Dearborn, Michigan, spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on Ramadan banners hanging from city lampposts, a crescent moon display in a public park, and custom Ramadan T-shirts for the police department. For Easter, Passover, Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, the city spent nothing.
A federal lawsuit now argues that wasn't an oversight. It was the point.
The American Freedom Law Center filed suit alleging that Dearborn — the city with the largest per capita Muslim population in the United States, where over 50 percent of residents have Middle Eastern or North African roots — has been systematically promoting Islam with public funds while denying equivalent recognition to Christians and Jews. The suit claims First Amendment violations: government preference for one religion over all others.
Margot Cleveland, a Dearborn resident and senior legal correspondent for The Federalist, is among those behind the legal action. Cleveland says she first noticed the selective religious displays in April 2025. City-funded Ramadan decorations went up across Dearborn. When the Christian and Jewish holidays came and went with bare lampposts, she started documenting.
The lawsuit's language is precise: "By selectively permitting and promoting religious expression for Muslims but denying similar expression for Christians and Jews...Defendants have conveyed and effected governmental preference for one faith tradition over another."
Dearborn's mayor, Democrat Abdullah Hammoud, has a record that makes the lawsuit's claims harder to dismiss. In a confrontation with a local Christian pastor, Hammoud said: "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...because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence."
A mayor telling a Christian resident he's not welcome in his own city — while the city hangs religious decorations for a different faith with public money. The lawsuit argues those aren't separate incidents. They're the same policy.
The political ecosystem around Hammoud reinforces the pattern. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate, operates in the same Dearborn political orbit. Sheikh Ibrahim Yassine, a mosque leader in neighboring Dearborn Heights, laid out the vision plainly: "We will build America on the basis of moral civilization and Islam. What they have is no civilization. It is nothing but worldly life, nothing but technology."
The Establishment Clause doesn't have a population threshold. A city doesn't get to fund one religion's holidays and ignore the rest because the demographics shifted. That's the entire reason the clause exists — to prevent exactly what Dearborn appears to be doing.
Imagine a city in Alabama spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on Easter crosses on public lampposts, outfitting the police in Christmas sweaters, and the mayor telling a Muslim resident he's not welcome. The ACLU would have a press conference scheduled before lunch.
Ramadan T-shirts for the police department. Bare lampposts for Easter. A mayor promising a parade when a Christian leaves town.
The First Amendment doesn't read differently in Dearborn.