Texas Governor Labels Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as Foreign Terrorist Groups

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday designated both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist organizations, an action that prevents the two groups from obtaining land in Texas. The move marks one of the most sweeping state-level steps taken against the organizations, reflecting Abbott’s long-standing concerns about their influence.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” Abbott said in a statement announcing the designation.

He went on to say that the groups’ “actions taken … to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable.” Abbott added, “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 governor’s proclamation cited several examples of current and former CAIR members supporting terrorist groups. Among those he named was Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director, who publicly praised Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people that day, actions that included sexual assaults and the kidnapping of more than 240 hostages taken into Gaza. Awad said at the time he was “happy to see” the attack.

Abbott also noted that a year after the Oct. 7 assault, Awad questioned whether an Iranian plot to assassinate President Donald Trump might actually have been, in his words, an “Israeli plot to ignite another war between the US and other countries in the Middle East.”

CAIR, the most prominent Muslim advocacy organization in the United States, has played a visible role in national political debates. Recently, the group donated $100,000 to the largest political action committee supporting Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who is set to become the next mayor of New York City.

CAIR has not yet issued a formal response to Abbott’s designation. Its most recent post on X urged Americans to ask their House representatives to support H.R. 876, a resolution sponsored by Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan that “recognizes the genocide in Gaza.”

In a post of his own, Abbott said that the designation empowers Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton “to sue to shut them down,” a step the governor framed as necessary to protect the state’s security and legal order.

Abbott’s announcement underscores an escalating confrontation between the state and the organizations he accuses of undermining public safety. While CAIR remains a significant national advocacy group, Texas has now placed it and the Muslim Brotherhood under some of the strongest state restrictions in the country, barring them from holding real property and opening the door to legal action to halt their operations within its borders.