Muslim mayor speaks out after Secret Service denies him White House entry

A Muslim mayor who has represented Prospect Park, New Jersey, for nearly two decades said Tuesday afternoon he has not heard from the White House since the U.S. Secret Service blocked him from attending President Joe Biden's evening Ed al-Fitr celebration.

Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he was preparing to join fellow Muslim leaders on Monday to mark a belated end of the holy month of Ramadan when he got a call from a White House aide telling him not to come.

"As I was driving into D.C., I was about a few minutes away from the White House I received a call," Khairullah said Tuesday. "We started with small talk then he informed me that the Secret Service did not clear me to attend the White House Eid celebration. He went on to state that the Secret Service did not provide a reason, and he pretty much told me that I should turn around and return home."

The New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a news conference with Muslim community leaders, including Khairullah, to respond to what it called the Secret Service's "sudden and baseless" revocation of Khairullah's White House invitation, they said, due to "perceived profiling."

"When I first ran for office in 2001 -- just one year after I became a naturalized citizen -- I was hopeful that I could help implement systematic changes within New Jersey and that would make life better for American Muslims and everyday Americans. And while I have been able to see this come to fruition for the most part, incidents like this, being flagged on a watch list, and denied the honor that every leader should be given, make me question our progress," Khairullah said.

"Our crimes are our names, ethnicities and religion," he added. "And I call on President Biden to correct the injustices of the previous administrations by disbanding this illegal list and correcting ill-advised and racist policies."

"We are asking that the White House take this as an opportunity to, once and for all, to disband the watchlist -- to no longer have government agencies use this discriminatory list in their vetting -- or in their spying -- of American citizens," said Selaedin Maksut, executive director of CAIR's New Jersey chapter.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly deferred to the U.S. Secret Service when asked Tuesday about Khairullah's experience.

"Let me just first say this is under the purview of the Secret Service," she said. "I can say this: I was in the room. The president was very proud to welcome nearly 400 Muslim Americans to the White House to celebrate Eid yesterday."

Pressed on whether Khairullah deserved a more detailed explanation, Jean-Pierre repeated the incident was "in the purview of the Secret Service."

After Khairullah went public late Monday, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service said in a statement to reporters that the agency regrets the inconvenience but couldn't comment further.

"While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening. Unfortunately we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House," said Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the agency.

Khairullah, born in Syria and a U.S. citizen since 2000, is now in his fifth term as mayor of Prospect Park. From his perspective, Monday's experience "reeks of Islamophobia by certain federal agencies," something he said he wishes to discuss with Biden if he's invited back -- an invitation he said he would accept.

"I think that the big question [for the White House] is what are we going to out the targeting of Arabs, Muslims, South Asians by federal agencies that are basically not telling us why we are being harassed at airports, border crossings, and now, for me to be denied entry into the People's House is baffling," he said.

"If someone like me who has a high profile, who has clearly served their community, who has demonstrated dedication to the local community and global community can be targeted like that -- I have someone who could speak on my behalf -- the average citizen doesn't know who to turn to and who to speak to," he told CNN.

Khairullah suspects his trouble stems from his name matching one that appeared on an FBI terrorism watchlist, he said CAIR told him in 2019. He said he's faced many incidents of discrimination when flying, which can be embarrassing for his family, he added.

Maksut called on the White House to apologize and to reinstate the mayor's invitation.

"If these such incidents are happening to high-profile and well-respected American-Muslim figures like Mayor Khairullah, this then begs the question: What is happening to Muslims who do not have the access and visibility that the mayor has," Maksut said.

A report from CAIR last year found a 9% increase in discrimination complaints from Muslim-Americans in 2021 compared to 2020.