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• NEW YORK - Thousands of Americans have pledged online to stand in solidarity with Muslims in the United States amid suggestions from President-elect Donald Trump's camp that he is mulling a national registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.
• On Friday, more than 13,000 people had signed a pledge on website Register US, promising to register as Muslims in the event of a national Muslim database being rolled out, so as "to stand together with Muslims across the country."
• The online movement reflects a divided nation in the aftermath of Trump's presidential election win, that followed a campaign marked by hardline rhetoric on immigration.
• In a Reuters interview this week, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who media reports say is a key member of Trump's transition team, said a group advising Trump on immigration could recommend the reinstatement of a national registry of some Muslim immigrants and visitors who enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist organizations are active.
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• However, Jason Miller, communications director of Trump's transition team, said Friday in an emailed statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation that "President-elect Trump has never advocated for any registry or system that tracks individuals based on their religion, and to imply otherwise is completely false."
• Last year, as he was campaigning to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee, Trump drew widespread condemnation when he agreed on-camera to the idea of a government database to keep track of Muslims in the United States.
• Many among those who took the pledge on Register US's website posted on Twitter a message, prepared by the group, detailing their intentions.
• "If Trump requires Muslims to register with the government, I pledge to register as Muslim too," the message said.
• Twitter user Sam Martin, from Florida, was among thousands who voiced his support for the initiative.
• "If anyone'(s) name is entered into a database driven by GOP/Trump bigotry, this is how I say, 'It's wrong to do this!'," he wrote in a comment on Twitter.
• Registering Muslims in the United States has been likened to the U.S. government's internment of Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II - for which an official apology was later issued - and with Nazi Germany's laws that required Jews to register with authorities.
• In a statement posted on Twitter earlier this week, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, was quoted as saying that "If one day Muslims will be forced to register, that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim."
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• Register US co-founder, Rebecca Green, who works in brand marketing in New York City, said she was encouraged by the public's response since launching the website with two friends earlier this week.
• "We see this effort as a plea to American values to not become the kind of country that keeps lists based on religion," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email.
• "Nothing is more anti-American than a registry based on religion."
• There were about 3.3 million Muslim people living in the United States in 2015, according a recent estimate by the Washington-D.C.-based Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank.
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