Gov. Abbott Designates CAIR a Foreign Terrorist Organization

Gov. Greg Abbott released a proclamation today identifying the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations in the state of Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott is designating the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.

The designation authorizes “heightened enforcement” against both organizations and their affiliates and prohibits them from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas, according to Abbott’s office…

Abbott’s move comes as he has increasingly spoken out against Muslim groups amid his run for a record fourth term. Muslim advocates say he is amplifying Islamophobic rhetoric that they fear could lead to violence against Muslim communities.

Abbott released a statement about the proclamation:

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” said Governor Abbott. “The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable. Today, I designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations. These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.”

The proclamation itself can be viewed here. It includes a list of people CAIR has “employed, affiliated with, and supported” who promoted “terrorism-related activiites.” The last person on the list is Nihad Awad, the group’s current president. The proclamation says he “praised and supported Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack against Israel.”

Did Awad do that? Yes, he did. In fact, the Biden White House disavowed CAIR after Awad’s comments.

The White House disavowed an American-Islamic advocacy organization on Thursday after the group’s director declared that he “was happy to see” Palestinians break out of Gaza on Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed an estimated 1,200 people and led to the seizure of 240 others as hostages.

A spokesman for President Biden condemned the remarks by Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who declared in a speech that Palestinians in Gaza “have the right to self-defense” but that Israel “as an occupying power” does not. Mr. Awad said his comments were being misconstrued.

“We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms,” said Mr. Biden’s spokesman, Andrew Bates…

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on Oct. 7,” he said. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not allowed to walk in.

“And yes,” he continued, “the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.”

Video of his statement is here. It seems pretty clear to me he’s saying that the land of Israel belongs to the Palestinians and Israel has no right to defend itself. After the speech circulated, Awad claimed he was misunderstood and that he was only referring to Palestinians who wandered into Israel while the attack was taking place, not to Hamas.

In any case, CAIR just released a statement reacting to the proclamation by Gov. Abbott.

Greg Abbott is an Israel First politician who has spent months stoking anti-Muslim hysteria to smear American Muslims critical of the Israeli government. Although we are flattered by his obsession with our civil rights group, his defamatory proclamation has no basis in fact or law. 

Unlike Mr. Abbott–who unleashed violence against Texas students protesting the Gaza genocide to satisfy his AIPAC donors–our civil rights organization is an independent voice that answers to the American people, relies on support from the American people, and opposes all forms of unjust violence, including hate crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism.

CAIR has successfully sued @GregAbbott_TX three different times for shredding the First Amendment to benefit the Israeli government, and we are ready to sue him again if he attempts to turn this publicity stunt into real policy. See you in court again, Greg…if you dare.

On the federal level, neither group has been designated an FTO, but a bill was recently introduced to target the Muslim Brotherhood.

In July, Florida Representatives Mario Díaz-Balart, a Republican, and Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, co-chairs of the Friends of Egypt Caucus, reintroduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025, aimed at designating the global Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.

The U.S. government has not designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization as a whole, citing the group’s diffuse structure and political activities across different countries.

I wanted to include some reactions to the proclamation from X, unfortunately X is not behaving well this morning and won’t let me embed any tweets at the moment.

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