    [House Hearing, 119 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                       SHARIA-FREE AMERICA: WHY POLITICAL
                     ISLAM & SHARIA LAW ARE INCOMPATIBLE WITH
                          THE U.S. CONSTITUTION: PART II
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND
                                 LIMITED GOVERNMENT

                                     OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                            WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2026

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 119-67

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov

                                   __________

                     U.S GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    63-735                 WASHINGTON : 2026
    =======================================================================

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                            JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

    DARRELL ISSA, California             JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                      Member
    TOM McCLINTOCK, California           JERROLD NADLER, New York
    THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin         ZOE LOFGREN, California
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    CHIP ROY, Texas                      HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
    SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin              Georgia
    BEN CLINE, Virginia                  TED LIEU, California
    LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
    JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey       J. LUIS CORREA, California
    TROY E. NEHLS, Texas                 MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
    BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
    HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming          LUCY McBATH, Georgia
    LAUREL M. LEE, Florida               DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
    WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   BECCA BALINT, Vermont
    RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina          JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
    KEVIN KILEY, California              SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
    BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina           DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
    MARK HARRIS, North Carolina          JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
    ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri       Vacancy
    DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
    BRANDON GILL, Texas
    MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington

                                     ------

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT

                             CHIP ROY, Texas, Chair

    TOM McCLINTOCK, California           MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania,
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky                  Ranking Member
    HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
    MARK HARRIS, North Carolina          BECCA BALINT, Vermont
    ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri       SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    BRANDON GILL, Texas                  DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York

                   CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
                    ARTHUR EWENCZYK, Minority Staff Director

                               C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                            Wednesday, May 13, 2026
                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    The Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee on the
      Constitution and Limited Government from the State of Texas....     1
    The Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member of the
      Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
      the State of Pennsylvania......................................     5
    The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
      from the State of Ohio.........................................    11
    The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
      the Judiciary from the State of Maryland.......................     8

                                   WITNESSES

    Ammon S. Blair, Senior Fellow, Texas Public Policy Foundation
      Oral Testimony.................................................    11
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    14
    Amy Mekelburg, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, RAIR Foundation USA
      Oral Testimony.................................................    17
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    19
    Marco Hunter-Lopez, Sophomore, Wylie High School, Wylie, Texas
      Oral Testimony.................................................    22
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    25
    Amanda Tyler, Executive Director, Baptist Joint Committee for
      Religious Liberty (BJC)
      Oral Testimony.................................................    28
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    30

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    All materials submitted by the Subcommittee on the Constitution
      and Limited Government, for the record.........................    57

    Materials submitted by the Honorable Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a
      Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited
      Government from the State of California, for the record
        An article entitled, ``Christian Nationalism and Violence
            Against Religious Minorities in the United States: A
            Quantitative Analysis,'' Sept. 2, 2024, Journal for the
            Scientific Study of Religion
        An article entitled, ``No Quarter? American Evangelicals and
            Political Violence,'' May 8, 2026, Public Religion
            Research Institute (PRRI)
        A report entitled, ``How White Supremacy Returned to
            Mainstream Politics,'' Jul. 1, 2020, Center for American
            Progress (CAP)
        An article entitled, ``Active Clubs are white supremacy's
            new, dangerous frontier.'' Aug. 26, 2025, The
            Conversation
    A statement from Keith Self, Chair, House Foreign Affairs
      Committee from the State of Texas, submitted by the Honorable
      Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and
      Limited Government from the State of Texas, for the record
    Materials submitted by the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
      Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited
      Government from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record
        A statement from Representatives Andre Carson from Indiana,
            Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan,
            and Lateefah Simon from California, representing the
            Muslim American Members of Congress, May 13, 2026
        A letter to the Honorable Chip Roy, Chair from the State of
            Texas, and the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member
            from the State of Pennsylvania, Subcommittee on the
            Constitution and Limited Government, from multiple
            religious organizations, May 12, 2026
        A statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations
            (CAIR), May 13, 2026
        A statement from the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations
            (USCMO), May 13, 2026
        A statement from Interfaith Alliance, May 13, 2026
        A statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC),
            May 14, 2026
        An article entitled, ``Wylie ISD investigates how `Why Islam'
            group set up on campus without approval,'' Feb. 17, 2026,
            CBS News
        An article entitled, ``Islamic Society of Orange County under
            heightened security after online threats,'' Apr. 17,
            2026, LA Times
    An article entitled, ``Opinion | I testified before Congress on
      the FACE Act--and became a target,'' May 8, 2026, MS Now,
      submitted by the Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the
      Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland, for the
      record

                       SHARIA-FREE AMERICA: WHY POLITICAL
                       ISLAM & SHARIA LAW ARE INCOMPATIBLE
                        WITH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION: PART II

                                  ----------

                            Wednesday, May 13, 2026

                            House of Representatives

            Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                 Washington, DC

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in
    Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Chip Roy
    [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Roy, Hageman, Hunt, Grothman,
    Harris, Onder, Gill, Jordan, Scanlon, Cohen, Jayapal, Kamlager-
    Dove, and Raskin.
        Mr. Roy. The Subcommittee will come to order. Without
    objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
    time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on sharia-free
    America. I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
        Today America faces an existential threat. The spread of
    sharia law puts the very foundation of our Constitution, our
    legal system, and our way of life in serious peril. In
    February, this Committee held a hearing on this topic warning
    of the threat and incompatibility sharia law poses to the
    American people. This Congress should routinely re-examine the
    existential threat facing our Republic and how to counter its
    spread into our social, societal, and political systems.
        The principles of sharia law undermine the cherished
    freedoms that countless Americans have suffered and even died
    for since our Nation's founding. Let's remind ourselves what
    sharia law and political Islam entail. Political Islam silences
    dissent, prohibits religious freedom, allows barbaric
    punishments, and treats women, children, and non-Muslims as
    second-class citizens.
        What's more, sharia law and political Islam sanction honor
    killings for adultery, death for individuals leaving the
    Islamic faith, encourages polygamy for men regardless of the
    women's age, allows female non-Muslims to be taken as sex
    slaves in war, and permits corporal punishment like stoning and
    female genital mutilation for perceived violations.
        In fact, the central sacred scripture of Islamic observers,
    the Quran, has several martial calls that encourage its
    followers to wage war--not just spiritual--against and conquer
    non-Muslims:

            So when you clash with the unbelievers, smite their necks until
            you overpower them, then hold them in bondage. Then either free
            them graciously or after taking a ransom, until war shall have
            come to an end.   Surah 47:4

        It is not a religious code or belief system. It is a
    repressive legal regime that betrays America's founding
    principles and threatens our Constitution. In fact, it seeks to
    replace it. America was founded on the basic concept of
    individual freedom and self-governance under the rule of law of
    a just and moral law. As John Adams succinctly put it:

            Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
            people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

        To my colleagues who may conflate critiquing Islam and
    sharia as undermining the First Amendment rights of Muslims, I
    remind them of the following: People do not have protection
    from imposing a foreign legal system or code that overrides or
    replaces U.S. civil or criminal law, nor the Constitution. The
    Constitution begins with, ``We the People.'' Sharia is the
    legal code for Islam and is taught to its observers to be
    abided by and enforced.
        As Robert H. Jackson, an Associate Justice of the U.S.
    Supreme Court, who also served as the chief United States
    prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, elucidated succinctly how
    liberty crushing sharia was the antithesis of Western law.

            Islamic law offers the American lawyer a study in dramatic
            contrast . . . its striking features relative to our law are
            not likenesses but inconsistencies . . . . In its source, its
            scope, and its sanctions, the law of the Middle East is the
            antithesis of Western law.

    He was right then, and he would be right today.
        The radicals pushing political Islam do not want to coexist
    with America's culture and political order. They want to
    replace it. But you do not need to take my word for it.
    Islamists have stated this clearly themselves. Violent jihadist
    Seyyid Qutab, a thought leader of modern jihadists and
    spiritual mentor for Osama bin Laden, led the Muslim
    Brotherhood in Egypt and surmised sharia in his book
    ``Milestones'' as follows:

            In Islam the meaning of the sharia is not limited to mere legal
            injunctions, but includes the principles of administration, its
            system, its modes.

