THE CLAIM: The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 bans Muslims from holding office in the United States.
Democrats Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are the first Muslim women to serve in Congress.
THE FACTS: The act did not ban Muslims, or any other religious groups from public office; it upheld a quota system limiting immigration by country. While the 1952 act did discriminate by race and ethnicity, it placed no religious restrictions on who could hold elected office, Hiroshi Motomura, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, and immigration expert, told The Associated Press. The act upheld the race-based "national origins quota system" from the 1920s, which regulated how many immigrants could enter the U.S. from each country. In addition, Article VI of the Constitution states: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," meaning that a person can hold office no matter their faith. The erroneous claim about the act circulated widely following the election this month of two women who are Muslim to the U.S. House of Representatives: Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan.
People are also reading…
___
This is part of The Associated Press' ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
Find all AP Fact Checks here: https://www.apnews.com/tag/APFactCheck
Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck
