On Thursday, Nov. 21, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, will deliver oral arguments in a federal district court in Massachusetts on a motion to dismiss in Khairullah v. Garland, a lawsuit on behalf of 15 American Muslims who have been unjustly placed on the federal terror watchlist and No Fly List.
SEE: CAIR Announces Lawsuit in D.C., Mass., N.J., Mich. Seeking End to Secret Government Watchlist (CAIR)
WHEN: Thursday, November 21, at 10 AM
WHERE: Hampden Courtroom, 50 State St., P.O. Box 559, Springfield, MA 01102
CONTACT: CAIR National Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas 720-251-0425, gabbas@cair.com
BACKGROUNDER:
In 2023, CAIR released a report, titled “Twenty Years Too Many, A Call to Stop the FBI’s Secret Watchlist,” which details the federal government’s use of the Terrorism Screening Dataset to target Muslims.
CAIR’s report found that the overwhelming majority, estimated at 98 percent, of names on the watchlist are Muslim names. More than 350,000 entries alone in the portion of the watchlist acquired by CAIR include some transliteration of Mohamed or Ali or Mahmoud.
An individual’s watchlist status is used by government agencies to harass people when they travel, to prohibit them from flying, to deny individuals licenses and permits, to refuse to hire people or fire people already employed, to delay or deny visas and applications for U.S. citizenship or a U.S. passport, and to subject the innocent people on the list to dangerous and invasive law enforcement actions.
CAIR attorneys will argue that the federal watchlist and no fly list violate constitutional rights, including due process and equal protection.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas 720-251-0425, gabbas@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com