    He said,

            By the sharia of God is meant everything legislated by God for
            ordering man's life.

    Additionally, the Muslim Brotherhood's motto reads:

            Allah is our objective. The prophet is our leader. The Quran is
            our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our
            highest hope.

        Even groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations,
    also known as CAIR, which masquerades as a peaceful nonprofit
    advocating for U.S. Muslims and Islam, has a sordid history of
    collaborating with bad actors, terror groups, and forcing
    sharia in America.
        Omar Ahmad, the cofounder and longtime board Chair of CAIR,
    said of Islam and its role of America, quote,

            Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith but to
            become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in
            America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.

        Just as concerning, CAIR was named as an unindicted
    coconspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism
    financing trial. On appeal, United States District Court Judge
    Jorge Solis upheld CAIR's coconspirator status and ruled that
    the Department of Justice, quote, ``produced ample evidence of
    CAIR's association with Hamas.''
        A founding member of CAIR's Texas chapter, Ghassan Elashi,
    was found guilty in 2009 of money laundering, tax fraud, and
    providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist
    organization and sentenced to 65 years in prison. What's more
    is that CAIR has long been suspected of harboring ties to the
    Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the terrorist group responsible
    for barbaric October 7, 2023, attacks against our friend and
    ally Israel.
        The threat posed by political Islam and sharia law is not
    some faraway concern. We can look at Europe to see what happens
    when nations allow themselves to be invaded and let political
    Islam infiltrate their society.
        In France, a recent poll found that 44 percent of Muslims
    think compliance with Islamic rules is more important than
    compliance with French laws.
        In the United Kingdom, Muslims are increasingly turning to
    sharia courts to settle disputes rather than the U.K.'s legal
    system. There are now 85 sharia law courts operating in the
    country. In the United Kingdom, Mohammed is now the No. 1 most
    popular baby name in the country; 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 2026 report by the Middle East Forum, there
    are approximately 650 Islamic nonprofit organizations based in
    Texas, and we can see the results. The Qalam Institute, a
    Deobandi institution and the leading Islamic seminary in
    America, is based in Carrollton, Texas. Its leaders have been--
    called American Society ``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
    operative. An Iranian regime, known as the Khomeinists,
    operates several mosques in Texas and supports a number of
    proterror 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 Mohamad
    Altabaa, whose father is a Syrian imam and ties to the Muslim
    Brotherhood, bought the Arnett 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 to the Islamist-Spanish
    Centro Islamico in Houston, a controversial dawah 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 as part of a two-front
    strategy to expand sharia's influence in America.
        Also in March, a report surfaced that the Islamic Center of
    Haltom City, Texas, had acquired and repurposed the former
    Christ Way Bible Church, a longstanding Christian site in
    Texas. The church was purchased by Ummul Qura 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.
        Just last month in Richardson, Texas, opened Al Ameera
    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 ``Allahu 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 onsite security personnel.
        Two suspects with stated allegiance to ISIS attempted to
    detonate two improvised explosive devices near the New York
    City mayor's residence on Manhattan. Both suspects' parents
    immigrated to the U.S. from the terror-prone countries of
    Tuerkiye and Afghanistan.
        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 the caption ``Property of Allah.''
        None of these tragedies needed to happen. Between our
    overly generous and lax legal immigration policies that allowed
    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 sharia law
    before we address this critical threat to our safety and our
    way of life? I've outlined much of what has happened related to
    sharia 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.
    American's Judeo-Christian principles, on which this country
    were founded, is worth defending, and America's founding
    principles generally are worth preserving. We must act now to
    stop sharia law and the threat it that poses to our Nation and
    our Constitution.
        I now recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Scanlon, for her
    opening statement.
        Ms. Scanlon. 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.'' They've made up a
    conspiracy theory about their Muslim neighbors to scare and
    motivate voters.
        Repeating lies over and over and over again doesn't make
    them true, and it doesn't make unConstitutional bigotry legal.
    The last time this Subcommittee convened on this topic, I
    wondered if our colleagues actually believed their own
    hysterical and wildly unsubstantiated claims about people of
    the Muslim faith trying to impose so-called sharia law on the
    United States. 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.
        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 two weeks
    away. In Texas, this issue continues to be a flash point for
    Republican Federal, State, and local candidates as they
    desperately compete with one another over who can be 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. Contrary to the
    misleading claims that have been offered here, there's no
    evidence of any plot to impose sharia law on nonbelievers 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 D.C. 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're supposed to be trying to
    represent.
        The fact is, in this country, you can't ban a person's
    right to practice Islam anymore 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.
        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, Africa
    Town, 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
    neighbor's beliefs, but no one can use the power of the
    government to punish or discriminate against those who do.
        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.
        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 healthcare, housing, energy, and nutrition;
    and starting foreign wars that have put Americans in danger,
    driven up the cost of gas; or making a tax 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.
        I'm hopeful that we won't have a third round of this
    pointless hearing, but, with that, I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I now recognize the Chair of the Full Committee,
    Mr. Jordan, for his opening statement.
        Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        The Ranking Member talked about this is conspiracy theory
    and fear mongering. It's anything but. This is looking at a
    real concern, and I appreciate the Chair doing that.
        If we want to talk about conspiracy theory and fear
    mongering, look no further than the Southern Poverty Law
    Center. 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 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. We'll be looking at this issue next week. The
    Biden Justice Department used the Southern Poverty Law Center
    to train prosecutors setting them up as the standard for
    evaluating what's a hate group, what's not. If you want to talk
    about conspiracy theory and fear mongering, 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.
        I appreciate the Chair 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.
        With that, I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank Chair Jordan. I now recognize the Ranking
    Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Raskin, for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, thank you, and thanks to our
    witnesses.
        Forgive me, but didn't we have the exact same hearing not
    that long ago? I think it's the fourth or fifth in the line. I
    can't believe that the cupboard of Republican ideas is so
    barren now that, 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 history--most
    unpopular President in American history, because that's where
    we are. If we're going to 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 has pardoned more than 1,600 rioters,
    insurrectionists, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, domestic abusers,
    child molesters, white-collar fraudsters, and international
    narcotraffickers and drug dealers, and the Pope is certainly
    not weak on him. The Pope has made his views on Donald Trump
    perfectly clear. I don't understand how the Trump--why Trump is
    saying that the Pope is weak on crime.
        Anyway, I had this idea I wanted to float by my colleagues
    to perhaps create some legislative progress in this field. The
    Republicans are afraid the 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 one percent of Congress impose sharia law on the
    other 99 percent?
        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. Even if they changed their minds and
    convinced all the Christian, Jews, Hindus, and freethinkers in
    Congress--who are 99 percent 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. 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 U.S. Congress or in any State of the Union.
        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. Chair. 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? Do
    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 want to 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 Ten
    Commandments and post the Ten Commandments in every public-
    school classroom in their States. I didn't even know that was
    necessary because I thought the Ten Commandments were doing all
    right after millennia. I didn't know they needed an endorsement
    from the Republican Conference. They went ahead and did that.
        Now, they want to have votes in every State legislature to
    endorse the Ten Commandments and to post the Ten Commandments.
    I'm opposed to that because of the provision in the
    Constitution, Article VI, clause 3, 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 Ten Commandments.
        By the way, if we are going to vote on the Ten
    Commandments, Mr. Chair, I do not support that omnibus
    Republican package. We should have to vote on each commandment
    separately. 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.
        One politician I spoke to on the floor about this, he said
    that ``you know that the Ten 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.'' Let's test the proposition. The First Commandment says,
    ``Thou shall have no other God before me.'' The First Amendment
    says, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
    of a religion.'' It's hard to see how the First Commandment
    dictates the First Amendment.
        Is sharia law incompatible with the Constitution as the
    title of the hearing is? Sure. Is legislating any other
    religious text, the Ten 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
    believe whatever they want. The government is not going to
    dictate to you what your religious worship and practice are
    going to be. The government is out of it.
        I did not write that language, to be clear. James Madison
    wrote that language. He took care of your whole anti-sharia-law
    law centuries ago. This is a complete waste of time. He had the
    right idea. Madison would be appalled that the Fifth Circuit
    Court of Appeals just voted nine to eight to uphold the
    compulsory Ten Commandments display in every school classroom
    in Texas or Louisiana.
        If Louisiana can do that, it can compel display of the Five
    Pillars of Islam. Think about that. You really want to head
    down that road? The States could force display of the Ten
    Precepts of Buddhism, the Analects of Confucius, or the five
    principles of Hinduism, if you can put up the Ten Commandments.
    By the way, the Ten Commandments doesn't exist as one commonly
    agreed-on 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. If you can
    compel display of 10 of them, you can compel display of all of
    them. There could be 100 commandments. There could be 150
    commandments.
        Look, my friends, we don't need an anti-sharia-law law, an
    anti-Christian-law law, an anti-Jewish-law law, or an anti-
    Hindu-law 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 what 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. If my friends
    understand that, then they will reverse course on this
    movement, unless the purpose of the movement is just to
    demonize and vilify not a religion but adherence of the
    religion. 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. I don't want to believe that.
        I do challenge my friends to State one thing that an anti-
    sharia-law 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 of 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.
        Is it true that religious fanatics commit violent criminal
    acts? Absolutely. You talk to any secular freethinker, and 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 anti-
    Semitism; 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. You wouldn't
    blame all Christians for what he did anymore than you should
    blame all Muslims, all Jews, or all members of any religious
    faith because of what one person or one crazed fanatic group
    does in their name.
        Mr. Chair, I trust you understand all of that. I do hope we
    will return to Constitutional principles, and I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the Ranking Member. Without objection, all
    other opening statements will be included in record.
        We will now introduce today's witnesses:
        Mr. Ammon Blair. Mr. 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 two decades
    with the United States Army and is a Border Patrol agent.
        Mr. Marco Hunter-Lopez. Mr. Hunter-Lopez is a student at
    Wiley East High School in Wylie, Texas, where he's 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-Lopez recently turned 16; that's correct.
        Ms. Amy Mekelburg. Ms. Mekelburg is the Founder and Editor
    in Chief of the RAIR Foundation, a grassroots organization that
    advocates for American values. Her work is focused on
    authoritarian systems and efforts to replace Democratic
    governance.
        Ms. Amanda Tyler. Ms. 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 are 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.
        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 five minutes. I'm
    going to start over here on the right. Remind our witnesses to
    turn the microphone on.
        Mr. Blair, you may begin your five minutes.

