Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democratic congresswoman from California, claimed on Thursday that as many as 20 percent of Muslims “have a desire for a caliphate” and are willing to “institute that in any way possible,” including terrorism.
“We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 percent, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in any way possible,” Sanchez, who is currently running for the Senate in California, said on PoliticKING with Larry King.
She added that this “small group” is “willing to use and they do use terrorism.”
ISIS is currently fighting to re-establish the early Islamic territorial empire known as the caliphate, but there is no evidence that 5 to 20 percent of Muslims support that goal. A 2013 Pew Research Center poll found an overwhelming majority of Muslims believe that violence like suicide bombings is never justified as a means of defending Islam from its enemies. New York Magazine also noted that Gallup polls show Muslim Americans are less likely than any other major religious group to believe that the killing of civilians is sometimes justified.
After realizing her comments did not go over well, Sanchez issued a statement to clarify her position. According to Buzzfeed, Sanchez’s statement did not include an apology or an acknowledgement that her numbers were off.
“I strongly support the Muslim community in America and believe that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support terrorism or ISIS,” her statement said. “We must enlist the voices of the Muslim community in our fight against ISIS instead of alienating them through fear-mongering and discrimination.”
Sanchez’s comments follow a week of severe anti-Islamic rhetoric in the United States, spearheaded by the Republican Party and frontrunner Donald Trump. Since Trump’s call for a Muslim ban on Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has said Muslims in the country are on high-alert. “The mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hate is the problem, and Donald Trump has really brought it to the mainstream,” CAIR spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper told ThinkProgress.
Since Trump’s candidacy and the recent terrorists attacks in Paris, Muslim-Americans are experiencing an “unprecedented” spike in Islamophobia with Muslims all over the country falling victim to attacks on themselves and their houses of worship. ThinkProgress compiled a list of 33 incidents including violent attacks, threats, assaults, protests, and instances of vandalism that have been reported since the November 13 attack.