The U.S. Secret Service said Monday it blocked a Muslim mayor from Prospect Park, New Jersey, from attending a White House celebration with President Joe Biden to belatedly mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Shortly before he was set to arrive at the White House for the Eid-al-Fitr celebration, Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he received a call from the White House stating that he had not been cleared for entry by the Secret Service and could not attend the celebration where Biden delivered remarks to hundreds of guests. He said the White House official did not explain why the Secret Service had blocked his entry.
Khairullah was an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump's travel ban that limited entry to the U.S. of citizens from several predominantly Muslim countries. He also has travelled to Bangladesh and Syria to do humanitarian work with the Syrian American Medical Society and the Watan Foundation. "While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening," Guglielmi said in a statement. "Unfortunately we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House."Selaedin Maksut, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of CAIR, called the move "wholly unacceptable and insulting.
On another occasion, he said he was briefly held at the U.S.-Canada border as he traveled back into the country with family.
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