The mayor of Dearborn in the U.S. State of Michigan has stepped up security measures in response to a widely criticized Wall Street Journal op-ed that declared his town “America’s Jihad Capital” because of its high-percentage of Arab and Muslim residents.

Abdullah H. Hammoud announced the deployment of more police around places of worship and major infrastructure points around the city in a statement on X. He did not mince words explaining why.

“This is a direct result of the inflammatory @WSJ opinion piece that has led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online targeting the city of Dearborn,” the mayor said. “Stay vigilant.”

The column was written by Steven Stalinsky, the Executive Director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization co-founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer and an Israeli-American political scientist. It dropped on Feb. 2 with the headline “Welcome to Dearborn: America’s Jihad Capital” and accused the city’s imams and elected leaders of siding “with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the U.S.”

The piece immediately sparked backlash from Hammoud, who called it “reckless” and “Islamophobic” while pointing out that Dearborn is one of the most diverse and fastest growing cities in Michigan. He told the Detroit Free Press, “This is more than irresponsible journalism. Publishing such inflammatory writing puts Dearborn residents at increased risk for harm.”