Secret Service blocks Muslim mayor from White House Eid-al-Fitr celebration

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Secret Service mentioned Monday it blocked a Muslim mayor from Prospect Park, New Jersey, from attending a White House celebration with President Joe Biden to belatedly mark the top of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Shortly earlier than Mayor Mohamed Khairullah was set to reach on the White House for the Eid-al-Fitr celebration, he acquired a name from the White House stating that he had not been cleared for entry by the Secret Service and couldn’t attend the celebration the place Biden delivered remarks to lots of of visitors, in keeping with the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

U.S. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that Khairullah was not allowed into the White House complicated, however declined to element why. Khairullah was elected to a fifth time period because the borough’s mayor in January.

“While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening,” Guglielmi mentioned in a press release. “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.”

Selaedin Maksut, CAIR-NJ government director, referred to as the transfer “wholly unacceptable and insulting.”

“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 mentioned.

Khairullah, who has beforehand finished humanitarian work in Syria and Bangladesh, was beforehand stopped by authorities and interrogated at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York for 3 hours and questioned about whether or not he knew any terrorists, in keeping with Dina Sayedahmed, a spokesman for CAIR-NJ.

The group mentioned Khairullah helped the New Jersey Democratic Party compile names of native Muslim management to ask to the White House Eid celebration and over the weekend was a visitor at occasion on the New Jersey governor’s mansion.