New Jersey mayor turned away from White House to sue Biden administration over watchlist

John Fritze, USA TODAY
·2 min read
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WASHINGTON – A Democratic mayor from New Jersey is planning to sue the Biden administration next week after he was abruptly disinvited from an Eid al-Fitr celebration at the White House earlier this year – a decision he believes was made because his name appears on a terrorism watchlist.

Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah, the longest-serving Muslim mayor in New Jersey, told the USA TODAY Network in May that the Secret Service had denied him security clearance so he could no longer attend the gathering of prominent Muslim leaders and President Joe Biden.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has long opposed the watchlist because the group claims it targets Muslims, said it will file the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Massachusetts in an effort to stop the government from using it. Multiple lawsuits challenging the lists have been working their way through the courts for years.

President Joe Biden speaks during an Eid al-Fitr reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 2, 2022.
President Joe Biden speaks during an Eid al-Fitr reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 2, 2022.

"It's disappointing and it's shocking that this continues to happen under our Constitution which provides that everyone is innocent unless proven guilty. I honestly don’t know what my charge, if you want to put it that way, is at this point, to be treated in such a manner," Khairullah told the North Jersey Media Group in May.

Khairullah didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. He promoted the Council on American-Islamic Relations' announcement of the lawsuit on social media late Friday.

Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah plans to sue the Biden administration over what he believes is his inclusion on a terrorism watchlist.
Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah plans to sue the Biden administration over what he believes is his inclusion on a terrorism watchlist.

The council has called on the Biden administration to suspend FBI dissemination of the Federal Terrorist Screening Dataset, a watchlist that reportedly contains about 1.5 million names. CAIR attorneys examined a copy leaked in January, which appeared to be “almost entirely lists of Arabic and Muslim names," the organization said.

In their review, they said they spotted a name and date of birth matching the Prospect Park mayor. Khairullah suspected he had been on a list since 2019, when he began to face interrogations and searches during his travels.

The Prospect Park mayor was born in Syria, and his family fled persecution in 1980. They lived in Saudi Arabia before moving to the United States in 1991.

Contributing: NorthJersey.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Muslim New Jersey mayor barred from White House sues over watchlist