{"id":44720,"date":"2025-11-19T12:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44720\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:36:17","slug":"texas-gov-abbott-declares-muslim-group-cair-a-terrorist-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44720\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Gov. Abbott declares Muslim group CAIR a ‘terrorist’ organization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has formally labeled the Council on American-Islamic Relations<\/a>, one of largest Muslim civil rights groups in the nation, a foreign terrorist organization. <\/p>\n

In his Tuesday declaration, Abbott vowed to go after the Washington-based group, accusing them of having direct ties with Hamas<\/a> and vowing to have the state attorney general \u201csue to shut them down\u201d in Texas. <\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s declaration also included the Muslim Brotherhood group, a transnational Sunni Islamist group founded in Egypt with offshoots that have been linked to past violent attacks.<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organizations on Tuesday. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR<\/a> have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam\u2019s \u2018mastership of the world,\u2019\u201d Governor Abbott claimed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe actions taken by the\u00a0Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to\u00a0support terrorism\u00a0across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment\u00a0are unacceptable,\u201d he added. \u201cThese radical extremists are not welcome in our state and\u00a0are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.\u201d <\/p>\n

There is no evidence that either CAIR or the Muslim Brotherhood are seeking to impose Shariah law in America. <\/p>\n

Neither group is listed as a terrorist group by the federal government, with the Muslim Brotherhood disavowing any previous violence linked to the group, which now provides hospitals and schools in the Arab world, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. <\/p>\n

CAIR is one of the nation\u2019s largest civil rights and advocacy groups for Muslim Americans. MediaNews Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n

CAIR, which has operated in the US for about 30 years, has long denied any association with Hamas or other terrorist cells, with the civil rights group<\/a> slamming Abbott\u2019s declaration as \u201cdefamatory and lawless.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not and will not be intimidated by smear campaigns launched by Israel First politicians by Greg Abbott,\u201d the group\u2019s Texas branch said in a statement. <\/p>\n

CAIR, which has long denied ties to terrorist groups, has faced intense scrutiny in Texas for its criticism of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. Laura Cavanaugh<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Abbott is defaming us and other American Muslims because we are effective advocates for justice here and abroad,\u201d the group added. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe plan to continue exercising our constitutional rights, defending civil rights, and speaking truth to power, whether in defense of free speech, religious freedom and racial equality here in Texas or in defense of human rights abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott has repeatedly criticized CAIR over the group\u2019s staunch rejection of Israel\u2019s war on Gaza and support of pro-Palestinian protests in the US. <\/p>\n

The governor has recently suggested that there should be concern nationwide over Muslim elected officials following Zohran Mamdani\u2019s win as New York City mayor<\/a> earlier this month. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe concern is high, especially when you see somebody like Mamdani get elected and the cataclysmic problems that\u2019s going to cause,\u201d Abbott said during a radio interview Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that\u2019s never going to happen,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has formally labeled the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of largest Muslim civil rights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7021,25634,6636,25635,13819,9,11,10,6202,1777,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-44720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-civil-rights","9":"tag-council-on-american-islamic-relations","10":"tag-greg-abbott","11":"tag-muslim-brotherhood","12":"tag-muslims","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-nonprofits","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}