Muslim civil rights and advocacy group learns that DHS may target Muslim group targeted by anti-Muslim hate group
(WASHINGTON, DC – 8/19/2025) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to address a report that it plans to suspend federal grants to American Muslims organizations that have been critical of the Israeli government based on allegations made online by the Middle East Forum (MEF), an anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate group founded by the racist Daniel Pipes.
CAIR has learned from a source in the media that DHS will attempt to cancel federal grants to American Muslim nonprofit organizations that were smeared as “Hamas-aligned” by the MEF because of their opposition to Israeli human rights abuses.
DHS has not yet announced any plans to do so.
In a statement, CAIR said:
“Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security must clarify whether it is trying to ban American Muslim nonprofit organizations critical of Israel from receiving federal grants based on the ravings of the Middle East Forum, a hate website whose founder Daniel Pipes has derided Muslims as “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene,” who has called for Muslims to be interned like Japanese Americans were during World War II, and whose staff has been sued for allegedly engaging in sexual harassment of female employees during pro-Israel trips.”
“If DHS is taking direction from the Middle East Forum, that would also be deeply ironic given that Pipes has condemned President Trump as “selfish,” repulsive,” and “unsuited for the presidency,” and tolerates the president because of his support for Israel.
“Bottom line: the government cannot ban American Muslim organizations from receiving federal grants based on their religious affiliation or their criticism of Israel. The Department of Homeland Security must clarify its reported plans, uphold the law, and reject collaboration with racist hate groups.”
CAIR notes that last week it issued a nationwide call urging all mosques, churches, synagogues, schools, and nonprofit organizations to, for now, pause or withdraw applications to all grants administered by DHS and FEMA – including the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) – until the agency removes two dangerous and unconstitutional conditions from its DHS FY 2025 Grant Terms and Conditions.
DHS’s current August updated 2025 Grant Terms and Conditions provisions – Section 9, mandates immigration enforcement cooperation with ICE, and Section 17, implicitly imposes a political test targeting supporters of Palestinian rights and constitutionally protected boycotts of Israel – pose an unprecedented threat to religious freedom, free speech, and the moral independence of civil society groups and houses of worship.
BACKGROUND
The Middle East Forum was founded by Daniel Pipes, who has been designated an anti-Muslim activist by the Southern Poverty Law Center and by CAIR.
Middle East Forum is part of the Islamophobia network, which is designated as “groups or individuals whose primary purpose is to promote prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims and whose work regularly demonstrates Islamophobic themes.” A 2019 report by CAIR detailing support for Islamophobia originating from philanthropic organizations revealed that Middle East Forum received $1.5 million in funding from charitable groups between 2014 and 2016 alone.
Based on tax forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service, MEF has donated to other affiliated groups that make up the Islamophobia network, including: JihadWatch, Center for Security Policy, David Horowitz Freedom Center, Committee for Accuracy on Middle East Reporting, and American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum granted $1,242,000 over three years to Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism.
Anti-Muslim Activities
Founder and President Daniel Pipes is a long-standing perpetrator of anti-Islam misinformation. In a 1990 article for the National Review, he referred to Muslims as “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene.” Pipes was one of the first to advance a conspiracy that extremists had “taken over 80% of the mosques” – a debunked myth that has been promoted by public officials and media personalities for decades onward. He maintained this myth in a June 2011 report in the Middle East Quarterly, a MEF publication, in which he asserted that 80% of U.S. mosques featured texts that promote or support violence.
Middle East Forum has spread conspiracy theories about Muslim organizations in the United States as “Islamist” or part of the purported “Wahhabi lobby” and has advocated for increased racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs. Pipes “endorsed the internment of ethnic Japanese in American prison camps in World War II and held that up as a model for dealing with Muslims today.”
The Middle East Forum was listed by the Center for American Progress as one of the organizations “primarily responsible for orchestrating the majority of anti-Islam messages polluting … national discourse today.”
Pipes at the Middle East Forum is listed multiple times by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s HateWatch program which “monitors and exposes the activities of the American radical right.”
CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com