Texas Muslim housing project under lens

The US justice department has opened an investigation into a planned housing development outside Dallas that would have a mosque at its centre, Senator John Cornyn said Friday. Cornyn, who will face Texas' hard-right attorney general, Ken Paxton, next year in what could be a heated Republican primary contest for his own Senate seat, is the latest Texas Republican to challenge the development in the rural town of Josephine, Texas.

The project is backed by members of the East Plano Islamic Center, a mosque in Plano, and has drawn intense scrutiny from Republicans, including Gov Greg Abbott, who have accused the planners of seeking to create an exclusively Muslim community and to impose Islamic law on residents. In recent months, Abbott has directed several state agencies to investigate the development, known as EPIC City, suggesting it may have violated fair housing and financial laws.