The Deal With Dearborn

Unless you’re completely checked out, you’ve been bombarded with news and videos of protests, marches, and political commentary about Dearborn. In the run up to a general election year, and in the wake of the Oct. 7 Israel-Gaza war, the city has become a hotbed of controversy. 

Democrat consultants on the national level obsess over Dearborn voters: Arab Muslim Americans. The Biden Administration, the Democrat consultant class, and the corporate media seem to think that Dearborn voters are the key to unlocking the state’s electoral votes and that kowtowing to this demographic will placate white liberal and Democratic voters statewide. I’m not so sure this is the case. 

As an investigator working mostly in southeastern Michigan, I’ve spent considerable time on the streets of Dearborn, neighboring Dearborn Heights, and the eastern quadrant of Dearborn that bleeds into Mexicantown. So, let’s get into it. What is Dearborn? 

The city is a large inner-ring suburb bordering Detroit’s lower west side. It is the seventh-largest city in Michigan and the historical birthplace of Henry Ford, with the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company calling the city home to this day. The city’s residents were mostly European until the late 20th century, when an immigration boom brought a large Arab influx. This has accelerated in recent years, and, as of today, Metro Detroit has the largest Arab Muslim population of any American metro—estimated at 400,000. A historically fast population shift has resulted in an interesting cultural aesthetic. Churches, mostly Catholic, dot the urban landscape, but now every city block has a mosque. The largest mosque in America, the Islamic Center of America, is here.

Working in Dearborn is tough for a professional investigator. Culturally, linguistically, racially—it’s a hard area for a big ugly white guy to remain discreet.

The Shia/Sunni divide defines Dearborn. Shia Muslims tend to assimilate more easily into Western society. They typically earn higher incomes, are well-educated, and the women are more liberalized. Sunnis tend to be lower income, less assimilated, and have fundamentalist rules for female conduct. 

The Shia attend the more affluent Islamic Center of America, where men, women, and children enter together through a main entrance and women can dress in western apparel with their faces uncovered. Sunni attend the less affluent Dearborn Mosque, where men and women enter separately and where women often dress in full burka. This mosque is noteworthy for being the first to broadcast its daily call to prayer on loudspeakers, which can be heard for miles.

For an investigator, working in Shia areas of Dearborn is manageable and relatively safe. But obtaining information from residents is virtually impossible, and determining residency and identifying individuals is difficult. 

In contrast, if you’re white, no one will speak to you, never mind answer a door in Sunni areas. Women are forbidden to communicate with men and are rarely seen. The area tends to be very poor, homes in disrepair, and men are often unemployed or underemployed.

From the street level, this cultural collision results in bizarre exchanges. A Muslim Arab American businessman and Dearborn resident called and attempted to hire me to surveil his wife, who he believed was cheating. He was coy and paranoid about the process and stipulated there was to be no email or text communication between myself and him in regard to the case. He offered to pay the retainer only in cash, and would only provide me a photo of his spouse, but no name or other identifiers. 

It was a very weird conversation with red flags everywhere. I told the guy I’d consider it. I then reached out to a very close Arab buddy and asked his opinion of this odd request. He immediately told me not to take the case and not to farm it out to any other investigators in Metro Detroit. 

He explained to me that if I surveilled this guy’s alleged wife and caught her cheating with video proof, this potential client would take his wife and family on a vacation back to their native land, and it was likely she wouldn’t be returning to the states. The implication was obvious. I never called back.

In another jarring event, I was present for a violent clash several years ago between Muslims and Christians during a festival in downtown Dearborn while surveilling an individual who entered the location on foot. What appeared to be a relatively peaceful event erupted in chaos, as people attending the event confronted people from a church handing out Christian pamphlets. The shift in majority/minority status in Dearborn on full display. The police quickly arrested and removed the small number of Christians to appease the much larger Islamic crowd. The optics were obvious: Dearborn was no longer a multicultural hamlet inside Metro Detroit. It had become a Muslim city.

For Democrats, winning over voters in Dearborn has become key to winning Michigan. It was recently floated by the Biden Administration that America could take Gazan refugees displaced by the Israel-Gaza War. Common sense would dictate they’re coming to Dearborn. 

J.Z. Delorean is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.