As a 19-year-old college student in 2012, Asad Dandia received a Facebook friend request from a fellow young Muslim man who wanted to get more involved with the Muslim community in New York City.

It didnt raise alarm bells for Dandia at the time the Brooklyn resident was active in the religious-based charity organization Muslims Giving Back, which collected and distributed food for people in need. Dandia told the man on Facebook, 19-year-old Queens resident Shamiur Rahman, that he was welcome to join the organization to find friends, get closer to his faith and widen his network.

But Dandia didnt realize that Rahman wasnt there to seek friends at all.

Rahman was being paid by the New York City Police Department to spy, bait and record every move made by Dandia and his Muslim community as a part of the now-defunct surveillance program that mapped and spied on everyday Muslim Americans.

The NYPD program, exposed by the Associated Press Pulitzer Prize-winning series in 2011, confirmed many Muslims worst fears and left permanent damage between the Muslim community and law enforcement, even after it ended in 2014.

Then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg approved and oversaw the program, saying it is what he expected the NYPD to do. He staunchly defended the surveillance when it was exposed and widely condemned.

Now that Bloomberg is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Muslims like Dandia find this old wound reopened. Many are not only skeptical of Bloomberg as a candidate but also fear the possibility that his rise could lead to more policies that target Muslims at the national level. They point to the fact that Donald Trump praised the NYPD program as a presidential candidate, then took office and signed into law a travel ban that targets several Muslim-majority countries.

By inheriting a national structure of surveillance, someone like Bloomberg, who has a record of targeting minorities with these policies on a local level, would most definitely do so on a national level, said Dandia, who is now 26 years old. No doubt if he becomes president, he would do something of this sort.

Bloombergs campaign did not respond to HuffPosts request for comment.