Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who delivered a prayer at President Trump's inauguration, says Christians in Dearborn, Michigan are privately telling him they're afraid to express their faith in the Muslim-majority city.

Sewell, senior pastor of 180 Church in Detroit, laid out a series of accusations against Dearborn city officials in an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday. He alleged that police selectively enforce the law, that public schools serve only religiously certified food, and that city leaders have allowed Islamic religious practices to override local ordinances, all while Christians who object stay silent out of fear.

Dearborn's city council president flatly denied the charges, calling them "unfounded" and insisting every resident is treated equally under the law. But Sewell's claims, coming after a chaotic city council meeting that ended in 22 arrests, have put a national spotlight on a city where religious demographics and civic authority are colliding in ways most American communities have never had to confront.

Sewell draws on his own experience to frame the accusation

Sewell did not speak as an outsider guessing at conditions in Dearborn. He framed his accusations through the lens of a Black man who grew up in metro Detroit and knows Dearborn's reputation for aggressive policing.

"Being a Black man in the city of Detroit, we go to Dearborn. We know that the police know how to enact justice in Dearborn. They know how to pull you over. They know that if they catch you shoplifting, we've had Black women that tried to elude the police and lost their lives in the city of Dearborn."

His point was blunt: Dearborn police have a track record of enforcing the law firmly. So when they allegedly look the other way during assaults, the inaction is a choice, not incompetence.

"So, when someone is being assaulted and nothing happens, when someone's being assaulted and the police choose to look the other way, you can see clearly a two-tiered justice system."

Sewell offered one specific example. He said his wife received a death threat, and that he provided the suspect's phone number and address to a Dearborn police lieutenant. No action followed, he said. Fox News Digital reached out to the Dearborn Police Department for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Halal-only school meals and animal sacrifice: Sewell's evidence of Sharia creep

Beyond policing, Sewell pointed to three policies he described as evidence that Dearborn and the surrounding metro area are operating under Sharia law rather than American civil law.

First, he cited Dearborn Public Schools. The district's own website states plainly: "Dearborn Public Schools ensures all meats served in our schools are certified Halal." A halal certification document linked on the district's site confirms that Saad Wholesale, Inc., a Detroit-based food processor, has been "inspected and approved by our Islamic organization for processing, packing, and labeling of Halal Meat & Poultry Products by applying our procedures according to the Islamic Rites."

Sewell framed halal-only school food as a religious imposition on non-Muslim families whose children attend public schools.

"If you go to a public school, you are literally eating meat that's sacrificed to idols, because, according to Sharia law, that's what, that's a lawful meat."

Second, he pointed to neighboring Hamtramck, Michigan, where the city council voted in January 2023 to allow animal sacrifice. Sewell described the vote as another marker of Islamic law gaining ground in metro Detroit.

Third, he raised the call to prayer broadcast over loudspeakers from a local mosque. In 2025, a Dearborn resident named Andrea Unger started a petition to pressure the city council to enforce a noise ordinance after two years of loudspeaker broadcasts. The outcome of that petition was not detailed in the reporting.

Sewell tied all three together in a single charge against the city council:

"I see the city council upholding Sharia law through things like the call to prayer, through things like halal meat, through having more Arab writing than they do actually English, by having the chief of police talk more about protecting the rules of Islam and Islamic leaders instead of protecting the rights of all Americans."

Christians in Dearborn are reaching out, quietly

Sewell said his recent viral appearance at a Dearborn City Council meeting prompted a wave of private messages from Christians living in the city. None of them, he said, were willing to go public.

"Since I went viral, I've had Dearborn Christians come out from the north, south, east, and west, and they're afraid."

He pressed the point directly at a national audience:

"I want you to think about this for a moment, America. Think about being in a Christian nation, being afraid to talk about Christ. I want you to just think about that for a moment."

Sewell described the messages as uniform in their caution: people who agreed with him but would not stand beside him.

