NY City Council passes bill to protect Muslim pilgrims from Hajj scams

(RNS) — The New York City Council passed a bill to educate New Yorkers on scams related to the Hajj and Umrah, the Islamic pilgrimages performed by millions every year.

The first of its kind, the New York City bill aims to protect pilgrims, and particularly seniors, navigating the Hajj travel industry from scams related to travel, accommodation, catering services and visa applications.

“Fraudulent travel packages, fake visa brokers, and predatory booking services have for too long targeted New York City Muslims who save for years to make these pilgrimages,” wrote Harlem Council Member Yusef Salaam, who sponsored the bill and is a Muslim, in a press release.

Hajj, which begins on Sunday (May 24), is a seven-day pilgrimage that Muslims are expected to complete in their lifetime if they have the means and are physically fit. It is considered one of Islam’s five pillars and takes place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Umrah, another pilgrimage to Mecca, is a non-mandatory ritual and can be accomplished at any time.

Since 2022, visas and permits for the pilgrimages have been delivered by the Saudi government through Nusuk, an online platform. Some pilgrims save for years to afford the trip, which can cost anywhere between $9,000 and $15,000, and many turn to specialized travel agencies to handle the planning. Some 1.5 million pilgrims flocked to Saudi Arabia for Hajj in 2025, most of them from abroad, according to the Kingdom.

The bill, which received the support of all City Council members but one who didn’t attend the vote, has now been sent to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s council.

The new law charges the commissioner of Consumer and Worker Protection to develop multilingual resources on common Hajj and Umrah scams. It also directs the Commission on Human Rights, the Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Department for the Aging to disseminate the material to the relevant public and to advertise it on their websites.

The legislation aims to help pilgrims spot common scams, report bad actors, and systematically book through the Saudi government’s official platform.

“The free exercise of religion is enshrined in our Constitution, and this Council is committed to ensuring that New Yorkers can fulfill their sacred obligations without predators standing between them and their faith,” wrote Salaam in a press release.

Salaam, who was elected in 2023, is one of the Central Park’s Exonerated Five, a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongly convicted for the murder and rape of a jogger, killed in April 1989.

The committee report on the bill, drafted by City Council members, points to a 2017 case of a Brooklyn-based man who had scammed several Pakistani immigrants by selling fake travel packages to Hajj for $6,000 each.

Junaid Mirza, a travel agent, had promoted his Hajj-booking business in local Urdu-language newspapers and at mosques and ended up stealing $350,000 from clients, many of whom “were hardworking Pakistani immigrants who were cheated out of a lifelong dream of taking a pilgrimage to Mecca,” according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. Mirza was sentenced to six years in prison by the Brooklyn Supreme Court following a four-year investigation.

More than solving a religious freedom problem, the bill tackles a major affordability issue, said Asad Dandia, a historian for the Borough of Brooklyn and the director of New York Narratives, a tour guide company focused on the history of Muslim New York.

“When you spent all your life saving up this money, you spend it on a huge package that turns out to be a scam, and now your savings are gone … aside from the spiritual pain and trauma, it’s really going to hurt your pocket,” he told Religion News Service.

Dandia, who said stories of middlemen scamming aspiring pilgrims have abounded in the community, noted the bill addressed an issue that weighed on many Muslims’ finances. 

Nusuk, which was introduced by the Kingdom’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah in 2022 to streamline the pilgrims’ booking process, was criticized by foreign applicants for numerous bugs at launch. It is part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 Pilgrim Experience program.

At the time of its launch, the platform was bogged down by timeout requests, disappearing packages, and inaccessible customer service, according to several users.

The platform also centralized the issuance of visas for pilgrims, allocating quotas of pilgrims allowed per country, with priority given to those who had never performed Hajj. In 2023, the quota allocated 4,000 Hajj visas for American Muslims.