Texas: Two Muslim Men Settle with Airline in Racial Profiling Case

IQNA – Two Muslim men from North Texas settled with Mesa Airlines, a regional carrier for American Airlines, after they said the crew found them “suspicious” and reported them to law enforcement in 2019.

The men, Abderraoof Alkhawaldeh, a motivational speaker from Irving, and Issam Abdallah, a nonprofit leader from Dallas, were traveling home from Birmingham, Ala., to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport when the incident occurred, The Dallas Morning News reported on Tuesday.

According to court documents, a passenger and a crew member told the captain that the men were a “security threat” shortly after they boarded the flight, causing a delay. When they arrived, law enforcement officers followed them, an F.B.I. agent interviewed them and T.S.A. officers searched their bags.

“Airlines cannot use racial profiling or other forms of discrimination in deciding who gets to fly with them,” Justin Sadowsky, a trial attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said in a statement.

“The color of one’s skin or the way they dress is not a substitute for rational, evidence-based security screenings.”

In August, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, ruled that the case could proceed to a jury trial. The court reversed a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case after finding evidence that a Mesa Airlines pilot’s actions were motivated by racial discrimination, the statement said. The ruling led to a settlement that included financial payments to both men.

“Our community should not have to live in fear of ‘flying while Muslim,’” Mustafaa Carroll, the interim executive director of CAIR’s Dallas chapter, said in the statement. “When airlines have to pay for discriminating against Muslims, they will learn to stop.”

CAIR also released a report in June titled “Twenty Years Too Many, A Call to Stop the F.B.I.’s Secret Watchlist,” which revealed the bureau’s use of the Terrorism Screening Database to discriminate against Muslims.

The report was based on an analysis of more than 1.5 million entries from a 2019 version of the list, which a Swiss hacker found online after a regional air carrier posted it by mistake.

“More than 350,000 entries alone include some transliteration of Mohamed or Ali or Mahmoud and the top 50 most frequently occurring names are all Muslim names,” the report said.

It estimated that more than 1.47 million of the entries, or over 98 percent, were for Muslims.

Source: Agencies