Two women have accused Biden-Harris campaign staffers of Islamophobia, claiming they were profiled and disinvited from a campaign event because they were wearing hijabs.
Staff with the campaign have since countered that the women were barred after disrupting other events held by Democratic leaders.
The incident was captured on video and shared to X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday by an account named Nevadans for Palestinian Liberation.
The viral video, which has garnered over 2m views, shows an unidentified staffer for the Get the Vote Out event in Las Vegas on Saturday telling the women that they are not allowed to enter the venue.
“We are choosing who’s going in and out of the event. I’m sorry,” the staffer said.
Off camera, one woman responds: “Why are you choosing us not to go in when we have an invite?”
A separate woman, also off camera, says: “You specifically singled us out.”
The women then accuse the staffer of being “racist” and asks if they were prevented from attending because they are wearing hijabs.
As the women and the staffer talk, the staffer allows others to enter the event venue.
“They’re disinviting us because we have hijabs on our heads. That’s why,” one woman shouts to attendees as they enter the venue.
When a separate attendee asks the staffer if the women can enter, he says: “No, I’m sorry.”
Nevadans for Palestinian Liberation accused the Biden-Harris campaign of “explicitly turning away Muslim constituents from attending campaign events” in a statement shared to X.
“It is shameful to see the Biden-Harris staff and [Nevada] Dems staff use post-9/11 racist tactics to target Muslims and Arab Americans in 2024,” the group said in a statement.
A spokesperson with the Biden-Harris campaign said that the women were specifically barred after staff discovered that they had disrupted previous events with Democratic lawmakers.
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“These individuals were among the group of people not allowed to attend Saturday’s event after previously disrupting and shutting down events with Democratic elected officials,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the campaign, said in a statement shared to X.
A spokesperson with the Clark County Democrats in Nevada forwarded the Biden-Harris campaign’s response to the Guardian when asked for comment.
A source close to the Biden-Harris campaign added that the women had previously protested during a speech by the Nevada senator Jacky Rosen earlier this month.
After being disinvited from Saturday’s event, the women reportedly continued to protest across the street from the event, the source added.
The government affairs director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), Robert McCaw, said in a statement issued on Tuesday that “the American people deserve to know whether these women were profiled and barred from an event featuring Vice President Harris because they were visibly Muslim”.
“Throughout her term, Vice President Harris has been respectful in her interactions with American Muslims, even during a time of intense disagreement. We encourage Vice President Harris to take appropriate action to address this apparent incident of profiling,” he added.
Harris was notably in attendance at the event on Saturday.
Also on Tuesday, Cair released new civil rights data showing that it has received 3,578 complaints in just the last three months of 2023 – marking a 178% increase in complaints compared to a similar period the previous year.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
