Muslim Advocates

Muslim Advocates Muslim Advocates is a national civil rights organization working in the courts, in the halls of power and in communities to halt bigotry in its tracks.

It was an honor for Muslim Advocates to join our co-counsel and our partners at in D.C. as the Supreme Court heard ...
05/02/2026

It was an honor for Muslim Advocates to join our co-counsel and our partners at in D.C. as the Supreme Court heard oral argument in our case–Mullin v. Dahlia Doe–to defend TPS for Syria.

The Trump administration has attempted to systematically gut access to the TPS program for over one million people. The Supreme Court hearing held earlier this week is not just about Syria and Haiti–the future of the TPS program is at stake. Our legal team argued forcefully to uphold the rule of law and to challenge the largest de-documentation effort this country has ever seen.

For many of our communities, the stakes of this fight are nothing less than life and death. Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the collective fight continues in the streets and in the courts until every TPS holder has the protection and the dignity they deserve.

🚨 AN IMMIGRATION JUDGE ORDERED HER RELEASE TWICE. THE GOVERNMENT APPEALED IT. Our client, Leqaa Kordia, is a 33-year ol...
12/11/2025

🚨 AN IMMIGRATION JUDGE ORDERED HER RELEASE TWICE. THE GOVERNMENT APPEALED IT. Our client, Leqaa Kordia, is a 33-year old proud Palestinian woman and long-time resident of Paterson, New Jersey. She is a daughter, sister, caregiver, best friend, co-worker, and beloved member of her community.

In 2021, her petition for a green card was approved. While she was waiting for a visa to become available for the application filed by her mother, she was targeted and surveilled by ICE. Why? Because she attended a protest. When she went to a voluntary meeting with ICE in March, she thought she was following the rules. Instead, it was a trap. She was abducted and flown 1,500 miles to Texas, and thrown in ICE detention.

Yet, for 8+ months, she has been locked up for hitting the streets to mourn the loss of nearly 200 family members to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

❌ She is being denied halal food and has lost significant weight.
❌ She is being denied a clean and private space to pray.
❌ A judge ordered her release TWO TIMES. DHS appealed both times to keep her confined.

THE UNIVERSAL THREAT: This isn’t just about Leqaa. It’s about the terrifying precedent being set right now on silencing free speech and dissent. If the government can indefinitely confine a woman for speaking out, what protects you?

WE NEED TO MAKE NOISE. NOW. Secretary Kristi Noem has the power to sign Leqaa’s release today. We need to make it impossible for her to look away.

👇 3 WAYS TO FIGHT BACK TODAY THAT ORGANIZERS AND ADVOCATES ARE CALLING FOR:
1️⃣ CLICK THE LINK IN BIO: Here is a pre-written email to Secretary Noem and Congress. It takes 30 seconds to send. Do it now.
2️⃣ TAG THE TARGET: Tag and in the comments below. Copy/Paste this comment: “Respect the court order. Grief is not a crime. Free Leqaa Kordia immediately.”
3️⃣ SHARE THIS POST: Don’t let them bury this story in bureaucracy. Share this to your story and tag 3 friends who believe in justice.

🚨 *BREAKING* 🚨 Yesterday, seven Syrian nationals who have planted roots in the United States for years filed a federal l...
10/22/2025

🚨 *BREAKING* 🚨 Yesterday, seven Syrian nationals who have planted roots in the United States for years filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York challenging the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syria. The International Refugee Assistance Project, Muslim Advocates, and Van Der Hout LLP represent the Plaintiffs and have been coordinating with Immigrants Act Now to support the impacted Syrian community and with Communities United for Status and Protection (CUSP) on support and public advocacy for TPS across communities.

Without court intervention, on November 21, 2025, more than 6,100 Syrians could lose their legal status and work authorization and could be forced to relocate to Syria – a country ravaged and still reeling from nearly 14 years of civil war.

The TPS holders are family caretakers, doctors, students, teachers, business professionals, and others whose work and identities are part of the fabric of our communities. Several of the plaintiffs fled Syria to the United States for safety over a decade ago and are now facing the risk of returning to the grave danger and instability that TPS was designed to protect against. Others have never even lived in Syria & would be forcibly separated from their family members in the U.S., including young U.S. citizen children, parents, grandparents, and siblings.

