UPDATED February 5 to include additional caucus members.
A congressional coalition headed by Texans is leading a campaign against Sharia in America, warning that the ideology is “one of the greatest threats facing our nation today” and calling Texas “ground zero” in the fight.
Two Texas Republicans, U.S. Reps. Keith Self of McKinney and Chip Roy of Austin, launched the Sharia-Free America Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives in December.
Since then, the caucus has grown to 33 members from 18 states, including seven Republican representatives from Texas: Self, Roy, Brandon Gill of Flower Mound, Michael Cloud of Victoria, Monica De La Cruz of Edinburg, Wesley Hunt of Houston, and Brian Babin of Woodville.
In a press conference Tuesday, caucus members laid out the case against Sharia, which Self called “a culture of violence and domination totally incompatible with individual freedoms, our Constitution, and our heritage.”
Why Sharia-Free America
“Sharia divides, then conquers,” said Self, a West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran, pointing to the impact of unchecked Muslim immigration into France and the United Kingdom. “Under it, there is no true freedom of religion or speech, no equal rights, and women are second-class citizens.”
He said Americans are witnessing a “clash of cultures as outsiders stream into our country with no idea to assimilate into our culture, our laws, or our way of life.”
“Chip Roy and I have launched the Sharia-Free America Caucus because Texas is ground zero in this fight … as Texas goes, so goes the nation, and as the nation goes, so goes the world.”
Texas has one of the largest and fastest-growing Muslim populations of any state in the union.
Self cited several examples of Islamification happening in Texas’ major cities, such as Houston and Dallas.
Within his own 3rd Congressional District, he noted a Plano-based mosque planning a “Muslim-only” community dubbed EPIC City/The Meadow—one of many such enclaves across the state—and an Islamic group handing out Qurans and Sharia pamphlets at a Wylie high school.
“These examples multiply daily,” said Self.
“This is not just a Texas problem. Sharia is on the march across America,” he added. “If we do not fight back, Sharia will dominate our culture and America will no longer be America.”
Caucus co-founder Roy said Tuesday that “anybody who’s actually paying attention” understands that “Texas is ground zero” for Muslim encroachment.
“We understand that the root strength of this country is our Judeo-Christian principles and the values of Western civilization that have advanced the cause of liberty, freedom, and prosperity for people around the world,” said Roy.
“You can believe whatever you want, but you cannot engage in what is a political effort to Islamify the United States of America and not expect us to fight back,” he said. “Sharia is inconsistent with Western civilization. Sharia is inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration, and the rule of law in our country.”
“I’m not going to allow the Constitution to be, frankly, misapplied and hid behind to say that I’ve got to throw aside 250 years of our core Judeo-Christian principles,” Roy added.
Several other caucus members spoke during Tuesday’s press conference, including Gill and Cloud.
“Sharia law and radical Islam have no place in the United States,” said Gill.
“The reality is that radical Islam as a political ideology has a very different conception of freedom of speech than we have in the United States, a very different conception of freedom of religion, of separation of church and state,” he said.
“Islam is largely alien to American history. It’s something that we deliberately imported as a matter of immigration policy into our country, and it’s going to destroy us just like it’s destroying Europe right now.”
“It’s our job to stand up to that, to stand up for our values and to prohibit alien cultures and alien ideologies that do not comport with our own governing framework,” added Gill.
Cloud called the Sharia-Free America Caucus “an alarm bell” warning of Islamic incursions.
“We all know America is the envy of the world, and the reason is because of the set of ideals upon which this nation was built,” said Cloud.
He said the U.S. is a “welcoming nation,” but Americans will not stand to be “undermined within our borders” by people who do not want to assimilate but rather want to advance their own ideology and create parallel communities and legal systems.
Proposed Federal Solutions
Roy has introduced the Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act, which would prevent all foreign nationals who observe Sharia from entering or remaining in the country, and the PAUSE Act to freeze all immigration until Congress passes systemic reforms.
As chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Roy said he’ll be holding a hearing next week on Sharia law and its incompatibility with the U.S. Constitution.
“We’re going to be talking about some of these enclaves,” he said. “We’re going to be talking about some of the legal issues and some of the direct assaults on our way of life.”
Self said a total of seven pieces of legislation have been introduced that would ban Sharia from the United States, safeguard U.S. immigration and legal systems from Sharia infiltration, deport foreign nationals who adhere to Sharia, and list both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations.
Sharia in Texas
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations.
Abbott has also asked the U.S. treasury secretary to suspend CAIR’s tax-exempt status, and called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate CAIR for potentially using its nonprofit status “as a shield for sponsoring terror, advancing radical Islamism in Texas, or fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Texas senators will be examining Sharia-related issues as part of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s interim charges.
Self also encouraged Texans to vote for Proposition 10, a non-binding measure on the March 3 Republican primary ballot calling for the state to ban Sharia law.
“It is time to ban Sharia, defend our country, and save Western civilization,” said Self.
