Texas teen tells Congress he received death threats after revealing Islamic booth at high school
FIRST ON FOX — A Texas high school student who went viral after calling out an Islamic group for passing out hijabs on his campus told members of Congress last week that he has received death threats for speaking up.
Marco Hunter-Lopez, a 16-year-old student at Wylie East High School and president of the campus Republican Club, told Fox News Digital he was invited by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, to testify May 13 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government in a hearing titled, "Sharia-Free America."
Hunter-Lopez testified about an incident that occurred on Feb. 2 on his high school campus, when he encountered an Islamic booth where four adult women from the organization "Why Islam?" were passing out hijabs to female students, copies of the Quran with conversion instructions, and a pamphlet titled, "Understanding Sharia."
The incident drew national attention after Hunter-Lopez posted videos of the booth to social media. During his testimony, he revealed he received death threats afterward.
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"I had people saying that they were going to be at my house waiting for me to get home and they were going to shoot me," Hunter-Lopez told the subcommittee. "I had people telling me to kill myself. A lot of different things. But I know nobody can proclaim anything over me because I wake up every morning with victory with Christ."
In his testimony, Hunter-Lopez said that Sharia law is fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution and American values, and argued the outside group violated school policy and parental rights.
"Handing materials that present Sharia favorably to minors during the school day — without parental approval — risks normalizing ideas that undermine the very principles our public schools are supposed to uphold," he said. "This is not neutral education; it is ideological promotion under the guise of diversity and inclusion."
An exchange with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., also went viral after the lawmaker questioned the purpose of the session, asking if anyone believed the U.S. needed special laws targeting specific religious populations rather than holding everyone to secular law.
When Raskin directed the question to Hunter-Lopez, the teenager challenged Raskin's characterization of America's legal system, pointing out that the vast majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were church-attending Christians.
After clips of the exchange were posted to X last week, conservatives praised the teen for his articulate response to the congressman's questioning.
Hunter-Lopez later told Fox News Digital that Raskin repeatedly cut him off before he could fully argue that lawmakers must acknowledge America's Christian foundations, but said he was ready to defend his views.
"I believe that he thinks that he was going to catch me off guard by calling me out. But it didn't," Hunter-Lopez told Fox News Digital. "I took the fight."
Representatives for Raskin did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Hunter-Lopez credited his faith and community for giving him the boldness to stand his ground, noting that his peers have been more motivated to share their views after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
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"After that, instead of being scared to speak up, I actually saw more students brave to speak out," he told Fox News Digital. He encouraged other students to get involved in their community and "find other students you can connect with."
The Christian conservative student was also asked to testify about allegations that the Republican Club faced "hostile scrutiny" from school administration since it was launched last year. Hunter-Lopez alleged that school officials initially denied his club for being too political, targeted their posters, and selectively enforced policies regarding religious and political student groups.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Wylie Independent School District (ISD) officials strongly rejected the claim it engages in viewpoint discrimination or selectively enforces policies in relation to religion or political views.
"Wylie ISD does not endorse or promote any religion," a spokesperson said. "As a public school district, the district is legally required to remain neutral regarding religion while respecting the constitutional rights of all students. The district does not operate 'Islamic prayer rooms' or provide preferential treatment to one religious group over another. In accordance with the law, reasonable accommodations may be made for students’ religious practices when appropriate."
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District officials said that the school "experienced monitor-related challenges last school year," regarding the Republican Club and said communications between the school and students "could and should have been better, and district leadership has acknowledged that."
Regarding the original Feb. 2 incident, Wylie ISD reiterated that the situation was a procedural breakdown regarding visitor procedures, "not an intentional effort to promote any religious viewpoint or organization." The district stated that a required verification step was missed by campus staff, adding that "had that critical step been completed, the outside group would not have been permitted to meet with the student club that day."
"Following the incident, the district reinforced expectations with campuses and updated club and visitor procedures to help ensure a situation like this does not happen again," a spokesperson said.
The hearing comes amid a broader push by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, who launched the "Sharia Free America Caucus" late last year to counter what they describe as a threat to American civil liberties.
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Self told Fox News Digital that the incident at Wylie East High School was not an isolated school oversight.
"This was not a procedural breakdown as the school has said," Self said. "It was intentional, it has happened before, and they just got caught by a young man who was not going to let it happen without pushback."
Wylie ISD disputed Self's comments in a statement to Fox News Digital, calling the congressman's remarks "disappointing" and said he never contacted district leadership or campus administration to discuss the matter.
Roy echoed Self's concerns in comments to Fox News Digital, saying that Sharia influence is spreading rapidly in Texas, with "more than 300 mosques and proposals for Muslim-only cities." He applauded the high school student for speaking out.
"Marco has seen the consequences firsthand in his own high school, and I applaud his bravery for speaking out and telling the truth about how the growing influence of Islam is affecting our state," he said.