Homeland Security alerted after two Muslim students at Nazareth College visit local church

Rasa - A college president in western New York said he was "troubled" and "angered" after someone reacted to the presence of two Muslim students in a church by apparently calling Homeland Security.

News ID: 425749

Date: 13 December 2016 - 00:43

RNA - A college president in western New York said he was "troubled" and "angered" after someone reacted to the presence of two Muslim students in a church by apparently calling Homeland Security.

The Nazareth College students were fulfilling a requirement for their religion class when they visited Browncroft Community Church in Penfield on Sunday, according to the Democrat & Chronicle.

State police came to the campus in Pittsford, a suburb of Rochester, on Monday and the incident was cleared up quickly, the paper reported.

It was the second time the students had been at the church.

"I am very troubled and indeed angered that two of our students were singled out because of their religious beliefs," Nazareth President Daan Braveman wrote in an email to the college community, according to the Democrat & Chronicle.

He added that the students were "very well behaved and appeared to be well received at the church," according to the newspaper.

The college president noted that another student, who is not Muslim, also visited the same church on the same day "but was not the subject of any such report."

Pastor Rob Cattalani told the paper that the pair caught the eye of the church's security team because they seemed to be a little older. Cattalani said he did not know anything about calls to Homeland Security or the state police, according to the paper.

It's regrettable that this happened, but they are certainly welcome back," the pastor told WHAM.

Nazareth has 2,000 undergraduate students and 800 grad students, according to the school's website.

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