Attorney Barbara McQuade Defends Dearborn as Negative Report Sparks Outrage

Standing beside Muslim-American and Arab-American leaders, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade called for an investigation into the accuracy of a recent report placing Dearborn as No. 2 on a list of cities with suspected terrorists, The Detroit News reports.

“It is unfortunate that recent reports have suggested a negative perception about the entire community,” McQuade said in an email to The Detroit News. “I can assure the public that Dearborn is filled with great American patriots – U.S service members, police officers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, business people, laborers and good neighbors.”

The report states that the FBI has been present in Dearborn since the 9/11 attacks, and that Dearborn has been “disproportionately targeted for watchlisting.”

According to classified government documents from the National Counterterrorism Center Directorate of Terrorist Identities, Dearborn – a city of nearly 96,500 – has one of the largest populations of Arab-Americans, Patch reports.

“I am very skeptical of it’s [sic] accuracy and of those numbers, to the extent they are numbers. It’s very irresponsible to report and rank numbers because of what it does to an entire community,” McQuade said. “I have seen and we all understand these watch list are not perfect.”

The report also states that in 2012 there were more than 20,000 suspected terrorists, Americans and non-Americans, living in the U.S.

“Considering that no Dearborn resident has engaged in a single act of domestic terrorism nor is there any significant number of convictions of Dearborn residents involved in international terrorism, it appears that the FBI views Arab-Americans in Dearborn as intrinsic threats due to ethnicity and religious affiliation,” said Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan.

Dearborn is second to New York, a city with more than 8 million residents and the most “known or suspected” terrorists in the U.S., according to the report.

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PHOTO: Barbara McQuade is outraged and asking for an investigation to be launched concerning the accuracy of a report that released naming Dearborn the No.2 city with suspected terrorist (Photo Courtesy of www.justice.gov) .