Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) blamed the rise of Islam in Texas on “expansionist” policies during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government hearing.
Roy said, “Over the past few years, Shariah-based legal institutions have taken root in American communities, and nowhere is this problem worse than in my home state of Texas.” He added that Texas has seen the increase in Muslim immigrants due to “decades of an unsecured border and expansionist legal immigration policies.”
“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,” Roy said. “The Constitution begins with ‘ We the people.’”
“The radicals pushing political Islam do not want to coexist with America’s culture and political order,” Roy said. “They want to replace it.”
The hearing follows one held in February, warning against the influence of Sharia Law in the United States. Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called the hearing “completely unnecessary,” claiming that it was “another distraction from the Administration’s cover-up of the Epstein files and the continuing brutal violation of people’s constitutional rights in Minneapolis.”
Instead, Raskin argued that “anything illegitimate or discriminatory that our colleagues would want to selectively impose on Muslims is, conversely, a violation of the Free Exercise Clause and also forbidden by the Constitution.”
Roy stated in his opening remarks at the time that “principles of Sharia are at odds with the Constitution and the laws of the United States.” He added, “Let’s be clear, this is not about having the freedom of worshiping a religion of one’s choosing, such as Islam, but forcing a foreign legal code that is incompatible with our laws and legal system that provides unwanted consequences to the American people. It’s everything we’ve fought against for more than 250 years.”
