When Donald Trump first called for the Muslim ban last December, it was roundly condemned by civil liberties groups and even many Republicans — including Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, now Trump’s incoming vice president, who called it “offensive and unconstitutional.” | Getty Trump stokes fears he'll pursue Muslim ban But the president-elect’s allies push back on the idea of such a sweeping immigration ban.

Donald Trump is stoking speculation that he will move forward with his plan to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States, newly alarming critics even as his advisers attempt to downplay his intentions.

The president-elect, who had not emphasized the hugely controversial proposal since the election last month, on Wednesday declined to back off the Muslim immigration suspension he first advocated after several terror attacks last December.


Asked by reporters at Mar-a-Lago whether the recent attack at a Christmas market in Berlin has him reassessing his proposals — which also include a registry for Muslims in the U.S. — Trump answered vaguely.

“You know my plans,” Trump said, adding, “All along, I’ve been proven to be right, 100 percent correct.”

Though unspecific, some people have interpreted those comments as a sign that Trump is recommitting himself to those contentious campaign pledges, though his allies tried to push back on that idea on Thursday.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former campaign manager and newly named counselor to the president, insisted that Trump’s subsequent pledge to institute “extreme vetting” of immigrants is “not a complete ban” of Muslims and, when asked directly, she said religion will not be a litmus test for people entering the country.

“He said during the campaign long after he had originally proposed that, that this would be more strictly tied to countries where we know they have a history of terrorism and that this is not — this is not a complete ban,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

When Trump first called for the Muslim ban last December, it was roundly condemned by civil liberties groups and even many Republicans — including Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, now Trump’s incoming vice president, who called it “offensive and unconstitutional.”

After the uproar, Trump appeared to shift from a full ban on Muslims entering the U.S. to a plan of “extreme vetting” for any immigrants coming from countries known to foster terrorist activities. Trump never came out to renounce his previous support for a Muslim ban, though, even as Pence in October insisted “that’s not Donald Trump’s position now.”

Conway on Thursday morning tried to clarify what Trump meant the prior day, saying, “The comment really went to the fact that he was immediately criticized, and unfairly criticized, when he presumed that these attacks in Germany and in Turkey had to do with ISIS and then, of course, he is correct and that’s what he’s saying. He’s saying that he is the guy out there saying we need extreme vetting policies, that we need to have a better system vis-a-vis countries that train, harbor and export terrorists.”

Speaking with Chris Cuomo on CNN, Conway made a similar argument, suggesting that the “extreme vetting” proposal is an updated version of Trump’s previous Muslim immigration talk.

“He made it much more specific and talked about countries where we know that they've got a higher propensity of training and exporting and in some cases harboring these terrorists,” she said.

And, notably, Conway answered “no” when Cuomo asked if “being a Muslim will be a trigger” or test for people seeking to immigrate to the U.S. under the administration’s policy.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager who still serves as a regular surrogate for the incoming president, also avoided talk of a hard ban.

"What Donald Trump talked about in this campaign and what he's talked about now as president-elect is if we are going to bring people into our country, we're going to have a thorough process to make sure we know where they're coming from and what their intentions are," he said on Fox News. "I think that's the role of the president, to make sure that his people are protected both internationally and domestically."

Advocacy groups alarmed by Trump’s hardline immigration proposals remain unsatisfied. Trump needs to come out and make his stance clear, they say, and in the meantime, they are preparing to fight the proposal they view as discriminatory and a breach of constitutionally-protected freedoms.

“It really means very little,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said of Conway’s TV hits. “In the next news cycle, he could come out and support it.”

“The problem is we just never know, day to day or minute to minute, what Donald Trump’s real policies will be,” Hooper said. “One day he says he won’t do a Muslim ban, and another it seems like he will.”

“It’s really hard to judge based on what he says,” he continued. “We have to prepare for the worst.”

Joanne Lin, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the organization is prepared to challenge any kind of Muslim registry and still eyes any “extreme vetting” program with suspicion.

“‘Extreme vetting’ could smack of being a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Lin said. “The question becomes, is this really designed to be a halt on people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.?”

As these questions bubbled Thursday, the Obama administration took action on the Muslim immigration question, too — one that appeared to be a subtle rebuke of Trump’s call for a Muslim registry.

The Department of Homeland Security moved to remove the rules for the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which under the Bush administration required male foreigners over 16 from 25 largely Muslim-majority countries to register with U.S. immigration officials.

In explaining its decision, DHS called the program, used in 2002 and 2003, “obsolete and inefficient.” Civil liberties groups rejoiced for another reason, noting that they worried that Trump might use the program’s framework to support his more hardline proposals.

NSEERS “could have been reactivated by President-elect Donald Trump to fulfill his promise to target Muslim immigrants for ‘extreme vetting,'" the ACLU said in a press release.

Asked for the incoming administration’s response to the change, Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller did not offer many specifics, but reiterated that immigration and combating Islamic extremism remains a priority.

Louis Nelson and Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.