For sixteen years, the FBI has refused to have any formal contact with CAIR. Sixteen years of news segments. Sixteen years of CAIR spokespeople positioned on cable news as neutral authorities on American Muslims. Federal law enforcement cut them off in 2009 and never went back. The networks never got the memo.
Florida just sent it.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on designating both CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as domestic terrorist organizations, part of a sweeping action that tagged over 90 groups in total. The list reads like a who's who of organizations Washington has spent decades pretending not to notice: al-Qaeda, the Houthis, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Continuity Irish Republican Army, Tren de Aragua, two Mexican drug cartels. CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood sit right alongside them. The designations take effect November 5 unless a court blocks them first.
The reason the FBI walked away is documented. In 2008, the Holy Land Foundation was convicted of funneling $12.4 million to Hamas. Five officials went to prison. CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator. CAIR executive director Nihad Awad had participated in planning meetings with the Holy Land Foundation. FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers wrote to Senator Jon Kyl that "the FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI" because "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner" until the question of Hamas ties could be resolved. That question was apparently never resolved.
It wasn't only the FBI. In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates — a Muslim Arab nation — designated CAIR a terrorist organization. The Obama State Department objected. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly lobbied personally to get CAIR removed from the UAE's list. A Muslim-majority country called CAIR a terrorist organization. The American government lobbied on CAIR's behalf.
Now here's Florida's 427-page document. It states plainly that "there is substantial evidence that CAIR is engaging in terrorist activity." CAIR calls itself an advocacy organization. Florida calls it something else entirely — and brought 427 pages to prove it. The state's filing lays out CAIR's alleged connections to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — ties that researchers and congressional critics have flagged for years while mainstream outlets continued booking CAIR spokespeople as neutral "civil rights" commentators.
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, announced the ACLU would represent CAIR-Florida and file for a preliminary injunction as early as Thursday. Her argument: "There is nowhere in that notice any allegation or evidence that CAIR has engaged in any violent or dangerous act in violation of Florida or U.S. law. That's the first requirement for something as serious as this."
What that framing requires you to ignore is the 427 pages of evidence the state compiled before making the designation — a document the ACLU referenced in its own press statement while simultaneously claiming no evidence exists. The filing is either a mountain of nothing or a serious body of work. It's hard to demand an injunction against both at the same time.
Florida has been building toward this. Last year, both Florida and Texas labeled the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations. Tuesday's action converts that into a domestic designation — a harder legal category with sharper teeth. The shift matters because domestic designation opens enforcement tools that foreign labels don't reach, particularly around state-level financial and operational restrictions.
Every network that has treated CAIR as the go-to voice for American Muslims now has to explain why they've been platforming an organization the FBI cut off sixteen years ago, the UAE designated a terrorist group, and the nation's third-largest state now classifies the same way it classifies al-Qaeda. The designations represent the first state-level action of this kind in the country.
Ninety-plus organizations. Four hundred twenty-seven pages. November 5.
