Statement on U.S. Governor Greg Abbot’s Designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security condemns Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s designations of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a “foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organisation” alongside the Muslim Brotherhood. Abbot’s and DeSantis’s proclamations are part of an alarming coordinated effort in the United States to chip away at civil liberties and religious freedom through attacks on organizations that have voiced opposition to genocide, particularly Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The two proclamations are based on the false claim that CAIR supports global terrorism and is, in turn, supported by global terrorist organizations. Governor Abbott in fact goes so far as to accuse CAIR of wishing to establish Sharia law in the United States, a claim we suppose is based on the unfounded and Islamophobic narrative that CAIR, as a Muslim organization, is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR promotes, as a core part of its mission, “free enterprise, freedom of religion and freedom of expression” for everyone, that is, rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and grounded in secular American law. It has never engaged in any activity that exists outside of that core mission and has done nothing to suggest that it wishes to impose a different system of law in the U.S.

In truth, “the U.S. government has never identified any M[uslim] B[rotherhood]-affiliated individual or CAIR affiliate as engaging in violent activity on U.S. soil, nor have these groups been subjected to federal terrorism charges,” according to Dr. Ahmet S. Yayla, Director of the Center for Homeland Security at DeSales University. CAIR has consistently opposed unlawful violence against civilians and violence perpetrated in the name of Islam. The accusations against CAIR are baseless.

These terrorist designations criminalize CAIR’s activities in the states of Texas and Florida and pave the way for legal action by the state governments to shut down its operations. They further set the stage for similar designations against CAIR and other civil rights organizations, especially those that represent the Arab and Muslim populations in the United States, in other states and at the federal level. Such action is clearly on the agenda of some of the more Islamophobic politicians in the U.S. This past June Florida Representative Randy Fine introduced a draft bill to the U.S. House of Representatives entitled the “Designate CAIR as a Terrorist Organization Act” (H.R. 4097).

Since its founding in 1994, CAIR has grown to become the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States, with 27 chapters across the country. The organization has completed pivotal work in fostering interfaith understanding and combatting discrimination to advance civil rights of Muslims and all other Americans.

For instance, in Texas, its Faith Ambassador program recruits Muslim community members and places them in interfaith dialogue opportunities. Similarly, in Philadelphia, CAIR co-sponsors events and projects with non-Muslim organizations and individuals, such as Interfaith Iftar, Eid and Seder dinners, a “Day of Dignity” to help the homeless, and the Annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation.

CAIR has worked tirelessly to prevent the violation of Americans’ civil and political rights. CAIR California, as part of the No Muslim Ban Ever Coalition, advocated against the first Trump Administration’s discriminatory travel policy and recently secured an important legal victory: a federal court agreement paving the way for visa reconsideration for the nearly 25,000 people affected by this ban.

CAIR has also been a vocal advocate for freedom of speech, especially surrounding pro-Palestinian activism in the United States. For instance, CAIR chapters across the country have condemned crackdowns on pro-Palestinian student activism, demanded the protection of students’ free speech rights, and designated certain universities as “hostile” for suppressing demonstrations and penalizing faculty members for speaking out in favor of Palestinian human rights.

Governor Abbott’s and DeSantis’s designations are an act of political and religious persecution and stand directly in opposition to America’s historic commitment to free speech and religious liberty. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from punishing organizations on the basis of their religious identity or political views, and protects religious groups from discriminatory targeting. Targeting a Muslim civil rights group through an unsubstantiated “terrorist” label not only violates these core constitutional protections but also sets a dangerous precedent for the criminalization of any disfavored religious minority.

These state-level attacks on CAIR is also symptomatic of a broader national pattern in which political leaders, responding to pressure from powerful pro-Israel lobbying networks and donors, have sought to suppress pro-Palestinian advocacy and undermine the rights of Muslim and Arab Americans.

For instance, during the pro-Palestine protests at the University of Texas, Austin in April 2024, law enforcement used stun guns and pepper spray to dismantle an encampment, leading to more than 100 injuries. Abbott is now facing a lawsuit from four current and former students alleging unlawful arrest and retaliatory discipline for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests.

Similarly, in April 2024, Columbia University collaborated with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to forcefully arrest student protesters and dismantle the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. WhatsApp chat logs gathered by the Washington Post revealed how a group of billionaires and business titans privately pressured the New York Mayor, Eric Adams, to send the NYPD to disperse these protests.

These examples demonstrate a worrying trend: The federal government’s mobilization of the vast and increasingly unaccountable U.S. public security apparatus to suppress freedom of speech in the United States. While the focus has been on university and college campuses, some members of the Republican Party clearly hope to extend state repression to the non-profit sector, as evidenced by the draft law against “pro-Palestinian” organizations called the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” (H.R.9495) that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on November 21, 2024. The law would “facilitate the executive branch’s dissolution of organizations working for Palestinian rights by implying ties to “terrorist”-designated groups in Palestine.”

The Lemkin Institute warns that these incidents are indicative of a broader environment in which political officials and powerful private actors mobilize state power to silence criticism of Israel by U.S. citizens despite their constitutional right to critique and to peacefully protest genocide. The criminalization of CAIR fits squarely within this pattern. If left unchallenged, these tactics will continue to erode core constitutional protections and undermine the rights of religious and political minorities across the United States.