DEARBORN — At its Sept. 9 meeting, the Dearborn City Council got around to addressing the classified government documents which alleged that Dearborn has the second highest number of “known or suspected terrorists” in the country and which were leaked by The Intercept last month.

The documents caused controversy with the charge that Dearborn, with a population of just 100,000 residents, had been placed higher on the “suspected terrorist list” than most of the other cities in the top five. New York City, with a population of 8 million, was number one on the list; Houston, with 2.1 million residents, was third.

The leaked documents had made national news and some community members and local civil rights groups have criticized the city for not taking a firm stance on the subject at the time. 

At the September 9 meeting, Council President Susan Dabaja said that she had intended to address the issue at the previous city council meeting, but the night before that scheduled meeting, the damaging Aug. 11 flood struck, requiring the city’s attention, first and foremost. 

“As someone who was born and raised in Dearborn, I still feel strongly compelled to address this report,” Dabaja said. “Dearborn is a proud diverse community and that’s what makes us so special. I myself question and challenge the authenticity of the document and I have yet to hear one government official validate it.”

Dabaja went on to thank Barbara McQuade, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, for standing by Dearborn. McQuade had led a press conference with other local civil rights groups last month, condemning the “findings” of the list.

“She’s gone on the record to say that no one from Dearborn has ever been prosecuted for a criminal act of terrorism,” Dabaja said. “I just wanted to go on the record and say that I love this city. We all love this city. This is a city of good people and good families. We live the American dream, doing what we can raising our children and living our lives.”

“Many people here today migrated to our city because of Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford and the opportunity to raise a family,” Councilman Mike Sareini said. “I really commend our citizens, because over the years, we’ve had many people use our great city for needs of publicity and self interest. I commend our residents, because when people came here to do demonstrations, our citizens continued to ignore them. I commend the great people of Dearborn and we are well on our way.”

For his part, Mayor Jack O’Reilly said it was important to note that both the FBI’s Detroit office and Homeland Security had also stated they were unaware of such a list. O’Reilly himself still questions the validity of the document.

“None of the agencies who are supposed to be aware of these documents have heard any evidence of this,” he said. “They’ve never seen it and they can’t document the origin, so they can’t even verify that there might be an authentic document. It’s very unfortunate, but we have to live with it. It’s important for everyone to know that there is no validity in this and it’s just something that came out of a reporting document from an entity who has its own agenda; and they are using it claiming it has some sort of basis and authority.”