The son of a 9/11 victim says he was barred from reading the names of the fallen at the annual memorial service after criticizing Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past comments about the disaster.
Nicholas Haros Jr., whose mother Frances died in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, went viral in 2019 after criticizing Omar for downplaying the attack by describing it as “some people doing something.”
But Haros took aim at Omar and other members of the leftist “Squad” during the 2019 ceremony, even wearing a T-shirt with their comments emblazoned on the front.
“Madam, objectively speaking, we know who did it and what he did. There is no doubt about it. Why your confusion?” he said during the live broadcast.
He now claims he has not been allowed to read the names of 9/11 victims again since the incident, despite having been involved for several years beforehand.
The son of 9/11 victim Nicholas Haros Jr. says he was barred from reading the names of the fallen at the annual memorial service after criticizing Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past comments about the disaster.
“It seems like since my last reading, I never get chosen,” Haros, 71, told the The New York Post“Maybe I was a little too controversial.”
Haros decided to take a stand in the wake of incorrect comments made by Omar regarding the creation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The Minnesota representative said CAIR was formed after 9/11 in response to attacks on American Muslims and the loss of their civil liberties following the attack.
“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that we were all starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” he said.
This is inaccurate, as CAIR was founded in 1994, several years before 9/11. Haros also dismissed his comments.
“On that day, 19 Islamic terrorists, members of Al Qaeda, killed more than 3,000 people and caused billions of dollars in economic damage. Is that clear?” he said during his speech.
“I was attacked, my family and friends were attacked, our constitutional freedoms were attacked, and the founding of our nation on Judeo-Christian principles was attacked. That’s what some people did. Do you understand now?”
Ilhan Omar came under fire for referring to 9/11 as “some people did something” during a broader point she was making about the loss of civil liberties for American Muslims in the wake of the attack.
The 9/11 museum refuted Haros’ claims that he had been barred from attending the reading, saying participants are selected through a lottery.
“Each year we receive hundreds of requests from 9/11 family members to have their loved ones’ names read aloud – more than we can accommodate – so a lottery process is used for selection,” he said.
Haros responded to the museum’s explanation by calling it “suspicious.”
“I find it very strange, considering my previous possibilities,” he said. “The fact that they haven’t called me makes me a little suspicious.”
‘I think the number of people interested (in reading) decreases every year as time goes by.’
Haros revealed that he still attends the ceremony, but not as a reader, and that he “cries terribly for the lost and their families.”
The 9/11 museum said it operates a lottery system to choose who reads the victims’ names at the annual memorial.
He plans to hold a private mass for his mother and spend the day in reflection.
“Many Americans now find themselves seeing their civil rights stripped away,” he told CBS.
“And so what I was referring to was the fact that as a Muslim, not only was I suffering as an American who was attacked that day, but the next day I woke up and my fellow Americans were treating me like a suspect.”