Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump defended his decision Monday to call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” touching off an outraged response from his rivals for the nomination and Muslim groups.
“We have no idea who is coming into our country, no idea if they like us or hate us,” Trump told supporters in South Carolina. “I wrote something today that is very salient…and probably not very politically correct. But I don’t care.”
Trump added that his proposal is “common sense” and “we have no choice”. He warned the crowd that “we can be politically correct and stupid but it’s going to get worse and worse.”
The proposed ban would stand "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," his campaign said in a statement earlier Monday.
The statement added that Trump's proposal comes in response to the level of hatred among "large segments of the Muslim population" toward Americans.
It also comes five days after a radical Muslim couple killed 14 people and injured 21 at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, Calif.
“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,” Trump said in a statement.
A recent Fox News poll found that both a majority of Democrats and Republicans believe at least one Syrian refugee coming into the U.S. will likely carry out an attack.
Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told the Associated Press that Trump's proposed ban would apply to "everybody," including Muslims seeking immigration visas as well as tourists seeking to enter the country.
Trump did not respond to questions about whether any ban would also include Muslims who are U.S. citizens and travel outside the country - or how a determination of someone's religion might be made by customs and border officials.
In response to a request for additional detail, Trump said via a campaign spokeswoman: "Because I am so politically correct, I would never be the one to say. You figure it out!"
Meanwhile, his rivals for the Republican nomination wasted no time weighing in.
"Donald Trump is unhinged," Jeb Bush said via Twitter. "His `policy' proposals are not serious."
Carly Fiorina said, "Trump's overreaction is as dangerous as President Obama's under-reaction."
John Kasich slammed Trump's "outrageous divisiveness," while a more measured Ted Cruz, who has always been cautious about upsetting Trump's supporters, said, "Well, that is not my policy."
Southern Baptists denounced Trump's comment.
“Anyone who cares an iota about religious liberty should denounce this reckless, demagogic rhetoric," said Ethics and Religious Liberty Commision President Russell Moore. "Make no mistake. A government that can shut down mosques simply because they are mosques can shut down Bible studies because they are Bible studies."
Muslim-American groups also expressed their outrage.
“Mr. Trump's anti-Muslim immigration proposal is disappointing, unconstitutional, and empowers extremist ideology. It has no place in civilized American discourse,” Qasim Rashid, national spokesperson for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA told FoxNews.com.
"This type of knee jerk, if not demagogic policy stance, is unmitigated surrender to the Islamist global narrative that they, ISIS, and all the Islamist theocrats of the world own what is and is not Islam and faithful Muslim," said Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
Trump's plan also drew criticism from the heads of the Republican Party in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states to vote in next year's presidential primaries.
New Hampshire GOP's chairwoman Jennifer Horn said the idea is "un-Republican. It is unconstitutional. And it is un-American," while South Carolina chairman Matt Moore said on Twitter, "As a conservative who truly cares about religious liberty, Donald Trump's bad idea and rhetoric send a shiver down my spine."
There are more than 5,800 servicemen and women on active U.S. military duty and in the reserves who self-identify as Muslim and could be assigned to serve overseas. Trump said in an interview Monday night on Fox News, "They'll come home." He added, "This does not apply to people living in the country, except that we have to vigilant."
It was also unclear whether Trump's ban would apply to Muslim allies in the fight against Islamic State militants. Ari Fleischer, a former aide to Republican President George W. Bush, tweeted, "Under Trump, the King Abdullah of Jordan, who is fighting ISIS, won't be allowed in the US to talk about how to fight ISIS."
But at Trump's rally in South Carolina, the proposed ban struck supporter Shelley Choquette as reasonable, because "it's not going to be forever. I think everybody needs to be checked."
Religion can factor into immigration decisions, but that typically happens when people are fleeing religious persecution. People of a particular religion may get favorable treatment by the United States, as when Russian Jews sought to leave the Soviet Union.
In the late 1800s, Congress passed legislation broadly aimed at halting Chinese immigration. But said Leti Volpp, a University of California expert on immigration law, "there is no precedent for a religious litmus test for admitting immigrants into the United States."
"Excluding almost a quarter of the world's population from setting foot in the United States based solely upon their religious identity would never pass constitutional muster," Volpp said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused Trump of playing on people's fears and trying to tap into "a darker side, a darker element" of American society.
From the Democratic presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders said "Trump and others want us to hate all Muslims" and Hillary Clinton called the proposal "reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive."
On Capitol Hill, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said, "It's just foolish."
But will it hurt Trump in the campaign? "I have no idea," McCain said. "I thought long ago that things he said would hurt his prospects, and he continues to go up."
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