WASHINGTON — Calls for a ban on Muslims in America are becoming more mainstream on the right.
Earlier this week, Raw Story was interviewing Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) about President Donald Trump’s top priority, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, but the Alabama gubernatorial candidate didn’t want to discuss the election bill on the Senate floor this week.
“It ain’t gonna pass,” Tuberville said before he changed the subject. “I’m ready to get rid of the Muslims.”
“Why’s that?” Raw Story pressed.
“It’s time for them to go home,” Tuberville said as he flashed a broad smile. “They're trying to tear our country down.”
That’s news to the four Muslims in the 119th Congress, a record high.
"We've always had these people who really should be considered white nationalists and Christian fundamentalist nationalists," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) told Raw Story. "So it's not surprising that they want to ban a whole people because of their faith."
“It's ridiculous”
Omar says she isn’t expecting a change in tune anytime soon, though.
"It's not going to go anywhere, though," Omar said. “It's just sad that they have a base that feeds off of this kind of bigotry, this level of unconstitutionality.”
Other Muslims in Congress say their colleagues on the right need a history lesson.
"Muslims have been a part of this country since the inception of this country and even before the inception of this country," Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) told Raw Story while slowly shaking his head.
The nine-term congressman says critics need to open their eyes.
"Muslims have been critical in our infrastructure. Go to any major hospital, you'll find a Muslim physician,” Carson said. “Go to any major courtroom, you'll find Muslim barristers and judges and law enforcement community keeping us safe, thwarting potential terrorist attacks that you'll never hear about.”
Carson, a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, knows from experience.
“I was one of them. I worked in counterterrorism and counterintelligence for the Department of Homeland Security in Indiana,” Carson said. “I mean, it's ridiculous.”
Ridiculous or not, since Trump joined Israel in its war against Iran, Islamophobia appears to be en vogue in certain GOP circles.
"Are you serious about the Muslim ban?"
Earlier this month, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) made headlines nationwide for calling for a Muslim ban.
While the new bill he dropped Tuesday aims at Muslim-majority countries, it doesn’t single out the religion by name, even as it would upend immigration as we know it.
The measure seeks to dismantle the current family-based immigration system — commonly referred to by critics as "chain migration" — established by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
It would “prohibit the admission of aliens from certain countries where the United States cannot reliably verify the identities or backgrounds of individuals seeking entry,” according to the measure’s title.
"All immigration to the United States shall serve the economic, cultural, and security interests of the United States as determined by Congress,” reads a draft of Ogles’ measure.
"Are you serious about the Muslim ban?" Raw Story asked the two-term member of the far-right Freedom Caucus.
"Until they address the violence that's being preached in their mosques, we've got to take a hard look at this,” Ogles replied.
"We downloaded a brochure from a U.S. mosque and it lays out the case and justifies when violence is warranted in the local community. Show me a church that's preaching that. Show me a synagogue, a Hindu temple, Buddhist monks that are preaching that anywhere, much less in the U.S."
"Some would say the Christian nationalist movement, there's violence in there," Raw Story pressed. "What do you make of that?"
"Show me where. Where?" Ogles said before tying recent domestic security incidents to terrorism, even though authorities have stopped short of such an assessment. "Four terrorist attacks in three weeks. They weren't Hindu. They weren't Buddhist."
While the gunman in a recent mass shooting in Austin, Texas, was wearing an Iran flag T-shirt and a "Property of Allah" hoodie, he was an outlier, according to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who said Tuberville and Ogles are cherry picking cases.
"It's so interesting to hear them say that when most of the mass shootings at schools are white males,” Tlaib told Raw Story on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. "I watch these shootings constantly, and it's always a white male, and I never hear them talking about banning white males.”
The hate — or “othering” — Muslims regularly feel from American politicians isn’t just from the GOP, though.
“It's very bipartisan"
"The Islamophobia in our Congress on both sides of the aisle is very real. It's very bipartisan," Tlaib said. "And it's the same kind of fear-mongering that you see with immigrants — ‘They're here to do all these awful things. They're drug dealers, gangsters.' — and we all know that's not true."
Tlaib says she knows from personal experience.
In 2023, the four-term congresswoman was censured — with the help of 22 of her fellow Democrats — for “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel,” according to the measure’s text.
But the progressive "Squad" member says she hasn't been intimidated. Just this week, Tlaib took to the House floor to encourage American Muslims as their holy month of Ramadan drew to a close with the Eid al-Fitr celebration on Thursday.
“To all the millions of Muslim Americans in our country right now,” Tlaib said on the House floor this week. “I want you to know that not everybody in this chamber sees you as less human. We know — majority of us in this chamber — know that you are worthy of life, liberty and justice. May this Eid bring us closer to a future grounded in peace, justice, dignity for all.”
While Tlaib was censured by this GOP-controlled Congress, an effort to censure and strip her fellow “Squad” member, Congresswoman Omar, of her committee assignments failed last fall.
That appears to have only emboldened the outspoken four-term Minnesota progressive.
“Are the attacks painful?" Raw Story asked.
"It is not. I don't give a s--- what these people think," Omar replied through a smile. "I ain't going nowhere."
