Overview
- CAIR’s Dallas–Fort Worth and Austin chapters filed a federal suit seeking to block Gov. Greg Abbott’s proclamation and named Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton as defendants.
- Abbott’s Tuesday proclamation labeled CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations and barred them from acquiring land in Texas under state law.
- On Thursday Abbott directed the Department of Public Safety, including Texas Rangers and agents on FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, to launch criminal investigations tied to the groups.
- CAIR argues the action is retaliatory and unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause and the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and the group denies ties to Hamas or operating unlawful ‘Shariah courts.’
- Neither CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood is federally designated as a terrorist organization, and Texas Democrats condemned the move as civil-rights groups cited prior state scrutiny of the EPIC City project that drew no DOJ charges.