has suddenly disappeared from the Trump/Pence website
Donald Trump's controversial plan for a total ban on Muslim immigrants may have been dropped already after the statement mysteriously vanished from his website.
The
statement: 'Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete
shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's
representatives can figure out what is going on' had been on the site
since December.
But hours after he was confirmed as the 45th U.S. President it suddenly disappeared.
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Trump is due to visit Barack Obama at the White House today to discuss a 'smooth transition of power'.
The
outgoing President traditionally updates the President-Elect on
important foreign affairs issues and confidential matters of national
security, aswell as handing out a few crumbs of advice.
Obama
might be tempted to go further and urge Trump to drop a few more of his
more left-field ideas, such as the wall along the southern border, paid
for by the Mexicans themselves.
Khizr Khan, whose son, Humayun Khan
was one of 14 American Muslims who died serving in the U.S. Army in the
10 years after the 9/11 attacks, took Donald Trump to task after he
proposed a ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
Trump
had said in the statement on his website: 'Until we are able to
determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses,
our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that
believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human
life.'
But
it appears Trump may have now realized the total ban on Muslims - which
had been criticized for being racist and xenophobic - was not
practical.
It
had also failed to recognize that some Islamic terrorists, like Omar
Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in June, were
themselves born in the United States and the ban would not have
prevented their violent acts.
Among those who had spoken out against it was the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
The total ban on Muslim immigrants has been dropped, but the plan for a Mexican wall remain
But the ban on Muslims had been popular with many Trump supporters, especially in the Midwest and in the Bible belt.
As
the campaign progressed Trump had retreated from the ban, saying he
wanted a ban on immigration from countries 'with connections to
terrorism', rather than Muslims specifically.
But
while that statement was probably targeted at refugees from Syria and
Iraq, others argued that countries 'with connections to terrorism' could
include France, Belgium and even Britain, as all have been 'infected'
by Islamist terrorist cells.