A federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Dearborn, Michigan, exposes a pattern of constitutional defiance that has cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements—and shows no signs of stopping. The American Freedom Law Center filed the complaint September 17, 2026, on behalf of journalist Margot Cleveland, alleging the city spent thousands in public funds promoting Islam while systematically ignoring Christianity and Judaism.
The lawsuit documents what attorneys call an escalating campaign of discrimination: taxpayer-funded Ramadan banners and crescent moon displays, police department shirts promoting Islamic holidays, mayoral Iftar invitations sent on government email, and aggressive retaliation against residents who complained. When Cleveland requested equal recognition for Easter and Passover, city officials froze her out—then installed more Islamic displays. The case is the latest in a string of First Amendment losses for Dearborn, which has been ordered by federal courts three times since 2010 to stop discriminating against Christians. This time, the city didn’t just violate the Constitution—it did so defiantly, in response to complaints.
The Money Trail
Cleveland discovered the displays in April 2025 while picking up pizza downtown. “Ramadan Kareem” banners hung from city property. A large lighted crescent moon—the symbol of Islam—illuminated Peace Park on public land. Easter was two weeks away. Passover was days out. Neither received acknowledgment.
A Freedom of Information Act request revealed the costs: $1,500 for the Ramadan banners, $5,000 for the crescent moon display. The city’s police department sold Ramadan-themed shirts bearing the official department emblem. Mayor Abdullah Hammoud used his government email to invite select residents to an Iftar event, with the city spending $360 on signage for the Islamic religious observance.
Cleveland, a Dearborn resident since 2007 and Senior Legal Correspondent for The Federalist, sent an email to the city attorney on April 6, 2025. She asked whether Easter and Passover would receive similar recognition. No one responded. She raised the issue at city council meetings, requesting that Dearborn allocate funds for Christian and Jewish holiday banners. The requests were ignored.
“You Are Not Welcome Here”
The mayor’s hostility toward non-Muslim residents became explicit at a September 9, 2025, city council meeting. Christian pastor Ted Barham rose to object to the city’s decision to rename a street after Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News. Siblani has publicly praised Hezbollah and Hamas as “freedom fighters.” He was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2013.
Barham, who had lived in Lebanon, Israel, and the West Bank, told the council the street renaming was “quite inappropriate,” comparing it to naming a street “Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street.” He quoted Christian scripture, saying he wished “to encourage peace” and that Jesus was “called the prince of peace.”
Hammoud’s response, captured on video and detailed in the lawsuit, was unambiguous: “You are a bigot and you are a racist and you are an Islamophobe. And 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.”
The mayor never apologized.
Retaliation and Escalation
On September 25, 2025, Cleveland’s attorneys at the American Freedom Law Center sent a formal letter to Hammoud and the city attorney. The letter described how “the City of Dearborn has become a hostile place for Christians and Jews” and requested that the city “display at the appropriate time banners similar in size and content to the Ramadan banners that recognize the holy days of Christians and Jews, such as Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur.” The attorneys offered to work with the city on design and content.
No one responded. Instead, the city commissioned crescent-moon-and-star light displays on municipal street lights for Ramadan 2026, billing it as “the first of its kind in Dearborn.” Hammoud was quoted saying of the city-sponsored display: “This initiative reflects who we are as a city.”
The lawsuit alleges Hammoud directed the city attorney to instruct council members not to communicate with Cleveland. She was barred from attending an April 2026 “Community Update” meeting as a journalist, told she could only attend as a resident, and was never invited to subsequent meetings.
A Pattern of Constitutional Violations
The complaint notes that Dearborn “has been down this road before.” In 2011, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the city violated a pastor’s First Amendment rights by restricting his distribution of Christian literature at the Arab International Festival. In 2013, the city paid $300,000 to settle a lawsuit after police unlawfully arrested members of Acts 17 Apologetics for evangelizing at the same festival. In 2015, the Sixth Circuit ruled en banc that law enforcement violated Christians’ constitutional rights when they ordered the Bible Believers group to leave the festival after a crowd pelted them with rocks and bottles. Wayne County paid the legal fees in that case.
The $300,000 settlement represents taxpayer funds spent because the city refused to respect constitutional rights.
“Despite these legal defeats, nothing has changed in the City,” the complaint states.
Legacy media coverage of the lawsuit has been sparse. Cleveland observed that multiple outlets reported on Dearborn’s denial but failed to cover the lawsuit’s documented allegations—the specific taxpayer expenditures on Islamic displays, the mayor’s statement telling a Christian resident “you are not welcome here,” or the city’s history of losing similar cases.
America’s First Arab-Majority City
Dearborn became the first Arab-majority city in the United States in 2023, with 54.5 percent of its 109,976 residents claiming Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Ford Motor Company moved its headquarters to Dearborn in the 1920s, hiring many Middle Eastern Christians who settled as refugees. Chain migration policies passed in the 1960s, combined with U.S. wars in the Middle East, shifted the demographic from Arab Christians to Muslims.
Hammoud became Dearborn’s first Arab-American and Muslim mayor in 2022 and was reelected in 2025. All seven current city council members have Democratic Party affiliations. Three council members and the mayor are publicly declared Muslims.
The city responded to the lawsuit with a statement blaming “attacks” on its “welcoming nature and the diversity of the people who proudly call Dearborn home.” The statement made no mention of the taxpayer-funded Islamic displays or the mayor’s comments to Pastor Barham.
What Cleveland Seeks
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare that Dearborn violated Cleveland’s constitutional rights, enjoin the city’s practices that favor Muslims and discriminate against Christians and Jews, award nominal damages, and order the city to pay attorneys’ fees.
David Yerushalmi, co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center, said in a statement: “Dearborn has been down this road before, and it has lost every time. What makes this case especially troubling is that City officials, up to and including the Mayor, responded to a citizen’s respectful request for equal treatment with silence, stonewalling, and outright hostility.”
Robert J. Muise, the other AFLC co-founder representing Cleveland, stated: “The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that the government may not prefer one religion over another. The City of Dearborn spent taxpayer money to light up its streets and parks for Ramadan while stonewalling a resident who simply asked that Easter, Passover, and other Christian and Jewish holy days be treated the same way.”
The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.