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Gallagher: All ‘Muslim Doctors’ Should Be ‘Suspended’ From Entering United States

The eight suspects connected to the recent London terror plots were Muslim men who were doctors or medical professionals. Yesterday on Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, right-wing radio host Mike Gallagher argued that there is “nothing wrong with suspending the opportunity for Muslim doctors to enter the United States until…we sort this thing out.” He also advocated the practice of racial profiling because “all the terrorists are Muslim.” Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/07/gallagherprofiling.320.240.flv]

Gallagher refused to answer Cavuto’s question about whether engineers and accountants — who have been involved in previous terrorist plots — should also be banned from entering the United States. Cavuto’s other guest, Sasha Burns, responded that Gallagher’s suggestion was “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.”

As a result of the London terror attempt, “Muslim doctors here [in the U.S.] say they are trying to be more vocal in denouncing terrorism. They condemned the ‘crazies’ who are ‘misguided’ and did those acts,” while “British Muslims are leading a new campaign condemning the recent attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.” Gallagher, however, is not interesting in building solidarity on this cause, but rather in creating greater divisions between us.

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Transcript:

CAVUTO: My next guest says, keep any Muslim doctor who wants to enter the U.S. out until this is sorted out. He’s radio talk show host Mike Gallagher. On the other side, Democratic strategist Sasha Burns, who disagrees.

Mike, to you first. It seems a little sweeping. What do you make of that?

GALLAGHER: Well it’s just prudent. If we knew that there was a plot from Swedish fisherman to infiltrate and slaughter Americans, we’d look real long and hard about letting Swedish fisherman into the United States. This strikes right to the heart of what we call profiling, Neil, and there is a profile. So, there seems to me to be nothing wrong with suspending the opportunity for Muslim doctors to enter the United States until, as you said, we sort this thing out and know who’s who.

CAVUTO: Before I get to Sasha on that, I do want to raise — like I said, a couple of years ago in Britain, there were a couple of engineers and an accountant in that mix. Then would you have said, rule out engineers and accountants?

GALLAGHER: Well, this is a very specific category of people and there are published reports —

CAVUTO: Those guys killed people. They killed 52 people.

GALLAGHER: Well, and these guys were going to kill people too, had the bombs gone off, they would have slaughtered a lot of people at Piccadilly and outside Glasgow. I mean, the reality is, we shouldn’t take any chances at all. This is the United States of America. We have the ability, unlike the UK, where they have a British prime minister who said you can’t say “Muslim” and “terror” in the same sentence. We’ve got to understand not all Muslims are terrorists, but all the terrorists are Muslim.

BURNS: Mike, I think that’s just one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.