"I'm having people say, 'I'm with you, but I'm afraid to say it.' 'I'm with you, but I'm afraid to be by you.'... This is how we know we are in a two-tiered system because, in a Christian nation, we're afraid to be Christians."

His language was unsparing. He told Fox News Digital that Dearborn, in his view, is no longer governed by American law.

"America, we have lost this city. This is a city that is no longer up under American laws; we are up under Sharia law. We will not have it anymore."

22 arrests followed the "Christian Crusader March"

The backdrop to Sewell's interview was a volatile scene at a recent Dearborn City Council meeting. Conservative activist Jake Lang led what was called the "Christian Crusader March" near the regularly scheduled meeting. CBS News reported that Dearborn police made 22 arrests in connection with the march. It was not clear from the reporting whether those arrested were march participants, counter-protesters, or a mix of both.

Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin issued a statement defending his officers' conduct. He described the situation as "challenging and rapidly evolving" and said officers kept "everyone safe" while "protecting the constitutional rights of those who came to be heard, and allowing the City Council to complete its business."

Sewell also appeared at the city council meeting, delivering remarks that went viral. The exact content of those remarks was not detailed in the reporting, but they preceded the Fox News Digital interview and appear to have been the catalyst for the private messages he described from Dearborn Christians.

Dearborn's council president fires back

City Council President Mike Sareini responded to Sewell's charges directly in a statement to Fox News Digital. He rejected every claim.

"The City of Dearborn is an American city governed by the U.S. Constitution, the laws of the State of Michigan, and the City of Dearborn Charter. Those laws apply equally to every resident, regardless of religion or background. Everyone is treated the same."

Sareini challenged Sewell, or anyone else, to produce evidence of preferential treatment.

"There is no evidence of preferential treatment for any religious group. These accusations are unfounded, and I challenge anyone to present evidence otherwise."

He also pushed back on the idea that Christians in Dearborn are marginalized. Sareini said the city is home to approximately 30 churches and 10 mosques. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud offered slightly different figures to CBS News, citing "nearly 30 Christian churches" and "more than a dozen mosques", a discrepancy on the mosque count that neither official addressed.

Sareini added that local pastors recently held a press conference affirming that "people of different faiths live together peacefully in Dearborn, without the conflict being alleged." No quotes from that press conference were included in the reporting, and the pastors were not named.

Mayor Hammoud did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

What remains unanswered

Sewell's accusations are serious, and some of the underlying facts are verifiable on their face. Dearborn Public Schools does certify all school meat as halal, the district's own website says so. Hamtramck did vote to allow animal sacrifice. A mosque in Dearborn does broadcast the call to prayer over a loudspeaker, and a resident did petition the city to enforce noise rules.

But several of Sewell's most pointed claims, that police ignored a death threat against his wife, that officers routinely look the other way when Muslims assault others, that Christians are systematically silenced, rest on his word alone. No police reports, court filings, or independent corroboration appeared in the reporting. The Dearborn Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. The lieutenant Sewell accused of inaction was not named.

The 22 arrests at the city council meeting raise their own questions. Were the people arrested Christians exercising their right to protest, or were they charged for conduct that crossed a legal line? The reporting did not break down who was arrested or on what charges. Police Chief Shahin's statement praised his officers' professionalism but offered no specifics.

Sareini's rebuttal, meanwhile, leaned on broad assertions of equal treatment and a reference to a press conference by unnamed pastors. He did not address the halal-only school policy, the noise ordinance petition, or the Hamtramck animal sacrifice vote. His challenge to produce evidence of preferential treatment sidestepped the specific examples Sewell raised.

When a pastor who prayed at the president's inauguration says an American city has been lost to a foreign legal code, and the city's own leaders respond with boilerplate denials and unnamed press conferences, neither side has given the public enough to settle the question. One side needs to show the receipts, and the other needs to answer the specifics, not wave them away.