DHS' Jeh Johnson: GOP's Muslim rhetoric 'counterproductive' to national security

WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) -- Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson blasted Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz for "inflammatory" remarks about Muslims he said are "counterproductive" to national security.

Johnson, speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Tuesday, said comments from the two men are burning bridges that Homeland Security officials have spent time building with the Muslim-American community.

"We've spent a lot of time building bridges to American-Muslim communities as you know because the Islamic State is targeting those communities to carry out attacks, to conduct attacks in the homeland," Johnson said. "So we spent a lot of time working with Muslim communities, American-Muslim communities, and they're not a monolith; there are many of them across the country, to help them help us in our homeland security efforts."

In the wake of the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Brussels last week, Cruz called for U.S. police to "secure" Muslim neighborhoods and conduct surveillance on them. Trump agreed, and doubled down on his call to ban all Muslims from entering the country, at least temporarily.

Johnson said such sentiments -- and such policies -- would make gathering intelligence from American Muslims about potential terrorist threats more difficult because it would squander what trust has been built between Muslims and federal law enforcement.

"I believe that inflammatory comments about, like patrolling and securing Muslim neighborhoods or barring Muslims from entering this country, having an immigration policy based on religion is counterproductive to our homeland security and national security interests."