Possible Trump attorney general floats Muslim immigrant registry, self-deportation

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) is most famously the author of Arizona's hardline immigration law that, before parts of it were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, ordered state and local law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship from certain people stopped by police. Now, he says he is part of Donald Trump's presidential transition team focused on immigration policy, and his name is being floated as a possible U.S. attorney general.

And Kobach has been floating some ideas of his own in the press, including rechanneling part of the Homeland Security budget to get an early start on building Trump's border wall without authorization from Congress, deporting certain immigrants without trial, and encouraging "self deportation," or making life so uncomfortable for illegal immigrants that they leave of their own accord. He tells Reuters that he will also recommend that the Trump administration bring back a system to register, fingerprint, and track mostly Muslims arriving in the U.S. from certain "higher risk" countries where extremist groups are active; some men over 16 would have to register and check in periodically at government offices.

Kobach helped design such a system, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, when he worked for the George W. Bush administration. The Obama administration scrapped it in 2011 when a Homeland Security Department review found it redundant.

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