CAIR's tax-exempt status targeted as Cornyn moves to strip group after terror designations

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CAIR Action official says, "We are coming."

In 2024, Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations California chapter, said the organization was expanding into political work to challenge AIPAC. (Credit: MEMRI TV)

FIRST ON FOX: A Senate Republican wants to nix the tax-exempt status of a national Muslim advocacy group that both Texas and Florida have designated as a terrorist organization.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, intends to introduce legislation that would remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) tax-exempt status. Currently, an organization's tax-exempt status is suspended if it is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.

Cornyn’s bill would lump CAIR in with designated federal terrorist organizations, like Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, by extending that prohibition to include groups that provide material support or resources, such as finances, services or training to a terrorist organization.

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Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wants to remove the Council on American-Islamic Relations' tax-exempt status in the wake of Texas and Florida designating the group a terrorist organization. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The Texas Republican said in a statement to Fox News Digital he was moving ahead with the legislation, "because no organization who bankrolls terrorists should get a tax break, period."

"CAIR is a radical group of terrorist sympathizers with a long history of undermining American values and trying to unconstitutionally impose Sharia law on Texas, which is why I stand behind Gov. Abbott’s decision to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization," he said. "I also call on President Trump to do so at the federal level to ensure this breeding ground for anti-American hate is starved of funding and forced to close its doors once and for all."

Cornyn’s bid to revoke the organization’s tax-exempt status comes after both the governors of Texas and Florida designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations earlier this year. CAIR has long argued that it is not connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is affiliated with offshoot federally designated terrorist organizations, like Hamas.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott arrives during a press conference for Eli Lilly and Company in Houston, Sept. 23, 2025. (Antranik Tavitian/Reuters)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took executive action last month to prevent the organizations from "acquiring any real property interest in Texas."

His proclamation charged that "CAIR and its members have repeatedly employed, affiliated with, and supported individuals promoting terrorism-related activities," and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered the organization a "front group" for Hamas.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis similarly ordered that all Florida agencies "undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support."

MUSLIM GROUPS, OTHER LEADERS DEMAND ABBOTT RESCIND CAIR'S ‘TERRORIST’ DESIGNATION: 'DEFAMATORY'

President Donald Trump signs an executive order on AI in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Dec. 11, 2025. (Al Drago/Reuters)

Neither CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) at the federal level by the State Department.

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However, President Donald Trump, in an executive order late last month, ordered that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent determine which chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, be designated as FTOs and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Fox News Digital did not immediately hear back from CAIR for comment on Cornyn’s legislation.