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate TPS for Syria follows similar efforts to strip TPS status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Nepal, Venezuela, Honduras, and Nicaragua earlier this year. President Trump previously tried & failed to end TPS for non-white immigrants during his first administration, and multiple administration members have made comments condemning TPS and other immigration relief for non-white people. It’s clear that the overhauling of the TPS program is driven by discriminatory sentiments about who deserves safety, belonging, and protection in the U.S. – with Black, Brown, & Muslim immigrants bearing the brunt of these discriminatory immigration policies.

To learn more about the case, click the link in our bio!

Today, .union, , and jointly filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Homela...
10/16/2025

Today, .union, , and jointly filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Homeland Security for their coordinated, viewpoint-based surveillance and suppression of protected expression online.

Since taking power, the Trump administration has created an online surveillance program to monitor noncitizens in the U.S., including visa holders and lawful permanent residents, for their expression of viewpoints that it doesn’t like. The administration has paired the surveillance with a public intimidation campaign, threatening to punish noncitizens who dare to express views the administration opposes, in an effort to silence not just them but also the coworkers, friends, and families with whom their lives are integrated.

The challenged surveillance program has been suppressing the free expression of the members of UAW, CWA, and AFT and hurting the unions’ ability to associate with their members and potential members. 

The complaint asks a federal court to stop this unconstitutional surveillance program and enforce the First Amendment freedoms that all people in the U.S. share. 

Now more than ever, the freedom to dissent is essential for collective resistance to authoritarian power grabs. 

The plaintiffs are represented jointly by , , and the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic.

(Learn more about the case by clicking the link in our bio and by going to  https://eff.org/cases/united-auto-workers-v-us-department-state)

10/07/2025

Palestinian-American legal scholar Noura Erakat briefed the UN Security Council ... making her only the 2nd Palestinian woman to do so since Oct 7, 2023.

is the first to put forward the legal case directly to the UNSC that Israel’s war on Gaza amounts to genocide, citing attacks on women, girls, and reproductive capacity.

It’s been over six months since our client, Leqaa Kordia, has been confined by ICE for protesting the ongoing genocide i...
10/03/2025

It’s been over six months since our client, Leqaa Kordia, has been confined by ICE for protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza that has taken the lives of nearly 200 of her family members. In an article by the  , our legal team elaborates on the anti-Palestinian racism driving the government’s aggressive attempts to block her release from custody by twisting remittances she sent to family in Palestine and elsewhere into grounds of suspicion. 

Leqaa remains in ICE custody despite findings from an immigration judge twice and a magistrate judge in federal court  that she should be immediately released. The government’s procedural gamesmanship to block her release each time uncovers the cruelty of the immigration system, particularly in subjecting Leqaa and her family to the dehumanizing process of  proving they’re not “dangerous” in the midst of survival and ongoing genocide.  It’s clear the government will stop at no lengths to criminalize Palestinian identity and the growing movement for Palestinian advocacy. 

Click the link in our bio to read the full piece! Leqaa is represented by Muslim Advocates, , , , and Boston University School of Law Immigrants’ Rights Clinic.

To learn more about Leqaa follow .

Leqaa Kordia is a 32-year-old Palestinian Muslim whom ICE has been confining for the past five months in TX, 1500 miles ...
08/20/2025

Leqaa Kordia is a 32-year-old Palestinian Muslim whom ICE has been confining for the past five months in TX, 1500 miles from her home and family in NJ, in order to punish her for protesting the Israeli military violence that has now claimed nearly 200 members of her family and over 60,000 other Palestinians. On Monday, Leqaa filed an updated petition in federal court, demanding her release and citing new evidence arising from AAUP v. Rubio, a lawsuit filed by and other plaintiffs through . The new evidence shows that the administration has been targeting noncitizen participants of campus protests for Palestinian lives, regardless of campus affiliation or immigration status. And it makes clear that Leqaa’s confinement is driven by the same, suppressive policy under which the administration confined Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and others—until federal courts ordered them released under the First Amendment.

Enough is enough: !

Leqaa is represented in her federal lawsuit by , , , and and in her immigration removal proceedings by the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic of Boston University School of Law.

(Click the link in our bio to read the full press release.)

