Trump's new immigration official has a long record of smearing Muslims

A recent Trump administration hire to be the public face of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a history of making bigoted, anti-Muslim remarks.

Katharine Gorka has been chosen to be the new press secretary for CBP, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, where she has been a senior adviser since 2017. But prior to her current role, she was a regular right-wing pundit who repeatedly attacked Muslims, according to a Media Matters report.

“The Muslim community in this country really isn’t working with us to prevent [terrorism],” Gorka told right-wing radio host Sandy Rios in 2016. “That should be disturbing to everyone.”

Gorka also claimed that “a very small percentage” of Muslims in America have helped law enforcement to root out terrorism.

In a May 2016 appearance on Fox News, Gorka reiterated her attack and said “leaders in the Muslim community have not proven helpful” in helping law enforcement to fight homegrown terrorism.

Gorka also previously served as a national security adviser to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz when he unsuccessfully ran for president in 2016, and has been a contributor to Breitbart.

Gorka is married to former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, a Nazi sympathizer and Fox News contributor.

For years conservatives have fanned the flames of Islamophobia, unjustly alleging that Muslims support terrorism.

Trump has been one of the most visible practitioners of this open bigotry.

He has pushed for a ban on Muslim travel to the United States, following through on his campaign pledge for a “complete and total shutdown” of such free movement.

In 2015, Trump told a supporter he would “be looking at a lot of different ways” to get rid of Muslims in the United States. That same year he also said America needs to “watch and study the mosques.”

He even made up a story that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims cheered for the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

Trump’s bigotry toward Muslims, and toward people of color in general, is well documented. Gorka’s bigoted rhetoric is right in line with his own hateful vision of what the American government should stand for.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.