Yet, as the Washington Post documented, Trump either gave his assent to the idea of a Muslim registry or did not dismiss the idea on multiple occasions during the campaign.
When asked about the matter on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming White House chief of staff, denied the administration would "have a registry based on a religion," but added that there might be bans on immigration from some countries deemed high-risk for terror.
"Trump's position, is consistent with bills in the House and the Senate that say the following: If you want to come from a place or an area around the world that harbors and trains terrorists, we have to temporarily suspend that operation until a better vetting system is put in place," Priebus explained.
Last year, after it was alleged that one of the perpetrators of the Paris terror attacks gained entry to the European Union by posing as a refugee, many, including members of Congress, Trump, and Pence, advocated that refugee resettlement from Syria be halted until the resettlement program was deemed secure.
Bills in the House and Senate were proposed that temporarily halted the Syrian resettlement program. Refugee resettlement experts, however, insisted that the system was secure and that the U.S. needed to continue and even increase its refugee intake given the record number of refugees around the globe.
Priebus acknowledged on Sunday that "Trump's opinion is that there are some people within that particular religion [Islam] that we do fear."
"But he has also made it very clear that we don't believe in religious tests, and that we are not blanketly judging an entire religion, but in fact we will try to pinpoint the problems and temporarily suspend those areas from coming into the United States until a better vetting system is in place," he continued.
Any policy cannot stigmatize Muslims, Farr said, noting that "stigmatizing an entire religion, and all its adherents, sends the wrong message to loyal American Muslims, as well as to Muslims abroad whose cooperation will be vital in winning the ideological war against violent Islamist extremism."
Other comments about Muslims from Trump's transition team have invited controversy, like past tweets from his new national security adviser, Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
"In next 24 hours, I dare Arab & Persian world 'leaders' to step up to the plate and declare their Islamic ideology sick and must B healed," Flynn tweeted after a terror attack in Nice, France killed 86 people.
"Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions," he tweeted of a video about Islam in February.
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When asked by NBC's Chuck Todd if Trump shared Flynn's position that "fear of Muslims is rational," Priebus said that "he [Flynn] believes that no faith in and of itself should be judged as a whole…but there are some that need to be prevented from coming into this country."
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.