Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by and with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff how to respond to the threat of terror . That question dominated action in congress and the president ial race today. One response came in the house of representatives, late this afternoon, as lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for new curbs on who is admitted to enter the United States. Woodruff the push in the house was to end the practice of not requiring entrance visas for anyone who has been to iraq or syria among other places in recent years. Currently, people from 38 countries qualify for the visa waivers, but House Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy said that time has passed. That you have more than 5,000 individuals that have western passports in this program that have gone to iraq or syria in the last five years. Those are gaps that we need to fix. Woodruff democrats joined in supporting the bill, but they also insisted the house address gun control. Minority leader nancy pelosi and others called for a ban on letting people buy guns if they are on a terrorism watch list. We must not only have moments of silence, we must have days of action. Its not just the high profile occasions, as much as they challenge our conscience and tear at our heart strings, its the everyday violence in our country that must be addressed. Woodruff some republicans argued such a measure punishes people who are wrongly suspected of terrorist links. The debates on both guns and visas follow attacks by islamist extremists last month in paris, and last week in San Bernardino, california, as well as other Mass Shootings. A more drastic response came monday from donald trump, the republican president ial frontrunner. Donald j. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. cheers woodruff many of his republican rivals took issue with trump, as did Republican House speaker paul ryan, today this is not conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for. And more importantly, its not what this country stands for. Woodruff the Obama Administration blasted the statement the secretaries of state and Homeland Security issued rebukes, and the pentagon warned that such calls feed the Islamic States claim that america is at war with islam. White house spokesman josh earnest went even further the trump campaign, for months now, has had a dustbin of historylike quality to it. From the vacuous sloganeering, to the outright lies, even the fake hair, the whole carnival barker routine that weve seen for some time now. What donald trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president. Woodruff the trump statement also came in for sharp criticism today from a number of foreign governments. Well delve more deeply into the new fear of terror attacks, and how were expressing that fear, after the news summary. Ifill in the days other news, syrian Refugee Families have been arriving in the u. S. Over the objections of state leaders. On monday, the Roman Catholic archdiocese of indianapolis resettled a family of four previously been forced to move to connecticut. They had undergone two years of security checks. Separately, in texas, a syrian family of six arrived in the dallas area. Republican governors in both states have called for such refugees to be turned away. Woodruff turkeys staterun News Agency Reports six children, including a baby, drowned today in the latest migrant tragedy. The group of afghan nationals was trying to get to the greek island of chios, when their rubber dinghy sank off turkeys aegean coast. Turkey has recently stepped up efforts to stop migrants from trying to get to greece by sea. Ifill security was high in vatican city today as 70,000 people flocked to st. Peters square for the start of a holy year of mercy. 5,000 extra police and soldiers were deployed around rome, in the wake of the paris attacks. Pope francis took note of the tensions, as he addressed the faithful. translated let us set aside all fear and dread, for these do not befit men and women who are loved. Instead, let us experience the joy of encountering that grace which transforms all things. Ifill the pope launched the yearlong jubilee by opening large bronze doors at the entrance of st. Peters basilica. Crowds later lined up to cross the threshold as an act of pilgrimage. Similar holy doors will open at cathedrals around the world on sunday. Woodruff back in this country, recordsetting rainfall has the portland, oregon area struggling with flooding and landslides, with more rain due this week. Some in portland were forced to evacuate overnight after several inches of rain turned streets and highways into creeks. The downpours also sent sewage overflowing into the willamette river. Ifill fewer americans are having trouble paying for their health care in the last four years. Thats according to the centers for Disease Control and prevention. It says the number of people struggling to keep up with medical bills fell by 12 million for the first half of this year, over 2011. The poor and those near the poverty line were most affected, due largely to the president S Health Care law. Woodruff and, wall street gave more ground, faced with Falling Oil Prices and weak data from china. