The City of Dearborn has been a simmering cauldron for several years, due to its overt favoritism toward Islam, its growing Arab population, and its ignoring of other faiths. Its mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, and other city officials have repeatedly insulted and antagonized non-Muslims, and one Dearborn citizen has experienced enough of his provocations and is suing:
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The American Freedom Law Center is pursuing the suit on behalf of Dearborn resident and Federalist Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland.
‘The lawsuit alleges that City officials spent public funds and used City property to promote and celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan while refusing Cleveland’s repeated requests that the City extend the same recognition to Christian and Jewish holidays — and that Mayor [Abdullah] Hammoud and other City officials retaliated against Cleveland for speaking out about the disparity,’ says an AFLC press release.
Cleveland emphasized that she didn’t have a problem with the promotion of Islam, but with its radical practitioners:
‘I don’t have a problem with people of faith exercising their deeply held beliefs,’ Cleveland said in a phone call Wednesday. ‘I have a problem with people supporting or excusing terrorism and antisemitism and establishing a religion and discriminating against people of other faiths.’ She emphasized that she is not seeking the removal of Islamic religious expression but asking the city to comply with its constitutional obligations to treat all religious expression equally.
Mayor Hammoud also has a history of allowing hostile activities in Dearborn toward other faiths. He verbally attacked a pastor, Ted Barham, who had calmly questioned the city’s decision to rename a street after the publisher of Arab American News, Osama Siblani. Siblani was a known supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. Hammoud made this statement to the pastor at a public meeting:
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‘[Y]ou are a bigot and you are a racist and you are an Islamophobe. And although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,’ Hammoud responded, according to video of the public meeting. ‘And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city.’
Dearborn has also developed a reputation for acting against other faiths:
In 2011, the 6th Circuit ruled that Dearborn violated free speech and religious exercise by banning a pastor from sharing Christian pamphlets at the city’s Arab festival.
In 2013, the city paid $300,000 to resolve similar claims after police arrested Christians for talking about Jesus at the same festival. In 2015, the 6th Circuit again ruled that local government had unlawfully removed Christians from preaching to a ‘hostile’ crowd at the Arab festival, violating their freedom of speech. In that case the surrounding county paid $200,000 in attorneys’ fees to AFLC for enforcing what the en banc court judged was an impermissible heckler’s veto.
In February 2026, Dearborn expanded the Ramadan displays and the ensuing expenses for them for a total of $6,500.
Cleveland’s request to allow other religions to provide displays for their religious holidays has gone unanswered. Thus, the lawsuit alleges violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, including the Establishment Clause, free-speech protections, and equal protection. It seeks a declaration that the defendants violated Cleveland’s rights, an injunction, nominal damages, and related legal costs, according to the American Freedom Law Center.
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We’ll have to see if the lawsuit falls on deaf ears once again.
Image created using AI.