Dearborn community responds to Trump's proposed Muslim ban

DEARBORN, Mich. (WJBK) - "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."

The words were spoken loud and clear Monday night in South Carolina but resonate with many in metro Detroit, an area with nearly 400,000 Arab Americans. Thirty-eight thousand of them live in Dearborn.

Chief of Police Ronald Haddad says he's seen a steady stream of threats coming into Dearborn but he's fending them off with surveillance and a plan to crack down if it becomes necessary.

"We have our intelligent sources that are in place reviewing all that stuff, but we also have a well calculated and coordinated deployment plan to keep our city safe on a whole," Haddad says. "I'm not going to comment on anybody running for office, but I'm going to say this - any statements that tend to ignite fear, adversity in our community, just diverts us from what we normally do to keep our community safe."

Chief Haddad says fear is fueling the threats his city is getting, which have come in by email and many on social media. He has zero tolerance for this type of harassment.

"Our community will not tolerate any type of crime, any kind of terror or any kind of thing that erodes the public safety of our community. So, we're going to stand together. We're not going to be distracted by the midnight bloggers, the people that put stuff on Twitter; the people that don't have the courage to even sign their own names to an email that they send up. We're going to just pursue the American dream and keep our city safe," he says.

One of the big questions is whether that will cause the Trump campaign to lose any steam. One Republican insider said probably, but it won't hurt his base supporters, because it resonates with a lot of people.