The FBI declined comment Monday, citing the pending litigation. citizenship “and even effectively exiled from the United States,” according to the lawsuit. In some cases, they’ve been denied jobs, gun licenses, visas, U.S. It says they’ve been publicly humiliated and subject to surveillance when they travel, as well as prevented from attending family functions like weddings and funerals. The lawsuit says none of the plaintiffs have ever been charged with terrorism-related offenses, but their appearance on the watchlist “designates them as worthy of permanent suspicion and imposes sweeping consequences that alter nearly every aspect of plaintiffs’ lives.” They named officials with several agencies - including the FBI, the Terrorism Screening Center, the Department of Transportation and ICE - as defendants. “As far as I can tell, the watchlist is for those people the government chooses not to charge with crimes,” he said at the press conference.ĬAIR and the plaintiffs said the watchlist is unconstitutional. Gadeir Abbas, an attorney with CAIR’s Legal Defense Fund, said he’s represented several people whose names appear on the watchlist, but none have ever been charged with terrorism-related crimes. CAIR attorney Hannah Mullen said during the press conference agencies will often use a person's former status on the watch list as a reason for scrutiny. Khairullah said he believes he was removed from the watchlist - formerly known as the FBI's Terrorist Screening Dataset, and also used to populate lists by other agencies - sometime before being disinvited to the White House. citizen residing in Saudi Arabia, “was detained, strip searched, and publicly subjected to search by an explosive-sniffing canine by Austrian government agents,” the lawsuit says. citizens living overseas - have suffered harassment from foreign governments after the U.S. And it says some of plaintiffs - from several states, and in some cases U.S. The lawsuit argues names are placed on the list with no due process - and no way to get a clear explanation of why an individual is on it, or even an official acknowledgement their name appears. ![]() CAIR said an analysis showed the list is nearly entirely populated by Muslim names or the names of people who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Khairullah’s name and birthdate were among the 1.5 million entries on a 2019 version of a so-called no-fly list a hacker leaked in January, saying it had been obtained from a CommuteAir server. “In 2019, I discovered that as a Muslim and as an Arab, I am a second-class citizen in my country and the birthplace of my children,” he said at a press conference alongside representatives of the NAACP and of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which filed the suit on the plaintiffs’ behalf. A dozen people are suing the federal government to try and end the use of a secret watchlist they say almost exclusively targets Muslims for scrutiny when they travel.Īmong the plaintiffs in the federal suit is five-term Prospect Park, New Jersey Mayor Mohamed Khairullah, who was on his way to an Eid al-Fitr celebration at the White House in the spring when the Secret Service told him he couldn’t attend.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |