Pro-Trump hate letters to California mosques say he will 'cleanse' US

Three California mosques received a hand-written letter calling Muslims "vile and filthy", praising president-elect Donald Trump and saying he plans to "cleanse" America, an association of Muslim-Americans said Sunday.

The same short, anti-Muslim letter - addressed to "Children of Satan" - was sent in recent days to mosques in San Jose in northern California and Long Beach and Claremont in the Los Angeles area, said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

The Evergreen Islamic Center in San Jose was one of them. The San Jose Police Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime.

The letter called on Muslims to "pack your bags and get out of Dodge," the council said.

Trump, the letter added, is "going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And, he's going to start with you Muslims".

The document has prompted council chapters in California to appeal for stepped-up police protection of mosques.

"This hate campaign targeting California houses of worship must be investigated as an act of religious intimidation, and our state's leaders should speak out against the growing anti-Muslim bigotry that leads to such incidents," said Hussam Ayloush, leader of the council's Los Angeles branch.

CAIR's national office has noted a spike in incidents targeting American Muslims and other minority groups since Trump's 8 November presidential election. More than 100 anti-Muslim incidents have occurred across the country and over 700 incidents targeting different minority groups have been documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Washington-based Muslim civil rights organisation recently said that newly-released FBI hate crime statistics showing a 67 percent jump in anti-Muslim incidents in 2015 should push the nation's leaders to repudiate growing Islamophobia.