Don't let my Muslim friend get deported: 7-year-old's mesage to Sen. Booker

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) visited a Middlesex County Islamic center to discuss a bill he that would block President-elect Donald Trump from creating a Muslim registry.

The morning after Donald J. Trump was elected president, 7-year-old Kerrigan Peterson awoke with fears her Muslim best friend could be deported.

During lunch at school, the second grader from Somerset saw her friend in distress.

"When we were sitting, she said, 'I don't want to leave you,'" Kerrigan said in a telephone interview with her mother, Ashley, on the line.

She came home and asked her parents what she could do, and they suggested writing a letter to Congress. In the letter, addressed to the office of U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kerrigan wrote, "I am afraid our new president, Donald Trump, will send my friend ... away because he hates Muslims."

"If the new president wants to get rid of Muslims I would like you to tell him no," she wrote.

Kerrigan's letter became one of several factors that led Booker to introduce a bill recently that would block any federal legislation seeking to establish a national registry system based on religion, race, age, gender, ethnicity, national origin, nationality, or citizenship, according to Booker's staff.

Kerrigan's father, Brian Peterson, said he did not anticipate the impact the letter would ultimately have.

Booker recently held a town hall at the New Brunswick Islamic Center in North Brunswick to discuss issues facing the state's Muslim community, which is one of the largest in the country.

Kerrigan and her father attended the town hall and met Booker after receiving an invitation by the family of Kerrigan's Muslim best friend, who are members of the Islamic Center.

"I'm proud of her," Brian Peterson said. "We've never shied away from answering her questions, as long as it's appropriate."

The Protect American Families Act -- which is sponsored by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) -- is in response to Trump's campaign promise calling for a national registry targeting Muslims.

At the town hall, Booker spoke before an audience of around 100 people, most of whom were Muslim. Booker said the legislation serves as a symbol of what Democrats will not accept from Trump.

"It's definitely a statement of what we won't stand for," he said.

However, many people -- including many of Trump's own supporters -- have expressed doubts that Trump would actually establish a national registry system.

But Booker said he is taking Trump at his word, even if the president-elect's position has shifted in the last few months. Booker cited a federal program implemented in September 2002 that he said, in theory, could be used by Trump to create a registry program.

Aaminah Bhat, a Muslim who lives in Lawrenceville, said after the town hall that many in the Muslim community are afraid of what might come during the Trump administration.

"We are fearful of what Trump would bring to our citizens in our country," Bhat said.

Sami Catovic, the executive director of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, said even if a registry program is never implemented, negative attitudes toward Muslims have nonetheless increased in the U.S., along with bullying and hate crimes.