GOP Lawmaker Calls For Terror Label For Council On American-Islamic Relations

A member of Congress introduced a bill Tuesday asking the secretary of state to consider designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) brands itself as a 501(c)(3) Muslim civil rights and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., but according to Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., the group is “a terrorist organization.”

“I think in this time of conflict in the Middle East, and this time in which Muslim terror groups are operating with impunity in our cities and on our college campuses, it is important that we stand up and say, ’Enough is enough’ and we designate these organizations as the evil organizations that they are,” Fine told The Daily Signal.

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If passed, Fine‘s eight-page bill directs the secretary of state, currently Marco Rubio, to review the work of CAIR and consider whether the organization meets the appropriate criteria to be labeled a foreign terrorist organization. The State Department has designated groups such as ISIS and Boko Haram as foreign terrorist organizations.

CAIR states on its website that its mission is to “enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.” But Fine says the group is an “orchestrated Muslim terror front intended to legitimize Muslim terror and to shut down critics of it.”

Fine criticized the organization’s executive director, Nihad Awad, for public comments he made following Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In December 2023, a video began circulating on social media in which Awad says he “was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not allowed to walk in.”