https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/florida-designates-cair-as-domestic-terror-group
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and the Florida Cabinet voted to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Brotherhood and more than 90 other organizations as terror groups.
In a more-than-400-page agenda document for the vote, the state alleged that “there is substantial evidence that CAIR is engaging in terrorist activity” and accused the group of having connections to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, including as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holyland Foundation terrorism financing trial.
In the same vote, Florida applied foreign terrorist designations to groups already listed by the State Department as terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, the Houthis and the Continuity Irish Republican Army.
CAIR bills itself as “America’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization” and notes on its website that it has never been charged with a crime.DeSantis signed an executive order in December designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization, which a federal judge blocked in March.
In July, DeSantis signed a bill granting him and the state Cabinet new powers to designate groups as terrorist organizations and recommended that CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood and the other groups designated on Tuesday be the first to be so sanctioned.
The bill, which DeSantis has described as an “anti-Sharia law” measure, allows the state to legally dissolve groups designated as terrorists and creates criminal penalties for those that fail to do so. It also allows for the expulsion of any students in the Florida university system who promote the groups and bars the groups from certain other state funding, including contracts.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented CAIR in its lawsuit against DeSantis’s executive order, is also suing the state to stop the implementation of the terrorism designation law.
“Gov. DeSantis’s use of Florida’s dangerous new ‘terrorism’ designation regime against CAIR and its Florida chapter is baseless and unconstitutional,” Hina Shamsi, director of ACLU’s national security project, stated on Tuesday.
“There are simply no legitimate grounds to brand our clients with a reviled label, impose crippling criminal penalties and force them to shut their doors in Florida,” Shamsi said.
Florida state attorney general James Uthmeier said that the designation “drew a line on terrorism.”
“The free state of Florida will not launder terrorism through our schools,” he said. “We will name these groups, cut off the money and hold those who bankroll them accountable.”
According to the ACLU, the designations will take effect on Nov. 5 if they are not blocked in court.
https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/florida-designates-cair-as-domestic-terror-group (above)
https://www.frontpagemag.com/cair-floridas-islamist-leader-and-traitor-to-america/ (below)
CAIR-Florida’s Islamist Leader and Traitor to America
Hiba Rahim shows her true feelings for the nation she calls home.
Last year, following a six-month stay in Turkey, Hiba Abdul-Rahim – who would soon become Executive Director of CAIR-Florida – posted an essay on Facebook recounting how, years earlier, her father had sent her and her siblings to Syria against their mother’s wishes. The essay itself was personal. A comment beneath it was revealing. The comment disparaged both America and Israel, and Rahim responded not by objecting to the attack on the country she calls home, but by endorsing it.
A social-media reaction may seem like a small gesture. But when it comes from a senior official of one of the nation’s most politically charged Islamist organizations, it deserves scrutiny. What exactly was Rahim advocating when she placed a heart beneath those words? And what does that reaction tell us about the views of a woman now leading CAIR’s Florida operation?
Rahim described herself in the essay as “a child of Syrian exiles.” She wrote that, in 1994, her father made what she called a “bold decision” to send his American- and Canadian-born children to Syria for the summer. Her parents could not accompany them. According to Rahim, both had fled Syria in 1981 and were wanted by the regime. If they returned, she said, they “would certainly be imprisoned and most likely executed.”
Rahim never explains why her parents were wanted or what alleged offenses had placed them in such peril. Hafez al-Assad’s dictatorship brutally persecuted its opponents, including the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which violently challenged his regime around the time Rahim’s parents fled. Were her parents associated with the Brotherhood and/or the violence? Rahim’s account does not say.
What is clear from her own story is that her father knowingly placed his children in danger.
Her mother “opposed our trip vehemently,” but her father insisted. Before leaving, the children were coached on what to say about their parents and warned about undercover agents. “Syria isn’t America,” Rahim recalled being told. “You can speak freely here, but over there, you have to keep quiet.”
According to Rahim, Syrian intelligence agents questioned the children at the airport, while undercover agents repeatedly visited their grandfather’s home asking about them and their father. After the children returned to America, Rahim overheard her grandfather tell her father, “Don’t send them again.”
“A few years later, despite the risks,” Rahim wrote, “he did.”
