In case you missed it, Pakistan-born immigrant and attorney Adeel Abdullah Mangi could make U.S. history and become the first Muslim-American to serve as a federal appellate court judge—if he is ever confirmed by the Senate.
To date, what has played out in the Senate, including from White, Christian Democratic senators, is nothing short of Islamophobia; a dangerous weapon being wielded by mainly white politicians against a man who embodies the true immigrant story.
Mangi is just 47. He was born in Karachi, Pakistan, before moving to the U.S. 20 years ago and settling in New Jersey. Mangi came with a first-class degree in law from the University of Oxford, Pembroke College, and a postgraduate diploma in professional legal skills from the City University London Inns of Court School of Law in 1999. He received a master of laws from Harvard Law School in 2000.
Mangi began his career in law in the U.S. as an associate at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in New York City in 2000, became of counsel in 2009, and was elevated to partnership in 2010.
Mangi has litigated a number of religious discrimination cases, including winning permits for two mosques after local New Jersey governments in Bayonne and Bernards Township refused to permit the construction of mosques. The case against Bernards was settled for $3.25 million and a permit. The case against Bayonne settled for $400,000 and a permit.
In a 2020 lawsuit that Mangi litigated, the state of New York agreed to install cameras and microphones at the Sullivan Correctional Facility after a mentally ill Black inmate there died after being beaten by white correctional officers.
Last November, he was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mangi, who has unequivocally denounced any acts of anti-Semitism or bigotry, and is supported by many Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee and National Council for Jewish Women, has been subjected to irrelevant, combative lines of questioning about the Israel-Hamas war by multiple Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers. He has even been asked whether he celebrated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
These attacks are on a man who is an archetypical candidate for a federal judgeship and would bring needed diversity to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mangi has a sterling legal education, which he followed with a distinguished career at a high-profile private firm, mixing corporate litigation with important pro bono work. He also has a classic American story: He grew up in a poor country dreaming of a career as a lawyer and immigrated to the United States, where he ascended to the heights of his profession.
None of the senators can question his legal background or judicial philosophy, so they have taken to questioning his stance on Hamas.
“Do you condemn the atrocities of Hamas terrorists?” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas demanded of Mangi, a Pakistani American with no connection to Hamas or Palestine other than the fact that he is Muslim, along with 1.8 billion people across the globe.
A Senate panel advanced his nomination on a party-line 11–10 vote in January, after Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s Democratic chairperson, castigated Republicans for what he called a “new low” of attacks against a nominee driven by bias against his religion.
“What is it about Adeel Mangi that attracts such criticism? We know what the starting point is: He would be the first Muslim American to be appointed to serve on the circuit bench,” Durbin said.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates slammed the attack by Republican senators as “vile, unconscionable smears” and “hateful and undignified attacks.”
Durbin, Bates, and Biden are facing opposition from those in their own party. Sen. Joe Manchin has said, out of the blue, that from now on, he will only vote to confirm nominees who have the support of at least one Republican senator and since Mangi does not, he will vote against his nomination.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, another Democrat, announced her opposition to Mangi, saying the Black inmate whose family he represented after the inmate was beaten by white correctional officers actually killed a cop.
But as PBS News pointed out, the Senate has confirmed many other attorneys as justices in the past, some who represented a murderer of cops. The difference, however, was they were Christians.
Therein lies the issue at the crux of this case. As long as you are brown,an immigrant, and a Muslim, you must be a terrorist, aka “Hamas,” record and education be damned.
Felicia J. Persaud is the publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, a daily news outlet focusing on Black immigrant issues.