Running in a contentious race to preserve his seat, Sen. John Cornyn put out an ad vowing to combat “radical Islam.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Cornyn’s opponent within the May 26 runoff, accused his rival of serving to “radical Islamic Afghans invade Texas.”
Rep. Chip Roy, operating to substitute Paxton as lawyer common in a runoff subsequent month, has alleged with out proof that elements of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro space, house to hundreds of Muslims, have turn out to be what some Texas girls imagine to be “no-go zones” by which they’re “increasingly feeling uncomfortable, as if they are somehow immersed in the Middle East.”
Certain Republicans in Texas have made anti-Islamic rhetoric half of their primary campaigns, arguing that Muslims have made the state much less protected. That’s a notable message within the nation’s largest conservative state and one which’s echoed by a handful of Republicans nationally, together with members of Congress.
Border points have lengthy animated conservatives – significantly in Texas, which has the longest part of US-Mexico border of any state – and have been seen as critical to President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.
Vinny Minchillo, a Republican strategist based mostly in Plano, Texas, mentioned that with unlawful immigration hitting lows throughout Trump’s presidency, it made sense for GOP candidates to drive at one other immigration-related concern and that opposition to Sharia regulation, or Islamic spiritual regulation, specifically was a winner in primaries.
“It is playing as well as anything I have ever seen with Texas Republican voters,” mentioned Minchillo, who labored on the media workforce for Bush’s 2004 reelection marketing campaign and Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid. “It’s solid gold.”
Muslim leaders dwelling in Texas argue that the ramp-up of rhetoric endangers their communities and spreads misconceptions about Sharia regulation and about Islam generally.
“These congressmen and these state representatives live in neighborhoods where Muslims live. They shop at stores where Muslims shop,” mentioned Sameena Karmally, an Indian American Muslim who lives in Collin County and beforehand ran for the state House in 2014.
Particularly with the outbreak of the struggle with Iran, Karmally argued, “They need some kind of demon and we’re going to be it.”
The latest Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, leaned into the difficulty, that includes a panel known as “Don’t Sharia My Texas,” by which one speaker, former Tarrant County GOP chairman Bo French, denounced what he known as the “Islamification of Texas and America.”
And a number of nationwide Republicans, in the meantime, have known as for the deportation of all Muslims or their exclusion from public life. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee wrote: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.” Texas Rep. Brandon Gill said, “We will never stop Sharia law until we stop Muslim immigration.” Rep. Randy Fine of Florida posted: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Several candidates in Texas have pointed to a lethal taking pictures in Austin, the state capital, by which the suspect, a naturalized US citizen from Senegal, attacked a nightlife district carrying a hoodie emblazoned with “Property of Allah.”
Roy noted that the gunman within the Austin taking pictures grew to become a authorized everlasting resident in 2006, throughout Republican President George W. Bush’s presidency. He mirrored on the previous “GOP celebration of the joys of ‘melting pot’ legal immigration” and added: “This is why we are losing our country, our immigration system is a joke, and should PAUSE ALL immigration.”
“Sharia law is incompatible with the Constitution and cannot supersede Texas or US law, and I will continue to stand unapologetically for the rule of law and in defense of Western Civilization against the Islamists who attack it,” Roy informed NCS in an announcement.
The Paxton marketing campaign didn’t reply to requests for remark, and the Cornyn marketing campaign declined to remark.
Paxton’s allegation that Cornyn helped “radical Islamic Afghans invade Texas” was an obvious reference to laws Cornyn co-sponsored in 2021. Cornyn co-sponsored the HOPE for Afghan SIVs Act, which accelerated the immigration course of for Afghan interpreters and translators who assisted US forces in Afghanistan.
A supply conversant in the laws informed NCS that the vetting and quantity of visas accessible to Afghans are separate from Cornyn’s Hope for Afghan SIVs Act, which solely pertained to the timing of a medical examination for Afghans and has since expired.
Muslims in Texas: EPIC City and allegations of Sharia regulation
Muslims have lengthy been a component of public life in Texas, making up roughly 2% of the state.
But issues about Sharia regulation within the state reignited in recent times with the proposal of an Islamic group growth in North Texas, which has confronted pushback on the state and federal degree after the positioning was bought in fall 2024.
