Category: News

The Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Columbus) today condemned President Trump’s latest travel ban, and encouraged any Ohio Muslims with family members impacted by the ban to contact CAIR-Columbus for assistance.

“The President’s latest travel ban has little to do with national security and everything to do with anti-immigrant bigotry. President Trump, Stephen Miller, and others within the Administration pine for an America that is racially, religiously and culturally monolithic,” said attorney Jennifer Nimer, Executive Director of CAIR-Columbus.

Nimer added, “That’s why President Trump keeps trying to curtail legal immigration, increase deportations, and ban as many Muslims as he can get away with banning, including–once again–foreign relatives of many American Muslims. The travel ban was irrational the first two times President Trump tried to implement it, and it remains so today.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced that it has defeated a motion filed by the federal government to dismiss a lawsuit the Muslim civil rights organization filed on behalf of 25 American Muslims challenging their placement in the Terror Screening Database — a watch list of “known or suspected terrorists” — without due process.

CAIR’s lawsuit is the broadest ever challenge to the federal watch list, challenging not only placement on the watch list without due process, but also the consequences imposed as a result of being added to the list – which include:

•           invasive additional screening and prolonged detentions,
•           so-called “white torture” harassment at U.S. ports of entry,
•           bank account closures without explanation or notice,
•           the inability to conduct wire transfers,
•           the inability to test drive and purchase vehicles,
•           being treated as armed and dangerous by local law enforcement during routine traffic stops,
•           the inability to obtain employment positions at airports,
•           the leveraging of watch list status to pressure listees to become government informants.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed a federal appeals court ruling that the Trump administration cannot ban grandparents and other family members of citizens and legal residents as well as certain refugees from six Muslim-majority nations from coming to the United States.

Today’s decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a July ruling that significantly decreased the number of people barred from the country under President Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive orders.

Woman wearing Islamic attire (hijab) shot multiple times while driving home from work

(COLUMBUS, OHIO, 9/6/2017) — The Columbus, Ohio, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Columbus) today called on the FBI to assist the Columbus Division of Police in conducting a thorough investigation of an unprovoked shooting attack on a Muslim woman in which the victim was hit multiple times.

According to the police report (170770251-001), the attack occurred just after midnight on Monday as the 58-year-old Muslim woman, who wears Islamic attire (hijab), was driving home from work. Officers on the scene “observed multiple bullet holes in the victim’s vehicle, blood within, along with shattered glass.”

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 9/5/17) — The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned President Trump’s termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as “pandering to the demands of anti-immigrant extremists.”

DACA is the Obama-era federal administrative relief from deportation policy that protects the rights of some 800,000 undocumented young people, commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” brought to the United States as children.

Today, CAIR-Ohio joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation, CAIR chapters from California, Florida, and NY, along with Asian Americans Advancing Justice and several other leading civil rights organizations, to file a brief in federal court asserting that the search of cell phones and other electronic devices at the border is unlawful.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who reportedly bombed a mosque in that state this morning during a prayer service. [NOTE: The Muslim American Society of Minnesota is offering a similar reward.]

CAIR’s national office is also urging mosques and Islamic centers nationwide to step up security measures. 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, is calling on all Americans of conscience to urge their members of Congress to not support the Trump administration-endorsed RAISE Act (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act), that slashes legal immigration in half from 1 million to 500,000 new Green Card holders and favors English speakers.

CAIR-Columbus announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on behalf of a Muslim-American plaintiff, asking a federal court in Ohio to order the State Department to issue him a U.S. passport.  The Plaintiff in the lawsuit was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2013.   After his previous U.S. passport pages became full, he applied to renew his passport. He went in person to the State Department’s Passport Office in Minneapolis, and paid the extra fee for “expedited” passport renewal service.