By Rebecca Morin | [email protected]
There is a probably a video of Alisar Mohamed participating in her first mock caucus when she was in eighth grade, she said.
Since then, the 21-year-old has caucused almost every election.
A registered voter in Iowa, Mohamed doesn’t just identify as being an Iowan but also as an Egyptian-American, and most importantly, as being a Muslim.
“I personally believe the beauty of this county lies in diversity and thus it makes no sense for neither Christians nor Muslims to force their faith and beliefs on everyone else,” she said. “Faith is a beautiful thing, and I am proud of mine. However, it has no faith in American politics.”
Following the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks that ISIS claimed responsibility for in Paris, in which at least 129 people were killed, politicians across the nation have wanted President Obama to reconsider allowing Syrian refugees into the United States.
Obama proposed to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to come to the U.S. during this fiscal year.
The conversation has found its way into the 2016 presidential election — with some candidates wanting to increase the number refugees coming to the U.S. while others want to restrict access to some refugees.
But some candidates have strayed away from talking about refugees to talking about religion — Muslims in particular — instead.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has asserted, and not backed down, from his claim of seeing on TV Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey, cheering the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. No one else recalls that.
“I have a very good memory, I’ll tell you,” Trump said on Nov. 29 on a telephone interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I saw it somewhere on television many years ago. And I never forgot it.”
In addition, he said he would implement a database system tracking Muslims in the United States.
Though Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has called Trump’s statement “just wrong,” Bush has also made a religious distinction in regards to Syrian refugees.
The former Florida governor said Christian refugees should have priority over Muslim refugees. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is also vying for the Republican presidential nomination, agreed with Bush.
“They’ll be either executed or imprisoned, either by Assad or by ISIS,” Bush said on CNN’s State of the Union on Nov. 15. “We should focus our efforts as it relates to the refugees for the Christians that are being slaughtered.”
Gada Al Herz, 19, said she the candidates who have made such remarks about Muslims would not have gotten her vote in first place.
“It wasn’t a surprise to hear some of the things they said, but it was slightly surprising the high degree of unmasked bigotry in what they said, especially Donald Trump,” she said.
As of 2010 — the latest research available, 0.9 percent, or 2.7 million, of the U.S. population are Muslim, according to Pew Research. That number is expected to rise to 8.09 million by 2050.
Justin Holmes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, said following 9/11, then-President George W. Bush was careful to not say that the United States was at war with Islam, but at war with Al Qaeda.
“That kind of rhetoric is largely gone on the Republican side,” he said. “A lot of it is tremendously hostile to Muslims in general. It’s not a clearheaded, rational discussion of foreign policy.”
Mohamed — who said she considers herself a liberal — said many Muslims have conservative views and align with the view of Republican candidates, but that they also take into consideration how Islam is discussed by the candidates.
She added there is a sort of “internal struggle” for Muslims who want to vote Republican but also have to deal with anti-Islam sentiments.
According to a report released in 2012 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, 55 percent of American Muslim voters said they identify as moderate, with 26 percent as liberal, and 16 percent as conservative.
With 500 American Muslim voters surveyed, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
Al Herz, who is a student at the University of Iowa, said she does not identify as either Democrat or Republican but has leaned left on the political spectrum.
Though she has not participated in the caucus in the past, Al Herz said she is planning to do so this year.
“Muslim voters are like any other American voters,” she said. “They care about how sound the policies and ideas the candidates present are, and how they plan to run the country.
“I think that to win the Muslim vote, candidates need to take their run for presidency seriouslyand speak in a way that shows that they’ve taken the time to think through their ideas.”