                      STATEMENT OF AMMON S. BLAIR

        Mr. Blair. Dear Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and the
    distinguished Members of the Committee, good morning and that
    you for inviting me to testify before you.
        My name is Ammon Blair. I'm a Senior Fellow with the Texas
    Public 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 Border Patrol 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 IV guarantee one
    supreme Constitutional order in one Republican form of
    government.
        No religious ideological, 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
    awaiting Federal permission before defending Constitutional
    order. Texas stands at the center of this national security
    crisis.
        Federal strategic assessments, including the 2026 U.S.
    Counterterrorism Strategy and the ODNI's 2026 Annual Threat
    Assessment, identify cartels and Islamic terrorism as top
    homeland threats. These threats overlap and reinforce one
    another through the 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 the 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 Western Hemisphere and U.S. 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 radical-ization
    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,''
    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, assert sharia as
    superior civil law, obstruct access to American courts, and
    subordinate Constitutional protectives to alternative
    government--governing authority.
        Texas is confronting this reality directly, exercising its
    sovereign authorities, including the governance power as
    Commander in Chief. Governor Abbott has designated both the
    Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR 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 broadest sphere of religious
    liberty precisely because every person and institution within
    the United States ultimately remains accountable to one
    Constitutional system, one civil sovereign, and one rule of
    law. No parallel system claiming supremacy over the
    Constitution can be permitted.
        Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Blair follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Blair. I'm now going to go to Ms.
    Mekelburg for her opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF AMY MEKELBURG

        Ms. Mekelburg. Distinguished Members of Congress, my name
    is Amy Mekelburg. I'm Founder of RAIR Foundation USA. I come
    before you today out of profound love for this country and at
    great personal cost. For 15 years, I have documented Islam's
    assault on Europe and its dangerous advance inside of 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 January 29, 2025, my friend
    Salwan Momika, 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 1,400-year-old war is being waged inside our country.
    Muhammad, 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 non-Muslim, 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 1981 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, Turkiye, Qatar,
    Pakistan, Hamas, and the Taliban. Different countries,
    different sects, all marching in lockstep toward one conquest.
    These networks operate more than 8,000 Islamic nonprofits
    across America, including 650 in Texas alone. They built a
    parallel infrastructure: Mosques, seminaries, school, sharia
    banks, sharia courts, sharia clinics, charities, media, and
    political networks. They have no plans of assimilating.
        Texas and Florida are the Brotherhood's command centers.
    They're 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 Yasir Qadhi, is fighting to
    build EPIC City, a 402-acre sharia compound marked as, quote,
    ``the epicenter of Islam in North America.''
        In Katy, an $80 million sharia compound is rising under
    Brotherhood operative Main Al Qudah, whose family are leading
    terrorists in Jordan.
        Hamed Ghazali, named in the 1991 memorandum, recruited
    Americans for Al Qaeda. 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 imams, who preach
    hand amputation, sex with captives, and stoning adulterers are
    suing to seize a Christian megachurch.
        In Garland, Texas, hosts the U.S. 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 leader Magda
    Elkadi Saleh runs a self-contained Tampa enclave. A Houston
    mosque led by imam appointed by the Iran supreme leader
    received $1 million in tax dollars while children pledge
    allegiance. Another Hamas-supporting Texas mega mosque hosted
    public school field trips while its imams preached that the
    fathers and brothers can kill 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 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 they are growing fast.
        This war's second strategy captures our institutions and
    cultures from within. Their operatives have penetrated our
    State Department, our courts, and our school boards to subvert
    the Constitution and replace it. Hamas, doing business as CAIR,
    has trained 50,000 lawyers--they boast of this--journalists,
    film makers, and influencers, to embed Islam and rewrite our
    history. When we object, they scream ``Islamophobia.'' Their
    super PAC floods our elections; mosques run voter drives.
        Beside me is 15-year-old Marco Hunter-Lopez. He will tell
    you how the Muslim Brotherhood's student arm founded in Texas
    by Yasir Qadhi's father is targeting Texas children. For
    speaking out, Marco's safety was threatened. Our Nation's
    leaders are failing our children. Members 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.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Mekelburg follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Roy. Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Mekelburg. Ms.
    Tyler, I'll give you some extra time, OK, to make sure it's
    fair.
        Ms. Tyler. Yes.
        Mr. Roy. I will now recognize Mr. Hunter-Lopez for his five
    minutes.

                    STATEMENT OF MARCO HUNTER-LOPEZ

        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and
    the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
    the opportunity to testify today. My name is Marco Hunter-
    Lopez. I am a 16-year-old sophomore at Wiley East High School
    in Wylie, Texas. I've been invited to speak regarding an
    incident that occurred on February 2nd, on my campus in 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've 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 August 16, 2024, we met every requirement: Ten members,
    a teacher sponsor, and 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, pushback, and
    enormous effort 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 an 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
    create--help create a guest speaker form 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 and including sharia.
        On February 2nd, 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 WhyIslam 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 women, 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 Korans available that include a
    Shahada card on the last page instructing students how to
    convert. ``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 U.S.
    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, poster 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 promote
    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.''
        The district now offers halal meals, a dedicated prayer
    room for Islamic observances, and has placed a Koran in at
    least one middle school library while no bible was 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 laws
    regarding outside organizations, religious materials, and guest
    activities were bypassed and ignored. No one stopped the
    distribution of the materials and sharia pamphlets in my high
    school cafeteria.
        After not attending the school the next day due to safety
    concerns, we had to meet with the 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 in leadership.
        The administration has turned a blind eye or actively
    enabled the introduction of sharia-lined influence while
    censoring other viewpoints. The WhyIslam 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 sharia can be
    introduced this easily in a small suburban town of Wylie, it
    can happen anywhere.
        I urge this Committee and lawmakers across the country to
    demand full investigation 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 from my firsthand experience.
    Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter-Lopez follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Roy. Mr. 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.
        Ms. Tyler, you'll have a very liberal five minutes for your
    time to keep things balanced. You may proceed.

