“Sharia-Free America: Why Political Islam & Sharia Law are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution: Part II”
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House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 1
And in Germany, Mohammed is the most popular baby name among people receiving government welfare. Over the past few years, Sharia-based legal institutions have taken root in American communities, and nowhere is this problem worse than in my home state of Texas. Fueled by decades of an unsecured border and expansionist legal immigration policies, Texas has seen a sharp increase in immigration from the Muslim world, with many immigrants trying everything they can to bring Sharia with them. According to a 2024 report by the Middle East Forum, there are approximately 650 Islamic nonprofit organizations based in Texas, and we can see the results. The Kalam Institute, a Deobandi institution and the leading Islamic seminary in America, is based in Carrollton, Texas.
Its leaders have been called American Society of Filth, have advocated for the killing of apostates, and have supported the taking of sex slaves. In Houston, the South Asian Islamist movement operates a powerful and extensive network that works in direct coordination with the Pakistani regime and Kashmiri terror operatives. An Iranian regime, known as the Khomeinists, operates several mosques in Texas and supports a number of pro-terror activist groups. In 2024, members of Plano Mosque tried to create their own Islamic enclave governed by Sharia law within the state of Texas, and they called it Epic City. Thankfully, office holders, activists, and private citizens mobilized to try to stop Epic City from advancing for the time being.
However, as much of a problem Epic City poses, Sharia has spread to other parts of Texas, attempting to transform the existing legal, cultural, and societal structures of these communities. For example, in January, Texas Tech medical student, Mohammed Altaba, whose father is a Syrian imam and has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, bought the Amet Amet elementary school campus, an abandoned school in Lubbock, and converted it into the gleaming Unity Center mosque in 45 days. In March, taxpayer funded school buses from Humble ISD took more than 30 students from Kingwood and, Kingwood to the Islamist Spanish Centro Islamico in Houston, a controversial Dahua center that glorifies the Islamic conquest of Spain, and claims Latinos roots are in Muslim Spain and seeks to shape the next generation to view Islam favorably, part of a two front strategy to expand Shria's influence in America. Also in March, a report service at the Islamic Center of Haltham City, Texas, had acquired and repurposed the former Christ Way Bible Church, a long-standing Christian site in Texas. The church was purchased by Moulkura Islamic Foundation, which, according to their own announcements, aims to transform this traditional church into a vibrant Islamic center that will serve our community for generations to come.
And just last month in Richardson, Texas, opened Al Amira Plaza, a 125,000 square foot office complex that now functions as a one stop parallel society where Muslims can fulfill every daily need under strict Sharia-compliant rules with zero pressure to integrate into the surrounding American culture. I could list more examples for hours. Just as alarming, shadow Islamic courts have popped up across Texas. One Dallas tribunal purports to render final judgments on disputes in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, placing Sharia law above both state and federal law. Both these attempted community transformations, and these Islamic courts, run counter to Texas values and are repugnant to the American constitution and our system of laws.
The Islamification of American society is not just happening in Texas. America has also seen a concerning resurgence in violent Islamic terrorism. Since the last hearing on this topic in February, there have been four Islamic terrorist attacks in a three-month span, including a naturalized citizen originally from Sierra Leone with a prior conviction for attempting to aid ISIS opening fire at Old Dominion University's campus while yelling al Akbar, killing someone during the attack. The same day as the ODU attack, a Lebanese-born naturalized American citizen rammed his vehicle into the Temple Israel synagogue and preschool in West Bloomfield, Michigan, in an allegedly targeted attack against the Jewish community, causing a fire and injuring on-site security personnel. Two suspects, with stated allegiance to ISIS, attempted to detonate two improvised explosive devices near the New York City mayor's residence in Manhattan.
Both suspects' parents emigrated to the US from the terror-prone countries of Turkey and Afghanistan. And in my home in Austin, a naturalized citizen originally from Mauritania, motivated by extremist ideologies, opened fire on a crowd in Austin, Texas, killing three people and injuring several others before being stopped by law enforcement, all while wearing a hoodie with a caption, property of a law. None of these strategies needed to happen. Between our overly generous and lax legal immigration policies that allow these attackers to enter the country in the first place, and our lack of adequate response to stopping Islamist ideology in its tracks, our nation remains vulnerable to Sharia law and potential terrorist attacks it could wreak. For too long, politicians scared of being called Islamophobic have failed to stop the spread of Sharia law and refused to put an end to the ceaseless immigration from the world of people who adhere to it.
How many more Americans must die or succumb to Sri Lal before we address this critical threat to our safety and our way of life? I've outlined much of what has happened related to Sri in the three months since we had the last hearing on this issue. We cannot wait any longer to take meaningful and decisive action. I believe American citizens are worth protecting. America's Judeo Christian principles upon which this country was founded is worth defending, and America's founding principles generally are worth preserving.
We must act now to stop Sharia law and the threat that it poses to our nation and our constitution. I now recognize the ranking member, Miss Scanlon, for her opening statement.
Speaker 2
Thank you. This is the second time this year that this subcommittee has been convened to hold a hearing about Sharia law, which, unsurprisingly, doesn't even rank on the list of top 10 issues keeping Americans up at night. Actually, it doesn't appear to be an issue anywhere in this country except in Texas, where Republican politicians are so desperate to distract voters from their disastrous economy and surging gas prices. Because as one Republican strategist said, these candidates don't want to be talking about the economy right now. So they've met up and made up a conspiracy theory about their Muslim neighbors in order to scare and motivate voters.
But repeating lies over and over again doesn't make them true, and it doesn't make unconstitutional bigotry legal. The last time the subcommittee convened on this topic, I wondered if our colleagues actually believed their own hysterical and wildly claims about people of the Muslim faith trying to impose so-called Sharia law on The United States. But as before, they're not producing one ounce of proof to vindicate their fear-mongering. Tellingly, they've also not produced a single Muslim witness or expert on Islam or Sharia law. And now the only thing that's changed between the last hearing and now is that Texas' fiercely contested Republican primaries have moved into runoff elections, now just under 2 weeks away.
So in Texas, this issue continues to be a flashpoint for Republican, federal, state, and local candidates as they desperately compete with one another over who can be the toughest against their Sharia law fantasy. It's a threat based not on reality, but invented with manufactured alarm. Because like belief systems that guide adherence of other faiths, including Christianity or Judaism, Sharia is about individual, personal, religious observance, not about shaping America's national laws. And contrary to the misleading claims that have been offered here, there's no evidence of any plot to impose Sharia law on non-believers of Islam. It's just not happening.
No matter how many right wing influencers make videos about it, no matter how many Texas laws are passed to combat it, or what legislation is introduced here in DC with flashy acronyms decrying it. There's no evidence that a proposed real estate development in the Dallas suburbs, which was initiated by members of the area's growing Muslim population, is a Sharia compound as Texas Republicans have claimed. To say otherwise is to spread blatant misinformation. In fact, even the Trump Justice Department closed an investigation into the development, finding no basis for any violation of fair housing laws. Politicians standing up against made-up threats of Sharia law incursions are shamefully scapegoating Muslim Americans for political gain without any care for how many people end up as collateral damage to this kind of rhetoric.
Because these culture wars, including desperate political stunts like scapegoating followers of Islam, have real-world consequences. Words matter, and stirring up hatred and bigotry. When that happens, real people are put at risk. Hate crimes against Muslims in particular have increased. In cynically playing on division to win an election, Republicans sacrifice the safety of the very Americans they are supposed to be trying to represent.
The fact is, in this country, you can't ban a person's right to practice Islam any more than you could ban a person's practice of Christianity, Judaism, or the decision to practice no religion at all. Our constitution, and particularly the First Amendment, which was central to its adoption in 1787, remains clear. In this country, people have the right to hold and express whatever religious beliefs they choose, or none at all. And despite the arguments we're hearing from our Republican colleagues, we know that from our Republic's earliest days, Muslims were intended to be included within the fabric of American life. Thomas Jefferson specifically referenced followers of Islam among other faiths in his writings about the passage of the Virginia statute for religious freedom in 1786, which was one of his proudest achievements and the First Amendment's precursor.
This is a core component of our constitution that's particularly valued in my home state of Pennsylvania, which was founded by William Penn to promote religious freedom, and where the constitution was written. For hundreds of years, Pennsylvania has been home to people of many faiths and denominations, including Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Evangelicals, Quakers, Muslims, Sikhs, and people of no faith at all. In my district, we have a growing cultural center, Africatown, founded by immigrants turned citizens, many of whom are Muslim, and who have made huge contributions to our economic, cultural, charitable, and civic life. One of our most cherished American values is that you don't have to agree with your neighbors' beliefs, but no one can use the power of the government to punish or discriminate against those who do. And since this is the constitution subcommittee, any of my colleagues who find that principle suspicious or foreign should probably take another look at the First Amendment and the oath they took to support and defend the constitution.
Unfortunately, over and over again, we've seen this White House and its Republican allies in Congress try to use the power of the federal government to spy on and target Americans whose opinions and beliefs they don't like, whether those are religious, political, or otherwise. But Americans know, we know at our core, that if the government can go after one group, it can go after all of us. And that's why people have shown up, stood up, and spoken out about this kind of activity. Instead of trying to score political points at the expense of innocent people, I wish our Republican colleagues would focus on making Americans' lives better instead of going along with this administration when it starts tariff wars, which have driven up the price of housing, cars, and consumer goods, or slashing programs that Americans rely on for better health care, housing, energy, and nutrition, and starting foreign wars that have put Americans in danger, driven up the cost of gas, or making attacks on basic liberties like free speech, free press, the right to peaceful protest, or, in this hearing, freedom of religion. We should be uniting behind these fundamental principles that make this country actually great, not fueling division by going after our fellow Americans with trumped-up charges, going after our family, our friends, our neighbors, and casting them as the enemy.
So I'm hopeful that we won't have a third round of this pointless hearing, but with that, I yield back.
Speaker 1
I'll now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Jordan, for his opening statement.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The ranking member talked about this as, you know, a conspiracy theory and fearmongering. It's anything but. This is looking at a real concern, and I appreciate the chairman doing that. But if we wanna talk about conspiracy theory and fearmongering, look no further than the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And the full committee will have a hearing on that issue next week. They were running a scam. They were paying people. One person, one source, they paid over 1 million dollars to promote and create the hate that they told their donors they were actually fighting. What an operation they were running.
You talk about fear-mongering and conspiracy theory. There you have it. And we'll be looking at this issue next week. The Biden Justice Department used the Southern Poverty lawsuit to train prosecutors, setting them up as the standard for evaluating what's a hate group, what's not. So if you wanna talk about conspiracy theory and fear minded, we'll get to that.
