US Muslim mayor seeks answers after ‘humiliating’ watchlist leads to White House rejection

Mohamed Khairullah was mere minutes away from arriving at the White House for an Eid al-Fitr reception when he received a call.

Khairullah, the longtime Muslim mayor of Prospect Park, New Jersey, was informed that despite being invited to the gathering hosted by President Joe Biden, reminded to confirm his attendance and driving nearly four hours from his home state, he would not be allowed to attend Monday’s ceremony. He was given no reason for the abrupt rejection by either the White House or the Secret Service, which is in charge of security at the executive mansion.

This was not the first time Khairullah, a former volunteer firefighter turned local politician, faced unexplained actions from law enforcement.

The first such incident he can recall was in 2019 as he returned to the US from Istanbul, Türkiye, being met at his plane’s doors by law enforcement agents who told him he had been “randomly” selected for additional screening.

That would result in extended questioning from the agents over whether Khairullah had met with any terrorists while he was abroad, having his phone confiscated and being forced to undress down to his underwear during a strip search.

“It was humiliating,” he said during an exclusive interview with Anadolu. Monday’s decision to bar him from the White House “brought me back to that time,” he added.

Following the White House refusal, Khairullah reached out to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US’s largest Muslim advocacy group, for support. He was informed that his name was contained on an FBI watchlist that had been leaked onto the internet after being placed on an unsecured server by a US airline.

The list, first reported on by the Daily Dot news website, included a trove of names from the US’s Terrorist Screening Database and “No Fly List.” Some 1.5 million people are included on the list, including a “large majority” of Arabic and Muslim names, Dina Sayedahmed, a spokesperson for CAIR’s New Jersey chapter, told Anadolu. It dates back two decades to 2003.

She supplied Anadolu with a redacted version of the list that featured Khairullah’s name and date of birth.

At issue for the mayor is the lack of transparency from law enforcement, including its refusal to confirm the watchlist’s existence in the first place, much less whether or not he is on it.

“We want law enforcement to do their job. We want them to protect the nation. No one wants to tie their hands, but this is an unintelligent list,” he said. “Somehow, someway, somebody decided that I should be on this list. There needs to be transparency. When someone is on that list, they need to be told you're on the list.”

Khairullah still does not know how he ended up in the database, but he has a couple of guesses. He believes he could have been added in 2019 as a form of political retaliation after being a “vocal critic” of former President Donald Trump, or as the result of his refusal to become an informant after being approached by an FBI agent during the course of Syria’s civil war.

Khairullah was born in Syria before emigrating to the US with his parents in the 1990s and later became a naturalized citizen. He worked in the early days of Syria’s civil war to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees there while continuing to serve as mayor in Prospect Park.

“I said, buddy, I don't have the information you want. I don't have contacts with terrorist groups. I go there for humanitarian purposes,” Khairullah said, recalling his conversation with the agent. “I've declined being an operative. I am assuming this could be” part of the reason for being added to the list, he said.

Khairullah has been Prospect Park’s mayor for nearly two decades after serving on the city council beginning in 2001, just one year after he received his American citizenship.

The US, he said, “gave us tremendous opportunities. And that is why I decided I want to give back to my local community and society at large.”

That began with his work as a volunteer firefighter, a job he had dreamed of as a child, but one that he was only able to pursue after petitioning the local government to adjust the rules to allow for non-citizens to become firefighters. The process, he said, was his gateway into local politics. Unfortunately his first run at public office came in the midst of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and kick-started the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror.

“2001 was not a good year for the Muslim community, based on the stereotypes, based on what happened on September 11. But it proved to me that local engagement really shows people who Muslims are, who Arabs are truly, and luckily, I was able to win in November of 2001,” he said. “The rest has been history. I started as a councilman. A few years later, my predecessor resigned because he was moving out of town. I became mayor, and the rest is history. I won five terms as mayor ever since.”

The decision to bar Khairullah from the White House this week prompted a strong backlash from his fellow New Jersey politicians, including Sens. Bob Menendez, Cory Booker and Representative Bill Pascrell, who penned a joint letter to the Secret Service and the White House demanding public answers as to why the mayor was prohibited entry.

“We also urge you to provide Mayor Khairullah with the substantive reasons he was denied admission and urge you to initiate a review of Mayor Khairullah’s status so that in the future he may be able to attend events and represent his constituents at the People’s House,” the lawmakers wrote to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and White House Social Secretary Carlos Elizondo.

“Mayor Khairullah is a devoted public servant, close friend and the longest-serving Muslim mayor in New Jersey, proudly serving his community for over 17 years. As a former volunteer firefighter, Mayor Khairullah has continuously demonstrated dedication to public safety. The son of immigrants, we know Mayor Khairullah’s patriotism and public service is shaped by his upbringing and values that are molded by his commitment to help others,” they added.

Khairullah for his part, downplayed the need for an apology from officials, stressing his case is unimportant in the larger scheme of things. The issue that must be addressed, he said, is the list itself and the secrecy that shrouds it.

“There's others who will suffer who don't have the platform that I have,” he said. "The community is owed a meeting at the White House to be able to discuss their concerns and to receive real answers. How do people get on this list? How do they clear their names if they get on the list? You can't just put them on a secretive list, harass them through airports, harass them through life in general, not give them clearances, and then expect them to believe that you truly think they're as equal to any other American.”

Asked if CAIR would be pursuing legal action alongside the mayor, Sayedahmed, the New Jersey chapter spokesperson, said the group will be whether or not it will take action “in the coming days.”