                       STATEMENT OF AMANDA TYLER

        Ms. Tyler. Good morning, Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon,
    the Members of the Subcommittee. I am Amanda Tyler, Executive
    Director of 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 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 Iniquity'' in 1612. This work is
    considered the first defense of universal religious freedom
    written in English.
        In it, Helwys wrote to King James I about the importance of
    freedom of conscience of all people, including Muslims:

            For men's religion to God is betwixt God and themselves. The
            king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judged
            between God and person. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or
            whatsoever, 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 U.S. 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
    religious. 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 misunderstood 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
    approximately one percent of the U.S. population. Particularly
    at a time of rising political violence, targeting groups based
    on perceived differences threatens to exacerbate tensions and
    contributes to a culture of fear, discrimination, and violence.
        The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding published
    its annual national Islamophobia index at the end of 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 healthcare.
        Almost half of Muslim families with children in K-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 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 fear
    mongering 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.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Tyler follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Roy. Well, thank you, Ms. Tyler. You just nailed it
    right on five minutes. You didn't even get to take the extra
    time that I was trying to offer you. I appreciate it.
        I will now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina for
    five minutes of questions.
        Mr. Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for calling
    this important hearing to discuss the threat of political
    Islam. 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 want to 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.
        Ms. Mekelburg, in your experience investigating instances
    of political Islam in the United States, how prevalent would
    you say it's become across the country?
        Ms. Mekelburg. 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.
        Mr. Harris. In your view, does political Islam pose a
    threat to the fundamental values of American democracy?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes, it does, they openly say it.
        Mr. Harris. Well, Mr. 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. 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. Mr. Blair, how did
    the Biden Administration's open border policies impact the
    spread of political Islam in the United States?
        Mr. Blair. We were mandated--so 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 had come in with Venezuelan documents, under the guise that
    we would not be able to identify them, which was the case.
        That's why, later on, Representative Gonzalez was able to,
    through a FOIA, find out how many on the nondisclosed docket of
    the criminal illegal aliens that we released there were. I
    think there were a little over 600,000 of them that Border
    Patrol and ICE released during that time period.
        Mr. Harris. Would you say there's security threats that
    grew during that period that we're still dealing with even
    today?
        Mr. Blair. One hundred percent sir. A lot of the
    information that was given to us as Border Patrol agents when
    we were on the ground was misinformation, and we didn't have
    that time even to this day to be able to vet the information,
    whether that's going to be the sponsor, whether that's going to
    be the country of origin, even their age, even their--or their
    family status. We couldn't really vet any of that. 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.
        Mr. Harris. Thank you, sir.
        I want to come back to Ms. Mekelburg 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, planning to carry
    out a deadly attack on New Year's Eve in Mint Hill, North
    Carolina, which is right in my district.
        Following that incident in North Carolina, I want to ask
    you, do you believe there's been an increase in ISIS using
    social media chat rooms and other features to radicalize
    Americans?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes, it's something that we actually saw. I
    spent 10 years really hyper focused 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.
        Mr. Harris. Thank you.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez, let me come to you really quickly in the
    last few seconds I have. Thank you, first, 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?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Yes. Actually, 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. 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 that they're holding
    for other people.
        Mr. Harris. Well, I applaud you for speaking out about this
    and coming to testify today. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina. I now
    recognize the Ranking Member of the Committee, the gentleman
    from Maryland, Mr. Raskin.
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 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. Mr.
    Blair, would we need a special law to deal with a situation
    like that, or does the universal secular law against murder
    take care of that?
        Mr. Blair. The current law takes care of that right now.
        Mr. Raskin. Good. OK. 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?
        Mr. Blair. It needs to be held to the same law and to the
    same standard.
        Mr. Raskin. 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.
        Mr. Blair. Unless it's based off the ideology of either the
    district attorney or the judge themselves, whether they
    adjudicate or not, that's going to 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 religion.
        Mr. Raskin. Great. 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 secular law in America? I'm happy to open it up to
    anybody. Mr. Hunter-Lopez?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Thank you, Congressman, for the question.
    I think that you keep referring to a secular law. It's
    important to point out--I believe it was 56 of the 57
    Declaration of Independence signers were Bible-believing-faith-
    church-attending Christians. I believe it was the first
    original 13 colonies that required a declaration of faith. I'm
    not acknowledging that--
        Mr. Raskin. Oh, well, wait a second. Now, you're traversing
    my territory now, Mr. Hunter-Lopez. You brought it up. Are you
    aware that the Constitution of the United States does not
    establish a religion; it forbids the establishment a religion?
    Are you aware it doesn't mention God?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. The Declaration of Independence mentions
    God four times. What I was going to say--
        Mr. Raskin. Is the Declaration of Independence law?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. The Declaration of Independence was
    declaring our independence from the tyranny of England.
        Mr. Raskin. Yes. The Constitution is the governing law.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. I'm not suggesting that we need to go
    back to taking tests or saying that you have to acknowledge--
        Mr. Raskin. 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, and 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
    religiously warfare between the Catholics and the Protestants,
    and witchcraft trials, the Inquisition, and Holy Crusades.
    America proclaimed the separation of church and State.
        What Thomas Jefferson described in his famous letter, the
    Danbury Baptists, as a wall of separation.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. That was a letter, not a law.
        Mr. Raskin. OK. Your position is that America is a
    theocracy?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. What you didn't let me finish my original
    statement, and I understand you have limited time. What I was
    going to say is I'm not suggesting we need to go back to
    anything that's in writing, but what I am saying is we need to
    acknowledge the specific--
        Mr. Raskin. Well, we should go back to something in
    writing. I think we should go back to the First Amendment.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Oh, yes, it's the Constitution,
    obviously. What I'm saying is that--how I said original
    colonies were requiring declaration of faith to run for office,
    I'm not saying we have to go back to that--
        Mr. Raskin. That's why we have a First Amendment.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. What I'm saying is that we do--
        Mr. Raskin. That's precisely why Jefferson wrote it.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. We do need to acknowledge our Christian
    heritage in America. That's what I'm trying to--
        Mr. Raskin. You can acknowledge whatever heritage you want,
    but you can't impose an establishment of religion on other
    people.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. I'm not suggesting that at all. I am just
    saying we need to acknowledge our heritage. That's what I'm
    saying.
        Mr. Raskin. Everybody can acknowledge their own heritage.
    Do you agree with that?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. American heritage, not just any heritage
    is what I'm saying.
        Mr. Raskin. Oh, well, you don't think that you're allowed
    to acknowledge your Christian heritage or your Jewish heritage
    or your Muslim heritage.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. I'm saying you Members of Congress need
    to acknowledge American heritage.
        Mr. Raskin. Yes, indeed, you know how we do that, by
    abiding by the Constitution of the United States, which is why
    that's exactly where I began.
        Ms. Tyler, what do you think about this whole anti-sharia
    law thing? Do we need a special law banning sharia law?
        Ms. Tyler. No, because we have the First Amendment to the
    U.S. Constitution that prohibits establishment of any religion,
    including Islam.
        Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, I yield back to you within five
    minutes.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the Ranking Member, and I appreciate that
    spirited exchange. I will now recognize the gentlelady from
    Wyoming, my good friend, Ms. Hageman.
        Ms. Hageman. 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 date 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.

