Radical Islamic Leaders Could Be Banned from Entering US if New GOP Bill Passes
A Texas Republican has proposed legislation that could be used to keep Muslim religious leaders from entering the United States.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas has introduced the Inhibiting Militant Adversarial Mullahs (IMAM) Act.
“The United States should never roll out the red carpet for foreign clerics who preach anti-American hatred, celebrate terrorism, or serve as mouthpieces for radical regimes,” Roy said in a statement on his website.
The proposed legislation adapts immigration law to bar non-immigrant religious worker visas for an alien with the title of Imam, Grand Imam, Shaykha, Mufti, Grand Mufti, Ayatollah, or Grand Ayatollah from entering the United States.
“For years, adversarial religious figures have manipulated loopholes in our immigration laws to enter this country under so-called religious visas while spreading extremism,” Roy said.
“The Inhibiting Militant Adversarial Mullahs (IMAM) Act sends a clear message. America will not import militant ideology disguised as ministry. If you promote the values of enemies of the West, you should not get a visa to come to the United States — period,” he said.
Roy is a co-founder of the congressional Sharia Free America Caucus, according to the Daily Signal.
House Democrats have claimed Republican concerns about Sharia Law being imposed in the U.S. are a fabricated talking point meant to scare voters, according to the Daily Signal.
“There is no evidence of any plot to impose Sharia law,” Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, said last week after a House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government hearing about such efforts.
She said Republicans were “shamefully scapegoating Muslims for political gains.”
“They made up a conspiracy theory about their Muslim neighbors to intimidate voters. Saying lies over and over again doesn’t make them true, and it doesn’t make unconstitutional bigotry legal,” she said.
Roy, however, has said that protecting Americans from Sharia Law is an urgent responsibility lawmakers must face, according to comments from a hearing posted on his website.
“The principles of Sharia are at odds with the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Sharia fails to include due process, treats non-Muslims as second class citizens and prescribes barbaric punishments, all the while, polygamy, misguided corporal punishment for perceived violations of Islam and acts of violence and terrorism on behalf of Sharia are permitted by its adherents,” Roy said.
“Sharia encourages violence, silences dissent, rejects religious freedom and subjugates women and children. 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.”
Roy warned that “efforts to undermine the Constitution and demonstrate political Islam have only been worsened by an unchecked immigration system that admitted Sharia adherence into our borders”
“Europe gives us a clear example of what will happen if we don’t close the door on Sharia now. In England and Wales, more than 85 Sharia courts operate as a parallel Islamic government, depriving women of the rights they are entitled to under British law,” he said.
“Now is the time to take decisive action, as our Founders did when confronted with the same issues today, our nation is founded on these ideas. Sharia law shares none of these principles by its Arabic definition: It is a law, one pushed in our country for too long. It has no place in American government, not now or ever,” he said.
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