On the afternoon of March 26, 2026, Scott Perry stood up on the floor of the U.S. House and pulled out a copy of the Constitution.

He read the part about religion out loud. From the official record of that day:

"Our Constitution — I have it right here — very specifically says: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'"

That's the First Amendment. It's the sentence that protects every American's right to worship — or not — however they choose.

Perry read it, and then he spent the next ten minutes arguing that one religion is quietly conquering the country, neighborhood by neighborhood.

What he actually said

Perry was speaking as a member of the Sharia-Free America Caucus, a group of House Republicans holding an hour of floor speeches about Islamic law. Here is the heart of what Pennsylvania's congressman told the country:

"They refuse to assimilate to that culture, whether it is America, Europe, or any other culture other than their own. They just live in that culture. Others around them, because they don't want to be a part of that, move away. Then, more sharia-compliant individuals move into the neighborhood. Once they reach a critical mass, they start instituting sharia law. That is how it goes."

Read that again. Muslim families move in. Everyone else moves out. Then they take over.

That is not a claim about crime, or terrorism, or any law that anybody passed. It's a claim about who your neighbors are.

He had no evidence, and he said so

The most revealing moment in Perry's speech was when he admitted he can't point to the thing he's warning about.

"I hear that there are sharia courts overseas in the U.K. and in Europe, but there aren't any where I live or maybe in the United States of America, but how would you know?"

How would you know? That's his argument. He then explained that these secret courts can't be proven because nobody would testify against them — "there are no witnesses because they will not speak out against their own laws."

So: there's no evidence, and the lack of evidence is itself the evidence. There is no fact that could ever prove Perry wrong. That's not how a lawmaker builds a case. That's how a conspiracy theory works.

He made one more specific claim in that speech — that "schools in some States are now forcing sharia-compliant meals in their schools." He didn't name a state. He didn't name a school. He didn't name a district. He just said it on the House floor and moved on.

We've watched this movie before. When a "Sharia takeover" story swept Arkansas and Texas this year, we traced it back to the source — a hate group's blog post about five houses in Little Rock, two of which are lived in by Christians.

He already told us what he believes about "replacement"

Perry's "critical mass" story isn't new. It has a name, and Perry has already endorsed it by name.

In May 2024, in a closed-door briefing for members of Congress about rising antisemitism, Perry said flatly that "replacement theory is real" — the white nationalist conspiracy that native-born Americans are being deliberately swapped out for immigrants. In the same briefing he claimed the Ku Klux Klan is "the military wing of the Democratic Party." We laid out that record, and the antisemitic meme his campaign posted two months later, in a separate piece.

Two years later he stood on the House floor and described the exact same process — they move in, we move out, they take over — without using the phrase. Same theory, new target.

Ten years of the same thing

This didn't start in 2026.

December 2016. Perry posted a photo of himself with Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT for America — a group the Southern Poverty Law Center calls "the largest grass-roots anti-Muslim group in America." He called Gabriel "someone who demands (and deserves) to be heard about the security of our nation."

When constituents objected, Perry didn't back down. He called the SPLC an "extremist left-wing organization," said "the fact that they would condemn anyone is laughable," and delivered the line that's aged into a kind of confession:

"One person's hate group is another person's patriot."

He said that in a story that also reported the FBI's numbers: 257 hate crimes against Muslims in 2015, a nearly 67% jump in one year, the highest since the aftermath of September 11.

December 2021. The House voted on a bill by Rep. Ilhan Omar to set up a State Department office to track Islamophobia around the world. During the debate, Perry falsely claimed on the floor that Omar — a Somali-born Muslim — was "affiliated with" terrorist organizations. The House's rules-enforcer struck his words from the record and barred him from speaking on the floor for the rest of the night. The bill passed 219–212, with every Republican who voted opposing it.

Asked about it, Omar said: "The parliamentarian responded to him. His words were taken down. That's good enough."

January 2026. Perry joined the Sharia-Free America Caucus and gave the founders a statement for their press release:

"We welcome oppressed people from around the globe to enhance and participate in the self governance model that is America; we did not, however, invite them to leave their theological oppression abroad to come and conquer America under the flag of violent submission and oppression that is Sharia law."

February 2026. The Council on American-Islamic Relations designated that caucus an anti-Muslim hate group — the first time in the group's 32-year history it has done that to a caucus of Congress. CAIR's write-up says members paint Islam itself as a threat, describing Muslims as people who bring "violent submission and oppression." That exact phrase is Perry's, word for word, from the press release above.

CAIR's research director put it this way: "No one who wrote the Constitution or enforced it since has empowered these legislators to pick which religions get to exist in America."

Perry answered that criticism ten years early. One person's hate group is another person's patriot.

By late March, the caucus had passed 50 members, and it isn't a fringe of the fringe — it now includes members like Florida's Randy Fine, who went on TV and said "a Muslim terrorist runs the city of New York", and Oklahoma's Josh Brecheen, who warned a room of constituents about the Ottoman Empire — in a state that already tried banning Sharia once and had it thrown out as unconstitutional.

Who's actually a threat to the Constitution here

Perry's whole argument is that a foreign code is going to replace the American one.

Look at who's making it.

Perry had his cellphone seized by the FBI as part of the investigation into the effort to overturn the 2020 election. In the early hours of January 7, 2021 — after a mob attacked the Capitol — he voted to throw out Pennsylvania's own electoral votes. His constituents' votes.

And in June 2026, he signed on to a resolution to repeal the 17th Amendment — the one that lets you elect your own U.S. senators. If Perry got his way, Pennsylvanians would no longer pick Pennsylvania's senators at all; politicians in Harrisburg would. We wrote about that resolution when another of its nine cosponsors signed on.

The man warning that someone is coming to shred the Constitution has spent five years trying to edit it himself.

What he isn't doing

Here's what central Pennsylvania is dealing with while its congressman works on this.

• An estimated 23,069 people in his district are projected to lose health coverage because of the health care cuts he voted for, according to the Joint Economic Committee. When Congress moved to save the tax credits keeping people covered, Perry called that a "colossal mistake."
• 45,736 households in PA-10 — about 14% of the district — use SNAP to buy groceries, including more than 20,000 households with kids.
• He has not held an in-person town hall since 2019. In March 2025, hundreds of his constituents held one without him.

Perry found an hour on the House floor to warn about secret courts he admits he can't find. He hasn't found an evening in seven years to stand in a school gym in York County and answer a question from someone whose insurance just got cancelled.

He's got time. He's just spending it on this.

We deserve better.

Sources

• SHARIA-FREE AMERICA — Congressional Record, House, March 26, 2026 (Perry's full remarks)
• What is the Sharia Free America Caucus, and who from Pa. joined? — Keystone Newsroom, March 24, 2026 (photo: USA Today Network via Reuters Connect)