The chickens have come home to roost for Dearborn, Michigan, and its mayor, Abdullah Hammoud. A year and a few days after Hammoud berated a local pastor who complained about the mayor’s praise for a Hezbollah supporter, Margot Cleveland, a journalist and legal commentator who writes for The Federalist, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Hammoud and the city he governs. The suit, filed by the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) on September 17, 2026, accuses the city and its leaders of violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government institutions from showing preference for one religion over another.
“For too long, the City of Dearborn has been a hostile place for Christians and Jews. Defendant Hammoud has taken this hostility to the next level, openly conveying the message that Christians and Jews are not welcome in the city and are, indeed, second-class citizens,” the complaint declares, echoing arguments previously made in the pages of Focus on Western Islamism.
The complaint details a pattern of alleged religious favoritism dating back to April 2025, when Cleveland discovered the city had spent public funds—roughly $1,500 on “Ramadan Kareem” banners and $5,000 on a lit crescent-moon display in a municipal park—while providing no equivalent recognition for Lent or the approaching Passover holiday. According to the suit, Cleveland’s subsequent request that the city treat Christian and Jewish holidays with the same public recognition went unanswered, even as the city’s police department sold Ramadan-themed shirts bearing its official emblem and Hammoud used his government email to promote an Iftar event. The lawsuit alleges the disparity only widened in 2026, when the city installed additional lighted Ramadan displays that Hammoud himself described as reflecting “who we are as a city,” while the City Council’s budget that same year again included no funding for comparable Christian or Jewish observances despite a budget surplus and Cleveland’s repeated public appeals.
Our client is simply asking the City to treat Christians and Jews as equal citizens.
“Neither [city attorney] Mr. Romer nor anyone else from the City responded to Plaintiff’s email,” the complaint reports.
The suit brings three claims: a First Amendment retaliation claim alleging that the city and Hammoud punished Cleveland for her journalism and advocacy by freezing her out of communications and public meetings; a Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection claim alleging she was treated worse than similarly situated residents because of her religious and political viewpoints; and an Establishment Clause claim alleging the city unconstitutionally preferred Islam over Christianity and Judaism through its sponsorship of religious displays and events. The complaint points to Hammoud’s own public statement that the Ramadan program reflects “who we are as a city” as evidence of an official government endorsement of one faith over others, and asks the court for a declaratory judgment, an injunction against the city’s allegedly discriminatory practices, nominal damages, and attorneys’ fees.
Cleveland alleges that after she publicly asked the City Council to fund Easter and Passover banners and a menorah, city officials directed the Corporation Counsel to instruct council members not to communicate with her, citing her stated intent to pursue “possible legal claims” even though she repeatedly said her goal was to resolve the matter without litigation. She also alleges she was barred from reporting as a journalist at an April 2026 “Community Update” meeting, made to attend only as a resident on condition she not report on it, and was never invited to another such meeting afterward—evidence, she claims, that the city froze her out in retaliation for her advocacy and criticism of the mayor.
“By selectively permitting and promoting religious expression for Muslims but denying similar expression for Christians and Jews, as set forth in this Complaint, Defendants have conveyed and effected governmental preference for one faith tradition over another.”
The suit also recounts a now legendary confrontation between Hammoud and local Pastor Ted Barham. At a September 9, 2025 City Council meeting, Barham rose to object to the city’s decision to rename a local street in honor of Osama Siblani, a man who has publicly praised Hezbollah and Hamas as “freedom fighters.” Identifying himself as a Christian who had lived in Lebanon, Israel, and the West Bank, Barham told the council the street signage was “quite inappropriate,” likening it to naming a street “Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street,” citing some of Siblani’s own inflammatory remarks—including his comment that the blood of “martyrs” “irrigates the land of Palestine.” Barham closed by invoking Christian scripture, saying he wished “to encourage peace” and that Jesus, “called the prince of peace,” adding the phrase, “blessed are the peacemakers.”
Hammoud’s response, captured on video and quoted at length in the complaint, has since become notorious. He told Barham: “The best suggestion I have for you is to not drive on Warren Avenue or to close your eyes while you’re doing it,” before accusing him of hypocrisy for criticizing the street renaming while himself having posted videos “standing in front of my mosque saying the cruelest of things about Muslims.”
Hammoud went on to call Barham “a bigot,” “a racist,” and “an Islamophobe,” and declared: “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 . . . because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.” The complaint holds up this exchange as direct evidence of the mayor’s hostility toward non-Muslim residents who criticize the city’s policies.
“Defendant Hammoud has taken this hostility to the next level, openly conveying the message that Christians and Jews are not welcome in the city and are, indeed, second-class citizens,” the complaint declares.
Barham says that although many urged him to sue Hammoud himself after the confrontation—citing potential claims for First Amendment retaliation, chilling of speech, and defamation—he chose not to, drawing on his Christian conviction to “bless those who curse you” and his hope of winning the mayor and other Muslim neighbors over to “the gospel of peace” rather than responding in kind.
“At the same time, there are also biblical grounds for taking legal measures to ensure the right to promote the gospel. That being the case, I support the American Freedom Law Center’s decision to do so,” Barham told FWI.
Anthony Deegan, a Christian resident of Dearborn who has worked to document and counter anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda put forth by Islamists and their leftist allies in the city, says the lawsuit fits a pattern he’s watched play out for years. Given the city’s ongoing controversies—including politicians treating city assets and venues as their own personal playthings—he says it was “only a matter of time” before Dearborn found itself on the losing end of another costly lawsuit.
“This one might be it,” Deegan said.
“Dearborn has been down this road before, and it has lost every time,” said David Yerushalmi, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel, citing previous lawsuits against the city. “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 — including the Mayor’s own words telling a Christian resident he is ‘not welcome’ in his own city. Our client is simply asking the City to treat Christians and Jews as equal citizens.”
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud has not responded to a request for comment from FWI.
