TO ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS

The true security risk today in protecting the United States is our inability to make reasonable decisions on policy issues without the mask of fear. We need to reason with a level mind and not give in to fear and gut responses. We need to stand up for our Muslim brothers and sisters who are in more grave turmoil than we are, not only in their home land but all over the world. In their home land Muslims face religious fanatics imposing strict laws and discriminating against other forms of Islam that are different. They are being forced from their homes; have no access to health care because more than half the hospitals have been destroyed; they are subjected to unthinkable atrocities by who ever the ruler of the week is.

They face discrimination and fear in the rest of the world as they are lumped in with these religious fanatics. Muslim student’s in this country are subject to bullying; Muslims are victims to hate crimes, and many attack innocent Muslims who have no connection to terrorist to avenge and take out their anger. We are seeing this on a grand scale in the presidential campaign with several presidential candidates fueling the average citizen and this os some subliminal level gives people permission to carry out hate crimes in the name of America.

Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land because of the large Japanese presence on the west coast. In the event of the Japaneses invasion America Japanese were feared as a security risk. It is my hope that the Justice Department today in 2015 no matter who is Attorney General will maintain their commitment made October 19, 2011 to use criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans and to continue their top priority in a return to robust civil rights enforcement and outreach in defending religious freedoms and other fundamental rights of all US citizens in the workplace, in the housing market, in our schools and in the voting booth.

At this time we are headed to a situation similar to that of the Japanese Americans interment camps. Did we not learn anything from this and what followed WWII. Were we not educated on the degradation Japanese internment camps did to respectable American citizens and their families. What are you going to do to stop fueling a similar movement against Muslims? I hope my fellow Americans and elected officials like you stand up against this.

I am asking you to look away from the bad advice and overcome popular opinion through education and information. In this time in the history of our nation we can not stand by and watch history repeat it’s self. I ask you not to succumb to fear and go against our values as a nation. Use your voice as an elected official, presidential candidate to stand up for the rights and safety of Muslim people living in the United States.