Biden aides meet in Michigan with Arab American and Muslim leaders, aiming to mend political ties
DEARBORN, Mich. — Top Biden administration officials met with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Michigan on Thursday in an effort to repair ties with a community that will play a key role in deciding whether President Joe Biden can win a crucial swing state in the 2024 election retain.
He is facing increasing backlash from Arab Americans and progressives for his vocal support of Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, though Biden insists he is trying to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza.
More than 27,000 people, mostly women and minors, have been killed in Gaza since militants attacked Israel on October 7, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250, mostly civilians, in its attack.
Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country and more than 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African descent. Nearly half of Dearborn’s approximately 110,000 residents claim Arab descent.
“Dearborn is one of the few places where Arab Americans live in such a concentrated area that your vote actually matters,” said Rima Meroueh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities. “So it gets the attention of elected officials because if they want to win the state, they’re going to have to appeal to this population.”
After Republican Donald Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, Wayne County and its large Muslim communities helped Biden recapture the state for Democrats in 2020 by a margin of about 154,000 votes. Biden had a roughly 3-to-1 lead in Dearborn and a 5-to-1 lead in Hamtramck, and he won Wayne County by more than 330,000 votes.
The White House – and Biden’s campaign – are well aware of the political dynamics.
Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, and other campaign staffers went to the Detroit suburbs late last month but found some community leaders unwilling to meet with them. Biden traveled to Michigan last week to court union voters but did not meet with Arab-American leaders.
Administration officials who made the trip to Michigan on Thursday included Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and Steven Benjamin, who heads the Office of Public Engagement, an official said the White House.
Among the Arab American and Muslim leaders they met were state Reps. Alabas Farhat and Abraham Aiyash, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammound, Deputy Wayne County Executive Assad I. Turfe and Arab American News publisher Osama Siblani.
Farhat, Aiyash, Hammoud and Turfe are among more than 30 elected officials in Michigan who have joined a “Listen to Michigan” campaign and pledged to vote “unfettered” in the state’s Feb. 27 presidential primary.
Imran Salha, imam of the Islamic Center of Detroit, told reporters before a protest Thursday in Dearborn that he is calling for “all people of conscience to vote ‘unfettered’” in the state’s upcoming primary elections.
“We’re going to have the conversation during the vote,” Salha said. ‘The most important thing… it’s about the bombs. While people are talking, bombs are falling. The only way we can talk to each other is by applying pressure.”
About three dozen demonstrators chanting “free, free Palestine” and “stop the genocide” marched from a shopping center parking lot to near a hotel where the rally was expected to take place. Some walked with children or pushed children in strollers.
“I am 100% Palestinian,” said Amana Ali, 31, who says she was born in the United States. “I feel the need to fight for where I come from and where my people come from.”
Aruba Elder of Dearborn said new words are needed to describe the atrocities the Israeli army is committing in Gaza.
‘We are beyond brutality. We have used every word you can think of to describe a humanitarian crisis,” Elder said. She said she hopes this protest and others like it continue to raise awareness.
‘You can’t give. It has worked in the past, hasn’t it?” she said.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.