        To be clear, conformity to the Constitution is the
    governing factor behind the operation of our judicial system.
    The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Fourteenth 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 protections of those
    Constitutional rights.
        Ms. Mekelburg, sharia-based tribunals often label
    themselves as offering voluntary services. Is it not true that
    individuals have been coerced into using these bodies because
    of social, familial, and other community pressures?
        Ms. Mekelburg. 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.
        Within these societies, they have their courts. If you
    notice, most of the Imams that are the heads that are coming
    from outside the country are sharia judges. These sharia judges
    hand down these different--they use many different names. They
    will say that they're an Imam; they're a sharia, expert, a
    sharia jurist, et cetera. If you go and you look, these are the
    people who are acting as the judges within these communities.
        There's an entire organization around this. If you look up
    the Assembly Muslim of 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.
        Ms. Hageman. That's clearly a violation of the Constitution
    and the rights of the individuals who are involved in those
    tribunals. Correct?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Correct.
        Ms. Hageman. All right. Another characteristic of American
    courts is generally the presence of robust oversight. We have
    court records. Decisions are easily accessible. Attorneys are
    present, and the transcripts of proceedings are properly
    recorded so that we know what happens in our court system.
        Would you please explain how does this oversight compare to
    the operation of a sharia-based tribunal?
        Ms. Mekelburg. This is handled inside the community. You'll
    never know of any of these things. That's the problem that I
    always have 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. There is no voice for
    the little girl who is being born in this community. She
    doesn't even know what her rights are in this country that she
    is being born into. Again, she is answering to her family. She
    is answering to her Imam, and she is answering to the person
    who is the expert in sharia within her community.
        Ms. Hageman. At the same time, she is not able to fully
    exercise the Constitutional rights that have been bestowed on
    her?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Absolutely not.
        Ms. Hageman. In terms of--are there judgments or rulings
    catalogued? Are they consistent from one imam to another one or
    one sharia-based judiciary to another one?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes. That's why, when you look up the
    Assembly, this one body, they are handing out the different
    legal--it's the legal arm inside the community. Again, are
    there different variations that different people follow? At
    times, but that's why they have--and, again, if you look up the
    Fiqh Council where Yasser Qadhi is the head of, or you look up
    a place like AMJA, 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.
        Ms. Hageman. Just very quickly, in light of the disaster of
    the open-border Biden Administration, have you seen an increase
    at the attempt to enforce or impose sharia law in the United
    States?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Absolutely, because, within these
    communities, they are also--they're absorbing the refugees
    coming in. That's what they're hoping for, to increase the
    numbers.
        Ms. Hageman. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. I
    yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming. I now
    recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen.
        Mr. Cohen. Thank you. I am a 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 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 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, Emoluments
    Clause violations, crypto schemes will be exposed, he has asked
    Governors in Texas--he mentioned Governor Abbott, Mr. Lopez--he
    asked Governor Abbott to find him five Congressional districts.
    Just like he asked Mr. Raffensperger in Georgia to find him
    11,000 votes, and Mr. Raffensperger heroically said no. Mr.
    Abbott said, ``Yes, sir, I'll find them 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
    had been made by the 2020 census in 2022 and oftentimes by
    Republican legislature. It was Republican legislature that
    created my district that they then struck down. Because Callais
    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.
        After 20 years, I never lost a precinct in a primary where
    the African-American vote is 80 percent. 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. 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 200-250
    years or so, where Blacks were property. Then, after
    Reconstruction, a little bit of goodness and fairness, we got
    into the Jim Crow South. How many bubbles are on this bar of
    soap? How many peas are in this jar?
        They stopped Black people from having the right to vote,
    and they eliminated Black representation. Once they got it
    through, the Voting Rights Act, which was one of the most
    important legislative acts of the 20th century, in my opinion,
    where Martin Luther King and John Lewis fought hard in Selma,
    Alabama, and other places, and worked with President Johnson of
    the Democratic Congress and a Republican Congress--Everett
    Dirksen was a big part of that. It was a bipartisan bill in
    1965 to do redress and to give African-Americans an opportunity
    to make up for some of the awful occurrences we have had in
    this country with Jim Crow and slavery.
        People died. Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman died in
    Philadelphia, Mississippi, shot by racist law enforcement
    officials because they went to Mississippi to dare register
    people to vote in the Freedom Summer.
        Medgar Evers, the head of the NAACP in Jackson, Mississippi
    who was assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi. A lady named
    Viola Liuzzo went down to Selma to participate in the March,
    and she was shot and killed by racist guys in Alabama.
        All those deaths and efforts and work put asunder by the
    Supreme Court in their Callais decision and put asunder by
    Republican State legislatures in Louisiana, in Alabama, and in
    Tennessee. They'll do it in other States to boot.
        John Roberts said the Supreme Court is not political. 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 them to lift that injunction; they did it
    in a second, and Alabama is going to 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 is in the Supreme Court.
    Those are the types 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, yes, let's take it, not a good thing. Nothing
    like what's going on in the legislatures and from the White
    House. America is being destroyed from within: 1600
    Pennsylvania Avenue.
        Mr. Roy. 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. I'll recognize the
    gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Onder.
        Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for
    holding this very important hearing.
        Ms. Tyler, you represent the Baptist Joint Committee for
    Religious Liberty.
        Ms. Tyler. That's correct.
        Mr. Onder. Do you believe fundamentalist Islam values
    religious liberty?
        Ms. Tyler. I am not here to talk about theological
    positions.
        Mr. Onder. OK. How about the Muslim Brotherhood, do they
    value religious liberty?
        Ms. Tyler. I am not--
        Mr. Onder. I mean these are the groups you're here to
    support. The Democrats brought you here as a witness.
        Ms. Tyler. I am here for religious freedom.
        Mr. Onder. How about the Deobandis, a Southern Islamic sect
    affiliated with the Taliban? Do they value religious liberty?
    They're in Texas right now too.
        Ms. Tyler. I am not familiar with that.
        Mr. Onder. Yes OK. How about the Barelvis, South Asian
    Sunni Islam sect? They are in Texas too.
        Mr. Lytle. I'm not familiar with that group.
        Mr. Onder. How about the Salafis? Let me know if you know
    any of this? The Khameneis, the Turkish Islamists, all
    represented in various mosques and Islamic centers in Texas. Do
    any of them value religious liberty?
        Mr. Lytle. I am not familiar with them.
        Mr. Onder. OK. Do you believe religious liberty is valued
    and upheld in the Islamic Republic of Iran?
        Mr. Lytle. That's a theocracy, and so, therefore, it is not
    the Constitutional democracy that we have. It is built on the
    foundation of religious freedom.
        Mr. Onder. Yes. How about the Taliban in Afghanistan?
        Ms. Tyler. Those are examples of Islamic states that don't
    support religious freedom--
        Mr. Onder. Sudan? OK. 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--most
    Muslims probably do value--would like to live in a modern,
    secular, or democratic republic. We're talking about radical
    Islamists. We're talking about these radical Islamists
    establishing beachheads in our country. Why do you defend them,
    Ms. Tyler?
        Ms. Tyler. Well, what I'm concerned about, of course, we
    have criminal laws and antiterrorism laws that--
        Mr. Onder. OK. That's good. Should we enforce our criminal
    laws?
        Ms. Tyler. Absolutely.
        Mr. Onder. We should not tolerate sexual enslavement in the
    United States of America. Right?
        Ms. Tyler. I think our criminal laws protect against them.
        Mr. Onder. 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 States of America?
        Ms. Tyler. As we discussed earlier, murder is illegal no
    matter the justification.
        Mr. Onder. Stoning for adultery, right?
        Ms. Tyler. Correct.
        Mr. Onder. Child marriage? Pedophilia, right?
        Ms. Tyler. Those are against criminal law in the United
    States--
        Mr. Onder. Female circumcision is illegal under Federal law
    right now?
        Ms. Tyler. That's right.
        Mr. Onder. We have Imams in many of these centers we're
    talking about right now who advocate for those various things
    in our country. We should tolerate this in the name of
    religious freedom?
        Ms. Tyler. We tolerate freedom of religion in this country.
    We can believe whatever we want. We can act on those beliefs
    without necessary government interference. In this case, there
    is a compelling government interest against murder--
        Mr. Onder. Against the laws I listed.
        Ms. Tyler. You are not allowed to act on those beliefs
    because it would be against criminal law.
        Mr. Onder. Thank you. Ms. Mekelburg, I believe that
    tolerating these beachheads of radical Islam in our country is
    literally civilizational suicide. We've seen Islamist terrorist
    attacks in this country already. We're seeing in many cases a
    lack of assimilation--not by generally people who immigrate on
    their own 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. Tolerating that just
    seems to be utter insanity and especially if we see what's
    going on in Europe right now, if we look at what's going on in
    Germany, London, and in France. Tell me where I'm wrong.
        Ms. Mekelburg. As you said, the beachheads, that is what
    Erdogan says from Turkiye, that the mosque is the beachhead.
