Maggie Slavin, the Operations Manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-Chicago, said Muslims like her feel “under this constant microscope.”

“People are wondering like, can I wear my hijab to work? Can I wear my keffiyeh outside safely? Can I wear a Palestine pin without my employer or my school cracking down on me?”

CAIR’s 2024 civil rights report revealed its highest number of reported complaints in the organization’s history: 8,061 in 2023.

“When Israel escalates an action or performs a significant airstrike in Gaza and now in Lebanon, our office gets more calls, we have more documented hate crimes,” Slavin said.

But they say the Muslim community feels unsupported from both sides. “Neither political party seems particularly interested in chasing after our vote or trying to coerce us with anything.”

“There’s this abject dehumanization of how ‘these people are terrorists and they’re human animals,’ and we see that from very right-wing portions of the country,” Slavin said. “But I think most people are at a place where they just don’t know. And I think it is a deliberate dehumanization by omission.”