The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has spent decades dismissing and defaming its critics. On November 5, it faced something it could not dismiss: a Florida law that forced it to suspend operations in the state.
The banning of CAIR by Florida has demonstrated that state action against Islamists can produce real results.
That day, Florida’s designations of CAIR, including CAIR-Florida, and the Muslim Brotherhood as domestic terrorist organizations took effect under the state’s new statutory framework. The designations restrict public funding and support, provide for potential dissolution proceedings, and carry criminal penalties for knowingly providing material support as defined by state law.
CAIR’s Florida chapter announced that it was shutting down its operations. Its website states, in part: “We have suspended our operations in Florida because of Governor DeSantis and other state officials’ baseless and unconstitutional enforcement of the state’s unprecedented new ‘domestic terrorist organization’ laws against us.”
Whatever CAIR says about Florida’s motives, its own announcement establishes that the designation had an immediate effect.
Governors and legislators elsewhere should take notice. Florida accomplished something that years of public criticism about CAIR’s Islamist agenda had failed to achieve.
Much of this author’s professional life has been spent documenting CAIR’s connections to Hamas, both financial and institutional. These associations deserve serious examination by officials responsible for protecting the public.
CAIR was established in June 1994 as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s U.S. Palestine Committee, which was headed by then-global leader of Hamas Mousa Abu Marzook.
When CAIR was named an “unindicted co-conspirator” for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trial, it was not by chance. HLF was a fellow Palestine Committee member; one of the trial’s main HLF defendants Ghassan Elashi was co-founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter; CAIR received early seed money from HLF; and CAIR used its website after 9/11 to raise funds for HLF.
In July 2014, CAIR-Florida itself co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers repeatedly shouted, “We are Hamas,” “Let’s go Hamas,” and “Hamas kicked your ass.”
And up until CAIR-Florida shut down its operations, it was one of the most prominent members of the South Florida Muslim Federation (SFMF), an umbrella group for the majority of South Florida’s radical Muslim institutions. SFMF organizes annual pro-Hamas conferences, the first of which this author successfully led the shutdown of in 2024.
These facts should never have been dismissed simply because CAIR presents itself as a civil rights organization. And they must not be dismissed today.
Other states should pursue enforceable designation laws. Texas already designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood in November 2025 and later sued to stop their operations. Yet recent public activity indicates that CAIR-Texas continues operating. Florida’s closure shows why the legal consequences attached to a designation matter as much as the designation itself.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s designation also raises questions. CAIR is related to the Muslim Brotherhood, but a plethora of other entities are as well, including hundreds of radical mosques. Are those entities also candidates for shutdown?
If it is the case, officials should move to designate more Brotherhood-linked organizations, such as the Muslim American Society (MAS), which federal prosecutors have stated “was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood,” and Islamic Relief, a terror-tied charitable franchise, whose American branch recently changed its name to IDEA.
Florida’s victory remains subject to counter litigation by CAIR’s allies at the ACLU. States need to build cases that can withstand judicial examination, with irrefutable evidence and documentation to support the claim that CAIR is indeed a terrorist organization which seeks to silence its critics.
They should also be vigilant regarding rebranded successor organizations. Closing an office accomplishes little if its personnel, assets and activities simply move into a new corporation.
The banning of CAIR by Florida has demonstrated that state action against Islamists can produce real results. Other states should begin doing the same.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.