国际英语新闻:Donald Trump's Anti-Muslim Demand Sparks Sharp Backlash

Noted U.S. constitutional expert Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law professor, told MSNBC that Trump's proposal would violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on religious tests and granting all citizens equal rights.

Moreover, Tribe said, the plan would be "impossible to administer" and "stupidly play into the hands of extreme Islamic terrorists."

Another law professor, Richard Friedman of the University of Michigan, told The Washington Post that Trump's idea is "blatantly unconstitutional if it excludes U.S. citizens (from re-entering the U.S. after trips to other countries) because they are Muslims. It's ridiculous."

Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul who leads presidential preference surveys of Republicans, announced the plan Monday in a statement, then expanded on it at a political rally in South Carolina.

He called it "common sense" and said that "we have no choice" in the wake of last week's attack at a California government center that killed 14 people and was carried out by two Muslims, a husband-and-wife team investigators say had been "radicalized."

On Tuesday morning news shows in the U.S., the flamboyant Trump continued to defend the proposal and condemned President Barack Obama's efforts in leading the fight against Islamic State militants in the Middle East.

"We are now at war," Trump told ABC's Good Morning America. "We have a president who doesn't want to say that."

In a contentious interview on cnn, Trump referenced the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., saying, "You're going to have many more World Trade Centers if you don't solve it. They want our buildings to come down. They want our cities to be crushed. They are living in our country and many are outside of our country."

'Hatred toward Americans'

In announcing the plan, Trump alleged that polling data shows "hatred toward Americans by large segments of the Muslim population."

"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.

Virulent statements against Muslims are nothing new for Trump, who has called on the government to monitor mosques, and has refused to rule out his earlier proposal to enter the names of Muslims in America into a database.

Trump's proposal came a day after Obama urged Americans during a nationally televised address not to turn against Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks.