A public interest law firm has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Dearborn, Michigan, alleging that local officials have spent taxpayer money promoting and celebrating Islamic holidays while refusing to extend the same recognition to Christianity and Judaism — a pattern the complaint says violates the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights law.
The American Freedom Law Center brought the suit Thursday on behalf of Margot Cleveland, a Dearborn resident and senior legal correspondent for The Federalist, according to a press release from the firm. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court and names the city, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, and other officials.
At the center of the case are years of city-funded Ramadan observances: banners on public property, crescent-shaped lights mounted on city light poles, a large illuminated crescent moon displayed in a public park, and police department T-shirts marking the Islamic holy month. The complaint alleges Dearborn has taken no comparable steps for Easter, Passover, or other faiths’ holidays, despite repeated requests from Cleveland and AFLC that it do so or face litigation.
Retaliation alleged
The suit claims those requests went nowhere. According to the complaint, Cleveland pressed city officials by email and in person at city council meetings, asking that public funds be distributed evenhandedly across religions. Rather than respond, the complaint says, Hammoud directed the city attorney to instruct council members not to reply to her at all.
“I don’t have a problem with people of faith exercising their deeply held beliefs,” Cleveland said in a phone call Wednesday, according to the AFLC press release. “I have a problem with people supporting or excusing terrorism and antisemitism and establishing a religion and discriminating against people of other faiths.”
Cleveland stressed that she is not asking Dearborn to stop Islamic religious expression. Her request, as she frames it, is that the city meet its constitutional obligation to treat religious expression equally, no matter the faith involved.
Dearborn did not respond to a request for comment by Thursday morning, according to the release. Hammoud and his chief of staff, Zaineb Hussein, did not immediately reply.
A legal history the complaint leans on
The lawsuit argues that federal courts have already recognized a pattern of Dearborn privileging one religion over others. It points to a 2011 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that found the city violated free speech and religious exercise protections when it barred a pastor from distributing Christian pamphlets at the city’s Arab festival. Two years later, Dearborn paid $300,000 to settle similar claims after police arrested Christians for discussing Jesus at the same event. In 2015, the Sixth Circuit again ruled against the city, this time over the removal of Christians preaching to what the en banc court described as a hostile crowd at the Arab festival. The surrounding county paid $200,000 in attorneys’ fees to AFLC in that case.
“Despite these legal defeats, nothing has changed in the City,” the complaint states.
Cleveland and AFLC are seeking a declaration that her clearly established constitutional rights were violated, an injunction barring Dearborn’s alleged practices of favoring Muslim residents and discriminating against Christians and Jews, nominal damages, and an award of costs and attorneys’ fees.
City demographics and political backdrop
Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, became the first majority-Arab city in the United States in 2023 and is home to the largest mosque in the country. The lawsuit arrives against a politically charged backdrop. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed endorsed Hammoud’s 2021 mayoral campaign, and Hammoud has since supported and donated to El-Sayed’s political efforts.
The complaint also recounts a 2023 public meeting in which Hammoud called a Christian pastor a “bigot” and “Islamophobe” for objecting to the city renaming a street after Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News. According to video of the meeting, Hammoud told the pastor, Ted Barham, “Although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here. 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.” Hammoud did not apologize, and Barham declined to sue despite what he said was encouragement from supporters worldwide. The complaint notes that Hammoud later attended a ceremony marking the street renaming.
Siblani has drawn scrutiny for past remarks. In 2024, he said, “We are the Arabs that are going to lift Palestinians all the way to victory, whether we are in Michigan, and whether we are in Jenin. Believe me, everyone should fight within his means. They will fight with stones. Others will fight with guns. Others will fight with planes, drones. And others will fight with rockets. And others will fight in their voice.” He was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2013.
The complaint also references an encounter in which Muslim city council member Kamal Alsawafy declined to condemn Hezbollah or Hamas when Cleveland questioned him at her polling place — days after the FBI stopped three Dearborn residents from carrying out an alleged terrorist attack at an Ohio amusement park.
Several nearby Detroit suburbs share a similar religious and political dynamic. Hamtramck, a city of roughly 28,000, became Muslim-majority in 2013 and in 2021 elected the first all-Muslim city council and mayor’s office in the United States.
According to the complaint, Cleveland attended an April public meeting where Dearborn officials said they would not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. The filing also cites the city’s practice of labeling local races “nonpartisan” while all current council members and Hammoud hold Democratic affiliations in voter registrations, endorsements, or public statements. Three of the seven council members and the mayor identify publicly as Muslim.
The lawsuit now asks a federal judge to decide whether Dearborn’s holiday spending and its treatment of residents who object amount to a government establishment of religion — a question that could resonate well beyond the city limits.
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/09/17/law-firm-sues-dearborn-mich-for-discrimination-in-favor-of-islam/