Islamophobia and Afghan refugees in the US

At the time of this writing in mid-December another wave of migrants has arrived in America, and some are on their way. When the dust settles down there is no doubt that there will be a significant increase in the number of Afghans living in the county. The estimate of 2021 was more than 155,000. The states of California, Virginia and New York historically had the largest number of Afghan residents. There are several estimates of the number of Afghans who will finally end up in the United States. Another 500,000 may be added bringing the total to 655,000. Over time they will become American citizens with the right to vote. They are likely to head to the places that already have sizeable Afghan communities. Once there, they will acquire political power.

Representative Ilhan Omar — from a district in the state of Minnesota which has a sizeable Somali population — is an example of the way immigrants have entered politics in America. Silicon Valley’s Information Technology industry has attracted tens of thousands of engineers from India and they have already had their political presence felt. Two members of Indian origin represent districts from the state of California to the US Congress. Both have important voices on the Hill. One of them, Ro Khanna, was the chief of staff of the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders. The other is Pramila Jayapal who represents most of Seattle and chairs the progressive caucus in the House of Representatives. Islamophobia became a serious political issue in the United States, as two female members of the House of Representatives — Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia; and Lauren Boebert, also a Republican but from the state of Colorado — attacked Representative Ilhan Omar from the state of Minnesota. They referred to Omar as a member of the “Jihad Squad”.

At an event in her Colorado district in late November, Boebert told her supporters that an encounter with Omar was “not my first ‘Jihad Squad moment’”. Greene, in an appearance on November 30, was not sparing in her attack on Omar. “She hates Israel. She’s pro-Hamas. She’s pro Al-Qaeda. She is basically an apologist for Islamic terrorists. There is no need to apologize to that woman because she will never stop. She wants Republicans completely taken out. She wants Republicans jailed. She does not care about our country. She’s anti-American.” Some of the responses to her statements suggested support for her position. “I think that Congresswoman Boebert probably expressed the sentiment of many Americans,” Pueblo County Republican Chairman Robert told Colorado Springsbased radio station KRDO. “This Congresswoman Omar has been poking her finger in the eyes of many Americans over the last couple of years and we’re sick of it.”

Former President Trump weighed in on the side of Boebert and Greene and attacked Omar. He falsely accused Omar of “wishing death to Israel” and “essentially abandoning her former country which doesn’t even have a government — exactly what she’d like to see for the United States”. Omar had come to the United States as a child, escaping the assault on her Muslim community in Somalia. She was one of three Muslim women who were elected to the House in 2018 and had won back their seats in 2020. Republicans made statements saying that the Muslim lawmakers supported terrorists and were “blood thirsty”, likening them to suicide bombers. Pressure was put on the Republican leadership to move against the female legislators but there was resistance to any public censor.

The Minnesota Congresswoman said that she had received death threats that she attributed to Republican attacks on her. It was reported that “several Republicans skirted the question about whether the party’s leadership or Republicans more broadly should condemn offensive or bigoted remarks by their members, noting that as a ‘big tent party’ — as Leader Kevin McCarthy has often called his conference — commentary of all stripes will be thrown around.” This episode made clear that the politicians from the right side of the political spectrum were not only tolerant of Islamophobia, but many among them were also happy to support it. With even a slight increase in the proportion of Muslims in the American population, this attitude would continue to be part of the discourse in the country. According to a newspaper commentary, on the issue of Islamophobia in the United States, “House Republicans are facing calls to condemn Islamophobic remarks by members of their conference, amid mounting concern that their silence is encouraging extremist rhetoric that contributes to bigotry and potential threats of violence toward Muslims.”

At a press conference held on December 1, 2021 all three Muslim lawmakers serving in the House urged the Republican leadership to make clear that such attacks will not be tolerated by them. “We cannot pretend that this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences,” said Omar who had introduced a bill to monitor and combat Islamophobia globally. She played a threatening voice mail that she had received the previous day after Boebert accused her of “anti-American and anti-Semitic” rhetoric in a video posted on social media. “I myself have reported hundreds of threats on my life, often triggered by Republican attacks on my faith,” Omar said at the news conference. “And this week, once again, we saw another increase.” The right of the American political spectrum has indulged in Islamophobic comments to solidify its support among those who inhabit that political space. Donald Trump brought that sentiment to the surface. In 2015, then a candidate for the United States presidency, he called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”, and on entering the White House on January 20, 2017, he immediately acted on that promise by instituting a ban targeting foreign nationals from several Muslim-majority countries. His departure from the White House did not reduce anti-Islam rhetoric by some senior Republican political figures. It is interesting that support for Omar came from a Jewish group, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. On November 30, 2021 it urged the House Ethics Committee to investigate Representative Boebert over her “virulent, anti-Muslim remarks”, which it said had created a “dangerous environment” particularly in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Would this public dispute between Congresswomen affect the reception Afghan refugees were receiving in the United States? Surveys suggested that the support for the refugees had stayed strong. A Quinnipiac poll in September found 60 per cent of Americans supportive of accepting Afghan refugees into the United States, while 32 per cent were opposed. However, 62 per cent of Republicans said they were opposed to accepting Afghan refugees in the United States while 30 per cent were in support. That compared with 87 per cent of Democrats and 62 per cent of Independents. Overall support for accepting refugees increased to 83 per cent if the potential refugee was an Afghan national who assisted the Americans during the war. It appears that in spite of the provocative statements by some highly bigoted Congresswomen, refugees from Afghanistan would be welcomed in the United States. Once they are well settled, some of them will enter the political system, following the example of Ilhan Omar, a Muslim refugee from Somalia.