Two Pakistani-born Texas lawmakers are once again under the lens of MAGA bigwigs, especially after the recent alleged H1-B fraud in the Red state. Texas is a dear state to Republicans and one of the strongholds of the Trump administration.Suleman Lalani and Salman Bhojan were both elected to the Texas House in 2022. Conservative activists say the two men are using legislation to push Islamic norms into Texas law, step by step, without violence.The claims were made in an article by ‘America First’ commentator Amy Mek in 2025. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the RAIR Foundation. She claimed that Texas was being used as a testing ground for “civilizational jihad”.“This is how a state gets Islamized,” Mek wrote. “It’s incremental Islamization through legislation.”Lalani and Bhojani, both muslims swore their oaths of office on the Quran.
What exact ‘Islamic’ laws triggered MAGA?
At the centre of the row is a long list of bills and House resolutions introduced or supported by the two lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session. These include resolutions recognising Ramadan and Eid, proposals to prevent school exams on Islamic holidays, allowing dietary accommodations and bills requiring public schools to offer halal foodOne bill, HB 1044, was introduced by Bhojani, which authorises Muslim imams to conduct marriage ceremonies under Texas law. Mek and other conservative activists say the bill could allow religious rules to operate alongside Texas family law.“This isn’t inclusion,” Mek claimed. “It’s a gateway to parallel family law systems.”Another legislation was made to counter “Islamophobia”. HCR 85 would establish a “Day to Combat Islamophobia” in Texas through 2035. Mek claimed that this would silence any criticism of Islamic ideology.“This is how blasphemy laws begin,” Mek wrote. “First a day. Then policy. Then punishment.” Bhojani has also thanked the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an organisation linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Amy Mek, CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, previously said of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel: “Yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege.”Mek’s article is titled “Texas Alert: Two Islamic Lawmakers Are Leading the Pakistanification of the Lone Star State”. It compares the lawmakers’ actions to Pakistan’s legal evolution, where Islam is constitutionally embedded.Pakistan was founded in 1947 with a large non-Muslim population; now it has fewer than 3 per cent non-Muslims. Blasphemy laws there carry the death penalty, and forced conversions and mob violence are well documented, claimed Mek. “This is exactly how Pakistan came to be,” Mek wrote. “Texas is not Pakistan. Yet.”
