The Media Line: Texas Governor-Elect Says She Will Reverse Abbott’s CAIR Terrorist Designation  

Texas Governor-Elect Says She Will Reverse Abbott’s CAIR Terrorist Designation  

By The Media Line Staff  

Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa said she would revoke the state’s terrorist designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), reversing a policy introduced by outgoing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that restricts the Muslim advocacy organization’s activities in Texas.  

Hinojosa, Texas’ first Latina governor-elect, made the pledge in an interview with The Washington Post following a Democratic “blue wave” that swept every statewide office in the November 2026 elections.  

“We have to use public safety measures for public safety,” Hinojosa said, criticizing what she called “nonsense happening with power that should be used for public safety, money that should use for public safety, that is not being used for safety.”  

Abbott designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations on November 18, 2025. The measure authorized heightened enforcement against both organizations and their affiliates while prohibiting them from acquiring property in Texas.  

Abbott, who also pledged to “ban sharia law,” accused the groups of supporting terrorism internationally and attempting to undermine American laws through violence, intimidation and harassment. He declared that they were “not welcome in our state.”  

CAIR has faced allegations of connections to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Federal prosecutors identified the organization as an unindicted co-conspirator during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial, while FBI testimony and government exhibits linked its founders to a US-based Hamas support network.  

Conservative lawmakers and national security commentators have characterized CAIR as an American affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. The United Arab Emirates included CAIR on its terrorist organizations list in 2014.  

CAIR rejects the allegations, describing itself as an independent American Muslim civil rights organization that condemns terrorism. The US federal government has never designated CAIR a terrorist organization.