This is common sense litigation that denies a domestic group aligned with foreign terrorists the ability to function as a tax-exempt nonprofit.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed suit seeking to ban the activities of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Texas. In a complaint filed in early February, Paxton directly accused CAIR of acting as “the American face of an international terrorist organization”—the Muslim Brotherhood. The suit reports that CAIR was set up in a secret 1993 meeting between Hamas operatives in Philadelphia and has operated as a front for the organization ever since.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a proclamation in November designating the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as Foreign Terrorist and Transnational Criminal Organizations. Paxton requests that the court impose injunctions on CAIR and thus prevent it from conducting any operational activities in Texas.
In a statement, CAIR described the lawsuit as an attack on the organization’s constitutional rights. “Ken Paxton’s lawsuit is another frivolous, politically motivated anti-Muslim publicity stunt that wastes more taxpayer dollars,” the organization declared.
What Paxton Seeks
Paxton seeks several forms of judicial relief. First, it asks the court to formally declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and transnational criminal organization under Texas law. Second, it seeks temporary and permanent injunctions preventing CAIR and related entities from engaging in fundraising, recruitment or operational activities within Texas. Lastly, it asks the court to classify the defendants’ activities as a public nuisance, as this would allow for additional enforcement mechanisms against CAIR. If the requested injunctions are granted fully, CAIR’s ability to operate in Texas could be eliminated altogether.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
(Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons)
The Evidence
Attorney General Paxton’s complaint documents the historical, operational and organizational ties between CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood. As stated in the suit, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization and network founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, aims to establish a fundamentalist political system based on Islamic law across the globe.
CAIR’s ties to Hamas were documented in 1993 when the FBI wiretapped a secret meeting held by Hamas operatives in Philadelphia, the suit states. Attendees included Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad, who founded CAIR a year later. In that meeting, attendees discussed the need to employ “deception” and to maintain a “front” organization, as they discussed broader strategies to support Hamas in the U.S. without attracting the attention of law enforcement.
The complaint cites documents from the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case in 2008 to illustrate the network relationship among the different organizations. Ghassan Elashi, a former HLF officer convicted of funneling over $12 million to Hamas, served as a founding board member of CAIR’s Texas branch. Trial evidence indicated financial transfers between HLF and CAIR during CAIR’s early years, underlining their long relationship. Furthermore, federal prosecutors named CAIR an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the HLF case, and FBI special agent Lara Burns even testified that CAIR was created as “a front group for Hamas.”
In 2009, FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers testified in Congress that evidence “demonstrated a relationship among CAIR and the Palestine Committee”—the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S.-based fundraising apparatus. That same year, U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis declared that “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR … with Hamas.” Although CAIR was never charged in the HLF case, Paxton argues that the evidentiary record demonstrates institutional overlap between its leadership and the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S.-based “Palestine Committee.”
Beyond historical ties, the petition also argues that CAIR entities operate as components of a unified national structure, noting shared branding, centralized communications and binding agreements between national and local chapters. The filing concludes that “CAIR is the American Chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood” and that “CAIR-TX is the Texas Chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“Paxton’s powerhouse lawsuit to banish CAIR from the Lone Star State gives Gov. Abbott’s terrorist designation the teeth needed to take a substantial bite out of the Muslim Brotherhood’s extremist network in the United States,” said Benjamin Baird, director of MEF Action at the Middle East Forum, who consults with state and federal officials on counterterrorism policies. “This is common sense litigation that denies a domestic group aligned with foreign terrorists the ability to function as a tax-exempt nonprofit,” he added.
CAIR itself vehemently rejects the accusations made, highlighting the fact that it has never been designated as an FTO by the federal government. In a letter sent directly to Gov. Abbott, it described itself as having “spent 30 years vocally speaking up against all forms of bigotry, including anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism, as well as all forms of unjust violence, including hate crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism.”
CAIR adds that Abbot’s “proclamation has no basis in law or fact. You do not have the authority to unilaterally declare any Americans or American institutions terrorist groups, nor is there any basis to level this smear against our organization.” CAIR does not respond to any of the specific allegations made against it.
Will Suit Prevail?
The litigation is likely to become a major constitutional test case concerning the limits of state authority in the counterterrorism domain. In late 2025, a few weeks before Paxton filed suit, Ashley Deeks, who worked as White House counsel for the Biden administration and Kristen Eichensehr, who teaches law at Harvard University, warned in a piece in the Harvard Law Review that “the increasing frequency and breadth of states’ actions in the name of security have set U.S. states and the federal government on a collision course—raising crucial questions about whether and how federal laws and actions should preempt state laws.”
Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, reported in late January that an outright ban might not succeed, as “the First Amendment is a powerful shelter to good and evil alike.” The long-term solution, Pletka argues, is for Congress to “establish a process for stripping the nonprofit status of any organization founded by, or with a documented pattern of employing, convicted terrorism supporters.”