Gov. Abbott’s proclamation against CAIR preys on vague suspicions of Islam

11/28/25 Reposted from msn.com

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s declaration that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, is a foreign terrorist organization and a transnational criminal organization amounts to a thinly veiled attempt to demonize a community for political gain while flouting any semblance of due process.

In a proclamation, Abbott conflates rhetoric and opinions he doesn’t like with criminality. He assigns the activities of some individuals and allegations against others to an entire organization that has consistently advocated for fair treatment of those of all religious faiths. The proclamation also lumps CAIR with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a stated mission to Islamize society that CAIR doesn’t seek.

It’s no coincidence Abbott’s proclamation comes as he seeks a fourth term as governor and attempts to sic law enforcement and state agencies on the planners of a proposed development in the Dallas area that includes a mosque, though they have yet to show anything nefarious.

In the meantime, CAIR has been vocal and effective in its criticism of Abbott, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and others for their obsessive attacks on that proposed development, EPIC City.

The East Plano Islamic Center has pitched the 402-acre development, which would be in an unincorporated area roughly 40 miles northeast of Dallas. Besides a mosque, plans call for more than 1,000 single-family and multifamily homes, a K-12 faith-based school, senior housing, an outreach center, commercial developments, sports facilities and a community college.

While including a mosque would make EPIC City appealing to practicing Muslims, its developers have affirmed that anyone can live there. Notably, the U.S. Justice Department, responding to complaints, found no wrongdoing after Cornyn called for an investigation. And it issued a letter on June 13 expressing its satisfaction “all will be welcome in any future development.”

So unable to take down EPIC, Abbott is invoking a constitutionally sketchy new state law to put labels on CAIR that would deprive it of certain rights, such as the ability to own property.

One of Abbott’s favorite ploys – which he’s not alone in routinely employing – is to declare himself a protector against Sharia law. In his proclamation, he praises himself for signing a bill “to prohibit the enforcement of foreign laws in Texas, including Sharia law.”

Unfortunately, invoking this bogeyman has become an easy, cynical and lazy way to engender fear – the precursor to hate – of Muslims.

Doing so relies on the vast majority of people not understanding Islam – either because they’ve had no exposure to it and no curiosity to learn, or because they seek to undermine it as a means of elevating Christianity.

Perhaps most important, Abbott should know that Sharia law is no more a “foreign” law than any other religion’s guiding beliefs and tenets for personal conduct. CAIR has said repeatedly, “Muslims may look to Sharia law for personal religious practice, but Sharia does not override U.S. or state law.”

The Catholic Church does not allow priests to marry and requires them to take a vow of celibacy. And if they break that vow, they can face disciplinary measures. But the church would never impose a punishment reserved for the judicial system, and if someone in the church did so, they could face legal consequences.

Similarly, the idea that entire Muslim communities and/or institutions are banding together to form extrajudicial agencies to enforce Sharia law is what cynical leaders want constituents to believe, but beliefs are not facts.

All that being said, CAIR is not without controversy, having been implicated by association – often loose association – with other organizations found to have been engaged in prosecutable activity. Probably the most cited is a group called the Holy Land Foundation, or HLF, which was founded in 1989 ostensibly as a nonprofit to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.

In 2008, the HLF and some of its leaders were convicted of providing material support to Hamas, which the U.S. government had designated a terrorist organization in 1997.

While CAIR carries no such federal designation, it became a target of unsubstantiated accusations when it and nearly 250 other people and entities were described in court filings as unnamed co-conspirators in the HLF case.

But it turns out, a senior law enforcement officer told Newsweek in 2007, that including CAIR and the others on the list was meant less as an accusation and more as a “tactical move” in prosecutors’ quest to convict HLF. And in 2010, a federal judge concluded the list was not evidence but the product of “an untested allegation of the Government made in anticipation of a possible evidentiary dispute that never came to pass.”

In other words, it was a shotgun approach to potential litigation that didn’t involve CAIR.

CAIR’s peripheral mention in the HLF case features prominently in the “whereas” clauses of Abbott’s proclamation. And there’s something else about those clauses. Collectively, they bear uncanny resemblance to the works of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, a self-described research group focused on “radical Islamic terrorist groups.”

While some credit the IPT with producing enlightening work on some dangerous people and groups, it also has a reputation as being just as controversial – if not more so – as some the subjects it claims to expose.

The IPT has been viewed as a major source of anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia, and its writings have been criticized for selective research and lack of scholarly rigor.

IPT founder Steven Emerson’s propensity to make assertions not rooted in reality was embarrassingly exposed in 2015 when he claimed that Birmingham, England, was a Muslim-only city where non-Muslims “simply don’t go.”

In the U.K., he was ridiculed. Then-Prime Minister David Cameron called Emerson a “complete idiot” who needed to “look at Birmingham and see what a fantastic example it is bringing people together of different faiths and different backgrounds and building a world-class brilliant city.”

For all the anti-CAIR pasta Abbott throws at the wall hoping it will stick, he can’t refute the fact that the organization’s clearly stated goals and values further inclusiveness, while Abbott preaches otherism.

Among its stated core principles, CAIR is “committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, regardless of faith” and “condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.”

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Abbott’s proclamation is that it deprives an organization of due process while providing a pretext for the Texas Attorney General’s Office to take adverse actions against it. When the U.S. government resolves to designate a group as a terrorist organization, there’s a process to challenge its underlying assertions. There doesn’t appear to be an equivalent in this state.

In lieu of such a mechanism, CAIR filed a lawsuit seeking to enjoin enforcement of Abbott’s proclamation. In it, CAIR notes that none of its employees or agents “received any notification of this planned designation, nor was CAIR afforded any opportunity to defend itself or rebut the accusations against it.”

We can’t profess to know whether any the accusations, as opposed to inferences, can be proven, only that CAIR has not been charged with anything despite plenty of scrutiny.

Abbott knows this, and he’s counting on people rewarding him for pandering to a vague suspicion of Islam – the kind he’s worked to foster.