Ted Cruz wants to nationalize an NYPD Muslim surveillance program that the NYPD says didn’t work

Source: Washington Post

In the wake of the bombings in Brussels on Tuesday morning, Ted Cruz outlined steps he would take as president to prevent similar attacks in the United States. Within hours, he was forced to clarify his position -- and then defend that clarification from skepticism offered from an unlikely quarter.

"We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized," Cruz originally wrote on Facebook, a proposal that itself raises a number of questions. What does it mean to "secure" a neighborhood? And where, exactly, are these "Muslim neighborhoods"? The Post's Jim Tankersley tried to answer the second question by looking at where Muslims live in the United States. A version of that map, including the approximate locations of congregations is below.

It's either a lot of neighborhoods or a few, depending on how you look at it. There are a lot of places where a number of Muslims live, but not many where there's a dense Muslim population. San Bernardino County has a relatively light Muslim population, for example, with an estimated 7.33 Muslims for every 1,000 residents. It was also home to Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the married couple that shot and killed 14 of his coworkers last December. How is that lightly-populated "neighborhood" "secured"?

As the day progressed, Cruz's campaign clarified what he meant: Local and state law enforcement should have divisions targeting terror as they would the Mafia or drugs. He additionally pointed to the New York Police Department's efforts after the attacks of Sept. 11th, when the NYPD, under the leadership of then-mayor Michael Bloomberg, surveilled Muslim congregations in the city and beyond. "Mayor de Blasio," Bloomberg's replacement, "succumbed to unfounded criticisms and eliminated the efforts of law enforcement to work with Muslim communities to stop radical Islamic terrorism," the clarification read. Cruz repeated the proposal during a series of TV appearances Wednesday morning.

<more>

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/23/ted-cruz-wants-to-nationalize-an-nypd-muslim-surveillance-program-that-the-nypd-says-didnt-work/