
Protests against Syrian refugees broke out in multiple states in 2015 and 2016, but the Obama administration doubled down on placement, particularly in California, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona and Massachusetts. Refugee resettlement has continued under President Trump but at a slower pace compared to the Obama administration.
A Muslim gas-station attendant in Troy, Michigan, faces charges of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct after he allegedly groped a woman who asked for his assistance with a credit-card reader.
And that's just part of the story that some see as an outgrowth of the rapidly changing culture in Michigan. Others say free speech -- the right to criticize Islamic -- is being squelched in the wake of the arrests last month of two Detroit-area doctors for the horrific crimes of female genital mutilation.
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Abdelnasser Mohamed, 25, allegedly assaulted a woman customer while working as a clerk at the Mobil Gas Station in Troy, Michigan, on May 4, 2017. Photo/Troy Police Department
Abdelnasser Mohamed, 25, was the clerk on duty at the Mobil Station at 25 E. 14 Mile Road in Troy when, at about 8:45 p.m. on May 4, he was asked for assistance by a female customer having trouble with the card reader. She reported to police that Mohamed touched her in the groin area and told her he would help her with the machine in return for a sexual favor. She escaped and called 911. He was arraigned May 5 and granted a $10,000 bond, then released on a 10-percent surety.
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WND contacted Troy Police Department Wednesday and asked for the suspect's immigration status and was told the city does not ask for such information.
"I do not know his status. He was not asked, not that I'm aware of. We don't ask people their immigration status. We ask other questions, such as place of birth," Sgt. Megan Lehman of Troy Police Department told WND.
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She told WND she would look up the suspect's file and call back with his place of birth.
"The booking card is not in a place I can assess it through the computer I'll have to pull the hard copy," she said, agreeing to do so and call back with the information.
She never called back despite repeated phone messages.
Mohamed was described by multiple Michigan newspapers as simply "a Detroit man" or a "male employee" with apparently no inquiries into his immigration status or country of origin.
The name "Abdelnasser" means "conqueror" or "victorious" in Arabic and is common among Muslim families in Syria and the Palestinian territories, Arabic speakers told WND.
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Michigan has been consistently among the top three or four states for receiving Syrian refugees, and Troy is the No. 1 destination city for Syrians arriving weekly in the state.
Since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, nearly 2,200 Syrian refugees have been distributed throughout Michigan, with Troy getting 657, followed by 481 sent to Clinton Township, 387 to Dearborn, 147 to Ann Arbor and 130 to Battle Creek, according to the U.S. State Department's Refugee Processing Center. Detroit received 20 and nearby Hamtramck 43.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, doing business as "Samaritas," has a processing office in Troy, from which it distributes refugees into both Oakland and Macomb counties. Many have been temporarily held in a hotel in Sterling Heights owned by a CAIR-connected businessman that has been nicknamed "Hotel Damascus," as WND has previously reported.
The gas-station incident is just one of several unsettling events in Michigan of late.
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- An anti-Shariah group, Secure Michigan, gave a presentation in Alma, Michigan, last week on the negative impact of refugee resettlement. The presentation was invaded by radical leftists from a local college who heckled the presenter and forced the event to be shut down prematurely.
- A Detroit fire-department captain was disciplined for alleged "anti-Muslim" speech he posted on Facebook earlier this week.
The local Alma newspaper, the Sun, cited the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of "hate groups" for its story berating Secure Michigan, and then SPLC returned the favor by using the Sun's article to blister Secure Michigan on Twitter.
Secure Michigan is an anti-refugee resettlement organization and SPLC-identified anti-Muslim hate group https://t.co/nvv2V7fNLA
— SPLC (@splcenter) May 13, 2017
Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] instigated the charges of hate and "intolerance" against the Detroit firefighter who is a captain in the department and pressured the city to suspend and investigate him.

Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was charged April 13, 2017, in Detroit with mutilating the genitalia of girls ages of 6 to 8.
Michigan also is the first state in which a doctor has been charged with the barbaric, Third-World practice of female genital mutilation. Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, a Muslim physician from West India, was charged in April, followed by the arrest of a male Muslim doctor, Fakhruddin Attar, and his wife on the same charges just days later. The doctors' imam, who leads a Farmington Hills mosque, fled to India on a one-way plane ticket on April 10, the Detroit News reported.
All of this activity has kept the Michigan chapter of CAIR busy, defending or deflecting attention away from Islam.
Those Michigan residents who say things deemed inappropriate by CAIR and the SPLC have been quickly rebuked and publicly shamed with the cooperation in many cases of the Michigan media.
But the Michigan media, in its incessant quoting of CAIR-Michigan Director Dawud Walid, refuses to point out that CAIR has been identified by the U.S. Department of Justice as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 terrorism-financing trial prosecuted against the Holy Land Foundation in Dallas, Texas, which was caught funneling money to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Nor is the Michigan media fazed by Walid's own radical leanings.
According to the Gatestone Institute, "CAIR's Dawud Walid cemented his position as a preacher of hate and radicalism. He has already become known to many Muslims as an extreme figure, who bullies anyone who disagrees with him, maligns dissidents, harasses gay Muslims, and foments anti-American sentiments."

Dawud Walid heads up the Michigan chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR
The SPLC was even cited by the Obama administration as a group that reflexively labels people with whom it disagrees as bigoted haters. The SPLC once tried to label Dr. Ben Carson as an "extremist" because his views on marriage didn't line up with those of the SPLC.
Some believe CAIR and the SPLC along with their Democratic allies are drawing the battle lines in Michigan in preparation for an important election next year in which the Democrats are hoping to elect the nation's first Muslim governor, Dr. Abdul el-Sayed, the former health director for the city of Detroit.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed with wife Sarah.
El-Sayed is actively campaigning on the platform of making Michigan a sanctuary state that welcomes refugees from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and throughout the Third World.
Dick Manasseri, a spokesman for the group that had its presentation raided by students from Alma College in tiny Alma, Michigan, said if the SPLC is tweeting about a group as small as his, it will go after anyone who publicly provides a message that disagrees with the SPLC-CAIR agenda of open borders and favored treatment for Islam.
Manasseri said he won't be deterred by the radical elements trying to shut him and his organization down.
"I'm making a presentation again tomorrow night," he said. "To me, the new normal is actually scary. This whole notion of not enforcing the law or a sanctuary city not asking the right questions is scary. SPLC actually tweeted the little local newspaper. They're really reaching to have to deal with us. SPLC is a full-time, professional, fully-staffed organization with a radical agenda."
Manasseri believes the Catholic Church will also play a role in whether working-class Democrats fall in line for el-Sayed in Michigan's 2018 gubernatorial election.
"The whole state needs to get up to speed on this and get ready for Dr. Abdul. The message needs to get out," he said. "One Catholic voter at a time. Because they're going to be encouraged heavily, because he is Obama II as best we can tell."