McCaul: Cruz comments about Muslim neighborhoods ‘inflammatory’

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Sunday slammed Republican presidential candidate and fellow Texan Ted Cruz’s call to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods.

“I think to send inflammatory messages could actually have an unintended consequence,” McCaul said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

{mosads}Cruz called for the measure in the wake of the terror attacks in Brussels last week. 

“And I know that NYPD … really has a great outreach program to the Muslim community,” McCaul said Sunday.

He said effective outreach to the Muslim community is needed to “pull the religious leaders really onto our team, if you will, to protect us from radicalization from within those communities.”

“I think we can get good intelligence from the Muslim communities in our outreach efforts, in our working with the religious leaders in the communities in the United States,” he added.

McCaul also said the biggest challenge for federal law enforcement is that terrorists are “communicating in darkness, what’s called encryption.”

“We can’t see what they’re saying,” he said.

“If we can’t see what they’re saying in advance, it’s very hard to stop it.”