WASHINGTON – Donald Trump is under fire from Muslim groups after stating in an interview on the Fox Business Network that he would shut down mosques in the U.S.

On Wednesday, Trump, discussing his strategy to fight ISIS said he would revoke the passports of U.S. citizens who have traveled abroad to fight for ISIS.

Host Jim Varney asked Trump if he would resort to closing mosques, to which he said “Absolutely. I think it’s great.”

Varney, however, then pressed the 2016 Republican front-runner, asking again: “Can you close a mosque? I mean, we do have religious freedom.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Trump responded in an apparent backpedal. “It depends on if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear, I don’t know. You’re going to have to certainly look at it.”

The comments drew immediate backlash from leaders within the Muslim-American community.

“It is truly outrageous that the leading Republican presidential candidate would announce openly that he would violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by closing down religious institutions,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based advocacy and rights organization, told The News. “I hope this finally prompts people to speak out against this off-the-rails Islamophobia that we are seeing from the right wing of the American political sector. “

Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab-American Association of New York, called the comments “dangerous” and warned that unless other politicians publicly chastised Trump, his remarks could put people within the community at risk.

“That the Republican front-runner for president is calling for the closing down of religious institutions in the land of religious freedom is outrageous,” Sarsour told The News. “This rhetoric, if it’s allowed to continue, has real consequences for the Muslim community in the U.S.”