A Republican candidate for Senate in Florida just one-upped Donald Trump in his bigotry — calling for a ban on anyone from the Middle East (except Israel) entering the United States.
According to a report from the Sun Sentinel’s Anthony Man, after delivering a speech to the Broward County Republican Party on Monday night, Republican candidate Carlos Beruff was asked about his “position on Muslim immigration.”
“Ah ha,” he responded, according to the Sun Sentinel. “I think our immigration department is broken. And I don’t think it’s safe to allow anybody from the Middle East into this country.”
When a reporter later asked for clarification about his comments, Beruff said the ban would apply to “pretty much anybody that’s got a terrorist organization in it, which is pretty much all the Middle East.” When asked whether this classification includes Israel, Beruff clarified that it doesn’t. “I think Israel’s security measures are pretty strong,” he said. “Israel is an exception.”
While the original question was about Muslim immigration, the Sun Sentinel reported that Beruff later made clear that the ban would apply to both Muslims and Christians from the Middle East.
Beruff isn’t the first to make comments on “Muslim immigration.” Donald Trump has repeatedly called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, but he has defined it differently throughout the campaign, recently arguing that there would be some “exceptions” to the rule. Beruff’s decision to ban a majority of people from the Middle East from entering the country — including Christians — puts him even further to the right than Trump.
Muslims, and those of Middle Eastern descent, have often been blamed for attacks in other parts of the world, and been increasingly subject to Islamophobic rhetoric and action. Since the attacks in Paris last November, ThinkProgress has documented at least 72 cases where Muslims and non-Muslims were victims of Islamophobia and were shot, assaulted, harassed, or had their houses of worship attacked. Earlier this month, an Iraqi man was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight for saying the world “Inshallah,” or God-willing, while speaking with his uncle over the phone about a dinner he had with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.