Graphic of Leqaa designed by .creates

Congress just handed Trump massive cash to supercharge border surveillance. This will endanger communities, fuel mass de...
07/25/2025

Congress just handed Trump massive cash to supercharge border surveillance. This will endanger communities, fuel mass deportations, erode civil‑liberties, and line the pockets of notorious private prison companies.

As explained by , the Big Ugly Bill recently passed by Congress pours over $6 BILLION into border technology, including surveillance. Who benefits? Private prison corporations: the GEO Group and Core Civic; and surveillance firms such as Palantir and Anduril. US immigration agencies are seeking more funding for biometric data collection, license plate readers and phone hacking.

Not only will this have devastating impacts on those who live and move through the northern and southern borderlands, this staggering level of spending on militarization and surveillance will enrich the oligarchs in the tech, military, and prison industries angling for more government contracts to boost their profits. 

Click the link in our bio to read the full report!

On July 15, the university presidents from CUNY, Georgetown, and UC Berkeley were interrogated in a heated congressional...
07/22/2025

On July 15, the university presidents from CUNY, Georgetown, and UC Berkeley were interrogated in a heated congressional hearing held by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on their responses to students and faculty advocating for Palestine. ’s chancellor doubled down on banning encampments and evaded responsibility for the recent firing of four adjunct professors and a student organizer for their advocacy on Palestine. 

In the ’s latest piece, “CUNY’s Repression of Pro-Palestine Students Continues in Front of Congress,”  our Staff Attorney Sadaf Hasan discusses how CUNY is gutting the First Amendment and academic freedom by punishing advocacy for Palestine.

We stand firm with our partners at CLEAR () who were singled out during the hearing for their defense of Mahmoud Khalil–whose release from ICE detention is a monumental victory for the student-led movement for Palestinian lives and freedom. Opponents of that advocacy are desperately attempting to delegitimize it through targeted attacks on Mahmoud and his legal team. The Chancellor’s unwillingness to meaningfully defend CUNY’s faculty and staff against anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic narratives is racist and repressive and undercuts CUNY’s legacy in leading the charge for social and racial justice. 

This is not about campus safety–it’s about educational institutions’ bending to political pressure.  As the administration digs in its heels to punish activism on Palestine, we understand that our voices are needed now more than ever. We stand in solidarity with students and faculty everywhere who are resisting institutional pressures by speaking up against the Israel government’s genocide in Gaza.

Click the link in our bio to read the full piece!

It’s been a tough week as the administration called on the military to suppress Los Angeles protesters against his cruel...
06/14/2025

It’s been a tough week as the administration called on the military to suppress Los Angeles protesters against his cruel immigration raids, and his latest racist entry ban went into effect. On June 9th, our senior policy counsel, Sumayyah Waheed, joined  immigrant, labor, faith, community, and elected leaders in Washington state to speak out against the Trump Administration’s racist new entry bans. The bans, which went into effect on June 9th, fully restrict the entry of people from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Eritrea, Haiti and Somalia, and partially restrict the entry of people from seven additional countries, all majority Black and Brown.

Sumayyah had this to say: “Impacted Muslim communities spent Eid weekend, a time for celebration and family gatherings, in anxiety and grief over the bans. Our communities are frightened, terrorized and heartbroken by the many abuses of this runaway executive branch. Just over the weekend, we were also horrified to see the administration deploy the national guard against people in Los Angeles exercising their basic rights to protest. In the face of an administration that seeks to ban Black, Brown and Muslim bodies, we are united in defiance.”

Photo Credit: Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times

Click the link in our bio to watch the recording of the press conference.

BREAKING, we forcefully condemn Trump’s expanded Muslim & African Bans, which go into effect today.This racist policy ba...
06/09/2025

BREAKING, we forcefully condemn Trump’s expanded Muslim & African Bans, which go into effect today.

This racist policy bars or limits entry to the U.S. for people from 19 majority Black & Brown nations — 8 of them majority-Muslim. It’s the latest manifestation of the administration’s white supremacist, Christian nationalist agenda.. “This is an attack on the pluralistic fabric of our society,” says Legal Director Golnaz Fakhimi. “We won’t stand by while families are torn apart—again.”

Muslim Advocates, along with many other organizations, is part of the coalition. Together, we work to support impacted communities and fight back against the bans. We will be sharing related guidance ASAP.

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