What happens when Muslims take over an American city?
Pro-Hamas parades, animal sacrifice, Palestine Avenue, burqas, a ban on LGBT flags, Arabic signs, male and female entrances to Mosques, restrictions on music lessons in schools, the call to prayer blasting over loudspeakers; Strolling the streets of Hamtramck, Michigan, one can hardly recognise that this was once a mighty American industrial centre.
Mohammed Ali Elahi, Imam of the Islamic House of Wisdom
GBN America
Until a few decades ago Hamtramck was dominated by Poles; one resident told us it was typical to solely speak Polish, read local Polish newspapers, go to Polish banks and go to one of three Polish churches. Just one such church remains now. A flurry of Mosques have taken their place.
Conservative Yemeni Muslims have flooded into Hamtramck in recent years. In 2021 Hamtramck made history when it became the first American city to elect a full Muslim council and mayor. After 100 years of continuous Polish mayors and politicians, not one remains in local government.
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The Muslim council soon banned LGBT flags from flying from government buildings, causing the local liberal population to explode in outrage.
Imran Salha, Imam of the Islamic Centre of Detroit
GBN America
The last Polish mayor of Hamtramck, a liberal gay ally, told GB News LGBT people no longer feel safe in the town. Several local organisations and businesses told us their pride flags had been torn down by locals (private companies can still fly whatever flag they desire), while Muslims said they had had enough of LGBT ideology being pushed on them.
Locals changed the name of a street to "Palestine Avenue" in Hamtramck. One stuck an LGBT pride progress flag on the sign.
However, there are two flags that dominate the streets of Hamtramck; Pride and Palestine.
Bizarrely, both causes are endorsed by local white liberals, many of whom fly both flags from their businesses and homes. At one such business, a tattoo parlour, the artists told GB News they saw no contradiction in supporting Palestine, where gay people have been killed due to their sexuality, and the LGBT movement. One tattooist said they saw a parade in Hamtramck where locals were flying the flag for Hamas, the terrorist group, the day after the brutal October 7 massacre of Jews.
When pushed as to whether it was concerning that her town seemed to be endorsing the rape and murder of innocent Israeli civilians, the tattooist said while she didn’t know enough about the history of the topic, “I do understand that for Palestinian people to feel liberated, how else can they liberate themselves without having some kind of force?”
Two women past a Polish store in Hamtramck
Since Hamas’s slaughter of innocents, the Muslim population in America has reacted with fury at Israel’s response to the terrorist attack. In April a pro-Palestine protest in Dearborn, a city just a few miles from Hamtramck, went viral around the world after several Muslims were heard chanting “Death to America”.
Back at the tattoo parlour in Hamtramck, I asked another artist about the chant. He described it as “awesome” and “one of the least problematic things” you can say.
The liberals passed laws in the early noughties allowing for the public call to prayer to accommodate local Muslims. However, a law the Muslim council passed in 2023 went a step further; the legalisation of animal sacrifice on residential properties.
Despite concerns over animal rights and sanitation, the council voted 4-2 for the law. Hamtramck is one of the most densely populated cities in the Detroit area, and many locals complained that people could become traumatised by witnessing the slitting of the throats of goats, lambs and cows in people’s backyards, with all the blood and entrails that could spurt from the corpses on public display. One local complained to GB News that they had found a goat carcass in their dumpster one day.
Other changes have been social, not legal. The sight of girls and their mothers wearing full black niqabs is not uncommon. After the Piast Institute, a Hamtramck Polish think tank and community centre, offered a local school music lessons they were told the Muslim parents had refused the offer as music is banned by the Quran. The think tank told us this amounted to discrimination as the parents were banning all children, not just the Muslims, from having access to the lessons.
A Mosque in the nearby town of Dearborn
Despite the changes to the town, which seem at odds with American values, some Republicans have embraced Hamtramck’s Muslim council over their fight with LGBT activists. Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor to President Trump, even met with the Muslim mayor of the town last year.
In just a few years Hamtramck has rapidly implemented a socially conservative Islamic philosophy on its residents. While local liberals are angry with some of the reforms, they perhaps naively still support diversity and increasing immigration from the Middle East to America.
Palestine and Pride: the two flags that dominate the city of Hamtramck.
On the other hand, Republicans, perhaps equally naively, have supported the Muslim council in their so-called “anti-woke” crusade. Hamtramck’s radical transformation is a case study for cities all over the America and the Western world.
GB News requested interviews with members of Hamtramck's council and the mayor, however received no response.