Dearborn Christian leaders gathered Monday to express solidarity across faiths and cultures, emphasizing that the city remains a safe place for people of all religions to worship.
Jake Lang, a pardoned January 6 defendant who has built a following as a far-right, anti-Muslim activist, has said he will hold a demonstration during Tuesday's Dearborn City Council meeting.
Dearborn police relocated the meeting from City Hall to the Henry Ford Centennial Library, citing safety concerns ahead of the visit. Police Chief Issa Shahin began the press conference by urging residents without official business before the council to stay home.
“I know that is a hard ask of a proud community, but the most effective thing we can do together is to deny these groups the reaction that they traveled here for,” Shahin said. “An empty audience is the worst outcome for people looking for confrontation on camera.”
Shahin said there will be increased police presence around the city on Tuesday, and that the department will protect free speech wile also coordinating with state and federal partners to keep residents safe.
Lang has said he intends to hold a pig roast near the meeting — a gesture widely read as a provocation toward the city's large Muslim population, the Detroit News reports.
Nathan Hayes, pastor of Solid Rock Church in Dearborn, said he has lived in the city for many years as a Christian. He said agitators like Lang are trying to sow division where it does not exist.
"What we are seeing right now is not love or respect for a neighbor, it is trying to get attention and prove a point, and there is no point to be proven,” Hayes said.
Chaplain Rick Neveu of St. Kateri Church in Dearborn said people of all faiths live peacefully alongside each other in the city.
“We all love each other, we live together, we get along together, and we work everything out together,” Neveu said.
Earlier this month, at a religious procession in Dearborn, "Lang was approached and struck by several individuals at the gathering as he shouted into a megaphone about 'illegal immigrants,'” The Detroit Free Press reports. Three people were charged in relation to the incident.
Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud spoke last on Monday, saying residents should not let divisive rhetoric affect them.
“Be unmoved by the loud voices coming from the outside, for I assure you they are the minority,” Hammoud said. “It's not even the larger belief of Americans as we know it from coast to coast. They are here to get our attention. They are here to try to instill fear and try to divide us, but that is the mission at which they will fail.”