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 162 points to close below 17,570. The nasdaq fell three points, and the s p 500 dropped 13. Still to come on the newshour fear and loathing across the United States. New numbers on whos fighting for isis. Supreme Court Arguments over equal representation, and much more. Ifill in the wake of last weeks San Bernardino shootings and the harsh politicized debate that has followed, we, like many news organizations, have been debating how to cover the story of terrorism at home, backlash against muslims, and how we as a nation cope with fear and loathing. Without ignoring the history of such divisive rhetoric, or the danger it can present, we also recognize there is real fear and worry. But where is the line . We search for that answer with three people who follow these issues. Dalia mogahed is the director of research at the institute for social policy and understanding. Shes the coauthor of the book, who speaks for islam. Ron brownstein writes for the atlantic and National Journal, specializing in the demographics of the nations politics. And Khalid Baydoun is an associate professor of law at Barry University in orlando. He studies the history and intersection of race, religion and national security. Thank you all for joining us. Ron brownstein, overall, what san mating this discussion we are what is animating this discussion we are seeing now. Were already having a really volatile debate on american identity even before paris and two things on nat. First, economic strain. In 15 years the Median Income is low than in 2000, a period of stagnation is almost unprecedented in american history. Second, weco are living through the most profound demographic change in the 20th century. A majority of our Public School systems is nonwhite. White christians now for the first time are less than half the total of american population. So even in the early stages of the president ial campaign all of these issues come together to raise a series of concerns about whether americans and particularly blue collar whites, older whites, nonurban whites, most religiously conservative whites were comfortable with the changes going on in the country, but when you add to that the threat of terror first in paris and here on american soil in San Bernardino, it adds an additional element and thats whats produced the combustible mix were living with. Dalia mogahed, what is legitimate in this combustible potion Ron Brownstein outlined and what is not . Well, i think all americans are concerned for their safety. Everything from Mass Shootings to terrorism. We are all very concerned about violence. That is relat legitimate and wed to talk about keeping ourselves safe. Is what not legitimate and what is dangerous is to broaden that fear to an entire community, to make muslims as a community, as a group collectively guilty for the crimes of specific individuals. The reason thats dangerous not only unproductive is thats exactly what i. S. I. S. Wants us to do. This is playing into their narrative. They want a war between muslims and everyone else. They are that feeds their narrative and feeds their ability to recruit. Ifill Khalid Baydoun, we have lived through this demonization of the chinese, the japanese in this country. We have been here before. Yeah, the culture of, you know, scapegoating an entire group is nothing new in the United States. Obviously with the japaneseamericans in world war ii. The idea of the stereotype guilt, the idea an individuals race or phenotype is signaling or symbolic of a National Terrorism act is embedded in society. Also exclusion axe. There are precedents where banning muslims signifies trumps rhetoric is nothing novel. First you had a naturalization act from 1790 to 1952 which made the naturalization, i is citizenship of muslim immigrants illegal because islam was irreconcilable with whiteness which is a prerequisite for citizenship. You had acts on the books till 1965 which had quotas from Asian Countries and the indigenous muslim population, enslaistled africans which comprised 1. 2 Million People in the antebellum itself. So the idea of bans muslims is nothing novel and otherco groups being demonizing as well. Ifill Ron Brownstein, every poll i look at shows theres a reason for there to be this kind of a demonization as it were, which is that the parties see things differently. I normsly differently. Across the board, musicians, our immigrants broadly speaking are a burden and benefit to american society. Most americans say benefit, a clear majority of republicans, particularly those without College Degrees will say burden. Is islam compatible with American Values . There is something where there is actually a majority of americans in some polls, you know, much stronger in the Republican Party will say yes. Clearly across the board, if you look at the two parties, i think this is possibly the central divide between them. Ive described the democrats as a coalition of transformation. They relay on the group ore millennials, minorities, social upscale whites who tend to be comfortable with dull chiewrl and demographic change were living through. The republicans i describe as coalition of restoration. They rely on groups who show the most unease about the broader terms of american society, all of which have now been turbo charged by being connected to this very legitimate issue of safety and terrorism has really kind of intensified those concerns and largely expands Donald Trumps improvement in the polls in the last several weeks. Ifill does that explain it to you, dalia mogahed, which is when you look at the numbers and the disconnect among democrats, republicans, whatever, that