Muslim NJ mayor demands answers after being turned away from White House Eid celebration

The longest-serving Muslim mayor in New Jersey said he was stunned after he got a call Monday afternoon disinviting him from an annual Eid al-Fitr celebration at the White House while he was in his car just miles away from the event.

Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he was informed that the Secret Service denied him security clearance and he could no longer attend the gathering of prominent Muslim leaders and President Joe Biden.

"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 said in an interview.

A United States Secret Service spokesman confirmed in a statement Monday night that the mayor was not permitted to attend.

"While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening," said Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the U.S. Secret Service. "Unfortunately we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House."

Khairullah, who has served as mayor for over 17 years, said a Democratic party staffer had even asked him to help compile a list of Muslim leaders in New Jersey to invite to the annual celebration for Eid, the holiday that marks the end of the Ramadan fasting month.

It's not the first time he was improperly profiled, he said. In 2019, Khairullah was held for three hours at JFK International Airport after returning from a trip to Turkey with his family. He was questioned about his travels, asked whether he met with any terrorists and forced to hand over his phone. He was detained again at the Canadian border for about three hours returning from a family vacation about two years ago, he said.

After the incident at JFK Airport, Khairullah said he tried to find out why he had been flagged, but federal agencies would not provide any information.

"I think right now my crime is my name," said Khairullah, 47.

Civil liberties and anti-discrimination organizations say Americans have been unjustly added to secret watchlists that hamper their ability to travel and open bank accounts. Dozens of Americans have sued, saying their names were wrongly added and they had no meaningful way to challenge it.

The Council on American Islamic Relations has called on the Biden administration to suspend FBI dissemination of the Federal Terrorist Screening Dataset, a watchlist that reportedly contain 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 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.

Learning Monday that his name was on a watchlist was not surprising, but it was upsetting, he said. 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.

"In Syria that kind of stuff happens," said Khairullah. "People write a report about someone and they get detained or harassed or sometimes disappear. Luckily, I’m not disappearing, but the fact is, there is a secret list I can’t clear my name from and it still haunts me and follows me where I go. I can’t even enter the People’s House and meet with my president. It's shameful."

CAIR's New Jersey chapter condemned the actions against Khairullah and called for the White House to issue an apology to the mayor.

“That a well-respected Muslim leader would effectively be disinvited from the White House Eid celebration, just hours ahead of time, is wholly unacceptable and insulting," said Selaedin Maksut, the chapter's executive director.

Khairullah stood beside New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy at his Eid celebration at the governor's mansion in Princeton just two days ago, Maksut noted. The mayor is also a humanitarian activist who has delivered aid to refugees in Syria, Turkey and Bangladesh. A former volunteer firefighter, he was sworn into his fifth consecutive term in January.

CAIR said the incident on Monday demonstrates lack of transparency and government overreach.

"If these such incidents are happening to high-profile and well-respected American-Muslim figures like Mayor Khairullah, this then begs the question: what is happening to Muslims who do not have the access and visibility that the mayor has?" Maksut asked.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ mayor Mohamed Khairullah denied from White House Eid celebration