Earlier this week, to honor National Arab American Heritage Month, Senior Biden-Harris Administration Officials hosted a listening session with Arab American community leaders at the White House. During the meeting, leaders discussed the Administration's efforts to promote prosperity, civil rights, and equal representation for the Arab American community.
Participants shared their own experiences as leaders in the Arab American community, and relayed key priorities including representation, immigration, education, anti-discrimination, disability rights, civil rights, foreign policy, and data collection, among others. Administration officials highlighted the work of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice to root out hate and discrimination, however they manifest, and specifically the Division's efforts to combat Anti-Arab discrimination and Islamophobia. Administration officials also discussed the Equitable Data Working Group's recent report highlighting the need to build a Federal data infrastructure that better reflects the diversity of the American people and any inequities in their experiences, as well as the work underway at the U.S. Census Bureau to improve data collection for people of Middle Eastern and North African heritage. Participants and Administration Officials also discussed the recent tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and expressed hope that the final week of Ramadan would pass peacefully.
The community leaders and Administration officials agreed to continue working together on these priorities in the months ahead.