    When you hear terrorists speak about the mosque, they speak
    about that being their infrastructure where all things are
    launched out of. 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 that
    mosque. If you see and you look in Germany, as you were just
    talking about, Erdogan had sent hundreds of imams to head up
    the mosque that were from the Turkish Government, that a lot of
    them were then found out to be spies. We're seeing in this
    country, whether it's Saudi Arabia, whether it's Iran, they're
    all sending their proxies here. Then, they're coming and
    they're having the closed societies, and they are the
    beachheads, as you said.
        Mr. Onder. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Missouri. I now
    recognize the gentlelady from Washington.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I have a lot of respect for the Chair of this Committee. We
    work together on a lot of issues. 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, very important religion.
        I go to Mr. Cohen's comments about why we're holding this
    hearing again. This is a redo, by the way. We have 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 billion of taxpayer
    money that we have not had a single hearing on. There's lots of
    things that we could be talking about. 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 seven bucks for gallon of diesel. You'd have
    to address the rising cost of fertilizer, of groceries. The
    fact that Republicans stripped healthcare away from millions of
    Americans. People cannot afford healthcare in the United States
    of America, the richest country in the world. We have 90
    million Americans who are either uninsured, no insurance at
    all, or underinsured--meaning they have some form of insurance,
    but it's not enough to pay their medical bills. That is why we
    have $220 billion of medical debt in the United States of
    America--$220 billion.
        We're not talking about any of the policies, the
    unConstitutionality of all the things that this administration
    has done that have really ripped apart the foundations of who
    we are as a country. Instead, we're going to have a
    conversation about this, sharia law. 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 7th
    attacks and then in the aftermath of
    9/11. In my home State of Washington now, Muslim Americans
    reporting experiencing hate crimes, threats of violence,
    hateful rhetoric that increases those threats of violence,
    discriminatory policies in the workplace, unsafe interactions
    with law enforcement. This hearing is unfortunately just part
    of a much larger anti-Muslim, anti-Islam strategy that
    Republicans have been trying to drive.
        Ms. Tyler, I want to start by correcting the record. Has
    there ever been a piece of legislation introduced in America to
    adopt sharia law?
        Ms. Tyler. No.
        Ms. Jayapal. Does sharia law require Muslims living in the
    United States to violate American law?
        Ms. Tyler. No.
        Ms. Jayapal. Are there any State or Federal courts that
    follow sharia law instead of American law?
        Ms. Tyler. No.
        Ms. Jayapal. Have you seen any poll in this country, to
    your knowledge, that puts sharia law at the top of the concerns
    of Americans today?
        Ms. Tyler. No, I have not.
        Ms. Jayapal. Me neither. Me neither. Nowhere does it show
    up as a top concern. 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. 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?
        Ms. Tyler. ``Sharia'' is translated or understood to mean
    the ``path to water.'' It refers to the religious principles
    that guide Muslims in their beliefs and actions. It's a set of
    rules on how to pray and dress and fast and other dietary
    restrictions. In that way, it's very similar to other kinds of
    religious laws that Christians, Jews, or members of other faith
    communities follow to guide them in how they practice their
    religion.
        Ms. Jayapal. In many religions, there are extreme and
    violent sects that don't represent the vast majority of
    observance of the faith. You have done some work documenting
    the rise of extreme White Christian nationalism and its
    influence in deadly shootings in Charleston, Pittsburgh, and
    San Diego. 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 Ten Commandments to be posted in every public
    school. We have the Trump Administration officials like
    Secretary Hegseth, 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?
        Ms. Tyler. Well, I see all 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 to take the actions of a few and
    extrapolate that that's what somehow all Muslims believe when
    we would never, as 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
    this would extrapolate to all Christians.
        It is a double standard and a very harmful one that causes
    violence and discrimination against our Muslim neighbors.
        Ms. Jayapal. Undermines the principle of religious liberty.
    I thank you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence. I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Washington. I will now
    recognize my friend and colleague from the great State of
    Texas, Mr. Gill.
        Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding a
    very important hearing. Thank you to the witnesses for taking
    the time to come here.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez, I would like to better understand your
    story. It's important, and thanks for being here and being
    boldly telling us about what happened. Can you tell us what are
    the requirements to create a student club at your school?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. The requirements are to have 10 members,
    a teacher that's willing to sponsor, and a room to meet.
        Mr. Gill. Did the Republican club that you formed meet
    those requirements?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. We did on day one.
        Mr. Gill. It did? Was your club allowed to be created?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. 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.
        Mr. Gill. Why do you think the school has such a sort of
    obvious double standard?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. I am not sure if it's the educational
    establishment. It could be any of those. It could be any of
    those, it could be the principals that have been in the system
    for a while, they just don't want conservative values. It's a
    trend we've seen with--how Charlie Kirk was on campuses, on
    high school campuses, that they think conservative values are a
    threat because they're true.
        Mr. Gill. How has the school administration either
    encouraged or supported World Hijab Day?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Our principal actually wore the hijab two
    years in a row that we know of. It could be more. She's posted,
    promoted it on social media, saying she, quote, ``LOVED IT.''
    They're just promoting these events like nothing, but our club
    on the other hand has to receive strict--first, we weren't
    approved in the first place. Then, once we were, we were the
    only club that couldn't have other privileges that other groups
    had. They took down our posters. There's just a lot of things
    in this double standard clearly to favor the Islamic group.
        Mr. Gill. Is it true that your school's libraries offer
    Islamic literature, like the Quran, and other things?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Yes, so McMillan Junior High and Wiley
    ISD offer a Quran but no Bible available.
        Mr. Gill. No Bible. There's a Quran, but the Bible is not
    allowed.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Correct.
        Mr. Gill. Is that true in multiple libraries?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. 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.
        Mr. Gill. OK. Have you talked to the school about why they
    would allow a Quran but not a Bible?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. The principals actually run away from me
    and hid. I can't have a discussion with my principals because I
    act like an adult, and they act like children.
        Mr. Gill. Yes, 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 it is. When clubs such as yours sponsored
    visitors come to the school and speak about club interests,
    whatever they are, are they subject to security screenings?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. 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're coming. All these lengthy processes, I often have to
    miss my lunch period and skip lunch, skip a meal to fill these
    out. On the other hand, the Islamic group got favorable
    treatment.
        Mr. Gill. What were the security protocols that were in
    place for the Islamic group?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. From what I know, none.
        Mr. Gill. None.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. From what I know.
        Mr. Gill. Typically you have to go through a lengthy
    background process, but this Islamic group didn't have to?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Correct. Obviously, they didn't
    background check the organization because it has multiple
    terror links. I guess they didn't check the sharia pamphlets
    that they gave us or the Qurans with the Shahada Card--they
    were perfectly fine with it because the principal was there
    that day just looking at it perfectly fine.
        Mr. Gill. What's been the response from the school since
    you've been public and vocal about this standard.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. 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--my mom had asked the principal to email my
    teachers just to keep an extra eye on me. The principal told my
    mom ``you can.'' 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.
        Mr. Gill. You received death threats?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Gill. What were some of the death threats? Could you
    talk about them?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. I had people saying that they were going
    to be at my house waiting for me to get home, and they were
    going to shoot me. I had people telling me to kill myself. A
    lot of different things. I know nobody can proclaim anything
    over me because I wake up every morning with victory with
    Christ.
        Mr. Gill. Amen. That's exactly right. What has the school's
    response been to these death threats?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Like I said, that first day was very
    dismissive. I actually received a death threat last year, and 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
    situations. I could submit those emails to the record.
        Mr. Gill. I just want to be clear, you had a threat against
    your life, somebody saying that they were going to come to your
    house and murder you--
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Correct.
        Mr. Gill. Your school's response was dismissive.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Correct.
        Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's the end of my time.
    I appreciate it.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Thank you.
        Mr. Roy. I thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas. I
    will now recognize the gentlelady from California.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        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 fear-mongering to level 10,
