One of the most controversial aspects of the 2016 presidential campaign was GOP nominee and eventual winner Donald Trump’s call for “extreme” vetting of Islamic refugees hoping to enter the United States. The goal, Trump said in August, would be a common-sense one: “We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people.”

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy was formed in the wake of the horrific attacks on 9/11 to advance reform within the Muslim community. The president of that organization shares with OneNewsNow that a recent poll showed that 20 to 25 percent of Muslim refugees have sympathy for ISIS.

“So if we can pull that information, we not only can vet it and interview them, there are ways through interview processes – facial recognition and other things – to tell if people are lying or not,” says Dr. Zuhdi Jasser (above). “[But] we’re not doing any of that because we think that ideology doesn’t matter.

“And these people are coming in as insurgents,” he continues. “They don’t like our system. They don’t believe in America – not all of them, a minority of them; but it’s a significant minority.”

In his August speech, Trump said the extreme vetting wouldn’t stop with just members or sympathizers of terrorist groups:

“… We must also screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles – or who believe that sharia law should supplant American law. Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into the country.”

Jasser argues there have been plenty of wakeup calls in recent months, such as the terror attacks in Chattanooga, San Bernardino, and Orlando.

“After every one of these cases I keep thinking [that] we’ll start to realize while many of those [attackers] were citizens actually, the bottom line is it should … raise the alarm bells,” he suggests. “[It should tell us] that we should plug the ship from sinking further until we start at least not letting new ones come in who harbor insurgent ideologies against secular democracies and what we stand for.”

Such individuals, according to Jasser’s group, are to be considered adherents of “Islamism” – a theo-political ideology dedicated to the subjugation of non-Muslims “and any Muslim who dissents with its aims.”