The Guardian reported,
“But Elsadig Elsheikh, director of the global justice program at the Haas Institute that carried out the research, said the purpose of the bills was to spread fear about Muslims living in America and to portray them as untrustworthy and out of step with American values. “Even if these bills do not become law they help to subject Muslims to surveillance and other forms of exclusion and discrimination,” he said.
Of the 23 bills introduced to state legislatures this year, only two became law – in Arkansas and Texas. Four new states joined the growing list of legislatures where anti-sharia legislation has been attempted: Colorado, Connecticut, North Dakota and Wisconsin. All but one of the bills were introduced by Republicans. The exception was in Idaho where a committee with an unknown party affiliation was behind the move. Heidi Beirich, an expert on anti-Muslim hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center, sees the rash of state bills as signs that the provocative language coming out of Trump’s circle is having an impact. “At the state level, the number one push for anti-Muslim activists is anti-sharia bills. It’s a recurrent effort.”
Trump himself called for all Muslims to be barred from entering the US when he was a presidential candidate, a sentiment that he has only barely tempered in his drive for a travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries. Several of the individuals he chose as key advisers also have a controversial track record. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House, once wrote a film script that warned of the country turning into the “Islamic States of America”. The short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn called Islamism a “vicious c****r” inside all Muslims that has to be “excised”, while former White House aide Sebastian Gorka was once fired by the FBI as a counter-terrorism lecturer for his Islamophobic views.”
The majority of the initial legislation came about after the backlash over the potential mosque that people wanted to create in downtown Manhattan just blocks away from Ground Zero. Now the legislation is focusing on calling out “foreign laws” and how they should be banned in American court jurisdictions. A clear shot to sharia law which is being implemented in certain areas of the United States.
The Guardian continued on with the story,
“Given Trump’s controversial leadership, some monitors had expected to see an even greater surge in the number of bills in 2017 which increased from 14 last year but did not reach the 2011 peak in the wake of the Manhattan controversy of 56 pieces of legislation, according to the Haas Institute.
“Given the support coming from the highest office in the land, we expected to see an even greater increase in anti-sharia legislation at state level,” Elsheikh said. He added that a combination of legal challenges and popular protest not least by Muslims themselves was dampening the impact of the Islamophobe movement. “There has been a healthy mobilization of the Muslim community who are becoming more engaged and less apologetic, especially second-generation Muslims. They are more determined to demand their rights,” he said.”