Former Minnesota lawmaker and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Donald Trump should "step up deportation in the country of people who are unwilling to bear allegiance to the United States." Bachmann made the comments at a forum for five Republican governor candidates in a 50-minute speech on Wednesday in which she praised Trump's stance on radical Islam, Pioneer Press reported.
"After all of this phony, fake, Russia-collusion non-story, the number one thing that voters in America stand with Donald Trump on, it's the idea that they want the pause button hit on immigration from Islamic countries because of the problems that are coming into this country," she told the audience.
Bachmann, who was among those who The Washington Post reported prayed over Trump in the Oval office last week, said people have become afraid to discuss issues such as immigration and fundamentalism.
"That's what I see in Minnesota: Too many people who are being afraid of being called racists, bigots, Islamophobes—I'm not afraid of it, because what we've got to do is talk about the truth of the problems that are going on in Minnesota," Bachmann added.
She also told the audience she felt Trump should "step up deportation in the country of people who are unwilling to bear allegiance to the United States" and stop immigration from Muslim countries and block the creation of "parallel societies within our society," The Washington Examiner reported.
Bachmann's advice to the next governor of Minnesota was that they needed to have an understanding of radical Islam, adding: "There are very, very few who do."
Trump himself used anti-immigration rhetoric during a campaign trail visit to Minnesota shortly before the presidential election, during which he told a rally the state had suffered "with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval, and with some of them then joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world," MPR News reported.
His comments provoked a backlash among Somali-Americans, pro-immigration groups and friends of the community, who said Trump's words were hurtful and dangerous.
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