The East Plano Islamic Center, generally known as EPIC City, is a 402-acre Islamic-focused deliberate growth close to the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan space that would come with 1,000 houses, a mosque, Okay-12 spiritual college, senior dwelling middle and retail house.
Texas leaders, together with Cornyn and Paxton, have pursued investigations into the group. Cornyn beforehand known as upon the Justice Department to discover allegations of spiritual discrimination, whereas Paxton has targeted on alleged violations associated to state oversight and Texas securities regulation.
Dan Cogdell, an lawyer for EPIC City who previously represented Paxton throughout his impeachment trial, dismissed claims of Sharia regulation in a information convention final April: “No one associated with EPIC, no one associated with that community, follows Sharia law or is in favor of Sharia law or is implementing Sharia law.”
Dr. Mehmet Salih Sayilgan, an assistant instructing professor at Georgetown University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, says he has not seen or heard of any try to enact Sharia regulation wherever in America.
Sayilgan says Sharia regulation, which he defines as a set of rituals Muslims comply with, has coexisted with the US Constitution because the time of the Founding Fathers.
“Following the Constitution is also part of Islamic law,” he added.
Still, among the many 10 non-binding propositions on this yr’s Republican primary poll was a query asking voters in the event that they thought “Texas should prohibit Sharia Law.” The proposition yielded overwhelming help for prohibiting Sharia regulation in Texas, with almost 95% of primary voters voting “yes,” whereas 5% mentioned “no.”
While the outcomes don’t set off rapid motion, they do point out to lawmakers how voters really feel forward of the following legislative session in January 2027, the place payments to handle Sharia regulation could possibly be on the agenda. In 2017, the Texas Legislature handed a invoice that addressed spiritual authorized frameworks – House Bill 45 – that prohibits the Texas Supreme Court from making use of overseas legal guidelines in sure household regulation instances.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties group fashioned to problem anti- Muslim discrimination nationwide, has additionally drawn the ire of Texas leaders, together with Gov. Greg Abbott, who designated the group, together with the Muslim Brotherhood, as a overseas terrorist group and transnational felony group final November.
Shaimaa Zayan, the operations supervisor for CAIR Austin, accused Republicans of “dehumanizing” Muslims. “They are using us as a boogeyman to scare people so that they can vote for them. They are using us as a scapegoat to gain political positions and power,” Zayan mentioned.
Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor on the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, says that politicians beforehand took “polite steps” of telling Muslims they don’t seem to be the enemy domestically.
Trump notably launched his first marketing campaign with a vow to bar all Muslim immigrants and instituted a number of visa bans on majority Muslim nations.
“The boldness in the thesis of a Christian America has moved,” Abou El Fadl mentioned, including, “Those who wanted to change the jurisprudence of separation between church and state were still shy about it and still unsure about their ability to do so, and they would, you know, it would come out in indirectly, suggestively. But things have changed.”
Democratic state Rep. Salman Bhojani, who’s one of two Muslims within the Texas state House, says there has at all times been Islamophobia however famous it’s “more shameless and scary than ever.”
But Fort Bend County Constable Ali Sheikhani, a Pakistani American and a Republican, mentioned he’s a chief instance that Muslim individuals are welcome within the GOP.
Sheikhani informed NCS he has by no means skilled any kind of retaliation for his religion however slightly felt welcomed by the varied set of people who voted for him.
“They never let me feel like, you know, I’m from outside and I’m from Pakistan or anything. They just treat me like one of them,” he mentioned.
The query of how a lot anti-Islam messaging will issue into the midterm elections – each in Texas and nationally – prompts totally different responses even amongst Republican strategists who’re immersed in campaigns statewide.
Minchillo believes the difficulty will nationalize, significantly as a “differentiator” between Democrats and Republicans.
“If it’s an opportunity to rev up Republicans and get them to come out and vote, you’re going to see this,” Minchillo mentioned.
Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist based mostly in Austin, Texas, and Washington, DC, thinks the difficulty received’t final by means of the midterms. Steinhauser mentioned by speaking about Sharia regulation, campaigns could lose some voters within the center, particularly if they don’t seem to be relating pocketbook points just like the economic system and jobs.
“I think it’ll be quite limited in the general. I don’t expect Republican candidates to talk about it as much in the general,” Steinhauser mentioned. “Because I think that this issue is a niche issue among kind of hardcore Republicans, conservatives in primaries.”