The Council on American-Islamic Relations may be the most embattled nonprofit organization in U.S. history. A self-proclaimed Muslim civil rights group, CAIR has faced state-level executive orders labeling it a “foreign terrorist organization,” multiple resolutions denouncing its ties to Hamas, and numerous congressional inquiries examining its links to global terrorism.
Yet the 501(c)(3) nonprofit group still stands today. CAIR still collects tax-free donations to fuel its anti-American advocacy, and it’s still the Muslim darling of the corporate media Left.
Fortunately, CAIR’s seemingly bulletproof legal standing may soon crumble, precipitated by the first serious piece of legislation aimed at designating the Hamas-aligned group as a terrorist entity. On April 9, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced a bill, H.R. 8236 — “the Designating Hamas Affiliates in America Act,” — that directs the U.S. Treasury Department to list CAIR as a “specially designated global terrorist.”
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Roy’s bill is long overdue. In 1993, the FBI secretly recorded CAIR founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad at a Hamas strategy session in a Philadelphia hotel. Attendees discussed creating a media-savvy group to downplay “radicalism” accusations aimed at the pro-Hamas lobby. Months later, CAIR registered as a nonprofit organization.
As detailed in H.R. 8236, CAIR was subsequently listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, a landmark terrorism financing case that sent senior CAIR official Ghassan Elashi to prison for 65 years for his part in funneling over $12 million to Hamas. Following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres in Israel, Hamas sought to negotiate Elashi’s release in exchange for the lives of American hostages held in Gaza.
Elashi is one of at least seven CAIR officials who have been arrested, convicted, or deported for terrorism-related crimes.
Unlike previous legislation and executive actions, Roy’s bill offers the first real chance to shut down America’s most widely recognized Islamist organization. Recent government efforts to identify CAIR as a terrorist threat have fallen short.
A House bill introduced in June 2025 urged the State Department to designate CAIR as an FTO. Besides the obvious problem with calling a nonprofit group “foreign” when it is located and registered in the United States, a State Department designation comes with criminal penalties stemming from violent acts of terrorism.
Criminal sanctions are inappropriate for domestic charities such as CAIR, which mostly uses lawful methods in pursuit of its interests while manipulating democratic freedoms to advance undemocratic goals. Its operatives aren’t planting bombs and hijacking airplanes; they’re suing the Department of Homeland Security to do away with the terrorist watchlist, or lobbying Congress to boycott Israel.
Meanwhile, experiments with state-level terrorist designations targeting CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, though well-meaning, are toothless and legally infirm. In fact, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) executive order sanctioning CAIR as an FTO was quickly blocked in federal court, prompting state legislators to create a new law establishing the statutory framework required for states to designate “domestic terrorist organizations.”
There’s just one problem: Florida lawmakers may have legislated themselves out of designating domestic groups like CAIR, since the new law applies only to entities involved in violent acts or cybercrimes. There are no provisions in place for organizations that fund, recruit, train, or advocate on behalf of violent terrorists.
As a result, the best pathway for designating CAIR is through the U.S. Department of the Treasury as an SDGT — precisely as Roy’s bill directs. Passed in the weeks following 9/11, Executive Order 13224 provides the legal basis for designating terrorist support networks. The law was instrumental in shutting down Osama Bin Laden’s global terrorism financing empire, including several U.S.-based charities that funded al Qaeda and Hamas.
In line with legal precedent, H.R. 8236 would allow the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to freeze CAIR’s assets, prohibit Americans from doing business with it, and take away its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. In other words, CAIR and its affiliated chapters, lobby organizations, and political action committees would cease to exist.
CAIR’s attorneys might argue that the nonprofit organization has reformed itself since its earliest days as an alleged Hamas front. Indeed, terrorism sanctions are intended to change behavior, not punish past offenses, and as such require recent evidence of terrorist activities.
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Last October, CAIR-Ohio executive director Khalid Turaani hosted an online panel featuring remarks from Majed al Zeer, a specially designated national and card-carrying member of Hamas. If Treasury officials can demonstrate that this act represents a continued pattern of material support for Hamas, then CAIR’s days are numbered.
Of course, everything is easier if the Trump administration acts independently, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent exercises his authority to designate CAIR. Every Congress member who co-sponsors Roy’s bill sends a message to the White House that the legislative branch stands behind efforts to sanction and shut down Hamas’s unofficial lobby in the United States.
Benjamin Baird is the director of MEF Action at the Middle East Forum. He consulted on this legislation and advocates its passage.