DEARBORN, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – In the past three months, a string of controversies have jettisoned Dearborn into the national spotlight.

Islam on display.

There is a Muslim mayor Abdullah Hammoud who told a Christian he’s not welcome in the city. The Muslim police chief bragged about how a large increase in the number of Arab police officers was better serving the city and ended his boast with a Muslim prayer. And the city renamed a portion of a street in honor of a prominent resident who Islamic watchdog groups say celebrated Middle Eastern terrorists.

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And the most recent event is an FBI terrorism investigation that originated in Dearborn and now has eight people charged in connection to the plot. The FBI claims laid out in criminal complaints are by far the most serious of the chain of events. The FBI charged five people from Dearborn and claimed they thwarted a major terror attack planned for Halloween.

The first controversy started in early September.

On September 8, the city of Dearborn renamed a stretch of a street after prominent local figure Osama Siblani. The Middle East Media Research Institute described Siblani as “a longtime outspoken supporter of U.S. Designated Terror Organizations Lebanese Hizbullah and Hamas.”

When Dearborn resident Ted Barham, a Christian, criticized the street-naming honor in September, he was rebuked by the mayor.

“The best suggestion I have for you is to not drive on Warren Avenue or to close your eyes while you’re doing it. His name is up there and I spoke at a ceremony celebrating it because he’s done a lot for this community,” Hammoud told Barham. “You are a bigot, and you are racist, and you’re an Islamophobe… Although you live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here. And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of this city.”

The podcast effect.

Those comments went viral and many national political commentators, such as conservative Matt Walsh, dedicated multiple segments addressing it.

In a podcast released earlier this month, Hammoud said he was reacting as a father in anger over Barham’s views because the mayor said that what he has described as Barham’s anti-Muslim views reflected upon the mayor’s own daughters.

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The city of Dearborn’s Police Chief Issa Shahin sparked controversy when a video of him went viral this September of him saying that his city is better served now that there are more Arab police officers and then recited a Muslim prayer. Shahin’s comments were captured in an undated video. While residents have complained about how loud the call to prayer has been in the city, at a city council meeting the police chief defended the broadcast of the prayer and said they weren’t any louder than background noise, and said a truck hitting a pothole was “much louder” than the call to prayer.

Public relations.

There have been other events that have created a controversy nationwide of nearby Dearborn Heights, too.

A video of a Muslim man championing the fall of the United States at a Dearborn Heights event in 2025 showed him saying, “This American empire has been hurting our people from the beginning. … imperial Western powers must fall, and inshallah, they will fall.”

Dearborn Heights Police Department posted in September a photo of a proposed police patch featuring Arabic script.

Conservative social media influencers who have been critical of the Islamization of Dearborn were mocked and criticized for being Islamophobes. Now with the terror investigation, they have fired back on social media.

One of them was Mellisa Carone, a Michigan woman whose TikTok account was shut down after she posted videos about the Muslim call to prayer in Dearborn and expressed concerns about the safety of non-Muslims in the city.

“This is what happens when you allow for cities like Dearborn to be fully Islamic,” Carone said on X soon after the FBI announced the arrests in the alleged Halloween attack. “How many more jihadists are planning similar attacks? We are under attack by the enemy within. We have a major a Muslim problem.”