Donald Trump does U-turn on database plan to track Muslims in the US

Donald Trump has backtracked from his support for a government database to track Muslims in the US — an idea that drew sharp criticism from his Republican presidential rivals and disbelief from legal experts.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush called such a registry “abhorrent”, Florida senator Marco Rubio said the idea was “unnecessary” and not something Americans would support and Texas senator Ted Cruz said he was “not a fan of government registries of American citizens”.

The first reference to a database came in a Trump interview with Yahoo News published on Thursday. When asked about requiring Muslims to register in a database or carry a form of special identification noting their religion, the property tycoon said: “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely.”

Pressed by an NBC News reporter later if there should be a database system for tracking Muslims in the US, he said: “There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases.” The reporter asked if that was something Trump would put in place as president and he replied: “I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.” He also told the reporter that Muslims would “have to be” registered.

But in a Fox News Channel interview, Trump tried to clarify his position. “I want a watch list for the Syrian refugees that (President Barack) Obama’s going to let in if we don’t stop him as Republicans,” he said. He said he had trouble hearing the NBC reporter’s questions.

During a rally in Alabama later, he told the crowd that reports on his previous statements were inaccurate. But he also voiced support for additional surveillance, both of arriving refugees and certain mosques.

Civil liberties experts said a database for Muslims would be unconstitutional.