US civil rights group documents ‘widespread attack on Muslim lives’ in 2025 | Government news

Washington, DC – As the United States and Israel continue to war with Iran, civil rights experts have noted a troubling trend: an ongoing rise in Islamophobia, even at the highest levels of the US government.

Representative Andy Ogles, for example, has stated that “Muslims do not belong in American society,” adding that “plurality is a lie.”

His Republican colleague, Representative Randy Fine, has amplified his anti-Muslim rhetoric online.

“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not difficult,” he said in a recent post. In another, Fine wrote: “Deport them all.”

In January, Republican Rep. Keith Self shared on social media: “Islam is on the march and wants world domination.”

Those kinds of statements, combined with punitive measures under United States President Donald Trump, have created an environment for the rise of Islamophobia and discrimination in the US, advocates say.

“This is extreme language that is often used to advance extreme policies,” said Corey Sawyer, director of research and advocacy at the civil rights group American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR released its annual report on Tuesday detailing what it sees as an increasingly hostile environment that began long before the outbreak of war with Iran.

CAIR argues that while the legal rights of Muslims in the country have not changed “on paper,” those rights have been narrowed amid anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies.

That puts all U.S. residents at risk, regardless of religion, the agency said.

“In 2025, what we see in the United States is a powerful group of public officials asserting that freedom comes with conditions,” Sawyer said.

“You must speak His approved lines. You must worship in ways He approves. You must trace your ancestors to places He approves. And you must think thoughts He approves.”

Sawyer explained that the effort to silence Muslim voices in America is symptomatic of a broader rollback of free-speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

“Protecting your right to be different and your right to dissent is not a favor to any one community,” Sawyer added. “That’s the operating system of a free country.”

‘Widespread attack on Muslim life’

In Tuesday’s report, CAIR indicated 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 volume of complaints to CAIR since it began publishing its civil rights report in 1996.

Sawyer pointed to several factors that contributed to the rise. For example, the Trump administration has scaled back its civil rights operations at the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education.

The White House has made efforts to punish schools and students for participating in pro-Palestinian protests and activities.

Later, there were statements from the president himself attacking Muslim-majority groups living in the US, including Somalis and Afghans.

Taken together, Sawyer said, those measures will be a “widespread attack on Muslim life” in 2025.

Meanwhile, CAIR’s report said “2025 saw a more pronounced resurgence of anti-Muslim narratives, particularly the notion that the religious principles practiced by Muslims are inherently threatening and anti-American.”

At least five pieces of legislation introduced at the federal level “have sought to effectively ban the practice of the world’s second-largest religion in the United States or the entry of its adherents into the nation,” the report said.

Several bills sought to ban “Sharia” practices, adopting “the terminology developed by anti-Muslim extremists in the mid-2000s,” according to CAIR’s report.

CAIR pointed to the creation of the so-called “Sharia-Free America Caucus,” launched last year by Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self, which currently has 45 lawmakers as members.

The report said the caucus seeks to “promote the idea that Muslim religious identity disqualifies people from participating in American civic life.”

CAIR was targeted in 2025, with the governors of both Texas and Florida labeling the group a “foreign terrorist organization.”

The label carries no legal weight at the state level, and CAIR< continues to operate in the states.

But it has filed lawsuits accusing the governors of defamation and trying to trample on the group’s First Amendment rights.

The trickledown effect from federal messaging

In addition to warning about nationwide trends, Tuesday’s report drew a line between targeted measures in specific states and pressure on individual Muslim-majority groups.

Minnesota, for example, is a state where the Trump administration launched a tough immigration push in December and January.

The enforcement effort was dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” and it was a response to a welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota that Trump blamed on the state’s large Somali American community.

Prior to Operation Metro Surge, the president repeatedly made racist remarks about Somali Americans, referring to them as “trash.”

CAIR’s report indicated that those federal actions led to the growth of anti-Muslim discrimination in the Midwestern state.

Minnesota was identified as one of five states — including Florida, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas — where complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination have risen steadily over the past three years.

Minnesota saw a 96 percent increase from 2024 to 2025, with 23 percent of complaints filed in the final month of last year.

CAIR’s report also cited increased pressure on the Afghan community in the US.

Last November, an Afghan man was identified as a suspect in the fatal shooting of two members of the US National Guard in Washington, DC.

The Trump administration responded by imposing a blanket freeze on the Afghan visa and immigration process. In the wake of the attack, CAIR said Afghans in the US are “generally regarded as suspect” and face increased scrutiny.

Implications for education

At the state level, CAIR’s report identified actions in Texas and Florida as stigmatizing aspects of Muslim life.

In Florida, for example, lawmakers recently introduced a bill known as HB 1471 that would include punishments for schools and students associated with “foreign terrorist organizations,” as designated by the state. That could include withholding school voucher funds or expelling individual students.

While proponents of the law say it does not refer to religion or nationality, critics point out that state officials have already moved to label Muslim groups like CAIR as “terrorist.”

“These efforts increase the risk of legitimate Muslim participation in Florida’s civic life and contribute to a narrative that places Muslims outside the sphere of protected religious and civic engagement,” the report said.

Already, CAIR pro-Palestinian student protesters and faculty supporters face ongoing discrimination for their advocacy work, especially after Trump returns to office in 2025.

Mahmoud Khalil, Rumesa Ozturk, Mohsen Madhavi, and Badr Khan Sur are among others currently implicated in Trump-led efforts to deport them.

The Trump administration has sought to penalize universities that have hosted pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses.

Some top schools have faced civil rights investigations and had their federal funds frozen. Others have been forced to accept settlements that include multi-million dollar fines.

The Trump administration has pursued such efforts under the guise of countering anti-Jewish sentiment.

But CAIR noted that the Trump administration relied on the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) definition in its justification, which it considered “broadly conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.”

‘Deceiving you for their purposes’

CAIR’s analysis echoes a separate report from the US Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) published Monday.

That report concluded that the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran “accelerated” the spread of harmful content targeting American Muslims.

Online commentators have increasingly adopted “dehumanizing language” since the war began, referring to Muslims as “insects”, “rats”, “vermin”, “parasites” and “infestation”, according to the CSOH report.

“Such language has a historical past and has enabled extreme forms of violence against targeted communities,” it warned.

On Tuesday, Sawyer rejected the narrative that they are not part of the social fabric of the United States, pointing out that they have been since the founding of the US.

Looking ahead, he cautioned against politicians seeking to use anti-Muslim rhetoric for political ends.

“Anyone who tries to say that our country is anything other than a flourishing nation of many faiths — and that Islam is an American religion — is deceiving you for their own purposes,” Sawyer said.

“We should all be very clear and aware of why politicians are pushing certain agendas to exclude Americans from their ability to participate in the civic and religious life of this country.”