this was bound to happen . Well, i think its interesting to look historically on where these numbers have been, and when you look at american sentiment about islam and muslims, what you find is antimuslim sentiment spikes not actually after terrorist attacks, which is what i expected to see, but during election cycles and in the runup to the iraq war. So antimuslim sentiment is a Political Tool used primarily by the Republican Party to drum up votes, and i think thats detrimental to our democracy, not only dangerous for muslims. Ifill youre saying this sentiment does not exist at all absent an election . It, of course, exists but im looking at when it spikes. So when you look at antimuslim sentiment, it actually did not increase after 9 11. Before and after 9 11, there was virtually no change and a slight improvement when you look before and after the boston bombing, again, no change. But you have a 15point spike among r publicans during election cycles. That signals to me that what is driving antiislam sentiment, an increase in antimuslim sentiment is a Political Campaign is a manufactured effort to create fear and turn fear into votes. The problem, though, is that we all lose when this happens. First of all, in all cases, it didnt work. That strategy simply did not work. The most isla islamphobic repubn candidates did not win this primary. We all lost because antimuslim sentiment and fear hurts our freedom. It makes us less critical, it makes us less likely to hold our government accountable, it makes us more accepting of authoritarianism, conformity and prejudice and this is corrosive to our democracy. Khalid baydoun, is there a differentiation between hate speech and fear speech in this context. They emanate from one another and i think we tend to focus on islamphobia, not the root cause which is ignorance and misrepresentation of islams and muslims, if we can erode those two things, islamphobia will not speak in times of crisis. There is pervasive ignorance of the con tiewrs of Muslim Identity on both sides of party lines. Islam for one is always framed as an immigrant faith and foreign faith yet the plurality ofco muslims are black, onethi. So if we want to get at theco heart of curbing islamphobia, the real strategy is retrench the ignorance, retrench the representations of muslims and islam which feeds hate speech. Ifill lacking the political clout other groups have, ron, what is the reality and the ability for that to happen . As i said, i think were having a difficult enough time dealing with the changing face of america when we were thinking about the culturallis implicati, the demographic and economic complications. Were thinking about the economic stream of the voters. You add to that the terrorist and the safety issue and the thing becomes vastly more combustible. The president had a twofold message. He said, on the one hand, we have to combat broadbrush painting of any group, but he also said there is a responsibility in the muslimamerican community to be vigilant and dedicated and forceful in rooting out the kind of behavior that we saw the kind of attitudes we saw in the attack in San Bernardino. And that i think is important for everybody to recognize how volatile the situation is because its so difficult even before this. After this, its that much more explosive. Ifill a lot of republicans agree with the president about the vigilance issue. Ron brownstein of the National Journal and the atlantic, dalia mogahed, Khalid Baydoun, thank you all very much. Thank you. Woodruff as Law Enforcement and intelligence officials worry about attacks inside the United States inspired by the Islamic State group, a new report released today says the number of foreign fighters traveling to iraq and syria has dramatically increased over the past year. This chart shows most of the new fighters are from the middle east, the former soviet republics and western europe. The average rate of fighters then returning to western europe is estimated to be 20 to 30 . We turn now to the lead author of the report, Richard Barrett, Senior Vice President of the ali soufan group, a Security Consulting company. Hes also a former british diplomat and intelligence officer. And New York Times reporter rukmini callimachi. Shes written extensively about the Islamic State group and its followers. Richard barrett, rukmini callimachi. The number of fighters going into syria and iraq, increasing dramatically in the last 18 months. How much has it gone up, who are they and where are they coming from . I reckon its doubled. Its gone from 12,000 in june of last year to between 27,000 and 31,000 now. Most of the recruits are from the middle east and north africa, but consider the number from other countries as well, most notably europe, russia and the former republicans of the soviet union. I think one thing thats interesting is from north america, the number has remained pretty flat, air rather unremarkable increase from north america which is quite an illustration of your discussion earlier in the program. But there are many reasons why people join the Islamic State, and it doesnt mean all are domestic terrorists in training. A lot will go to join the Islamic State. I think the key question is about the returnees, whether they have some intention to do Something Like the paris attacks or whether, in fact, theyre just fed up and completely disillusioned by the Islamic State and want to go home. Woodruff i want to ask you about the re