At today’s highly-anticipated House Homeland Security Committee hearing on “Radicalization in the U.S. Muslim Community,” U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-8) argued against the dangers of stereotyping the entire Muslim community in the name of protecting the homeland.

“When we don’t understand people we’re all, all of us, bound to characterize and to stereotype. Reasonable people will conclude that the greatest majority of Muslims, like every other community, in this country are patriots to America,” said Pascrell, an original member of the House Homeland Security Committee who now serves on the Ways and Means and Budget Committees. “We want to protect this country. We love this country. Some pretty bad people came out of mosques. Some pretty bad people came out of Catholic churches. We’ve got to do everything we can to avoid a wide brush. We know our enemies are probing the system every day. We need to be strong.” 

Rep. Pascrell’s entire remarks at the hearing can be viewed at the following link starting 03:07:30.

https://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/USMusli

In his opening statement, Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY) characterized Rep. Pascrell’s opposition to the hearing as “measured and thoughtful.” The comment can be found at the following link at 02:25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtAbpdRsJPQ

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