In Texas, it appears that if you are Muslim, and you bring a project to show your engineering teacher, they will cuff you and haul you off to jail:

Ahmed Mohamed’s homemade alarm clock got him suspended from his suburban Dallas high school and detained and handcuffed by police officers on Monday after school officials accused him of making a fake bomb. By Wednesday, it had brought him an invitation to the White House, support from Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg, and a moment of head-spinning attention as questions arose whether he had been targeted because of his name and his religion.

As a result, a 14-year-old freshman at MacArthur High School in Irving, Tex., who is partial to tinkering, technology and NASA T-shirts and wants to go to M.I.T., found himself in a social media whirlwind that reflected the nation’s charged debates on Islam, immigration and ethnicity.

“Cool clock, Ahmed,” President Obama said on Twitter. “Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.” Mr. Obama’s staff invited Ahmed to the White House for Astronomy Night on Oct. 19, an event bringing together scientists, engineers, astronauts, teachers and students to spend a night stargazing from the South Lawn.

The president’s spokesman said the episode was a case study in unreasoned prejudice in an era when the country is fighting Islamic terrorism at home and in the Middle East.

“This episode is a good illustration of how pernicious stereotypes can prevent even good-hearted people who have dedicated their lives to educating young people from doing the good work that they set out to do,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary.

These are not good-hearted people, and Irving is not a good-hearted place.

Their mayor, Beth Van Duyne, has successfully run on a platform of religious bigotry for years now, and I do not expect anything resembling an apology from her.

Of course, now it’s blown up into a major sh%$ storm with POTUS got into the game on Twitter:

Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.

— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015

I really hope that Irving will spend the next few years as the butt of “dumb hick” jokes on the late night shows.

I always knew that Irving was a center of evil, it was the Dallas Cowboys home field until 2008,^* but this takes to a whole new (low) level.

If we cannot give all of Texas back to Mexico, can we give Irving back?

Please?

^*They now play in Arlington, TX, the largest city in the US without a mass transit system.