WASHINGTON, DC – As the United States and Israel continue their war with Iran, civil rights experts are noting a worrying trend. It’s that Islamophobia is on the rise, even in the upper echelons of the U.S. government.
For example, Congressman Andy Ogles said, “Muslims do not belong in American society,” adding, “Pluralism is a lie.”
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His colleague, Republican Rep. Randy Fine, has also amplified anti-Muslim rhetoric online.
“If they gave us a choice, it wouldn’t be hard to choose between a dog and a Muslim,” he said in a recent post. “Deport them all,” Fine wrote in another text.
“Islam is on the march and aims to conquer the world,” fellow Republican Rep. Keith Self said on social media in January.
Advocates say such comments, combined with punitive measures under President Donald Trump, have created an environment of growing Islamophobia and discrimination in the United States.
“This is extreme language often used to promote extreme policies,” said Corey Sawyer, director of research and advocacy at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights group.
CAIR released its annual report on Tuesday, outlining what an increasingly hostile environment looks like.
CAIR claims that while the legal rights of Muslims in the country remain unchanged “on paper,” those rights are being curtailed amid anti-Islamic rhetoric and policies.
This puts all U.S. residents at risk, regardless of religion, the group said.
“What we saw in the United States in 2025 was a powerful group of public officials who insisted that freedom comes with conditions,” Sawyer said.
“You have to speak lines that they approve of. You have to worship in a way that they approve of. You have to trace your ancestry to places that they approve of. And you have to think thoughts that they approve of.”
Sawyer explained that efforts to silence Muslim voices in the United States are symptomatic of a broader rollback of the First Amendment right to free speech.
“Defending the right to be different and to express dissent does not favor any particular community,” Sawyer added. “That is the operating system of the Free State.”
“Wide attacks on Muslim life”
In a report on Tuesday, CAIR showed that its offices across the country received 8,683 complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination nationwide in 2025, a slight increase from the previous year.
This is the highest number of complaints since CAIR began issuing civil rights reports in 1996.
Sawyer pointed to several factors that contributed to the rise. For example, the Trump administration has scaled back civil rights activities at the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education.
The White House is also leading efforts to punish schools and students who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and activities.
The president’s own statements later attacked Muslim-majority groups living in the United States, including Somalis and Afghans.
Sawyer said these actions taken together amount to a “widespread attack on Muslim life” in 2025.
Meanwhile, the CAIR report said, “In 2025, anti-Muslim rhetoric resurfaced more clearly, particularly the idea that the religious principles followed by Muslims are inherently threatening and anti-American.”
At least five laws introduced at the federal level are aimed at “effectively banning the practice of the world’s second-largest religion in the United States and the entry of its adherents,” according to the report.
According to the CAIR report, some of those bills aim to ban so-called “Sharia” practices, adopting “terminology developed by anti-Muslim extremists in the mid-2000s.”
CAIR also noted the creation of the so-called Sharia-Free American Caucus, launched last year by Rep. Chip Roy and Rep. Keith Self, which currently has 45 members.
The report said the caucus aims to “promote the idea that Muslim religious identity disqualifies people from participating in American civic life.”
CAIR itself was targeted in 2025, with the governors of both Texas and Florida labeling the group a “foreign terrorist organization.”
This label carries no legal weight at the state level, and CAIR< continues to operate within the state.
However, the group is suing the governors for defamation and attempting to trample on the group’s First Amendment rights.
Trickle-down effect of federal messaging
In addition to sounding the alarm about national trends, Tuesday’s report drew a line between targeted actions in specific states and increased pressure on individual Muslim-majority groups.
Minnesota, for example, is a state where the Trump administration launched a hard-line immigration push in December and January.
The enforcement effort, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” was conducted in response to the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal, which President Trump blamed on Minnesota’s large Somali-American community.
Prior to Operation Metro Surge, the president repeatedly referred to Somali-Americans as “trash” and made racist comments.
The CAIR report found that these federal actions led to an increase in anti-Muslim discrimination in the Midwest states.
The report identified Minnesota as one of five states, including Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, where complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination have steadily increased over the past three years.
Minnesota saw a 96% increase in complaints from 2024 to 2025, with 23% of complaints filed in the last month of last year.
The CAIR report also notes increased pressure on the Afghan community in the United States.
An Afghan man has been identified as the suspect in the fatal shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., last November.
The Trump administration responded by imposing a complete suspension of visa and immigration procedures for Afghanistan. Following the attack, CAIR said Afghans were “collectively treated as suspicious” and faced increased surveillance in the United States.
Impact on education
At the state level, the CAIR report identified actions in Texas and Florida as condemning aspects of Muslim life.
In Florida, for example, lawmakers recently introduced a bill known as HB 1471 that would include penalties for schools and students associated with state-designated “foreign terrorist organizations.” This could include withholding school voucher funds or expulsion for individual students.
Supporters of the law say it makes no reference to religion or nationality, but critics point out that national authorities are already moving toward labeling Muslim groups like CAIR essentially “terrorists.”
“These efforts increase the risk of Muslims’ legitimate participation in Florida’s civic life and contribute to a narrative that places Muslims outside the circle of protected religious and civic engagement,” the report states.
Already, CAIR has said that dozens of pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and teacher supporters have faced continued discrimination for their advocacy, especially since Trump returned to office in 2025.
Several individuals, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeisa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Sur, are currently caught up in President Trump’s deportation efforts.
The Trump administration is also seeking to punish universities that host pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses.
Some top schools have faced civil rights investigations and had their federal funding frozen. Some have been forced to accept settlements that come with millions of dollars in fines.
The Trump administration has led such efforts in the name of combating anti-Semitic sentiment.
However, CAIR noted that the Trump administration relied on the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of “anti-Semitism” in its justification, which is “widely seen as conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.”
“They are deceiving you for their own purposes.”
CAIR’s analysis echoes a separate report from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) released on Monday.
The report concludes that the start of the US-Israel war with Iran has “accelerated” the spread of harmful content targeting American Muslims.
According to the CSOH report, online commentators have increasingly used “dehumanizing language” to refer to Muslims since the war began, calling them “vermin,” “rats,” “vermin,” “parasites,” and “parasites.”
“Such language has a historical precedent and has enabled the most extreme forms of violence against targeted communities,” it warned.
Sawyer on Tuesday rejected the narrative that Muslims are not part of America’s social fabric, noting that Muslims have been present in the United States since the country’s founding.
Looking ahead, he warned against politicians seeking to exploit anti-Muslim rhetoric for political purposes.
“We are not a country where many faiths flourish, and anyone who tries to say that Islam is America’s religion is deceiving you for their own purposes,” Sawyer said.
“We all need to clearly recognize why politicians are proposing certain policies that exclude Americans from the ability to participate in the civic and religious life of this country.”
