By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Gov. Greg Abbott is the first governor in the United States to designate two Muslim groups as Foreign Terrorist and Transnational Criminal Organizations.

On Tuesday, he made the designations by proclamation citing multiple Texas laws.

He designated the Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as FTOs, authorizing heightened enforcement against both organizations and their affiliates. The designation also prohibits them from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” Abbott said. “The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable. Today, I designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations. These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.”

The Society of Muslim Brothers, known as Jama’ at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) was founded in Egypt more than 100 years ago with a stated committment to Islamic jihad (fighting unbelievers) and imposing Sharia (Islamic) law worldwide, the proclamation states. The group is connected to multiple terrorist organizations, including Hamas, and has been banned in multiple Middle Eastern countries like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The proclamation also cites a 2009 federal case, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, in which CAIR was named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a federal terrorism financing case linking CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

It also cites former CAIR board members, speakers and staff who were sentenced to prison for financing terrorism, conspiring to aid Al Qaeda and the Taliban, bank and visa fraud, financing terrorist causes overseas, violating U.S. sanctions against Iraq, and who were deported for violating federal laws.

The proclamation cites multiple bills passed by the state legislature to strengthen state efforts to combat terrorism and prevent terrorist-affiliated groups from purchasing land in Texas as justification to ban Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR and affiliated groups from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas.

Abbott made the designation after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, filed a bill multiple times over the past 10 years to amend the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 to ban all Muslim Brotherhood members from the U.S., The Center Square reported.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization,” Cruz has argued. Its members are “committed to the overthrow and destruction of America and other non-Islamist governments across the world, and pose an acute threat to American national security interests,” he said when introducing the bill again in July. “American allies in the Middle East and Europe have already labeled the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and the United States should do the same, and do so expeditiously.”

The bill would make Muslim Brotherhood members ineligible for visas or admittance to the U.S., revoke visas of all non-U.S. citizens who are confirmed Muslim Brotherhood members and deport them. It also requires the secretary of State to impose sanctions on all groups directly or indirectly controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas.

CAIR, which has sued Abbott arguing his antisemitism crackdown on college campuses was unconstitutional, mocked the designation.

“Greg Abbott is an Israel First politician who has spent months stoking anti-Muslim hysteria to smear American Muslims critical of the Israeli government,” CAIR said in a statement. “Although we are flattered by his obsession with our civil rights group, his defamatory proclamation has no basis in fact or law.

“Unlike Mr. Abbott – who unleashed violence against Texas students protesting the Gaza genocide to satisfy his AIPAC donors – our civil rights organization is an independent voice that answers to the American people, relies on support from the American people, and opposes all forms of unjust violence, including hate crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism.”

The Islamic group also said it is “ready to sue [Gov. Abbott] again if he attempts to turn this publicity stunt into real policy.”