Another US lawmaker posts Islamophobic views
ANOTHER US lawmaker has sparked controversy by expressing Islamophobic views, prompting a backlash from fellow lawmakers and Muslim groups, NBC News and NPR reported.
The incendiary remarks came as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) warned that record high Islamophobia in the US in 2025 was driven — in part — by President Donald Trump’s crackdown against pro-Palestinian protests and immigration.
In a post on X, Republican Congressman from Tennessee Andy Ogles wrote “Pluralism is a lie, Muslims don’t belong in American society”.
Ogles, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, has previously called for a “Muslim ban” and plans to propose legislation to ban entry to the US from a set of Muslim-majority countries.
Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests and immigration drove Islamophobia to record high in 2023, says CAIR
In an earlier post to X (formerly Twitter) on Feb 17, 2026, Rep. Ogles wrote, “No more public displays of Islam please. It is not American.”
His post comes on the heels of other House Republicans making Islamophobic comments on social media.
Few, if any, Congressional Republicans reacted publicly to any of the posts. But Congressional Democrats were quick to denounce it.
“Disgusting Islamophobes like you do not belong in Congress or in civilised society,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., posted to social media in response to the post from Ogles.
‘Record high Islamophobia’
In its report about record high Islamophobia, CAIR said it recorded 8,683 anti-Muslim and anti-Arab complaints in 2025, the highest since it began publishing data in 1996, compared to 8,658 in 2024.
Most complaints were about employment discrimination (12.7pc), immigration and asylum (6.5pc), hate incidents (6.4pc), and travel discrimination like government watchlists and screenings (5.6pc), CAIR’s report noted.
CAIR noted Trump’s targeting of Somali Americans in Minnesota, a majority Muslim community, who he accused of fraud and called “garbage.” CAIR said the government used isolated cases for collective targeting and dismissed Trump’s ability to tackle fraud, citing pardons to those with past fraud convictions.
Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2026
