Three U.S. Muslims sue DHS over religious questioning by officers

Three Muslim Americans have filed a lawsuit alleging that U.S. border officers questioned them about their religious beliefs in violation of their constitutional rights when they returned from international travel.

The three men, who are from Minnesota, Texas and Arizona, sued Department of Homeland Security officials Thursday in a federal court in Los Angeles. The suit was filed in California because some of the questioning allegedly occurred at Los Angeles International Airport.

Abdirahman Aden Kariye, a Minnesota imam and plaintiff in the suit, said he has been questioned about his faith at least five different times when he was returning to the country between 2017 and 2022.

The repeated questioning caused Kariye stress and led him to stop wearing a Muslim cap known as a kufi, and to stop carrying religious texts when he travels internationally to avoid additional scrutiny, the lawsuit said.

“I am proud to be a Muslim,” said Kariye. “But now whenever I travel back home to the United States, I’m anxious. I’m constantly worried about how I will be perceived, so much so that I try to avoid calling any attention to my faith.”

What I experienced at the hands of CBP when coming back to my own country still haunts me,” said plaintiff Hameem Shah. “I thought that being an American meant that I and others are free to practice any religion that we choose.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the men, said the questioning violated the men’s constitutional rights to freedom of religion and protection against unequal treatment.

“Just as border officers may not single out Christian Americans to ask what denomination they are, which church they attend, and how regularly they pray, singling out Muslim Americans for similar questions is unconstitutional,” said the lawsuit.

It added: “By targeting plaintiffs for religious questioning merely because they are Muslim, defendants’ border officers stigmatize them for adhering to a particular faith and condemn their religion as subject to suspicion and distrust.”