    and easy targets are members of our Muslim community. This
    hearing allows my Republican colleagues to legitimize their
    religious bigotry. Today, I am not participating in this
    charade.
        I have hosted numerous townhalls. 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 were 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. 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 Americans. He
    said, ``No, not at all.'' Millions of people are worried about
    how they're going to eat this week.
        More than one 100 million Americans carry medical or credit
    card debt. Job openings have fallen to their lowest level since
    2020. All of this has happened under Republicans' watch.
        Working families want to know how they are going to survive
    this economy and what Congress is doing to help. The
    Republicans' response is to hold this obtuse hearing.
        There are real oversight issues that this Committee could
    be addressing right now that deal with the Constitution--like
    the $1 billion ballroom that Trump wants taxpayers to pay--oh,
    and, by the way, he wants to get a cut from the contractor. The
    Epstein files, continuing to cover them up, and have no
    accountability for survivors. The treatment of pregnant women
    in Federal custody. A tax on our voting rights and civil
    liberties. Rising hate crimes and extremist violence. Criminal
    justice reform. Instead, Republicans are peddling anti-Muslim
    conspiracy theories and complaining about world religion
    studies.
        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.
        The religions that I know about are Christianity,
    Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. All are premised on
    peace. Real talk, any religion can get radicalized.
    Christianity is being radicalized and weaponized right now. We
    can talk about that.
        The Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh. Dylann
    Roof massacring 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 committed
    by radicalized White Evangelical extremists.
        You talk about American values. Ms. Mekelburg referenced
    that women are less than half a man that--well we're denying
    women healthcare. 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 is not doing that. The American Government is doing
    that.
        You know what? I'm not safe on the streets either. It has
    nothing to do with being Islam, which I'm not. It's about being
    Black. You talk about Saudi Arabia. Well, let's talk about
    Jared Kushner getting $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. Nobody
    seems to be concerned about that.
        If we're going to get into it, let's get into it. The
    American people deserve committees that hold hearings grounded
    in facts and not bigotry. 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. With
    that, I have some UCs that I want to enter into the record, Mr.
    Chair.
        Mr. Roy. The gentlelady is recognized.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, sir. First, the Scientific
    Study of Religion, ``Christian Nationalism and Violence Against
    Religious Minorities in the United States: A Quantitative
    Analysis''--
        Second, PRRI, from May 2026, ``No Quarter? American
    Evangelicals and Political Violence.''
        Third, the Center for American Progress, 2020, ``How White
    Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics.''
        Fourth, from The Conversation, August 2025, ``Active Clubs
    are White Supremacy's New Dangerous Frontier.''
        Mr. Roy. Without objection.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you. With that, I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I also have a unanimous consent request. I would
    like to insert a statement for the record from our colleague
    Keith Self, my colleague from Texas, titled, ``Sharia for
    America: Why Political Islamist & Sharia Laws are Incompatible
    with the United States Constitution, Part Two.''
        Without objection.
        Mr. Roy. The gentlelady from Pennsylvania.
        Ms. Scanlon. Yes, 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.
        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, CAIR, the U.S. Council of Muslim
    Organizations, and the Interfaith Alliance.
        Mr. Roy. Without objection.
        Ms. Scanlon. I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I'll now recognize my other colleague from Texas--
    wait hold on.
        Mr. Raskin. Just one more UC.
        Mr. Roy. Yes, sure.
        Mr. Raskin. Forgive 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 in the questioning of
    Mr. Gill, May 8, 2026.
        Mr. Roy. Without objection. I will now recognize the other
    gentleman from Texas, my good friend, Mr. Hunt.
        Mr. Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Lopez, you're a 16-
    year-old sophomore at Wiley High School. Did you ever imagine
    that your high school in Texas, of all places, our great State
    of Texas, of course, would become a breeding ground for pro-
    sharia material and Islamic conversation?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. I would never imagine that we would have
    a hearing questioning the legitimacy of terror-linked
    organizations going to schools. I would never believe we would
    have this. That's the America we live in, and it's a sad
    situation.
        Mr. Hunt. Do you think there's an incongruency in the way
    you are treated as a Christian in your school and the
    juxtaposition of that in the way that your school is welcoming
    sharia law and Islamic doctrine.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Yes, there's a clear double standard.
        Mr. Hunt. It's a shame that we are here today. I'm sorry
    that we have failed you, but this is why we have this caucus
    because we're going to 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 am 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 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 as 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 a part of our greatness. As somebody like me, that
    fought in combat to ensure that anyone can 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 can
    ever believe because I laid my life down on the line to ensure
    that this would happen. Let's be clear about something:
    Assimilation to American values and ideas matter.
        When we begin importing belief systems and cultural values
    that are fundamentally incompatible with the principles that
    built 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. I'm not racist.
    I've been Black for like my whole life for like 44 years.
        I'll say that sharia law has no place 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 this general direction.
    The Ten Commandments are not allowed: Bad; Islamic pamphlets:
    Good; Ten Commandments: Bad; Free Qurans in schools: Good; Ten
    Commandments: Bad; and 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? yes; free qurans? no;
    history? yes; Sharia brochures? no; science? yes; and 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
    Fightin' Texas Aggie, 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 am seeing a lot of talk from my colleagues on the Left,
    too, as we shift toward this reinvigorated talk about Jim Crow
    and the past of this country. As someone who was 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 represents a White
    majority district in Texas. The great-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, not 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.
        I yield back the remainder of my time.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hunt. I now
    recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Scanlon.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I would like to return to perhaps
    the purpose of the hearing, which is to establish facts rather
    than fiction. With that, I'd like to have unanimous consent to
    introduce a CBS article from February 17, 2026, ``Wiley ISD,
    School District Investigates How the Why Islam Group Set Up on
    Campus Without Approval.''
        Mr. Roy. Without objection.
        Ms. Scanlon. I mean, as that story and others show, that
    the school district did in fact investigate why an outside
    group came in and set up. In fact, staff members were
    disciplined for not following school procedures. Let's just
    pull back a little bit here and try to reground this hearing in
    some facts. Because it's been pretty well-established by now.
    There is no credible evidence that anyone in Texas or in the
    U.S. generally is trying to impose sharia law on Americans.
    It's really--this whole hearing is so offensive.
        I have a lot of Muslim constituents who are wonderful
    constituents and participate fully in our community. I'm very
    proud that they're my constituents. 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. Ms. Tyler, in the wake of 9/11, we saw a spike in
    violence against American Muslims. 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 faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam
    is peace.'' 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.
        Our Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten this
    example and are using the House of Representatives to platform
    religious bigotry so they can fear-monger in an election year
    when gas prices are spiking due to an illegal war sparked by an
    unpopular President from their party.
        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 Ms. Mekelburg
    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.
        Ms. 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?
        Ms. Tyler. Yes, these attempts to paint with a broad brush,
    to bring all members of a faith, again to mark them with the
    actions of the dangerous and few makes everyone less safe and
    makes everyone less free.
        I talked in my testimony about the real-world
    discrimination that Muslim Americans face because of their
    faith. Also, when we think about the hate crimes that you've
    noted, political violence of all kinds is an urgent problem in
    this country.
        As I hear about the threats that have been made to some of
    my fellow witnesses today, that should disturb us all. The more
    that we feed into misinformation, stereotyping, that makes all
    of us less safe and less free as a society.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I appreciate that. 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 have got examples of a Tennessee Baptist minister who was an
    advocate for corporal punishment and even starvation of
    children. Three kids died because of what he was preaching. 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?
        Ms. Tyler. Yes, our criminal system takes care of the
    threats 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. The First
    Amendment to the U.S. Constitution assures that no religious
    law can supersede those laws. That is protection enough. That's
    why these scare tactics are really just that. It's not a real
    problem in this country.
        Ms. Scanlon. Well, that's where, 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.
        Mr. Chair, I would just like to have unanimous consent to
    introduce an LA Times article, from April 17, 2026, ``Islamic
    Society of Orange County Under Heightened Security After Online
    Threats.''
        Mr. Roy. Without objection.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I yield back
        Mr. Roy. I will now recognize--I thank the gentlelady for
