By Pedro Rodriguez, The Daily Signal | January 29, 2026
This article has been corrected to reflect that President Donald Trump’s executive order exclusively targeted elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, that Gov. Greg Abbott’s November proclamation on CAIR did not include a ban on the organization operating in Texas, and that the EPIC City development, which CAIR defended against attacks in an August report, denies any intention to create a Sharia law compound.
Congressional Republicans condemned the Council on American-Islamic Relations after it urged Americans to protest because “[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is out of control and must be stopped.”
A Jan. 28 press release from CAIR encouraged people to join nationwide protests against ICE scheduled for Jan. 30.
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Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal that Americans should not be listening to the demands of a group that has “ties to Hamas” in the first place.
“Americans support secure borders and deporting foreign nationals who are here illegally,” Lee said. “The last people they will be listening to are the activists at CAIR with ties to Hamas. Indeed, they might cause even more Americans to support ICE.”
One of the founders of the House’s Sharia Free America Caucus, Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal that “of course the terrorist organization that is CAIR is endorsing calls for a nationwide strike against ICE.
“They despise law and order and deliberately foment chaos across the country so they can more readily impose their Islamic extremism on the rest of us,” Self continued.
When The Daily Signal contacted CAIR for comment, the group referred The Daily Signal to a statement that claimed ICE engages in “breaches of law and order and violations of civil rights” that “must stop immediately.”
In late 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that designated elements of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations for their alleged financial ties to Islamic terrorist organizations like Hamas.
After CAIR defended a controversial development known as EPIC City outside of Houston, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation in September to ban Sharia law and Sharia law-only compounds in the state. According to a press release from his office, the governor at the time “explained how those behind EPIC City sought to create an entire ‘city’ open only to Muslims, subject anyone who lives there to Sharia law, and restrict a landowner’s ability to later sell property.”
CAIR condemned the legislation as “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
An attorney for Epic City, Dan Cogdell, told the Dallas-Fort Worth NBC affiliate in September, “I don’t even know what Sharia law is, but we were never going to invoke Sharia law. We were never going to have no-go zones … We were never going to have Muslim-only ownership.”
In November, Abbott signed legislation designating CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization.
On Tuesday, Abbott pushed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to revoke the organization’s nonprofit status.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed an executive order targeting CAIR as well.
Pedro Boccalato Rodriguez-Aparicio is a journalism fellow at The Daily Signal.
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