Islamic radicalism poses a threat to the U.S. and immigration laws should be made stricter, former U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo said Thursday night in the Marvin Center Amphitheater.
Tancredo was the keynote speaker for Islamo-Facism Awareness Week, hosted annually by the GW chapter of the Young America’s Foundation. Tancredo, a former Republican presidential candidate, expanded on his well-known opposition to illegal immigration.
“I believe we should slam the door on immigration on people who are coming who believe in Shariah law,” Tancredo said, referring to the body of Islamic religious law. “It does not fit with the Constitution of the United States. It cannot coexist, it is impossible.”
Tancredo said he supports restricting “the cult of multiculturalism that permeates our society,” by making immigration laws stricter.
The former senator from Colorado said a desire for non-Americans to impose new ideologies and force new religions onto American culture, instead of assimilating into and adopting American culture, is the main problem in America.
“When a devout and focused group of opponents is on the other side of the wall of you, whose got the advantage? It’s not us. Not unless we accept the idea that there is American conceptualism,” Tancredo said.
Tancredo challenged the attendees to question the role of American citizens and the things that hold Americans together, like faith and religion.
“We are facing this problem because of what has happened to us, this cult of multiculturalism which is making it hard for us to figure out who we are,” Tancredo said.
Tancredo also shared his views of President Barack Obama, saying he does not think Obama likes the America that Tancredo holds dear. Tancredo emphasized, however, that this has nothing to do with race.
“Race is not a deterrent to that assimilation,” Tancredo said. “We have to think about who we are as Americans. That does not have to do with race, it is a set of ideas.”
Organizers of the event said they thought Tancredo’s speech was educational, and they had not previously heard the solutions to Islamo-facism that Tancredo brought up.
“The event went as well as I could have expected it to,” said GW YAF President Travis Korson. “Congressman Tom Tancredo brought up interesting points that I was not aware of, and a lot of what he said is what we are trying to prove.”
In the past, Korson said there has been a lot of protesting of Islamo-facism week, so he was glad that this event was peaceful.
