THE NEW YORK TIMES: Muslim communities have been growing for decades, particularly around Dallas. Now, conservatives want to roll up the welcome mat.
Ghulam Kehar rose before dawn in early June to attend the day’s first prayer at his local mosque in Irving, Texas, before heading off for a monthslong deployment with the U.S. Coast Guard.
He had been deployed before, but this time was different. He felt apprehensive about leaving his wife and four children behind in Texas, even for a short while.
Rhetorical attacks on Muslims by top Texas leaders had become more pronounced, and seemed to be trickling down. At his mosque, the Valley Ranch Islamic Center, and others across the state, congregants and religious leaders swapped stories of ugly comments directed at them while praying in public or sitting in public parks.
In recent months, a man was arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat at a major new Islamic center in Houston. Not far away, in Conroe, a woman told Muslim shoppers at a grocery store they were “not welcome in this state or this country” — after losing her job, she received nearly $250,000 from supporters after video of her comments circulated widely. In McKinney, a Dallas suburb, a woman grabbed a former mayor and stuffed paper with an anti-Muslim message down his shirt during a heated City Council hearing over a mosque expansion. » | J. David Goodman, Lauren McGaughy, Jesus Jiménez and Ruth Graham | The reporters, based in Houston, Austin and Dallas, conducted more than 45 interviews at mosques, businesses and political events around Texas for this article | Monday, August 17, 2026