That's all happening on the left. And the prime example is the organization that is now being investigated by the Department of Justice. So I appreciate the chairman and the work he's doing on this important issue, particularly in his state of Texas, and look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and thank them for being here today. And with that, I yield back.
Speaker 1
I thank Chairman Jordan. I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mister Raskin, for his opening statement.
Speaker 4
Mister chairman, thank you, thanks to our witnesses. Forgive me, but didn't we have this exact same hearing not that long ago? I think it's the fourth or fifth in the line. And I can't believe that the cupboard of Republican ideas is so barren now that in order to distract America from Donald Trump's illegal, unconstitutional, ruinous war and his ruinous, illegal, unconstitutional tariffs and the spiraling price of gasoline and the unlivable economy he's created that we have to go back and have this exact same hearing over and over again. Couldn't we come up with something else instead?
It's not exactly working to reverse Donald Trump's precipitous slide into being the most unpopular president in American history because that's where we are. So if we're gonna have another religious convocation, perhaps next time it could be a debate between Donald Trump dressed up perhaps like Jesus Christ and the pope of the Catholic church, so the pope can answer Trump's recent accusation that he's weak on crime. I never got that charge. After all, Trump himself is a convicted felon who's pardoned more than 1,600 rioters, insurrectionists, proud boys, oath keepers, domestic abusers, child molesters, white-collar fraudsters, and international narco traffickers, and drug dealers. And the pope is certainly not weak on that.
The pope has made his views on Donald Trump perfectly clear, so I don't understand why Trump is saying that the pope is weak on crime. Anyway, I have this idea I wanted to float by my colleagues to perhaps create some legislative progress in this field. The Republicans are afraid that Muslims are going to impose Sharia law on the rest of the population. Now I'm not so afraid of that because we have 535 members of Congress, and only four of them are Muslim, which makes it extremely unlikely. How could less than 1% of Congress impose Sharia law on the other 99%?
And what's even more reassuring is I actually know some of these Muslim Americans who happen to be in Congress, and they're all civil libertarians who stand up for the separation of church and state. But even if they changed their minds and convinced all the Christians, Jews, Hindus, and freethinkers in Congress who are 99% in the House to vote for Sharia law, I'm sure someone on the Senate side where there are no Muslims at all would put a hold on it like everything else that we send over there. So I'm a pretty good vote counter, and I don't think that there would be a single vote to establish Sharia law in the United States Congress or in any state of the Union. But, anyway, I had this idea to take advantage of the fact that we all agree on this point. Why don't we generalize the proposition of this anti-Sharia law movement to say that the government should not be endorsing or establishing any religion in America, whether it's Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Jews for Jesus, Seventh-day Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, fundamental Mormonism, Unitarian Universalism, Branch Davidianism, or Hare Krishna.
I was playing with some language, and I came up with this rough cut, Mr. Chairman. It goes like this. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. What do you think about that? You think that covers it?
We could call the first part the establishment clause. We could call the second part the free exercise clause. I know we could get that through the democratic caucus. You think we could get it through the Republican conference? I'm not sure.
I hope so. The problem is that we've got theocrats out there across the religious spectrum who wanna elevate their own religious creeds and dogmas above the Constitution and establish them over the secular law. Take, for example, what the Texas and Louisiana legislatures recently did. They voted to endorse the 10 Commandments and post the 10 Commandments in every public school classroom in their states. I didn't even know that was necessary because I thought the 10 commandments were doing all right after millennia.
I didn't know they needed an endorsement from the Republican conference, but they went ahead and did that. Now they wanna have votes in every state legislature to endorse the 10 Commandments and to post the 10 Commandments. I'm opposed to that because of the provision in the Constitution, article six, clause three, which says there shall be no religious tests for public office. That sounds like a religious test when you round up all the politicians and you ask them to vote on the 10 Commandments. And by the way, if we are gonna vote on the 10 commandments, Mr. Chairman, I do not support that omnibus Republican package.
I think we should vote on each commandment separately. And I don't think that you should be able to vote for any commandment you yourself have ever violated, because then we'll be taking the name of the Lord in vain. So, you know, one politician I spoke to on the floor about this, he said, that you know that the 10 commandments are the basis for the bill of rights. He kind of confused me there for a second. I said, well, I do know that there are 10 in each one.
That's true, but let's test the proposition. The first commandment says, thou shalt have no other god before me. The First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. It's hard to see how the first commandment dictates the first amendment. So, is Sharia law incompatible with the constitution, as the title of the hearing is?
Sure. And so is legislating any other religious text, the 10 Commandments, the Torah, or the Analects of Confucius, or whatever. Any religious scripture or body. The whole point of our First Amendment is that people can go believe whatever they want. The government's not gonna dictate to you what your religious worship and practice are going to be.
The government is out of it. So I did not write that language to be clear. James Madison wrote that language. He took care of your whole anti Sharia law, centuries ago. This is a complete waste of time.
And he had the right idea. Madison would be appalled that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just voted 9 to 8 to uphold the compulsory 10 Commandments display in every school classroom in Texas or Louisiana. Louisiana can do that. It can compel display of the five pillars of Islam. Think about that.
You really wanna head down that road? The states could force display of the 10 precepts of Buddhism, the analytics of Confucius, or the five principles of Hinduism, if you can put up the 10 commandments. And by the way, the 10 commandments don't exist as one commonly agreed upon body of law. If you go online, you'll find, like, 10 or 15 different versions of the Ten Commandments. There's a Catholic version.
There's a Lutheran version. There's a Jewish version, a Baptist version, Mennonite, and so on. You can, you know, if you can compel display of 10 of them, you can compel display of all of them. There could be 100 commitments. There could be 150 commitments.
So, look, my friends, we don't need an anti Sharia law or an anti Christian law or an anti Jewish law or an anti Hindu law. We've already got one forbidding the imposition of any religious orthodoxy, forbidding the endorsement of any religious orthodoxy. It's called the First Amendment, and everybody should familiarize themselves with it because this is a complete waste of time we're doing here. The government cannot establish, prefer, legislate, coerce, impose, or endorse any religious doctrine. And we don't need a special law or a special caucus to do that.
And if my friends understand that, then I think they will reverse course on this movement, unless the purpose of the movement is just to demonize and vilify not a religion, but adherence to the religion. But then I would have to believe that my colleagues are actually out just attacking Muslims, attacking Muslim Americans, criticizing, and vilifying them for their beliefs or their way of life. And I don't wanna believe that, but I do challenge my friends to state one thing that an anti Sharia law would do that the First Amendment doesn't already do. Tell me one thing that we would need to legislate that's not already taken care of by the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause. The real threat to our constitution comes not from adherence to a particular religion, but from turning our backs on the constitution and the first amendment.
Our freedoms are not under siege by a religious minority trying to build a community center, but they are undermined by lawmakers who would want to turn Americans against each other on a religious basis. And is it true that religious fanatics commit violent criminal acts? Absolutely. I mean, you talk to any secular freethinker, they will say that every religion has produced religious fanatics who have committed violence. Take, for example, Timothy McVeigh, who was part of the Christian Identity church.
The Christian Identity movement trained on racism and antisemitism. He blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building in 1995. 167 people killed, 684 wounded. They blew up a nursery school. He was a violent fundamentalist, Christian fanatic, but you wouldn't blame all Christians for what he did any more than you should blame all Muslims or all Jews or all members of any religious faith because of what one person or one crazed fanatic group does in their name.
So, mister chairman, I trust you understand all of that. I do hope we will return to constitutional principles, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
I thank the ranking member. Without objection, all of their opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witness, mister Amon Blair. Mister Blair is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. His research focuses on transnational criminal organizations, foreign terrorist networks, hostile state influence operations, mass migration, and emerging security threats.
He previously served more than 2 decades with the United States Army and as a border patrol agent. Mister Marco Hunter Lopez. Mister Hunter Lopez is a student at Wylie East High School in Wylie, Texas, where he is the president of the school's Republican Student Club. He also serves on the PTA board and has been involved in national, state, and local campaigns since he was 13. I believe that Mr. Hunter has recently turned 16.
That's correct. Miss Amy Meckelberg. Miss Meckelberg is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Rare Foundation, a grassroots organization that advocates for American values. Her work is focused on authoritarian systems and efforts to replace democratic governance. Miss Amanda Tyler.
Miss Tyler is the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit organization that advocates on matters of religion. She previously worked in Congress and private law practice. We thank our witnesses for appearing today, and we'll begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative, and you may be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. Let's start over here on the right, remind our witnesses to turn on the microphone. Mister Blair, you may begin your five minutes.
Speaker 5
Dear Chairman Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and distinguished members of the committee. Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to testify before you. My name is Amon Blair. I'm a senior fellow with the Texas Political Policy Foundation Secure and Sovereign Nation Initiative and a consultant for the Operation Lone Star task force. As representative Roy stated, I previously served as a United States portal agent in the Rio Grande Valley sector and had more than two decades in the United States Army.
The issue before this subcommittee is not whether Americans have the right to practice religion freely. They do, unequivocally. The first amendment protects belief, worship, religious instruction, peaceful association, and voluntary observance. Texas law does the same. However, religious liberty does not create immunity from the rule of law.
A crime remains a crime regardless of religion, and no religious, ideological, or political system possesses a constitutional license to violate the rights of a sovereign nation, a sovereign state, a political subdivision, private property owners, or individual citizens. The constitutional issue before Congress is narrow but foundational. The American constitutional order recognizes dual sovereignty between the federal government and the states. It does not recognize parallel sovereign systems operating outside constitutional supremacy, judicial review, equal protection, due process, or the rule of law. The supremacy clause, equal protection, and due process clauses in Article Four guarantee one supreme constitutional order in one republican form of government.
No religious, ideological, or political or organizational system may exercise coercive civil authority independent of the constitution while claiming immunity from constitutional accountability. This distinction between protected belief and regulable conduct is deeply rooted in American constitutional law. Under the Tenth Amendment and longstanding police powers doctrine, states retain inherent sovereign authority and the ongoing duty to preserve public safety, territorial integrity, property rights, institutional order, and domestic tranquility. States were never meant to function as passive subdivisions waiting for federal permission before defending constitutional order. Texas stands at the center of this national security crisis.
Federal strategic assessments, including the 2026 US counterterrorism strategy and the ODNI's 2023 and annual threat assessment, identify cartels and Islamic terrorism as top homeland threats. These threats overlap and reinforce one another through hybrid and gray-zone operations. Texas is confronting weaponized mass migration, cartel-engineered smuggling networks, foreign-linked governance structures operating within our communities, and systemic failure across the entire immigration enforcement and removal cycle. These dynamics have produced concentrated enclaves with limited assimilation and fragmented allegiances, environments actively exploited by foreign terrorist organizations, hostile states, and transnational criminal networks. Migration pipelines now function as operational infrastructure for coercion, illicit finance, transnational repression, and foreign influence.
