‘A front for Hamas operatives in the U.S.’: Feds pull funding for groups with ‘alleged terrorist ties’

Some federal security grants intended for a variety of Muslims groups identified as having “alleged terrorist ties” have been canceled, and more are being reviewed, after a new report cited “extremist” agendas.

Fox News Digital is reporting that 49 projects “with alleged affiliations to terrorist activities” already have been canceled, a move that will save taxpayers $8 million.

And a review is moving forward of other cash handed out through FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program that is intended to help churches, mosques, synagogues and other faith-linked institutions defend themselves from hate-driven violence.

Fox News reports the actions follow an extensive report by the Middle East Forum, a think tank, that charged more than $25 million in DHS and FEMA grants went to “terror-linked groups” from 2013 to 2023.

The new review is being done in the Department of Homeland Security.

Fox explained, “A DHS official said the department is conducting its own independent review of funding but added, ‘We take the results of the MEF report very seriously and are thankful for the work of conservative watchdog groups.’”

For example, MEF cited a $100,000 grant in 2019 to the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, which has previously been described by Customs and Border Protection as a “mosque operating as a front for Hamas operatives in the U.S.,” Hamas being the terrorist organization that, among other attacks, invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and slaughtered some 1,200 innocent civilians and kidnapped another 250 or so.

Now the review is being done so that current and future contracts do not send tax funding to such groups.

There also is consideration of a way to recover unspent funds.

“Funding for fiscal year 2024 has already been allocated. That includes $94 million for 500 Jewish organizations and another $110 million shared among 600 Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jewish institutions,” the report said.

The 2025 fiscal year handouts now will have to go through “robust” vetting.

“We don’t want to be empowering groups that could be causing a threat to our community here in the United States,” a DHS official told Fox.

The MEF investigation and report documented “specific cases of funding that it claims went to groups with extremist ties. It said $10.3 million had gone to the Islamic Circle of North America, which the forum alleges is tied to the South Asian Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami,” Fox explained.

And the report cited $250,000 handed to the Council on American Islamic Relations, “which DHS has accused of having ‘Hamas ties.’”

The MEF report cited an additional $750,000 dispatched to Michigan and Texas mosques described by DHS as “outposts for Iran’s revolutionary brand of Shi’a Islamism.”

CAIR’s charge to Fox was that “Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is embarrassing President Trump by making decisions based on the ravings of the Middle East Forum, an Israel First hate website.”