The Muslim mayor of a small New Jersey city says that he was denied entry to the White Home on Monday for a belated Eid al-Fitr celebration with President Joe Biden.
Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed T Khairullah mentioned he obtained a name from the White Home shortly earlier than he was set to reach, informing him that the Secret Service had not cleared him to enter the occasion at which Biden delivered remarks to a whole lot of company. It is unclear why the Secret Service blocked the mayor’s entry.
As he made his method dwelling to New Jersey on Monday night, Khairullah advised the Related Press that the snub left him “baffled, shocked and disenchanted.”
“It is not a matter of I did not get to go to a celebration,” he mentioned. “It is why I didn’t go. And it is a listing that has focused me due to my id. And I do not suppose the best workplace in america ought to be down with such profiling.”
“I assume I am again to being accused of one thing,” Khairullah mentioned to Information 12 New Jersey, referencing a 2019 incident during which he was detained and questioned for hours at JFK Worldwide Airport as he and his household returned to the U.S. from a visit to Turkey. The longtime mayor described the detainment as a “hurtful second the place I am pondering in my thoughts that this isn’t the America that I do know,” he advised northjersey.com. He famous he has flown internationally different occasions with out incident.
Khairullah’s ordeal sparked backlash on-line, as Muslim advocacy teams condemned the snub, calling it “authorities overreach.”
“We name on the White Home to override the Secret Service and reinstate the mayor’s invitation, disband the key watchlist, and difficulty an apology to the mayor,” the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ) mentioned in an announcement. “If these such incidents are taking place to high-profile and well-respected American-Muslim figures like Mayor Khairullah, this then begs the query: what is occurring to Muslims who should not have the entry and visibility that the mayor has?”
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Khairullah is the longest-serving Muslim mayor in New Jersey. Born in Syria, Khairullah was first elected mayor of the borough of roughly 6,000 individuals in 2005, simply 5 years after changing into a U.S. citizen. He received a fifth time period in 2022.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi mentioned in an announcement to Newsweek that the company can’t remark additional or present an replace.
“Whereas we remorse any inconvenience this may increasingly have precipitated, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White Home advanced this night,” Guglielmi mentioned. “Sadly we’re not capable of remark additional on the particular protecting means and strategies used to conduct our safety operations on the White Home.”
Newsweek has reached out through e-mail to Khairullah and CAIR for remark.
The revocation of Khairullah’s invitation was “wholly unacceptable and insulting,” CAIR-NJ Govt Director Selaedin Maksut mentioned in an announcement. She highlighted the mayor’s latest accolades, together with being acknowledged for his longstanding tenure within the function the place he was lately amongst New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s “distinguished company” on the governor’s mansion.
“Immediately, in an affront to the Muslim group and the American public at giant, and in what could possibly be perceived as a continued use of the key watchlist, the Secret Service denied Mayor Khairullah entry, on the idea that he was not cleared by safety,” she mentioned.
CAIR has urged the Biden administration to droop the FBI’s dissemination of two of its watchlists, that are, Maksut mentioned, “nearly fully lists of Arabic and Muslim names.”