Washington state congresswoman introduces bill to prohibit religious registry

Washington state Rep. Suzan DelBene has introduced an act that would prohibit the implementation of a religious registry. The "No Religious Registry Act" would “ensure individuals of all faiths are protected” from the establishment of such a registry.

"President-elect Donald Trump is breaking his promise to be a president for all Americans by supporting the creation of a Muslim registry. This kind of xenophobic and hateful rhetoric has no place in our government," DelBene said in a statement on her website. "We cannot allow our country to disregard the civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution. My bill would prohibit the administration from violating the constitutional rights of Americans because everyone should be treated equally under our laws."

According to the statement on her website, DelBene's bill would prohibit the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security or any United States government official from establishing or using a registry that classifies individuals based on their religious affiliation, and would cover all U.S. nationals, U.S. visa applicants and aliens who are legally in the country.

Kris Kobach, Kansas' secretary of state, who said he had been advising the Trump transition team on immigration policies, said confidants to the president-elect were discussing proposals to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries, CBS News reported.

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Asked by an NBC News reporter whether he’d use a Muslim registry, Trump said: “There should be a lot of systems -- beyond databases. I mean, we should have a lot of systems. And today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border, we have to have strength.”

Trump then tweeted about the encounter: “I didn’t suggest a database -- a reporter did. We must defeat Islamic terrorism & have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America.”

A spokesman for a major super PAC backing Trump said on national television that the mass internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was a “precedent” for plans to create a database of Muslim immigrants.

Earlier this year, a statement on Trump's website called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

"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," Trump posted on his website on Dec. 7, 2015. "According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population."

The statement was removed from the website "around Election Day on Tuesday," according to Reuters.

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