While all eyes are on conflict with Iran overseas, that conflict is not confined to distant battlefields. It is playing out right here on our shores. Iran has waged decades-long hybrid operations in the Western Hemisphere and US interior, leveraging proxies including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks alongside cartel smuggling infrastructure. These threat networks increasingly utilize gray zone tactics operating under the threshold of armed conflict inside the United States through cyber-enabled influence operations, propaganda ecosystems, and online radicalization platforms to accelerate recruitment, coordination, and institutional influence. These networks exploit migration corridors and distribute institutional ecosystems inside the United States.
They operate through nonprofits, charities, educational institutions, advocacy groups, media ecosystems, and political conditions to pursue influence, concealment, and institutional entrenchment. These networks pursue the very civilization jihadist process of settlement outlined in the Muslim Brotherhood's 1991 explanatory memorandum. That document calls for gradual institutional entrenchment to eliminate, I say, quote, eliminate and destroy the western civilization from within, end quote, by building parallel power structures inside American society. Mass migration at scale can create operational and demographic conditions that facilitate long-term institutional entrenchment when vetting, assimilation, and constitutional integration mechanisms erode. The constitutional concern is not private worship or voluntary religious practice.
It arises where systems attempt to establish coercive adjudicatory structures, a surgery as superior civil law, obstruct access to American courts, and subordinate constitutional protections to alternative government, governing authority. Texas is comfort confronting this reality directly, exercising its sovereign authorities, including the governor's power as commander-in-chief. Governor Abbott has designated both the Muslim Brotherhood and CARE as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations. Governor Abbott has directed investigations into entities masquerading as legal courts staffed with judges issuing orders that purportedly carry authority to bind individuals to Islamic codes. The constitution protects the broad sphere of religious liberty precisely because every person and institution within the United States ultimately remains accountable to one constitute system, one civil sovereign, and one rule of law.
No peril system claiming supremacy over the constitution can be permitted. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Blair. I'm now gonna go to Miss Meckelberg for her opening statement.
Speaker 6
Distinguished members of Congress, my name is Amy Meckelberg. I'm the founder of Rare Foundation USA. I come before you today out of profound love for this country and a great personal cost. For 15 years, I have documented Islam's assault on Europe and its dangerous advance inside America. For defending western values, Islam and its left-wing allies marked my family for destruction.
They stalked us. They attacked my loved ones' careers and sent death threats. Today, I travel with armed security. A simple walk, a grocery run, opening my front door, none of it is safe anymore. Islam has taken that from me.
The hardest part of this fight, though, has been watching my friends pay the ultimate price. On 01/29/2025, my friend, Solvang Momiqa, an Iraqi Christian who fled to Sweden to escape Islam, was slaughtered as I watched. Sweden put him on trial for hate speech, for telling the truth about the threat that killed him. Salwan predicted his own assassination. He knew because the Sharia penalty for criticizing Islam is death.
A 1400 year old war is being waged inside our country. Mohammed, the man that Muslims call their prophet, was a military commander whose mission was to bring the world under Islamic rule. The mission cannot be completed until America falls. Islam is a hostile totalitarian political ideology, using our freedoms to destroy us. To every nonmuslim, it offers three choices: convert, submit, or die.
It does not stop until every court, every school, and every government on earth is under Sharia. The Muslim Brotherhood turned this imperative into a modern conquest strategy. Two seized documents, the 1982 project and the 1991 explanatory memorandum, detail their two front plan. Build parallel Islamic societies that reject assimilation while their faithful capture our institutions. The brotherhood wrote the playbook.
Today, every hostile Islamic regime and faction is executing it on our soil. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, Hamas, the Taliban. Different countries, different sects, all marching in lockstep towards one conquest. These networks operate more than 8,000 Islamic nonprofits across America, including 650 in Texas alone. They built parallel infrastructures, mosques, seminaries, schools, Sharia Bank, Sharia Court, Sharia Clinics, charities, media, and political networks.
They have no plans of assimilating. Texas and Florida are the brotherhood's command centers. They are the clearest example of the first strategy. Build massive fortresses where Muslims can live, cradle to grave, under full Sharia. In Texas, terror-tied Imam Yasrakhadi is fighting to build an epic city, a 402-acre Sharia compound marked as, quote, the epicenter of Islam in North America, end of quote.
In Katy, an $80,000,000 Sharia compound is rising under brotherhood operative Maine Al Khuda, whose family are leading terrorists in Jordan. Hamad Ghazali, named in the 1991 memorandum, recruited Americans for Al-Qaida. Today, he writes curriculum for Islamic schoolchildren across North America. Texas taxpayers are able to fund him through school vouchers. Across America, the brotherhood is buying churches and converting them to mosques.
A Lubbock school became a brotherhood mosque in 45 days. In Dallas, two Iranians who preach hand amputation, sex with captives, and stoning adulterers are suing to seize a Christian megachurch. Garland, Texas hosts the US headquarters of a Pakistani jihadi network that trains hundreds of terrorists, including the recent killer of the West Virginia National Guard member. In Florida, third generation brotherhood met leader Magda Elkhadi Salah runs a self-contained Tampa enclave. A Houston mosque led by an Imam appointed by the Iran supreme leader received $1,000,000 in tax dollars while children pledged allegiance to Khomeini.
Another Hamas-supporting text mega mosque hosted public school field trips while its imams preached that the fathers and brothers can kill adulterous children, adulterous daughters. Members of Congress, there is a little Muslim American girl right now born in Texas under our Constitution. With every sacred right our forefathers fought and died to give her, she will never know any of them. Her own father, imam, and teachers raise her to believe she is worth less than half a man, and Islam's texts command this. If she is beaten, it is her fault.
If she is raped, no American courthouse will hear her screams. If she is married off as a child to a pedophile, she will never know it is a crime. She is shielded from her birthright, raised to hate her own country, trained to subvert it. There are thousands like her, and growing fast. This war's second strategy captures our institutions and cultures from within.
Their operatives have penetrated our state department, our courts, our school boards to subvert the constitution and replace it. Hamas, doing business as CARE, has trained 50,000 lawyers. They boast of these journalists, filmmakers, influencers to embed Islam and rewrite our history. When we object, they scream Islamophobia. Their super PAC floods our elections, mosque-run voter drives.
Besides me is 15-year-old Marco Hunter Lopez. He will tell you how the Muslim Brotherhood's student arm, founded in Texas by Yasser Khadi's father, is targeting Texas children. For speaking out, Marco's safety was threatened. Our nation's leaders are failing our children. Member of Congress, the American people are awake.
Washington is not. We must choose the constitution of the Koran, America, or the caliphate, freedom or submission. There is no middle ground.
Speaker 1
Thank you for your test testimony, miss Muckelberg. Miss Tyler, I'll give you some extra time. Okay? To make sure it's.
Speaker 7
Chairman Roy, ranking member Scanlon, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Marco Hunter Lopez. I'm a 16-year-old sophomore at Wiley East High School in Wiley, Texas. I've been invited to speak regarding an incident that occurred on February 2, on my campus and a widespread effort across Texas and the nation.
Last year as a freshman, I founded the Republican Student Club because I wanted to foster a space for students who share the same values. What should have been a simple act of student leadership became a prolonged battle against school administrators who treated my group differently from every other club on campus. On 08/16/2024, we met every requirement. 10 members, a teacher sponsor in a room. Other groups, including the Muslim Student Association and organizations supporting gender-affirming ideology, were approved without issue.
Our club was denied for being political in nature. Administrators first claimed a district-wide policy against political clubs. Then after weeks of emails requesting the policy in writing, they admitted it was simply how they felt. Only after more than a month of emails pushed back, and enormous efforts, were we approved. Even then, we faced hostile scrutiny.
Principals were caught taking down our approved posters while I was out of town. I have a documented timeline of specific instances of unfair treatment being pulled into the principal's office, cornered, and talked down to. After we hosted two guest speakers last year, the principal tried to impose new rules on the fly. My father even had to help create a guest speaker perform to protect me as a minor. This pattern of censorship against our club stands in stark contrast to how administrators have handled the promotion of Islamic ideology, including Sharia.
On February 2, I was leaving a meeting and was walking to the cafeteria for lunch, and I saw a large booth labeled Islam set up in the school. Four adult women from the organization Y Islam were there. I was confused and did not want to give it attention, but after discussing it with my friends, we decided to approach the booth. I had a discussion with the woman, one in particular who they kept referring me to because she knew most of the theological questions. As we tried to understand their goal, I looked over and saw multiple pamphlets spread out, one of which was explicitly titled Understanding Sharia.
This was very concerning to me and other students. They were also making Qurans available that include a Shahada card on the last page, instructing students how to convert. Quote, to become a Muslim, one needs to make the following declaration. I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship except god, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of god. This openly occurred during lunch, with administrators present who did nothing to intervene.
The dangers of allowing Sharia to be promoted in public schools are real and immediate. Sharia is not simply a personal religious observance. It is a comprehensive legal and political system that includes unequal treatment, restrictions on free speech, harsh punishments, and fundamental incompatibility with the US constitution, Texas law, and American values of individual liberty and equality. Handing out materials that present Sharia favorably to minors during the school day without parental approval risks normalizing ideas that undermine the very principles our public schools are supposed to uphold. This is not neutral education.
It is ideological promotion under the guise of diversity and inclusion. The contrast with my own club cannot be clearer. While the Republican Student Club faced denial, censorship, post removal, and hostile oversight, an outside organization was given easy access to distribute Sharia-related materials directly to students. Administrators not only allowed it, they actively promoted Islamic events. The principal has enthusiastically participated in World Hijab Day two years in a row that we are aware of, when she wore a hijab and promoted it on social media saying, quote, I loved this experience, all cats.
The district now offers halal meals, a dedicated prayer room for Islamic observances, and has placed in at least one middle school library, while no Bible is offered. Conservative and Christian student groups have never received comparable accommodations or leeway. This is not mere negligence. It is complicity through selective enforcement and viewpoint discrimination. School policies and state law regarding outside organizations, religious materials, and guest activities were bypassed and ignored.
No one stopped at the distribution of the materials and charity pamphlets in my high school. After not attending the school the next day due to safety concerns, we had to meet with the school race officer, school resource officer, and two administrators. When my mother asked if the principal could notify teachers to keep an extra eye on me after I received these threats, the principal's dismissive, you can, revealed the lack of accountability and leadership. The administration has turned a blind eye or actively enabled the introduction of Sharia aligned influence while censoring other viewpoints. The Y Islam organization and event has documented links to the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Muslim Brotherhood, some of which has been flagged by the governor of Texas as terror-linked.
