As Muslim representation in the United States increases, the types and complexity of the legal issues confronting them have increased as well. From illegal surveillance of Muslim individuals and groups to mosque-related zoning issues, Muslim Americans are turning to the courts to fight discrimination, obtain justice, and receive equal treatment under the law.
This article describes three kinds of cases Muslims are bringing to courts across the country.
After the 9/11 attacks, many in the Muslim community felt subject to increased surveillance and suspicion. It turns out they were right, and the federal government was keeping tabs on Muslims through a secret watchlist. This list, the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), is the central terrorist watchlist maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It is used by multiple agencies to decide who to hire, who to give a license or permit to, and how to treat people at the border and when they travel. The list’s purpose is to identify people who are known or suspected terrorists, but in reality, the FBI’s secret list is just a list of Muslims more than 1.5 million names long—almost all of them innocent.
While the FBI has argued that its watchlist is intended to promote national security, its contents reveal something else entirely—predominantly a list of Muslims. The Council on American-Islamic Relations obtained a copy of the list and estimates that Muslim names are found in over 98 percent of the entries.
The FBI shares this list among law enforcement agencies, which can significantly impact individuals’ lives. One Muslim American is suing the Oklahoma City Police Department because its use of the FBI’s watchlist led officers to pull him over at gunpoint. Immigration officials can deny loved ones entry to this country or immigration benefits if they are related or associated with someone on the list.
The FBI’s watchlist is maintained in secret, using undisclosed standards and processes and implicating over 1.5 million people. Being on the watchlist means that you can be prevented from flying, detained at gunpoint at land borders, and have your electronic devices seized, among other substantial rights violations—all based on evidence the accused never gets to see.
Muslim individuals and organizations have raised legal challenges against the TSDB, alleging violations of their constitutional rights. For example, in 2019, a federal judge ruled that the TSDB violated the constitutional rights of nearly two dozen Muslim Americans. The judge found that the database failed to provide sufficient procedural due process and declared it broadly illegal—though that decision was reversed on appeal. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of a Muslim American placed on a subset of the TSDB in Fikre v. FBI as it did in 2020 in Tanvir v. Tanzin.
Various lawsuits continue to challenge the FBI’s list. These challenges often highlight the disproportionate impact on Muslim individuals and communities and underscore ongoing concerns about the balance between national security and individual rights.
The term “Muslim Ban” refers to Executive Order 13769, signed by President Donald Trump in January 2017, and successor versions of that order. Officially titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” this order initially restricted travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
The Muslim Ban faced numerous lawsuits brought by states, universities, and, most frequently, Muslims. One of the first significant rulings came from a federal judge in Washington state who issued a nationwide temporary restraining order blocking major parts of the ban. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this restraining order. The Fourth Circuit soon followed suit with a similar ruling.
In response to legal setbacks, the Trump administration issued revised versions of the ban. Executive Order 13780, issued in March 2017, removed Iraq from the list of affected countries and included more exemptions. Despite these changes, parts of the revised order were also blocked by federal courts, including a notable injunction from a judge in Hawaii.
The legal battle culminated in the Supreme Court case Trump v. Hawaii. In 2018, the Court upheld a third version of the ban, ruling that it fell within the president’s authority to regulate immigration and did not violate the Establishment Clause. While the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the Trump administration, it faced a narrowed Muslim Ban made so by the many lawsuits Muslim Americans filed to challenge it.
Incarcerated Muslims across the country are forced to remove their hijabs (religiously mandated head coverings) and shave their beards, often under the guise of security concerns. Muslims have argued in court that such restrictions are a substantial burden that deprives them of the right to freely exercise their religion under the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
In the first RLUIPA case to come before the Supreme Court, a Muslim man successfully argued for a fulsome interpretation of RLUIPA’s religious liberty protections. This interpretation ended beard bans at prisons and jails across the country.
RLUIPA allows the government only to apply the substantial burdens that a dress code imposes on religious exercise if it furthers a compelling government interest and does so in the least restrictive means. The issue of beards has arrived at the Supreme Court, but Muslim women are bringing cases to protect their right to wear a hijab in prisons and jails and to not be photographed during the booking process without one. Notable hijab removal cases have largely resulted in settlement agreements, including a multi-million-dollar settlement reached between Muslim women representing a class of plaintiffs and the New York City Police Department.
Muslim communities also face challenges related to land use, such as building mosques or community centers. These challenges often involve local zoning laws that can be used to prevent the construction of religious buildings. As with the dress code regulations discussed above, RLUIPA is a powerful statutory tool for challenging restrictive zoning laws and permitting Muslim communities to build mosques and Islamic schools. Muslim litigants argue that the denials by municipalities impose a substantial burden on religious exercise without a compelling governmental interest. And they generally succeed.
The U.S. Department of Justice has been particularly active in enforcing RLUIPA in cases including Norwalk, Connecticut; Bridgewater, New Jersey; Des Plaines, Illinois; and Culpeper, Virginia. Most of these challenges have resulted in settlements because local and state entities defending themselves against RLUIPA claims brought by Muslims have faired poorly.
Muslim Americans are using the courts more and more to defend their rights. The three areas of litigation discussed above show how.
Please note: The views expressed herein have not been approved by the House of Delegates, the Board of Governors, the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice or the Human Rights Editorial Board of the American Bar Association and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association. They are the views of the individual authors themselves in their personal capacities.
