Mike Bloomberg's outreach to Arab American and Muslim communities in metro Detroit has sparked an intense debate, with some criticizing him over his past support of surveillance of their population in New York City when he was mayor.

This month, Bloomberg's campaign has taken out ads in Arabic and English in the Arab American News, a Dearborn-based newspaper. And on Sunday, a Bloomberg campaign representative of Arab descent, Fatima Shama, met with Arab American leaders in metro Detroit at two meetings, local community leaders say.

The effort is part of an aggressive push by the Bloomberg campaign in Michigan ahead of the March 10 Democratic primary. But some in Arab American and Muslim communities say they are concerned about Bloomberg's history of support for spying on their communities and what they see as his hawkish views on Middle Eastern issues.

The public advocacy director with Muslim Advocates, Scott Simpson, said in a statement that Bloomberg's ad in the Arab American News was hypocritical.

"Under then-Mayor Bloomberg’s Muslim spying program, reading an Arab American newspaper in public or even just speaking Arabic would have been justification enough to be surveilled and profiled by the NYPD. Bloomberg is campaigning in the same language he once flagged as a warning sign. The NYPD’s Muslim spying program profiled people based on their ethnic origin, the types of restaurants they went to, the language they spoke or simply whether they attended a mosque."

The Muslim Advocates and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, raised concerns over the weekend about Bloomberg's outreach in metro Detroit. They also claimed that some Arab Americans were not allowed to attend the meetings; an organizer of one of the meetings said in response that there was concern that supporters of other candidates might disrupt the Bloomberg meetings.

Abed Ayoub, a Dearborn native who's the legal and policy director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said that Bloomberg needs to at least apologize for his history of supporting surveillance of Muslims, a big issue in metro Detroit, where there is concern about undercover informants.

Bloomberg has apologized to African American leaders for his past support of New York City's stop-and-frisk policies, Ayoub said, but he hasn't apologized for the Arab and Muslim surveillance, Ayoub said.

"Especially when you're coming to Dearborn, there should have at least been an apology before working to get our support," Ayoub told the Free Press. "He hasn't taken steps to admit what he did was wrong. ... He laid the blueprint for surveillance post-9/11."

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Community advocates said that one of the meetings on Sunday with Shama of the Bloomberg campaign was organized by Fay Beydoun, one of the two vice chairs of the Michigan Democratic Party and the executive director of the American-Arab Chamber of Commerce, based in Dearborn.

The other meeting on Sunday with Shama was at the Dearborn office of the Arab American News, hosted by publisher Osama Siblani and Assad Turfe, chief of staff for Wayne County.

A spokesperson for the Bloomberg campaign told the Free Press in a statement: "The Bloomberg campaign regularly hosts and participates in meetings with community leaders throughout Michigan. This was neither the first or last meeting that the campaign will have with the Arab American or Muslim communities. Our team is committed to an ongoing dialogue about issues important to the community and how we can all work together to defeat Donald Trump, who has relentlessly attacked Arab Americans and Muslim Americans through his rhetoric and policies."

The Bloomberg campaign maintains that the former mayor of New York City has championed the rights of Muslims, opposes the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban, and in 2010 defended the rights of Muslims to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.

The meeting in Dearborn had about a dozen members from diverse Middle Eastern communities, of Yemeni, Iraqi, Lebanese, Armenian, Christian, and Muslim, both Shia and Sunni, backgrounds, said Turfe and Siblani.

Turfe told the Free Press that he helped organize the meeting in Dearborn on Sunday so that Arab Americans could voice issues that are important to them. He said he did not deny permission to anyone who asked to attend the meeting.

"It's important for our community to be represented in multiple campaigns," Turfe said. "It's important for our community to have access to these campaigns so our voices and concerns can be heard. And, ultimately, policies will be created that will be respectful and representative of the community."

Turfe praised Shama of the Bloomberg campaign. Shama, who is Muslim of Palestinian descent, is executive director of the Fresh Air Fund in New York City and once worked for the Bloomberg administration in health and education policy when he was mayor.

"I felt she was sincere and she understood the community's concerns," Turfe said.

Turfe said he supported candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016, but is supporting Bloomberg in the primary. Turfe said he will support in the general election whomever is the Democratic nominee.

"At first, I was not a Bloomberg supporter, but the more I researched and looked at him, the more I started to believe he's the right candidate for 2020. ... I also like Bernie Sanders, but Bloomberg ... gives us our best odds at winning in November."

Siblani said he and his newspaper have not yet endorsed anyone. Siblani said he expressed concern at the meeting about the continued profiling of Arab Americans and Muslims, such as being placed on security watch lists that are difficult to get off of even when the person hasn't committed any crime.

"We are very concerned about the surveillance," Siblani added. "We want some answers from the campaign."

In 2016, Sanders won the city of Dearborn and its precincts that are heavily Arab American, according to a Free Press analysis of the election results.

Beydoun, who organized the other meeting on Sunday, did not return emails and a phone call seeking comment.

Over the years, Dearborn's Arab American population has often shifted in its support, from Jesse Jackson in 1988 to George W. Bush in 2000 to Sanders in 2016, according to community advocates and election results. The state's broader Middle Eastern population is diverse, with a large portion who are Chaldean, Iraqi Catholic.

Contact Niraj Warikoo: 313-223-4792 or nwarikoo@freepress.com. Twitter @nwarikoo