Yet district leadership has refused to address these connections. Public schools must remain neutral. They exist to educate, not promote foreign legal systems incompatible with our own constitution, or favor another ideology over another. What is happening in suburban Wylie is not isolated. If Shura can be introduced this easily in a small suburban town of Wiley, it can happen anywhere.
I urge this committee and lawmakers across the country to demand full investigations into these organizations and reject any ideology or political system that is at odds with American law. Parents and students deserve transparency and protection from ideological capture. What began as my effort to start a simple conservative club has revealed how quickly institutions can be compromised and captured when we remain silent. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer questions and provide further explanations for my firsthand experience.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Mister Hunter Lopez, thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you for your courage in coming up and testifying. I believe you're the first minor in this Congress to testify in the judiciary committee, and we appreciate you coming forward. Miss Tyler, you'll have a very liberal five minutes for your time to keep things balanced. You may proceed.
Speaker 8
Good morning, Chairman Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, members of the subcommittee. I am Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. As a constitutional attorney and Baptist Christian, I'm honored to be here to offer testimony about how targeting individuals and groups based on religion violates our country's constitutional commitment to religious freedom for all. In this 250th year of American independence, our country has the opportunity to reaffirm the foundational values that unite our diverse people. Core to what it means to be an American is a rich religious freedom tradition that protects the free exercise of religion of all people by ensuring that government does not single out any one religion for special favor or disapproval.
Our founders made a deliberate choice to disestablish religion from government control. They did so with the experience of government establishments of religion in the places they emigrated from, and in the British colonies. Baptists were instrumental in advocacy for religious freedom for all people in the United States. This advocacy predates American independence by more than 150 years. Thomas Helwys, the cofounder of the Baptist movement, wrote a short declaration of the mystery of inequity in 1612.
This work is considered the first defense of universal religious freedom written in English. In it, Helles wrote to King James the First about the importance of freedom of conscience of all people, including Muslims. Quote, for men's religion to God is betwixt God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and a person.
Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or what so ever. It appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure. As this history informs us, religious liberty is a fundamental commitment, and it should protect all religions. As recently as last year, the US Supreme Court reiterated that the clearest command of the establishment clause is that the government may not officially prefer one religious denomination over another, nor pass laws that aid or oppose particular religions. Anti-Muslim government action violates that clear command.
Even proposed legislation targeting a particular religion can undercut our fundamental religious freedom by perpetuating harmful stereotypes and misinformation about Islam and Muslims. We have seen government initiatives that manufacture an imaginary threat of Sharia as a way of sowing anti-Muslim fear in the past. Unfortunately, today, we are seeing a resurgence nationally and particularly in my home state of Texas of such efforts. Efforts like these misunderstand Islam and Sharia, which means the path to water, and refers to the religious principles that guide Muslims in their beliefs and actions. This broad denigration of Sharia directly impacts approx 1 percent of the US population.
Particularly at a time of rising political violence, targeting groups based on perceived differences threatens to exacerbate tensions and contribute to a culture of fear, discrimination, and violence. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding published its annual National Islamophobia Index in 2025. It found a sharp increase in the degree of endorsement of anti-Muslim stereotypes compared to previous years. It also found that Muslims are the religious group most likely to report experiencing religious discrimination, and the only religious subgroup in which a majority reported such discrimination. This includes social discrimination among peers, as well as structural discrimination such as employment, immigration proceedings, and health care.
Almost half of Muslim families with children in K through 12 schools reported their child was bullied for their religious identity, twice as much as the general public. Roughly half said the bullying came from another student, and half said from an adult, either a teacher or a classmate's parent. When the government itself targets religious groups with broad generalizations and baseless accusations, it only adds to the culture of discrimination that already harms Muslim families and children. It models bullying rather than respect. What's more, this targeting does not just harm Muslims.
When any person's religious freedom is threatened or diminished, it weakens everyone's religious freedom. Rather than fearmongering and distorting religion for perceived political gain, our country's leaders should be actively working to make the constitutional promise of full belonging without regard to religion a reality for all. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you, Miss Tyler. You just nailed it right in five minutes. So you didn't even get to take the extra time that I was trying to offer you, but I appreciate it. I will now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina for five minutes of questions.
Speaker 9
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you for calling this important hearing to discuss the threat of political Islam. We're blessed to live in a country. Excuse me. We're blessed to live in a country that has the fundamental liberty of religious freedom. And religious freedom allows individuals to hold and express their beliefs without undue government interference.
It does ensure that people can choose their faith or no faith, and practice it openly. And it's important to protect our individual liberties from extremism that seeks to erode our values as a country. One example of the extremism we wanna protect our country from occurred in just 2025, when parents in Washington state allegedly attempted an honor killing of their teenage daughter for refusing an arranged marriage. This appalling level of extremism is incompatible with our way of life, and must not be allowed to take root in our country. Missus Muckelberg, in your experience investigating instances of political Islam in the United States, how prevalent would you say it's become across the country?
Speaker 6
When I in my testimony, I talked about there being 8,000 organizations across The United States. They're working in lockstep. It is extremely prevalent and growing massively.
Speaker 9
So, in your view, does political Islam pose a threat to the fundamental values of American democracy?
Speaker 9
Well, mister Blair, I want to come to you for just a moment. During the four years of open border policies under the Biden administration, people from all around the world came into our country, frankly, without any vetting. So we've seen that. The failure to secure our border provided those who seek to commit violent acts against the United States with a perfect opportunity to enter our nation undetected. And, mister Blair, how did the Biden administration's open border policies impact the spread of political Islam in the United States?
Speaker 5
We were mandated, sir, we were mandated to look the other way under prosecutorial discretion. We released known terrorists where we didn't know it until after the fact. But we had multiple people from all across the world coming into The United States with falsified documents, specifically from Iran who'd come in with Venezuelan documents, under the guise that we would not be able to identify them, which was the case. And that's why, later on, representative Gonzalez was able to, through a FOIA, find out how many on the non-disclosed docket of the criminal illegal aliens that we released, there were. And I think there's a little over 600,000 of them that Border Patrol and ICE released during that time period.
Speaker 9
And would you say there are security threats that grew during that period that we're still dealing with even today?
Speaker 5
100%, sir. I mean, a lot of the information that was given to us as board patrol agents when we were on the ground was misinformation. And we had no, we didn't have that time, even to this day, be able to vet the information, whether that's gonna be the sponsor, whether that's gonna be the country of origin, even their age, even their, or their family status. We couldn't really vet any of that. And so now when ICE is trying to conduct operations or target operations, they have that bad information where they're going out, city to city, trying to find those that seek harm to our communities.
Speaker 9
Thank you, sir. I wanna come back to miss Meckelberg for just a moment. During this subcommittee's last hearing on this topic, I discussed how the FBI had successfully thwarted an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in North Carolina. In that story, you may recall it was a national story. Christian Sturtevant, 18-year-old, sought to become a martyr for ISIS by planning to carry out a deadly attack on New Year's Eve in Mid Hill, North Carolina, which is right in my district.
Following that incident in North Carolina, I wanna ask you, do you believe there's been an increase in ISIS using social media chat rooms and other features to radicalize Americans?
Speaker 6
Yes. And it's something that we actually saw. I spent ten years really hyper focused on working in Europe, and it was probably one of the biggest threats, the way that ISIS and many different other Islamic jihadist groups are using social media, are disseminating very terrifying videos and imams and their organizations, they're pushing nonstop videos and nonstop recruitment efforts. Yes.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Mister Hunter Lopez, let me come to you real quickly in the last few seconds I have. Thank you, first of all, for coming and testifying today. Since that incident occurred, and the school district officials took full responsibility for the situation, have you seen a change in how the school has approached student clubs on campus?
Speaker 7
Yes. So I've actually, you know, I have a lot of relationships with a lot of teacher sponsors for different groups, and they said that they're trying to say that they're putting these new policies on paper. But in terms of the way that certain people are still being treated, there are still conservative students, including myself, that are still being treated unfairly according to the standard they're holding for other people.
Speaker 9
Well, I applaud you for speaking out about this and coming to testify today. Mister chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank the gentleman from North Carolina, and I recognize the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin.
Speaker 4
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. But my colleague just spoke of, apparently, a Muslim family where there was an effort to kill their own daughter in a so-called honor killing, if I understand it correctly. Murder is against the law in America, whether the parents are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, or anything else. Would we, mister Blair, need a special law to deal with a situation like that, or does the universal secular law against murder take care of that?
Speaker 4
Good. Okay. So, I'm looking at an article about a Christian group, an extremist Christian group that calls themselves the Army of God that's taken credit for bombing abortion clinics and lesbian night bars. Do we need a special law against Christian extremism or Christian violence, or do we just hold them to the general secular law against blowing up health clinics and bars?
Speaker 4
Right. So can you think of any situation where the secular law alone would not handle anybody's legitimate fears that they have of a fundamentalist Christian group, Muslim group, or any other religious group? Unless it's an idea,
Speaker 5
Based off the ideology of either the district attorney or the judge themselves, whether they adjudicate or not. That's gonna be the difference whether that process itself allows for the adjudication of that crime. As I said in my testimony, a crime is still a crime regardless of the religion.
Speaker 4
Great. And, I, you know, stated at the level which you wrote it, I agree with a lot of what you said. You just basically said we've got to hold everybody to the secular law. Is there anybody on the panel who thinks that we need a special law addressing any particular religious population, whether it's the Muslim, the Christian, the Jewish, the Hindu, the Mormon, or what have you? Or are we just saying that everybody should be held to the secular law in America?
And then I'm happy to open it up to anybody. Mister Hunter Lopez?
Speaker 7
Thank you, congressman, for the question. I think that you keep referring to a secular law. I think it's important to point out. I believe it was 56 of the 57 declaration of independent sinners were bible believing, faith, church attending Christians. I believe it was the first original 13 colonies that required a declaration of faith.
So I'm not acknowledging that.
Speaker 4
Oh, well, wait a second. Now you’re traversing my territory now, mister Hunter Lopez. You brought it up. Are you aware that the Constitution of the United States does not establish a religion? It forbids establishing a religion.
Are you aware that it doesn't mention God?
Speaker 7
So, the Declaration of Independence mentions God four times. But what I was gonna say is.
Speaker 7
So, the declaration of independence was declaring our independence from the tyranny of India. But what else functions to governing them? I'm not, you know, suggesting that we need to go back to taking tests or saying that you have to acknowledge.
Speaker 4
By the way, did you know that Thomas Jefferson was denounced as an infidel who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Because he didn't believe in the establishment of religion, he and Madison were emphatic about separating church and state. That's the whole glory of our constitutional design in our history, that they rebelled against centuries of religious warfare between the Catholics and the Protestants and witchcraft trials, inquisition, holy crusades. America proclaimed the separation of church and state. What Thomas Jefferson described in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist as a wall of separation.
