CONTACT INFORMATION:
comms@ncapaonline.org
[***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***]
RELEASE DATE
July 11, 2025
NCAPA issued the following response to the alarming rise in elected officials’ use of Islamophobic language to target Muslim colleagues and communities:
The integrity of Congress is only further eroded when our country’s leaders continue to actively perpetuate hateful rhetoric. For decades, we have witnessed that when leaders from any political party demonstrate that hate is acceptable, violence will follow. We condemn Rep. Randy Fine’s recent comments toward Rep. Ilhan Omar. They are completely unacceptable.
Racialized fearmongering lands heavily on the AANHPI community. It reinforces the insidious idea that to be Asian, Arab, or Muslim is to always be suspect, and never fully American. These attacks recall a long and violent history: the incarceration of Japanese Americans, post-9/11 surveillance and detentions, the targeting of Muslim, South Asian, and Sikh Americans, and the recent waves of anti-Asian hate in the COVID-19 era. The stunning silence we’ve seen from many elected officials on the growing use of Islamophobic rhetoric is not neutrality; it’s complicity. When you don’t name it, you enable it. We thank those who have spoken out and call on others to do the same.
“As long as hate has a home in Congress, both perpetrators of this vitriolic language – and Members who stay silent – share responsibility for the harm inflicted on the very people they were elected to serve,” said Gregg Orton, National Director at NCAPA.
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Based in Washington, D.C., the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans is a coalition of 44 national Asian Pacific American organizations. We represent the interests of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) communities and provide a national voice for our communities’ concerns.