    her questions. I will now recognize the gentleman from
    Wisconsin for five minutes.
        Mr. Grothman. Well, thank you. I'd like to thank you for
    having this hearing at a time that happens when my own few
    hours a week that I have free, I am reading Elise Stefanik's
    book on anti-Semitism in the American university. It's
    interesting to look at the number of people and analyzing what
    happened on October 7th 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 are so many
    people like that in the United States. 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 7th attacks as a kind of almost as a
    call to arms. They seem to be in favor of this sort of thing,
    which is kind of shocking. I wish more Americans would read
    those books, so they knew how people surrounding us think.
        We'll start with Ms. Mek,--I guess we call you that, huh,
    Ms. Mek. That's what they have here. For Members of this
    Committee who are not familiar with Epic City Projects, can you
    walk us through what the development is, and behind it what the
    organizers have said publicly about--
        Ms. Mekelburg. If you don't mind, could I actually just
    respond to something that you just brought up about the October
    7th? What I find interesting is what I heard her just say about
    George Bush. George Bush, after 9/11, stood with Nihad Awad,
    who is the head of CAIR.
        After October 7th, Nihad Awad celebrated it. Nihad Awad
    actually was celebrating, quote, ``breaking the siege.'' When
    I'm hearing somebody refer to George Bush as if he is an
    Islamic expert--he is not. When I'm hearing you're talking
    October 7th, we have people in the room from CAIR right now. We
    have people who are from CAIR who have somehow managed to make
    themselves the victims of October 7th. 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 7th. They were actually not only
    celebrating it, but they're still marching in the streets in
    support of what happened.
        Mr. Grothman. It's shocking that these people would be left
    in this country.
        Ms. Mekelburg. Shocking. Bot only that, but they mock what
    has happened. All the things that you're talking about--
        Mr. Grothman. I'll give you a question.
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes.
        Mr. Grothman. 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 7th?
        Ms. Mekelburg. No, and--
        Mr. Grothman. None?
        Ms. Mekelburg. 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 have heard how they have been the
    victims. I have heard how they have been dealing with hate and
    fake crimes.
        Mr. Grothman. Well, wait a minute, that's like, that 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 are in favor of
    the October 7th attacks?
        Mr. Blair. Not that I'm aware of, sir.
        Mr. Grothman. I can't believe that. None of them?
        Ms. Tyler. 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.
        Ms. Mekelburg. This is the game we play. We're talking here
    about--you're talking individuals, and I'm talking about an
    ideology. We're going back and forth, and we want to keep
    conflating the two. Islam is very clear on how they feel about
    the unbeliever. There's over 109 verses in the Quran that say
    I, the unbeliever, they rage violence toward me. You keep
    trying to conflate it, and I'm speaking solely on Islam.
        As far as the crimes and the hate crimes you keep talking
    about, I don't ever see the proof of this. I hear a lot of
    accusations. When I go back and I try to find the records, I
    don't see anything that has registered those.
        Mr. Grothman. Just one more comment, Ms. Mek. In my
    district, we have an ethnic group, the Hmong. 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 in the Muslim--I met with
    my Muslims in my area, but it's kind of shocking to me that
    nobody on the stage here can give us some examples of maybe
    donating money to the victims in Israel or whatever, doing
    something to separate themselves from this--
        Mr. Roy. The gentleman's time has expired. I appreciate the
    gentleman from Wisconsin. I appreciate his questions. I will
    now recognize myself for five minutes of questions.
        Mr. Blair, you testified that you spent a lot of time at
    the border, working with Border Patrol, former service 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 of the majority Muslim countries.
    Correct?
        Mr. Blair. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Roy. Is it correct, roughly, that we've got roughly
    50--one-, two-, three-million foreign-born people in the United
    States representing about 16 percent of the population?
        Mr. Blair. Yes, sir, that's correct.
        Mr. Roy. Have we seen an enormous uptick of individuals
    from majority Muslim countries since 9/11?
        Mr. Blair. Yes, sir, we have.
        Mr. Roy. Upwards of about five million people?
        Mr. Blair. Yes, sir, we have.
        Mr. Roy. Is that having a significant, cultural impact in
    the United States?
        Mr. Blair. Yes, sir, it does.
        Mr. Roy. Is that worthy of exploration and understanding
    that impact on our history, heritage, and who we are as a
    people?
        Mr. Blair. One hundred percent.
        Mr. Roy. Mr. Hunter-Lopez, people have been questioning
    about why we're here. You've testified here on the record that
    you've had very personal firsthand experience of disparate
    treatment based on your values as a Christian citizen of the
    United States and those promoting Islam in your school.
    Correct?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Correct.
        Mr. Roy. You've seen firsthand how there's a promotion in a
    small Texas town, now an increasingly suburban Texas town, the
    Dallas Ford Metroplex, in promoting an Islamic culture over a
    Christian culture in your school. That's roughly your
    testimony. Is that correct?
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. Correct. 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 want to speak
    up because they'll be labeled Islamophobe or xenophobe or
    anything.
        Mr. Roy. That's right.
        Mr. Hunter-Lopez. The people are starting to wake up to
    what's going on.
        Mr. Roy. Thank you. Ms. Tyler, are you familiar with the
    significant amount of rape gangs in the United Kingdom?
        Ms. Tyler. Can you repeat the question?
        Mr. Roy. Are you familiar with the significant amount of
    rape gangs in the United kingdom?
        Ms. Tyler. I am not familiar with that.
        Mr. Roy. OK. 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?
        Ms. Tyler. I am not familiar with that.
        Mr. Roy. Ms. Mekelburg, are you familiar with that?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Very familiar, yes.
        Mr. Roy. Right. 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
    separated from the civil laws of the United Kingdom?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes, I am. Yes.
        Mr. Roy. That is a last 20-years kind of phenomena, 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?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Correct.
        Mr. Roy. Are we seeing similar things occurring in the
    United States?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes, we are.
        Mr. Roy. Are we seeing it in the Dallas-Fort Worth
    Metroplex, for example?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes.
        Mr. Roy. Did Governor Abbott have to take action to deal
    with some of these separate tribunals to stop their existence?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Correct.
        Mr. Roy. Ms. Mek, if you could extrapolate on what is one
    of the most important things we need to address here, which is
    what you've mentioned, is Islam as political ideology, do you
    believe that Islam is compatible to Western civilization?
        Ms. Mekelburg. It is not.
        Mr. Roy. I agree with you. Do you believe that Islam in
    carrying out its mission is waging jihad against the West?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Absolutely.
        Mr. Roy. Is that a part of the Muslim Brotherhood
    memorandum from 1991?
        Ms. Mekelburg. The project, both memorandums.
        Mr. Roy. It is a part of that memorandum and other
    memoranda, correct?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes. Correct.
        Mr. Roy. Are there organizations, not just CAIR--other
    organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood to advance
    jihad against Western civilization, including specifically
    targeting Texas and the United States?
        Ms. Mekelburg. Yes.
        Mr. Roy. Is that documented?
        Ms. Mekelburg. One hundred percent.
        Mr. Roy. 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?
        Ms. Mekelburg. We have them in their own words, yes.
        Mr. Roy. You've put those online. They are out for display.
    You've seen words from imams in the United States saying
    precisely this language?
        Ms. Mekelburg. All across the United States but very
    heavily in Texas.
        Mr. Roy. I'm going to give you the last minute here to
    close about your concerns about why this matters. I'm trying to
    put a bow around all this, that 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, CAIR, known unindicted
    coconspirators, and now we see what's happening around the
    country. Last 30 seconds for you to put a bow around this.
        Ms. Mekelburg. What concerns me is we've imported an
    ideology that we have absolutely no education about. We have
    seen all across the country, I'm seeing politicians here today
    that 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-point 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. If we do not take
    action--we've already seen what's happened in Europe--we are
    going to be worse off than the U.K., because we have the
    thought leaders in this country, and they are waging jihad on
    our society.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady. The Ranking Member--
        Ms. Scanlon. I request that Ms. Tyler get her extra minute
    now if there's anything she'd like to respond to.
        Mr. Roy. 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 so for the
    gentlelady from Washington. I did so for the gentlelady from
    California and others to have extra time. I'm trying to make
    sure that I'll do that. Out of request from the gentlelady from
    Pennsylvania, the Ranking Member, I'll give Ms. Tyler a minute.
        Ms. Tyler. Thank you. One thing that's disturbed me today
    is that we are talking about political Islam. Islam is a
    religion. It's practiced by two billion people around the world
    and approximately one percent of people in the United States,
    about four million people in the United States. The numbers are
    a little hard to pinpoint. 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 onto political power.
        Fortunately, as we are all celebrating in 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.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Pennsylvania. I was
    happy to give time.
        I'm going to 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.
        [Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

        All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
    Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government can
    be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent
    .aspx?EventID=119267.

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