Islam becomes campaign flashpoint in Texas Republican primary
Republicans are running television ads pledging to target Islam and crack down on what they call the “Islamification” of the state
By Abdullahi Yusuf
As Republican candidates campaign to voters ahead of the March primary, they are running television ads pledging to target Islam and crack down on what they call the “Islamification” of the state.
Islam is a faith practiced by an estimated 313,000 Texans. Only four states have a larger Muslim population.
On Thursday, the attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its chapters in Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, seeking to ban them from operating in the state.
The suit comes after Governor Greg Abbott put pressure on Attorney General Ken Paxton, sending him a letter urging him to strip CAIR of its nonprofit status.
Paxton continued making similar accusations in the new lawsuit. He is asking a judge to side with the governor’s proclamation, stop CAIR’s chapters from operating in Texas, and make them pay any legal fees the state incurs.
“Sharia law and the jihadists who follow Sharia law have no business being in Texas,” Paxton wrote in a release announcing the lawsuit.
He also said he supports the governor’s declaration and that “radical Islamic terrorists are antithetical to law and order, endanger the people of Texas, and are an existential threat to our values.”
Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn has released an ad stating “radical Islam is a blood thirsty ideology” and saying he is “fighting to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.”
“Let me be clear: no organization that supports terrorists should receive taxpayer benefits, and Sharia law has no place in American courts or communities,” Cornyn says in the ad.
Republicans frame their opposition as an immigration issue, arguing that Muslim immigrants have not properly assimilated into American society and accusing them of trying to spread their religion and values.
Local Muslims have pushed back on such characterizations.
“If we are talking about working hard and contributing and pursuing education and contributing to this country, in all fields, definitely Muslims assimilate, and definitely Muslims have been here for a long time. We are not new here,” said one community member identified as Zayan.
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