That was a letter, not a law. Okay. So your position is that America is a theocracy?
Speaker 7
What if you didn't let me finish my original statement, and I understand you have limited time. But what I was gonna say is I'm not suggesting me to go back to anything that's in writing, but what I am saying is we need to acknowledge.
Speaker 4
Well, I think we should go back to something in writing. I think we should go back to the first Amendment.
Speaker 7
Oh, yes. The constitution. Yes. Obviously. But what I'm saying is that, you know, how I said original colonies were requiring declaration of faith to run for office.
I'm not saying we.
Speaker 7
What I'm saying is that we do. That's precisely why you converse it really. We do need to acknowledge our Christian heritage in America. That's what I'm.
Speaker 4
You can acknowledge whatever heritage you want, but you can't impose an establishment of religion on other people.
Speaker 7
That's the case. Suggesting that at all. I'm just saying you need to acknowledge our heritage. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4
Well, everybody can acknowledge their own heritage. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 4
Oh, you don't think that you're allowed to acknowledge your Christian heritage or your Jewish heritage or your Muslim heritage?
Speaker 7
I'm saying you, members of Congress, seem to acknowledge American heritage.
Speaker 4
Yes. Indeed. And you know how we do that? By abiding by the constitution of The United States, which is why that's exactly where I began. Miss Tyler, what do you think about this whole anti Sharia law thing?
Do we need a special law banning Sharia law?
Speaker 8
No. Because we have the First Amendment to the US Constitution that prohibits the establishment of any religion, including Islam.
Speaker 1
I thank the ranking member, and I appreciate that spirited exchange. And I will now recognize the gentle lady from Wyoming, my good friend, Miss Hackman.
Speaker 10
Thank you. In our previous hearing on this topic, I focused on how Sharia-based tribunals will jeopardize America's rights to equal protection and due process under the law, particularly in cases involving women and minors. We learned that the presence of Sharia-based tribunals in the United States dates back decades, and that it is common practice for these tribunals to stray from traditional judicial proceedings, meaning that participants risk losing protections guaranteed under the constitution, as was just being debated. One example of such a tribunal operating near Dallas before altering its website actually prided itself on being a unique institution of its kind in the United States, with the intention of setting a precedent that would be emulated and duplicated throughout the country. That same tribunal further claimed that, quote, conflicting problems within American Muslim society may range from personal and family matters such as marriage and divorce, as well as disputes among community members and those in positions of leadership.
The courts of the United States of America are costly and consist of ineffective lawyers, end quote. To be clear, conformity to the constitution is the governing factor behind the operation of our judicial system. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and 14th amendments are there to ensure that everyone has a right to a fair trial. While the first amendment is intended to ensure that every American citizen can practice the religion of their choosing, it does not permit any parallel tribunal or body to supersede the role of our judiciary in the protection of those constitutional rights. Miss Meckelberg, Sharia-based tribunals often label themselves as offering voluntary services.
But is it not true that individuals have been coerced into using these bodies because of social, familiar, and other community pressures?
Speaker 6
Yes. I was actually saying earlier that right now in communities all across Texas, all across different places throughout The United States, from birth to death, they now have full operational societies that somebody could actually be born in America and never have to operate outside of and deal with any kind of non-Muslim. So within these societies, they have their courts. And if you notice, most of the imams that are the heads coming from outside the country are sharia judges. And these sharia judges hand down these different, they use many different names.
They will say that they're an imam, they're a sharia, you know, expert, a sharia jurist, etcetera. But if you go and look, these are the people who are acting as the judges within these communities. And there's an entire organization around this. If you look up the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America, they're issuing fatwas. We have fiqh council people who are also, again, that's a sharia judge.
These are people who are putting out fatwas that you can kill apostates, blasphemers. This is happening inside America. And, again.
Speaker 10
Clearly a violation of the constitution and the rights of the individuals who are involved in those tribunals. Correct?
Speaker 10
All right. And another characteristic of American courts is generally the presence of robust oversight. We have the court records. Decisions are easily accessible. Attorneys are present, and the transcripts of proceedings are properly done so that we know what happens in our court system.
Would you please explain how this oversight compares to the operation of a Sharia-based tribunal?
Speaker 6
This is handled inside the community, so you'll never know of any of these things. And that's the problem that I always have with we say when I say we're failing children and we're failing minorities and women, and things are happening in these communities that nobody ever knows of. And there is no voice for the little girl who's being born in this community. She doesn't even know what her rights are in this country that she's born into. So, again, she is answering her family.
She is answering to her imam, and she is answering to a person who is the expert in sharia within her community.
Speaker 10
But at the same time, she's not able to fully exercise the constitutional rights that she has been bestowed on her. Absolutely not. So I, in terms of other judgments or rulings catalog, are they consistent from one Imam to another one or one Sharia-based judiciary to another one?
Speaker 6
And I think that's why when you look up the assembly, this one body, they are a lot of they're handing out the different, legal, it's the legal arm within the community. But, again, are there different variations that different people follow at times? But that's why they have, and again, if you look up the Fiq council where Yasser Khadi is the head of, or you look up a place like Amjah where they're pushing out these different fatwas that all the mosques are following, it does act as the governing body, the legal body. I'm sorry.
Speaker 10
Just very quickly. In light of the disaster of the open border Biden administration, have you seen an increase in the attempt to enforce or impose Sharia law in the United States?
Speaker 6
Absolutely. Because within these communities, they are also absorbing the refugees coming in. That's what they're hoping for, to increase the number.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming. I'll now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee. Mr. Cohen.
Speaker 11
Thank you. I am the gentleman from Memphis. Tennessee has divorced me from their state, and I accept the divorce. I represent Memphis. Redistricting, which we've had in this country, and I was recently redistricted, is a bigger threat to our country than anything we're talking about here.
Sharia law is not good. I'm not for it. But I think that Sharia law is where people have decided they want to be in the courts, and they agree to the jurisdiction. They're not going out on the streets and bringing people in. In the legislatures in this in the South, because of Donald Trump's fear of oversight in the next congress, fear that his extreme trampling of the constitution, selling of pardons, a malicious clause violations, Crypto schemes will be exposed.
He has asked governors in Texas. You mentioned Governor Rabbit, Mister Lopez. He asked Governor Rabbit to find him five congressional districts, just like he asked Mister Roffinsberger in Georgia to find him 11,000 votes. And Mister Roffinsberger heroically said no. Mister Abbit said, yes, sir.
I'll find him for you. That started off this round of mid decade redistricting to try to create a republican house that they couldn't get by the districts that have been made by the 2020 census in 2022 and oftentimes by Republican legislatures. It was a Republican legislature that created my district that they then struck down because Calais gave them the right to do what they wanted to do, and that's eliminate African American majority-minority districts and turn out people, African Americans and myself. I represent an African-American district. And after twenty years and never lost a precinct in a primary where the African American vote is 80%.
That's something wonderful in America that shows that African Americans have voted for 20 years based on your ability to represent and your votes and your policies, not on your race. And yet the Republicans turned it around to say, this discriminated against white people because we created a majority-minority district, which was created because we had slavery in this country for over 250 years or so where blacks were property. And then after reconstruction, a little bit of goodness and fairness, we got into the Jim Crow South. And how many bubbles are on this bar of soap? And how many peas are in this jar?
And they stopped black people from having the right to vote, and they eliminated black representation. Once they got it through the Voting Rights Act, it is one of the most important legislative acts of the twentieth century, in my opinion, where Martin Luther King and John Lewis fought hard in Selma, Alabama, and other places and worked with President Johnson in the Democratic Congress and a Republican Congress. Edward Dirksen was a big part of that. It was a bipartisan bill in 1965 to do redress and to give African Americans opportunities to make up for some of the awful occurrences we'd had in this country with Jim Crow and slavery. People died.
Schwerner, Cheney, and Goodman died in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Shot by racist law enforcement officials because they went to Mississippi to dare to register people to vote on the Freedom Summer. Medgar Evers, the head of the NAACP in Jackson, Mississippi, was assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi. A lady named Viola Luso went down to Selma to participate in the march, and she was shot and killed by racist guys in Alabama. All of those deaths and efforts and work put asunder by the Supreme Court in their Calais decision and put asunder by Republican state legislatures in Louisiana, in Alabama, and in Tennessee, and they'll do it in other states to boot.
John Roberts said the Supreme Court is not political. And then Alabama couldn't redistrict because it was an injunction for them changing their districts put in by the Supreme Court until 2030. Alabama asked him to lift that injunction. They did it in a second, and Alabama is gonna have one less African-American seat. Don't tell me, John Roberts, that the Supreme Court of the United States is not political.
It is an arm of the Trump White House. They took this case up when they did because Virginia had given delegates to the Democrats, and they needed to act. The political arm of the White House that's in the Supreme Court. Those are the type of hearings we ought to have. We ought to have hearings on the changes in our laws that don't allow people to be represented in the Congress and changing the rights and the opportunities for African Americans to be equal citizens of this country, and it's being turned back.
Sharia law, yeah, let's take a not a good thing, but nothing like what's going on in the legislatures and the White House. America is being destroyed from within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman from Memphis for his comments. I would now recognize a Republican from one of the New England states, but we don't have any. So I'll recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Hunter.
Speaker 12
Thank you, mister chairman, for holding this very important hearing. Miss Tyler, you represent the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Speaker 3
I'm not here. I don't, I'm not here to. Okay. How about the theological position.
Speaker 12
I mean, these are the groups you're here to support. The Democrats brought you here.
Speaker 12
How about the Dibanis? Is a southern Islamist seq. They're in Texas too.
Speaker 12
How about the Salafis? Let me know if you know any of this. The Khomeinist, the Turkish Islamist, all represented in various mosques and Islamic centers in Texas. Do any of them value religious liberty?
Speaker 12
Okay. Do you believe religious liberty is valued and upheld in the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Speaker 8
I think that that's a theocracy. And so, therefore, it is not the constitutional democracy that we have. Yeah. That is built on the foundation of religion.
Speaker 12
Sudan. Support religion. Sudan. Okay. Okay.
Why exactly would we want to import mass numbers of people committed to an ideology? And I'm not talking about Islam at large because many Muslims, I think most Muslims probably do value, would like to live in a modern, secular or democratic republic. But we're talking about radical Islamists. So we're talking about these radical Islamists establishing beachheads in our country. Why do you defend that, Miss Tyler?
Speaker 8
Well, I think what I'm concerned about, of course, we have criminal laws and antiterrorism laws.
