{"id":279412,"date":"2026-05-21T12:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/279412\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:42:09","slug":"in-florida-extremist-networks-are-hiding-behind-nonprofits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/279412\/","title":{"rendered":"In Florida, Extremist Networks Are Hiding Behind Nonprofits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Progressive nonprofits are having a rough time lately. In April, the Department of Justice alleged that the Southern Poverty Law Center secretly paid leaders<\/a>\u00a0of the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations\u2014not to dismantle these extremist groups, but, as prosecutors put it<\/a>, to manufacture \u201cthe extremism it purports to oppose.\u201d And a recent City Journal investigation<\/a>\u00a0by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo, based on a previous report from the Network Contagion Research Institute<\/a> and their congressional testimony, revealed that the California branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has received more than $40 million in public funds, despite longstanding scrutiny over connections to Hamas-linked networks.<\/p>\n

These are not isolated incidents. They\u2019re part of a pattern of extremists abusing the American nonprofit system for their own ends. Just look at Florida\u2014where one of us serves as Lieutenant Governor\u2014to see how deep the problem runs.<\/p>\n

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A new report<\/a>\u00a0from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) documents networks across Florida with overlapping leadership, shared funding streams, and repeated ties to individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses or sanctioned for connections to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Iran-aligned influence operations. These networks operate through America\u2019s civil society framework\u2014using 501(c)(3) status, nonprofit governance structures, and the constitutional protections afforded to religious institutions as both cover and support.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the Al-Qassam Mosque, formally incorporated<\/a> under Florida law in 1992 as the Islamic Community of Tampa, Inc., and which lists Sami Al-Arian\u2014later convicted<\/a>\u00a0of conspiring to support PIJ<\/a>\u2014in 1995 as the Registered Agent.\u00a0Federal investigators identified Al-Arian as PIJ\u2019s North American leader.<\/p>\n

The Islamic Community of Tampa\u2019s 501(c)(3) board of trustees<\/a>\u00a0included Ramadan Abdullah Shallah. While Shallah held formal directorship of an American nonprofit, documented in the organization\u2019s own Florida nonprofit filings,\u00a0he was simultaneously serving as secretary-general of PIJ<\/a>, which he led for more than two decades. He appeared on the FBI\u2019s Most Wanted list and was classified by the U.S. Treasury as a Specially Designated Terrorist.<\/p>\n

\"PalestinianSami Al-Arian (Photo by Adem Kutucu\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

After federal prosecutions exposed this institutional structure, it then rebranded under new organizational names with the same public-facing mission, and with many of the same people.<\/p>\n

Hatem Fariz, who pled guilty<\/a>\u00a0to conspiracy to provide material support to PIJ and served time in federal prison, was released in 2010 and became director of the rebranded Al-Qassam Mosque. Today, he\u2019s listed<\/a>\u00a0as chairman of the board, development director, and treasurer of the Coalition for Civil Freedoms, a 501(c)(3) that says it provides monthly stipends<\/a> to Muslim prisoners accused of terrorism. The Coalition received a $9,000 grant<\/a>\u00a0from the mosque in 2021.<\/p>\n

For one of us, this pattern is familiar. Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins spent more than two decades as a U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret. In the early stages before terrorist networks become visible as threats, he has consistently encountered their efforts at infrastructure building, starting with cultivating the appearance of legitimacy\u2014through civic ties, institutional roles, and the legal protections that come with them. The presence comes first. By the time the threat becomes obvious, the structure is already in place.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Islamic Community of Tampa, the details we document can be found in court records and state documents. Why hasn\u2019t that record stopped the same individuals from re-establishing themselves and continuing to operate with all the legal benefits that nonprofit status provides?<\/p>\n

The network hasn\u2019t gone dormant. In 2021,\u00a0CAIR Florida hosted Fariz at its annual gala, where he called his terrorism conviction \u201cbaseless,\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0featured him in fundraising videos<\/a>\u00a0as a\u00a0victim of government persecution<\/a>. That same year, the Coalition for Civil Freedoms\u2014whose\u00a0Board of Directors is chaired by Fariz<\/a>\u2014granted $9,000 to the Islamic Community of Tampa<\/a>. Meanwhile Al-Arian,\u00a0deported to Turkey<\/a>, has continued operating through\u00a0CIGA, a think tank at Istanbul Zaim University<\/a>, hosting\u00a0Hamas official<\/a>\u00a0Osama Hamdan in 2024<\/a>\u00a0and, in\u00a0early 2025, a speaker<\/a>\u00a0sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury<\/a>. The Tampa network and the Istanbul operation share the same leadership. While the legal address changed, the activity didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Enforcement is slow for good reason. Federal designations require due process. States face real constitutional limits, especially when religion and free speech are involved. The result is a gray zone that well-organized networks can and do exploit, sometimes for decades.<\/p>\n

\"funeralFuneral for Ramadan Abdullah Shallah (Photo by Mustafa Hassona\/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The SPLC scandal reveals what happens when a watchdog institution loses its integrity from within. The CAIR controversy shows what happens when governments keep funding and legitimizing groups with ties to terror-linked networks while treating investigations of those ties as bigotry. And the Tampa incident demonstrates what can occur when the system has no real means of acting, even when the record is established and clear. These failures reveal similar vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

The freedoms that make American civil society strong and worth defending can also be leveraged by people who don\u2019t share our values. Fixing that problem doesn\u2019t mean shredding these protections. It means getting better at making distinctions\u2014and acting on them.<\/p>\n

Congress should require enhanced transparency and review for tax-exempt organizations whose leaders, major donors, or grant recipients have been convicted of terrorism-related offenses, sanctioned by the Treasury Department, or identified in federal court records as tied to foreign terrorist organizations. This would not criminalize speech, religion, or association, nor would it punish unpopular views. It would simply recognize that nonprofit status and public funding are privileges, not rights.<\/p>\n

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City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Progressive nonprofits are having a rough time lately. In April, the Department of Justice alleged that the Southern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-279412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}