Overview
- Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa told The Washington Post on Saturday that she plans to rescind the November 2025 executive designation labeling the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a terrorist organization.
- Hinojosa and her team say a rescission would remove only the governor’s executive finding and would not repeal the Texas laws that authorize property and criminal restrictions or erase federal court records and convictions.
- Separate legal and enforcement tracks remain active: CAIR’s DFW and Austin chapters sued in federal court on November 20, 2025 challenging the proclamation, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a Collin County suit on February 5, 2026 seeking injunctions, and the Texas Department of Public Safety was ordered to investigate on November 20, 2025 with its current status unclear.
- Federal actions on January 13, 2026 targeted specific Muslim Brotherhood branches through Treasury and State Department designations but did not name CAIR, and those federal listings cannot be undone by a Texas governor.
- The dispute draws on older federal cases and rules: the Holy Land Foundation leaders were convicted in the 2000s, a judge once listed CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator, the FBI imposed contact limits in 2008, and Texas law lets a governor remove a property designation only prospectively after consulting DPS and the Homeland Security Council which shapes how any change would affect CAIR’s ability to buy land.