Speaker 12
That's good. Detectives. Wait. Okay. Yeah.
Should we enforce our criminal laws or anti-terror, okay. So we should not tolerate sexual enslavement in The United States Of America. Right?
Speaker 12
Good. How about honor killings for a young woman who dishonors her family in some way? That should be against the law in The United.
Speaker 8
States earlier, murder is illegal no matter the justification. Justification.
Speaker 12
So we have imams in many of these centers we're talking about right now who advocate for those various things in our law in our country. Why are we should we tolerate this in the name of religious freedom?
Speaker 8
We tolerate freedom of religion in this country so we can believe whatever we want, and we can act on those beliefs without necessary government interference. And in this case, there is a compelling government interest against murder.
Speaker 8
You're not allowed to act on those beliefs because it would be against the criminal law.
Speaker 12
Thank you. Miss Meckelberg, I believe that tolerating these beachheads of radical Islam in our country is literally civilizational suicide. And I think we've seen Islamist terrorist attacks in this country already. And we're seeing in many cases, a lack of assimilation, not, you know, not by generally people who immigrate on their own, you know, work as a computer engineer or in agriculture, what have you. But rather when they join these very closed groups that are committed to imposing Sharia law, you know, tolerating that seems to be a utter insanity.
And especially if we see what's going on in Europe right now, if we see look at what's going on in Germany and in London and in France. Tell me where I'm wrong.
Speaker 6
So as you said, the beachheads, that is what Erdogan says from Turkey, that the mosque is the beachhead. When you hear Kerr speak about the mosque, they speak about that being their infrastructure where all things are launched from. They are having these closed societies. The goal is, and that's why you'll see with most mosque expansion projects happening in Texas, they are expanding, and they are making these enclaves where all things emanate from the mosque. And if you see and you look in Germany, as you were just talking about, Erdogan had sent hundreds of imams to head up the mosques that were from the Turkish government, that a lot of them were then found out to be spies.
And we're seeing in this country, whether it's Saudi Arabia or whether it's Iran, they're all sending their proxies here. And then they're coming, and they're having the closed societies, and they are the beachheads, as you said.
Speaker 1
I thank you, gentlemen from Missouri. I now recognize the gentle lady from Washington.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a lot of respect for the chairman of this committee. We work together on a lot of issues, but it is bizarre to me to listen to this hearing. Honestly, now we've suddenly made all mosques the beachhead of terrorism across the country. This is a very important religion around the world, and certainly here in the United States.
Islam is a very important religion. And I go to Mr. Cohen's comments about why we're holding this hearing again. This is a redo, by the way. We've done this before. We're doing it again at a time when we have so many pressing issues that we should be addressing in the constitution subcommittee.
We have the issue of voting rights, the gutting of voting rights by the Supreme Court, the dilution of the black vote in the United States, which should be at the top of our list to talk about. We have the unconstitutional war in Iran that has now cost at least $29,000,000,000 of taxpayer money, that we have not had a single hearing on. There's lots of things that we could be talking about. But, see, the problem is if we were to talk about any of those things, you would actually have to acknowledge how incredibly unpopular Republican policies have been in driving up the price of gas in this country. In my home state, it's almost six bucks for a gallon of regular, almost $7 for a gallon of diesel.
You'd have to address the rising cost of fertilizer, of groceries, the fact that Republicans stripped health care away from millions of Americans. People cannot afford health care in the United States of America, the richest country in the world. We have 90,000,000 Americans who are either uninsured, have no insurance at all, or underinsured. Meaning, they have some form of insurance, but it's not enough to pay their medical bills. And that is why we have $220,000,000,000 of medical debt in the United States of America.
$220,000,000,000. But we're not talking about any of the policies, the unconstitutionality of all of the things that this administration has done that have really ripped apart the foundations of who we are as a country. Instead, we're gonna have a conversation about Sharia law. And, you know, I've seen in my home state of Washington, but across the country, the rise in anti-Muslim bigotry that has been happening in the aftermath of October seventh attacks and then in the aftermath of nine eleven. And in my home state of Washington now, Muslim Americans report experiencing hate crimes, threats of violence, hateful rhetoric that increases those threats of violence, discriminatory policies in the workplace, unsafe interactions with law enforcement.
And this hearing is unfortunately just part of a much larger anti-Muslim, anti-Islam strategy that Republicans have been trying to drive. So, Miss Tyler, I wanna start by correcting the record. Has there ever been a piece of legislation introduced in America to adopt Sharia law? No. Does Sharia law require Muslims living in the United States to violate American law?
No. And are there any state or federal courts that follow Sharia law instead of American law? No. Have you seen any poll in this country, to your knowledge, that puts Sharia law at the top of the concerns of Americans today?
Speaker 13
Me neither. Me neither. Nowhere does it show up as a top concern. So, yet, the policies that are being proposed include the establishment of a Sharia-free America caucus and the introduction of a bill that would deny immigration status to anyone who, quote, adheres to Sharia law. Now these policies are based on a myth that Sharia is infiltrating our American legal system and endangering the way of life as envisioned by our founding fathers.
So could you please clarify for everyone watching this hearing? What is Sharia law, and is it any different than what biblical law teaches Christians about how to observe their faith?
Speaker 8
So Sharia is translated or understood to mean the path to water, and it refers to the religious principles that guide Muslims in their beliefs and actions. So it's a set of rules on how to pray, dress, fast, and other dietary restrictions. And in that way, it's very similar to other kinds of religious laws that Christians or Jews or members of other faith communities follow, to guide them in how they practice their religion. In many religions,
Speaker 13
There are extreme and violent sects that don't represent the vast majority of observance of the faith. You've done some work documenting the rise of extreme white Christian nationalism and its influence in deadly shootings in Charleston, Pittsburgh, and San Diego. But I don't see any of my colleagues on the other side creating a caucus to attack Christianity or introducing a bill that would ban Christians from entering the country. Instead, they want the 10 Commandments to be posted in every public school. And we have Trump administration officials like Secretary Hickseth openly declaring that, quote, America was founded as a Christian nation and remains a Christian nation in our DNA.
What does that tell us about what's really going on?
Speaker 8
Well, I see, all of these actions that we're talking about today as singling out one religion for special scrutiny, and to denigrate. A lot of the stereotypes that have been repeated here today take the actions of a few and extrapolate that that's what somehow all Muslims believe. When we would never, Christians, say that, for instance, like the killer at Mother Emanuel AME Church who claimed that he was there because of his religious beliefs, we wouldn't say that that would extrapolate to all Christians. And so it is, a double standard and a very harmful one that causes violence and discrimination against our Muslim neighbors.
Speaker 13
And undermines the principle of religious liberty. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. Yield back.
Speaker 1
No. I thank the gentleman from Washington. I'll now recognize my friend and colleague from the great state of Texas, Mr. Go.
Speaker 14
Thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to come here. Mister Hunter Lopez, I'd like to better understand your story. I think it's important, and thanks for being here and being bold, boldly telling us about what happened. Can you tell us what are the requirements to create a student club at your school?
Speaker 7
The requirements are to have 10 members, a teacher that's willing to sponsor, and a room to meet.
Speaker 7
No. We were actually notified that we were denied due to political nature, even though other ideological groups, including groups promoting gender-affirming ideology, were approved.
Speaker 14
Why do you think the school had such a sort of obvious double standard?
Speaker 7
I'm not sure if it's the educational establishment. It could be any of those. It could be the principals who have been in the system for a while. They just don't want conservative values. I think it's a trend we've seen with, you know, how Charlie Kirk was on campuses.
On high school campuses, I think that they think conservative values are a threat because they're true.
Speaker 14
And how is the school administration either encouraged or supported World Hijab Day?
Speaker 7
Our principal actually wore the hijab two years in a row that we know of. It could be more. She's posted it to promote on social media saying she, quote, loved it, all caps. And they're just promoting these events like nothing. But our club, on the other hand, has to receive strict know. First of all, we weren't approved in the first place.
And then once we were, we were the only club that couldn't have other privileges that other groups had, and they took down our posters. And so there's just a lot of things, this double standard clearly to favor the Islamic group.
Speaker 14
Is it true that your school, your school's libraries offer Islamic literature like the Quran and other things?
Speaker 7
Yes. So, McMillan Junior High in Wiley ISD offers a Quran but no Bible available.
Speaker 14
But no Bible. So there's a Quran, but the Bible's not allowed? Correct.
Speaker 7
From what I know, confirmed, it's McMillan Junior High is one that I know of. I can look at the other libraries and submit them to you if I find any other findings.
Speaker 14
Okay. Have you talked to the school about why they would allow a Quran but not a bible?
Speaker 7
So I don't, I haven't, the principals actually run away from me and hide, so I can't have a discussion with my principals, because I act like an adult and they act like children.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, you very much are acting like an adult. They probably don't want to be on the record, with that policy given how egregious.
Speaker 3
To the school and speak about club interests, whatever they are, are they subject to security screenings?
Speaker 7
So when our club has guest speakers, including a state representative or a congressman, we have to submit two weeks in advance paperwork. We have to submit a week in advance background check. We have to submit their staff if they are coming. All these lengthy processes. I often have to miss my lunch period and skip lunch, skip a meal to fill these out.
But on the other hand, the Islamic group got favorable treatment.
Speaker 14
Okay. Yeah. What were the security protocols that were in place for the Islamic group?
Speaker 14
to go through a lengthy background process, but this Islamic group didn't happen?
Speaker 7
Correct. Obviously, they didn't background check, you know, the organization because it has multiple terror links, and they didn't, I guess, check the Sharia pamphlets that they gave us or the Qurans with the Shahada card. They hadn't, they didn't, they were perfectly fine with it because the principal was there that day, just looking at it perfectly fine.
Speaker 14
What has been the response from the school since you've been public and vocal about this double standard?
Speaker 7
Like I said in my opening testimony, when my mom had requested the principal to email my teachers, because I had to miss school for the first day after that and had to go late the second day because of death threats and things like that. And my mom had asked the principal to email my teachers just to keep an extra eye on me, and the principal told my mom, you can. So it's really that speaks volumes to the approach of leadership that the school has and the school district has, because I guess they just wanted to dismiss my safety in that moment.
Speaker 7
About that? I had people saying that they're gonna be at my house waiting for me to get home, they were gonna shoot me. I had people telling me to kill myself, a lot of different things. But I know nobody can proclaim anything over me because I wake up every morning with victory in Christ.
Speaker 14
Amen. That's exactly right. What is the school's response been to these death threats?
Speaker 7
Like I said, that first day, it was very dismissive. Terms I actually received a death threat last year, and I believe I have emails, and I could submit them to the record of the principal saying, oh, things are already taken care of. Very, I would say, downgrading it or just minimizing, specific, I could submit those emails to the record.
