WASHINGTON — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced on Tuesday, Nov. 15 that 87 separate public records requests have been made through 15 of its chapters across the country into possible Islamophobic training of local, state, and national law enforcement personnel. 

The rights group seeks information about possible Islamophobic training of personnel at multiple levels including local, state and national groups of people. 

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted to Congress that the FBI’s training of agents painting average Muslims as likely terrorist sympathizers were “flat-out wrong” and hurt their outreach efforts to American Muslims. 

The organization has in the past called on the Obama administration, DHS, the Department of Defense, and Congress to provide oversight for apparently widespread anti-Muslim bias in the training of law enforcement, security and military personnel nationwide. “CAIR’s public records requests seek to ensure that law enforcement agencies are using qualified trainers who present objective and unbiased information to help protect Americans from violent extremists of all types,” the organization said in a statement. 

“We firmly believe that good training leads to good investigations, while biased training leads to biased investigations. We are particularly concerned with ensuring that taxpayer dollars are not wasted on training that is agenda-driven, inaccurate or Islamophobic.”

Both Attorney General Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller have acknowledged that the Department of Justice and the FBI are reviewing their training materials to remove inaccurate and biased information.