A group of think tanks and advocacy organizations sent a letter to members of Congress on Tuesday urging them to back legislation to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a terrorist group.
The writers, led by the Middle East Forum, cited CAIR’s history of connections to Hamas and its fundraisers.
“CAIR’s connections to terrorism go back to before it was founded in 1994 by individuals previously affiliated with the Islamic Association of Palestine, a Hamas-aligned organization that federal courts later found financially liable for Hamas violence,” the groups wrote.
“These ties extend to as recently as October 2025, when CAIR-Ohio leader Khalid Turaani hosted Majed al-Zeer, a specially designated national and Hamas terrorist, at an online forum,” they stated. “If CAIR does not meet the criteria for designation, it is difficult to understand why specially designated global terrorist sanctions exist.”
CAIR bills itself as “America’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization” but has repeatedly faced controversy over its associations with and advocacy for extremists.
In 2007 it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the criminal case against the Holy Land Foundation, which resulted in guilty verdicts on all counts against five defendants for financing terrorism.
CAIR has never been charged with a crime.
In 2023, the Biden administration removed CAIR from an advisory role in developing its national strategy to combat antisemitism after its national executive director, Nihad Awad, said in reference to the Oct. 7 attacks that he was “happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.”
The Republican governors of Florida and Texas designated CAIR as a terrorist organization in 2025.
The 23 groups that signed Tuesday’s letter—including the American Islamic Congress, the Hindu American Foundation and In Defense of Christians—call for legislators to back a bill from Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) requiring the U.S. treasury secretary to designate CAIR as a specially designated global terrorist.
Roy introduced the bill in April with nine Republican co-sponsors, and it has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