Speaker 14
Be clear. You had a threat against your life, somebody saying that they were going to come.
Speaker 3
Got it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is the end of my time. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1
I thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas. I will now recognize the gentleman from California.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, of all the things to hold a hearing on today, why this? A Sharia-free America. Oh, that's right. It is election season, which means Republicans turn up the fearmongering to level 10, and easy targets are members of our Muslim community.
And this hearing allows my Republican colleagues to legitimize their religious bigotry. But today, I am not participating in this charade. I have hosted numerous town halls. I am talking to my constituents every single day, and no one has brought up Sharia law. It is not a pressing issue, but it is a manufactured crisis.
Because you know what they are talking about? They're talking about the crisis of this Republican Congress. The constitution says that we have oversight jurisdiction over the administration, that we have the authority to authorize war, and that we have the power of the purse. And none of that is happening right now. The Trump administration has launched a war of choice with Iran, and Americans are paying the price.
The president said that he's not thinking about the pocketbooks of the Americans. He said no. Not at all. So millions of people are worried about how they're going to eat this week. More than 100000000 Americans carry medical or credit card debt.
Job openings have fallen to their lowest levels since 2020, and all of this has happened under Republicans' watch. Working families wanna know how they are going to survive this economy, and what Congress is doing to help. And the Republicans' response is to hold this up to hearing. There are real oversight issues that this committee could be addressing right now that deal with the constitution, like the $1,000,000,000 ballroom that Trump wants the taxpayers to pay. Oh, and by the way, he wants to get a cut from the contractor.
The Epstein files continue to cover them up, no accountability for survivors. The treatment of pregnant women in federal custody, attacks on our voting rights and civil liberties, rising hate crimes and extremist violence, and criminal justice reform. Instead, Republicans are peddling anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and complaining about world religion studies. So let's get into it. The constitution does not require Americans to abandon their religion to participate in society.
It protects the free exercise of religion. Government does not get to decide which faiths are acceptable and which communities deserve suspicion. For many Muslims, Sharia simply refers to personal religious guidance about prayer, fasting, charity, or family life. Not some attempt to replace the United States Constitution, and suggesting otherwise unfairly paints millions of Americans with a broad and dangerous brush. So the religions that I know about are Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, and all are premised on peace.
And real talk, any religion can get radicalized. And Christianity is being radicalized and weaponized right now, so we could talk about that. The Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh. Dylan Roof massacring black parishioners in South Carolina. The murder of Minnesota Rep. Hortman and her husband.
The massacre of Sikh temple members in Wisconsin. The radically charged plot to attack the Baltimore power grid. All violent crimes are committed by radicalized white evangelical extremists. So you talk about American values, and Miss Meckelberg referenced that women are less than half a man, that, well, you know, we're denying women health care. You talked about failing our children.
Well, we're doing that here, cutting SNAP benefits, cutting access to education. You talked about marrying pedophiles. Well, we're covering up the Epstein files. Islam's not doing that. The American government is doing that.
And you know what? I'm not safe on the streets either, and it has nothing to do with being Muslim, which I'm not. It's about being black. You talk about Saudi Arabia? Well, let's talk about Jared Kushner getting $2,000,000,000 from Saudi Arabia.
No one seems to be concerned about that. So if we're gonna get into it, let's get into it. But the American people deserve committees that hold hearings grounded in facts, and not bigotry. And there has been zero evidence that Muslim Americans are attempting to impose religious law on the United States. Last I checked, people are just trying to figure out if they have enough money for gas and to buy a dozen eggs.
And with that, I have some UCs that I want to enter into the record, mister chair.
Speaker 15
Thank you, sir. From the scientific study of religion, Christian nationalism, and violence against religious minorities in the United States. A quantitative analysis. From PRRI from May 26, no quarter. American evangelicals and political violence.
Speaker 15
From the Center for American Progress 2020, how white supremacy returned to mainstream politics.
Speaker 15
And lastly, from the conversation, August 2025, active clubs are white supremacy's new dangerous frontier.
Speaker 1
I also have an AMS consent request. I'd like to insert a statement for the record from our colleague, Keith Self, my colleague from Texas, titled शरीर for America, why political Islamic real are incompatible with The United States constitution part two. Without objection, General Lady from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2
Yes. I'm sorry. I have a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a statement from representatives Carson, Omar, Talib, and Simon, all of whom are Muslim American members of Congress.
Speaker 2
I also have a unanimous consent request to enter into the record statements from the following organizations voicing strong opposition to today's hearing. A coalition letter signed by 35 organizations that work to protect and advance religious freedom and civil rights, CARE, the US Council of Muslim Organizations, and the Interfaith Alliance.
Speaker 4
Free of me. This is by Jessica Waters. It was in MS Now, and it's about the violent threats that she received after testifying before this committee and the questioning of mister Gil. 05/08/2026.
Speaker 1
Without objection. I'll now recognize the other gentleman from Texas, my good friend, Mr. Hunt.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Lopez, you're a six-year-old sophomore at Wiley High School. Did you ever imagine that your high school in Texas, of all places out of the great state of Texas, of course, would become a breeding ground for pro Sri material and Islamic conversation.
Speaker 7
I would never imagine that we would have a hearing questioning the, you know, legitimacy of terror links organizations going to schools. I would never believe we would have this, but that's America we live in, and it's a sad situation.
Speaker 16
Do you think there's an incongruency in the way you are treated as a Christian in your school and the juxtaposition of that with the way that your school is welcoming Sharia law and Islamic doctrine?
Speaker 16
It's a shame that we are here today, and I'm sorry that we have failed you, but this is why we have this caucus, because we're gonna make sure that we get this right and everybody is treated fairly regardless of your race, religion, or creed. To some people in this room, what I'm about to say may sound a bit controversial, but it's not controversial, because it's true. America is a Christian nation. We're founded on Christian values. Our founders believe that our rights did not come from the government, but they came from God.
Those ideals shaped our institutions, our culture, our laws, and the very moral foundation and fabric of what I know is the greatest country in the world. Now America is also a country that welcomes people from all backgrounds, of every culture and faith. That's actually what is part of our greatness. And as somebody like me that fought in combat to ensure that anyone could come to this nation and believe what they want to believe and believe in the First and Second Amendment rights, I welcome that more than you could ever believe, because I laid my life down on the line to ensure that that would happen. But let's be clear about something.
Assimilation to American values and ideas matters. When we begin importing belief systems and cultural values that are fundamentally incompatible with the principles that build this nation, we should not be surprised when the social fabric begins to fray. Let me be clear. This is not hateful. This is not racist.
This is not xenophobic. And I can show I'm not racist. I've been black for, like, my whole life for, like, 44 years. I see the Sharia law has no place to use to usurp our constitution in these United States of America, and especially in our schools, and especially in our public institutions. America's legal system is rooted in the Constitution and equal justice under the law, not religious extremism or parallel legal systems.
We have learned from many of our colleagues on the left that this tends to be how they tack in the general direction. 10 commandments, not allowed, bad. Islamic pamphlets, good. 10 commandments, bad. Free Korans in schools, good.
10 commandments, bad. Understanding Sharia Law. Brochures, good. This is the hypocrisy that we Christian Americans are quite sick of. The same people who mock or marginalize America's founding values suddenly become deeply tolerant when the ideology in question is directed against Western traditions and institutions.
Meanwhile, sharia law is normalized and distributed to children in school, while expressions of traditional faith are treated like a threat. Here's how things should work. Math? Yeah. Free Korans?
No. History? Yeah. Three brochures? No.
Science? Yeah. Shahada cards? No. This is a very simple idea that should be understood by all Americans.
One of my best friends is a Muslim American, and he is a fight in Texas A&M. But he actually sees himself as an American first, and has fully embraced our culture and what it means to be an American. That's good. That's what we want. That's why we call this place a melting pot.
I'm seeing a lot of talk from my colleagues on the left too, as we shift toward this reinvigorated talk about Jim Crow and the path of this country. And as someone who is a direct descendant of a slave, as someone whose great-great-grandfather was born on a plantation, I can assure you slavery is over. Jim Crow is dead. When I go anywhere, I don't see any white-only signs. I don't.
I promise you. I am a black man that represent a white majority district in Texas. The great grandson of a man born on a plantation stands before you today as a proud conservative Republican from Texas, as a believer and follower in Christ, and as a believer in what this country can be if we allow equality for not just Muslim Americans,
Speaker 16
Just Buddhist Americans, but also Christian Americans like yourself. God bless you, young man. You give me a lot of hope for the future of this country. Thank you for having the courage that you're up for the remainder of my time.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hunt. I'll now recognize the ranking member, Miss Scanlon.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I'd like to return to perhaps the purpose of a hearing, which is to establish facts rather than fiction. With that, I'd like to have unanimous consent to introduce a CBS article from 02/17/26. Wiley ISD, school district investigates how the white Islam group set up on campus without approval.
Speaker 2
I mean, as that story and others show, the school district did in fact investigate why an outside group came in and set up. And in fact, staff members were disciplined for not following the school procedures. So let's just pull back a little bit here and try to reground this hearing in some facts, because I think it's been pretty well established by now. There's no credible evidence that anyone in Texas or in the US generally is trying to impose Sharia law on Americans. I mean, this whole hearing is so offensive.
I have a lot of Muslim constituents who are wonderful constituents and participate fully in our community. And, you know, I'm very proud that they're my constituents. And to hear folks being vilified in this way, trying to have this anti-Muslim rhetoric, trying to tar every member of a faith with the worst actions of a few is pretty outrageous, and especially when some of those actions are complete fiction. Look. It is a real change for the Republican Party in this country.
You know, Miss Tyler, in the wake of nine eleven, we saw a spike in violence against American Muslims, and then President George W. Bush used the power of his office to defend Islam and American values. He said, and I quote, the face of terror is not the true face of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. And he reminded us that America counts millions of Muslims among our citizens, and they make incredibly valuable contributions to our community, to our country, and they need to be treated with respect.
And our Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten this example and are using the House of Representatives to platform religious bigotry so they can fearmonger in an election year when gas prices are spiking due to an illegal war sparked by an unpopular president from their party. But when the consequences of this demagoguery for American Muslims and all Americans are very real, you have to look no further than the Islamic Society of Orange County, which last month experienced a spike in threats after Miss Meckelberg published some tweets without foundation that they were trying to start a Sharia compound there. It was complete fiction, but it caused a spike in threats. Miss Tyler, can you explain how religious fear mongering endangers American Muslims in our communities and undermines the religious liberty of all Americans of all faiths?