Her father sent his children to a country he had fled to avoid imprisonment or death, placing them within reach of a regime allegedly searching for their parents despite his wife’s objections and his own father’s warning. Now Rahim appears prepared to follow his disturbing example, gambling with her own children’s safety to demonstrate solidarity with potentially worse elements.
After Hafez’ son Bashar al-Assad’s fall, Rahim celebrated the prospect of returning with her own children. “Soon, I will stand with my children in Aleppo,” she wrote. “This is Syria. This is the beginning of a new destiny. Let’s get to work.”
Rahim proposes bringing her children into a Syria governed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the ex-leader of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. ISIS and other jihadist elements, meanwhile, remain a threat within the country.
Then came the comment beneath her essay.
“It’s beautiful,” the commenter wrote. “We just need to be sure the new leadership isn’t working for/with the usa and Israel and its looking this way. I hope I’m wrong.”
Rahim “hearted” it.
The contradiction is glaring. Rahim’s story contrasts Syria’s brutality with the freedom her family found in America. America provided refuge from a regime she says might have executed her parents. Yet when someone expressed hope that Syria’s new leadership was not cooperating with America and Israel, Rahim responded with affection.
Why embrace such a sentiment toward the nation that provided a free and safe home for her parents and children? Why celebrate a jihadist government made up of those related to the same terrorist network that attacked her country on 9/11? And why place her kids in harm’s way?
Rahim’s Islamist background provides important context.
Rahim is Executive Director of CAIR-Florida, the state affiliate of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose historical and financial origins are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. In December 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis designated both CAIR and its Florida chapter as terrorist organizations, and the state has since taken steps to formalize the designation.
Rahim has as well been involved with the U.S. chapter of Islamic Relief (IRUSA), whose global network has faced serious terrorism allegations. Israel has accused Islamic Relief of being a Hamas front; the UAE placed the group on its terrorist list; and HSBC Bank closed the account of its English headquarters.
IRUSA (now IDEA) itself has had leadership supportive of Hamas. IRUSA’s former chairman Khaled Lamada tweeted, in 2015, that it is “absurd” to classify Hamas “as a terrorist organization.” Its current board member, Esam Omeish, in 2007, resigned from Virginia’s Commission of Immigration, after videos surfaced of him advocating for violent jihad and claiming Israel controls the U.S. Congress.
From at least 2005 to 2007, Rahim was involved with the London-based Islamic Human Rights Committee (IHRC). IHRC has publicly supported convicted terrorists, including Abu Hamza al-Masri, Babar Ahmad and Khalid al-Fawwaz, and campaigned for the release of “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. IHRC has further been accused of being a “propaganda tool” for Iran.
In 2005, Rahim also worked as a London correspondent for IslamOnline.net (IOL), writing on subjects that included the “removal of Israel” as a means to “bring peace to the Middle East.” IOL hosted Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin for a “Live Dialogue.” The website published highly inflammatory material, including religious rulings advocating violent punishment of gays, a graphic 2008 poem titled “How to Behead,” and an article, “Wife Beating in Islamic Perspective,” stating that a husband could at times employ “light disciplinary action” against his wife.
These associations help illuminate the circles in which Hiba Rahim has operated. But ultimately, Rahim should be judged by her own words and actions.
Rahim labeled convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) figure Sami al-Arian a “political prisoner.” She described the convicted leaders of the Hamas charity Holy Land Foundation (HLF) as “humanitarians.” She called for the freedom of al-Qaeda operative Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of attempting to kill U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. And she accused Israel of having an “illegal occupation for 73 years,” which was, at the time, Israel’s entire existence.
By her own account, her parents escaped a regime that might have imprisoned or executed them, while their children grew up enjoying the protections of the country that took them in. Yet when someone expressed hope that Syria’s new leadership would not work with the United States and Israel, Rahim agreed, effectively siding against the country of her birth.
Years ago, America opened its doors to Rahim’s family, offering the refuge and liberty they sought. Rahim’s response has been to embrace those who view America with hostility. America welcomed her family. Today, it should close its doors to Rahim, the terror-related groups she represents, and the dangerous agenda they advance.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/cair-floridas-islamist-leader-and-traitor-to-america/
Texas Governor Greg Abbott had previously designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.
The designation authorizes heightened enforcement against both organizations and their affiliates and prohibits them from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas.
US President Donald Trump has also signed an executive order beginning the official process to designate certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).
In January, the United States designated the Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as specially designated global terrorists, citing their support for the Hamas terrorist organization.
