Safety of Arab-Americans in Dearborn Raised in U.S. Senate Drone Debate

posted on: Mar 9, 2013

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) expressed concern that the U.S. government could abuse its powers against civilians, with Arab-Americans in Dearborn among those victimized.

Paul, who is currently on the Senate floor speaking in a filibuster to protest the government’s authority to launch domestic drone strikes, referenced Dearborn’s Arab-American community in an interview with NBC. He was responding to a letter he received from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on the issue of possible drone strikes inside the U.S.

Paul told NBC the U.S. government’s policy could lead to a situation where “an Arab-American in Dearborn is walking down the street emailing with a friend in the Mideast and all of a sudden we drop a drone” on the Arab-American.

Paul also mentioned Dearborn’s Arab-American community while speaking about drones today on the Senate floor, according to a transcript of his remarks by PolicyMic.com. He’s worried that an Arab-American could be summarily killed instead of being arrested.

Sen. Paul said “if you are sitting in a cafeteria in Dearborn, Mich., if you happen to be an Arab-American who has a relative in the Middle East and you communicate with them by e-mail and somebody says, ‘Oh, your relative is someone we suspect of being associated with terrorism,’ is that enough to kill you? For goodness sakes, wouldn’t we try to arrest and come to the truth by having a jury and a presentation of the facts on both sides of the issue?”

Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press