Speaker 8
Yeah. These attempts to paint with a broad brush, to bring all members of the faith, again, to mark them with the actions of the dangerous and few, make everyone less safe and make everyone less free. I talked to my testimony about the real-world discrimination that Muslim Americans face because of their faith. But, also, when we think about the hate crimes that you've noted, political violence of all kinds is an urgent problem in this country. And as I hear about the threats that have been made to some of my fellow witnesses today, that should disturb us all.
And so the more that we feed into misinformation, stereotyping, that makes all of us less safe and less free as a society.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, you know, we've got plenty of examples. I think our colleague referred to some examples of Christian extremists who had gone out and committed violence. We've got examples of a Tennessee Baptist minister who was an advocate for corporal punishment and even the starvation of children.
Three kids died because of what he was preaching, but we don't condemn all Christianity as a result. As you pointed out previously, we have criminal justice and other American laws that deal with criminal behavior. Can you comment further on that?
Speaker 8
Yeah. Our criminal system takes care of the threats that it to the extent that there are real threats that have been put in the midst of everything else we've talked about here today, criminal law takes care of that. But the First Amendment to the US constitution assures that no religious law can supersede those laws, and that is protection enough. And that's why, you know, these scare tactics are really just that. It's not a real problem in this country.
Speaker 2
Well, and that's where, you know, certainly, I'm not one who goes about citing George W. Bush often, but the impact of words and leadership matters when people demonize other folks. Mister chair, I'd just like to have unanimous consent to introduce an LA Times article from 04/17/26. Islamic Society of Orange County under heightened security after online threats.
Speaker 1
I'll now recognize, I thank the gentleman for the question. I'll now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin for 5 minutes.
Speaker 17
Well, thank you. I'd like to thank you for having this hearing. Kinda timely. I happen to in my own few hours a week that I have free. I'm reading Elise Stefanik's book on antisemitism in the American University.
And, it's interesting to look at the number of people analyzing what happened on October 7 in this country. Seemed to be on the side of the people who were raping the little children and chopping off heads and stuff. It's shocking there were so many people like that in The United States, and I can certainly understand why a lot of Americans are very concerned that people like that were brought into the country. Again, not an isolated couple of people, but it seems to me whole groups of people took the October seventh attacks as a kinda almost as a call to arms. They seem to be in favor of this sort of thing, which is kind of shocking.
And I hope I wish more Americans would read those books, so they knew how people surrounding us think. But we'll start with Ms. Meck. I guess we call you that, Ms. Meck.
That's what they have here. For members of this committee who are not familiar with the Epic City project, can you walk us through what the development is and what the organizers have said publicly about it?
Speaker 6
If you don't mind, could I actually just respond to something that you just brought up about the October 7? So what I find interesting is on what I heard her just say about George Bush. George Bush after 9:11 stood with Nihat Awad, who is the head of care. After October 7, Nihat Owad celebrated it. Nihat Owad actually was celebrating, quote, breaking the siege.
So when I'm hearing somebody refer to George Bush as if he is an Islamic expert, he is not. And when I'm hearing you talk about October 7, we have people in the room from care right now. We have people who are from care who have somehow managed to make themselves the victim of October 7. And it's still, we haven't been able to have these conversations about how the largest Islamic organizations in this country were not denouncing what happened on October 7. They were actually not only celebrating it, but they're still marching in the streets in support of what happened.
Speaker 6
Shocking. And not only that, but they mock what has happened. They all of the things.
Speaker 17
that you're talking about a question. Yeah. We've got horrible nuts out there, and that's established. Have a lot of the are there any mainstream Muslim groups who are attacking or boldly trying to separate themselves from these groups that seem to be in favor of October 7?
Speaker 6
No. And none? I haven't seen one group that has come forward and has been advocating and defending. I've heard a lot of victim talk. I've heard how they've been the victim.
I've heard how they've been dealing with hate.
Speaker 17
Well, wait a minute. That said, this almost can't be true. How about the other three of you? Has anybody heard of any significant Muslim groups trying to disassociate themselves or condemn those Muslim groups who were in favor of the October seventh attacks?
Speaker 8
I have not done that research, but I can tell you that Muslim Americans spend a lot of time disclaiming violence because of being lumped in unfairly with, again, the violent actions of the extremists in their group.
Speaker 6
This is the game we play. We're talking here about you're talking about individuals, and I'm talking about an ideology. So we're going back and forth, and we want to keep conflating the two. But Islam is very clear on how they feel about the unbeliever. And there's over 109 verses in the Quran that say, I, the unbeliever, they wage violence towards me.
So you keep trying to conflate it, and I'm speaking solely on Islam. So as far as the crimes and the hate crimes you keep talking about, I don't ever see the proof of it. I hear a lot of accusations. But when I go back and try to find the records, I don't see anything that has registered.
Speaker 17
Just one more comment, Ms. Mick. In my district, we have an ethnic group, the Hmong. And when the Hmong have festivals, they try so hard to be loved by the broader American community. They not only don't dislike police, they hire their own police if they're having a festival because they're so concerned about what America thinks of that group.
I'm just saying, you don't see that same thing from the Muslims. I met with my Muslims in my area, but, it's kinda shocking to me that nobody on the stage here can give us some examples of, you know, maybe donating money to the victims in Israel or whatever, doing something to Gentleman's time. Separate themselves from this.
Speaker 1
Gentleman's time has expired. I appreciate the gentleman from Wisconsin. I appreciate his questions. I'll now recognize myself for five minutes of questions. Mister Blair, you testified that you spent a lot of time at the border, working with the border patrol, former serviceman in the United States Army.
You testified that a significant number of people came into The United States from places from all over the world, including places in the majority Muslim countries. Correct?
Speaker 1
Is it correct roughly that we've got roughly 51, 3,000,000 foreign-born people in the United States, you know, representing about 16% of the population.
Speaker 1
And has that been, have we seen an enormous uptick of individuals from majority Muslim countries since 09/11?
Speaker 1
We have. Is that having a significant cultural impact in the United States?
Speaker 1
Is that worthy of exploration and understanding that impact on our history, heritage, and who we are as a people?
Speaker 1
Mister Hunter Lopez, people have been questioning why we're here. You've testified here on the record that you've had very personal firsthand experience of desperate treatment based on your values as a Christian citizen of the United States and those promoting Islam in your school. Correct?
Speaker 1
So you've seen firsthand how there's a promotion in a small Texas town, now an increasingly suburban Texas town of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, in promoting an Islamic culture over a Christian culture in your school. That's roughly your testimony. Is that correct?
Speaker 7
Correct. And, every day, I have more teachers and students coming up to me saying that they're realizing what's going on because at first, people don't wanna speak out because they'll be labeled Islamophobe or Zionist or anything, but the people are starting to wake up to what's going on.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Miss Tyler, are you familiar with the significant amount of rape gangs in the United Kingdom?
Speaker 1
Are you familiar with the significant amount of rape gangs in the United Kingdom?
Speaker 1
that. It's been pretty much all over the news. Very large numbers of people being raped in The United Kingdom by foreign nationals in The United Kingdom, with significant allegations of it being heavily by Pakistanis and other individuals that have been immigrated into The United Kingdom. Are you familiar with that at all?
Speaker 1
Right. And are you also familiar with the arbitration agreements that were adopted in The United Kingdom, that have allowed significantly to have societies and cultures that are, you know, separated from the civil laws of The United Kingdom?
Speaker 1
Yes. And that is a last twenty years kind of phenomenon, right, where these arbitration agreements are allowing individuals in a separate community adhering to Sharia law to be separated from at least 85 different tribunals in The United Kingdom to be able to carry out Sharia alongside and separate from or even over civil law in The United Kingdom?
Speaker 1
Are we seeing it in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, for example? Yes. Did governor Abbott have to take action in order to deal with some of these separate tribunals in order to stop their existence?
Speaker 1
Miss Mac, if you could, extrapolate on what I think is one of the most important things we need to address here, which is what you've mentioned, Islam as a political ideology. Do you believe that Islam is compatible with Western civilization?
Speaker 1
I agree with you. Do you believe that Islam, in carrying out its mission, is waging jihad against the West?
Speaker 1
So it is a part of that memorandum and other memoranda. Correct? Correct. And are there organizations, not just care? Yes. Other organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood to advance jihad against Western civilization, including specifically targeting Texas and the United States?
Yes. And is that documented?
Speaker 1
Are there imams that are active in Texas and throughout the United States that are similarly championing such jihad against the West to carry out the tenets of Islam?
Speaker 1
And you've put those online. They're out on display. You've seen words from imams in The United States, sayings in precisely this language.
Speaker 1
And so I'm gonna give you the last minute here to close about your concerns about why this matters. We're trying to put a bow around all of this. We've had a massive immigration, a massive cultural shift, direct impact on schools, for example, in the state of Texas, and a very clear mission tied to memoranda and individuals that have been frankly associated with the Holy Land Foundation prosecutions, other terrorist organizations, care known unindicted coconspirators. And now we see what's happening around the country. Last thirty seconds for you to put a bow around this.
Speaker 6
So what concerns me is we've imported an ideology that we have absolutely no education on, and we have seen it all across the country. I'm seeing politicians here today who are working with them. I'm seeing people who I don't know whether you know or not, but they're infiltrating our society. They have come here to take over the society. They've written it down in the project in a 12-plan.
You can read it for yourself. It's written down in the memorandum. They've come to make this country like they've made countries all across the world, Islamic. So if we do not take action, we've already seen what's happened in Europe, we are going to be worse off than the UK because we have the thought leaders in this country, and they are waging jihad on our society.
Speaker 2
Miss Taylor, get her extra minute now if there's anything she'd like to respond to.
Speaker 1
The ranking member has asked for an additional minute out of courtesy, I will do so. I will point out that I've given significant extra time to go over. I did serve the gentle lady from Washington. I did serve the gentle lady from California and others, and they were to have extra time trying to make sure that I'll do that. But out of request from the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, the ranking member, I'll give Miss Tyler a minute.
Speaker 8
Thank you. I think one thing that's disturbed me today is that we are talking about political Islam. Islam is a religion. It's practiced by 2,000,000,000 people around the world, and approximately 1 percent of people in the United States, about 4,000,000 people in the United States. Numbers are a little hard to pinpoint.
But there's nothing inherently political about Islam. Islam, like all other religions, can be used as an instrument of the state to gain and hold on to political power. But, fortunately, as we are all celebrating this 250th year of American independence, we live in a country that's built on the foundation of religious freedom that protects everyone's right to believe or not to believe, to adhere to any religion, and that the government stays out of the way of religion. The government's role is not to dictate, and there is no establishment of religion in this country.
Speaker 1
Alright. And I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania was happy to give time. I'm gonna close by pointing out that the explanatory memorandum explicitly states in black letter text, quote, a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house. With that, this concludes today's hearing. We thank the witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee today.
Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
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