The following statement from the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR) 2007 Civl Right report has been widely reported by the media:
In 2006, CAIR processed a total of 2,467 civil rights complaints, compared to 1,972 cases reported to CAIR in 2005. This constitutes a 25.1 percent increase in the total number of complaints from 2005.
Typical headlines have described the results as “Anti-Muslim bias skyrocketed in U.S. in 2006, report claims.”
The increase in complaints, however, stems almost entirely from the addition of a new category of complaints to the 2007 report. In the CAIR 2006 report, there was a category called “Legal Discrimination” with 271 reported complaints. In 2007, the category was retitled “Legal/Immigration” with 729 complaints listed, an increase of 458 complaints representing almost the entire 504 increase in total complaints. It is not known whether the 2006 category included Immigration issues. Without further clarification of the category in question, it is impossible to say whether there was actually any real increase in complaints for the year but CAIR has a history of using its annual reporting of alleged civil rights cases involving U.S. Muslims to portray anti-terror efforts as directed against Muslims.