BRIDGES meeting at the LAHC office in Dearborn.

DEARBORN — Community activists and heads of organizations complained at a BRIDGES meeting on Tuesday to federal officials about the treatment of Arab and Muslim Americans at border crossings and airports.

Building Respect in Diverse Groups to Enhance Sensitivity (BRIDGES) was formed shortly after 9/11 in an effort to increase cooperation between government agencies and local leaders and address the backlash against the Arab Americans in southeast Michigan.

BRIDGES still meets regularly to discuss community concerns with federal officials.

At the Tuesday meeting, which took place at the Lebanese American Heritage Club in Dearborn, activists told officials that harassment of Arabs and Muslims at ports of entry to the United States has persisted despite years of discussing the issue.

Dawud Walid, the Michigan executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), said the civil rights organization receives the same kinds of complaints at its offices throughout the country, which proves that there is a national policy of profiling. 

He said border patrol and immigration agents have asked some travelers invasive questions about their religious practices, including: “Do you pray? How many times a day do you pray? Which mosque do you pray at? Do you pray the dawn prayer at the mosque?”

Walid added that local agents are following national protocols when they ask such questions, so the issue must be resolved in Washington.

He added that besides the “unconstitutional” religious questions, some Muslim and Arab travelers face excessive questioning because of the terrorist watch list and sometimes law enforcement agencies take advantage of the ambiguity of the right to have an attorney at ports of entry to interrogate travelers about cases unrelated to their trips.

Nabih Ayad, chair of the Arab-American Civil Rights League (ACRL), said discussing this problem repeatedly without results harms the credibility of community leaders.

“Some of you are going to be here for a few years then move on to different cities, different jurisdictions, different counties and what have you,” Ayad told the officials, who included Detroit’s new FBI special agent in charge, U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade and representatives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP.) “But we have to report back to our communities, our constituents. We have to tell them why these things are happening. And when they continue to happen—excuse my language— we are going to look like ass-kissers.”

Ayad added that tackling the continuous grievances of travelers is simply good policing, urging the government representatives to convey the complaints to their superiors in Washington.

“If this was a business… you’d be out of business because customer service would be all the way down,” Ayad told the representatives of the federal government.

Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News, requested a meeting with directors from Washington who can answer questions about national guidelines. 

McQuade said this is the most difficult issue BRIDGES has tackled since its inception.

“I absolutely understand and share your frustration,” she said. “But I do want to reassure that it is not that case that nothing is being done, even though there might have been no changes. We are working on it.”

She added that she raised the issue with the U.S. attorney general, but it is a slow process to reformat the watch lists. 

“I just want to reassure you, we do understand this is a problem, and we are trying to do our very best to resolve it,” McQuade said.