[News] Why is Cair urging US Muslims to seek security from DHS?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-cair-urging-us-muslims-seek-security-from-dhs>
Why is Cair urging US Muslims to seek security from DHS?
Muneeza Rizvi
July 25, 2026
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Police and officials brief the media after a shooting at the Islamic Center
of San Diego on 18 May 2026 (Carlos A Moreno/Getty Images via AFP)

Applications for this year's round of security grants from the US
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us> Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) close on 24 July - and the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (Cair) is urging
<https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-calls-on-muslim-institutions-to-apply-for-fy2026-nonprofit-security-grants/>
mosques, Islamic schools and Muslim nonprofits
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/us-muslims> to apply before the
deadline.

Since May's mosque shooting
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/social-media-reacts-san-diego-mosque-shooting-decries-anti-muslim-rhetoric>
in San Diego, which killed three people, Cair has aggressively pursued
<https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-calls-on-dhs-to-restore-muslim-community-access-to-nonprofit-security-grants-after-deadly-terror-attack-on-san-diego-mosque/>
renewed Muslim community access to this source of government funding,
presenting it as a means of protecting mosques from such violence.

Cair has since also encouraged
<https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-calls-on-local-police-to-step-up-security-at-mosques-nationwide-after-deadly-san-diego-terror-attack/>
Muslims to build closer ties with the police - reviving a debate over
policing <https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/policing> that reflects a
growing divide within the community, between those eager to collaborate
with "law enforcement" and those who view it as an arm of an unjust social
order.

Cair has long walked an ambivalent line on this issue. As a self-described
civil rights and advocacy nonprofit with nearly 30 chapters, it positions
itself as Muslims' primary defence against "overly-broad" policing.

Yet, at the same time, it has spent decades encouraging Muslims to "build
bridges"
<https://www.cair.com/about_cair/encouraging-cooperation-with-law-enforcement/>
with the very police agencies whose practices it claims to challenge.

Cair's encouragement suggests that Muslims and "law enforcement" are two
groups separated by unfamiliarity or misunderstanding. However, the history
between them is not one of insufficient contact.

Muslims have come to know local and federal police agencies all too well
through a history of hostile encounters: decades of FBI door knocks,
entrapment cases, raids of Palestine
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine> encampments
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/campus-protests> that local police
have turned into prosecutions
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/palestine-protest-muslim-student-prosecution-pittsburgh>
of Muslim students, harassment outside Zionist land sales and relentless
attempts to conscript Muslims into disciplining their own communities.

Though spread unevenly, suspicion towards "law enforcement" has long
existed among Muslims in the United States. Such sentiments became more
visible in 2020, during the nationwide demonstrations
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/us-protests> following the police
murder of George Floyd. And they have only become more pronounced since
Israel's <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel> genocidal war
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-genocide-gaza> in Palestine.

Indeed, when any meaningful resistance to US foreign policy is met with police
violence
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/student-protests-persist-universities-allow-kent-state-massacre>,
it becomes difficult to ignore the link between occupation
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/occupation> abroad and state
repression at home. Despite this growing political consciousness among
Muslims, Cair remains committed to strengthening Muslim cooperation with
"law enforcement".
'Best practices'

In the aftermath of the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego,
numerous Cair branches disseminated
<https://www.cairchicago.org/blog/press-statement-safety-alert-cair-chicago-condemns-deadly-anti-islamic-shooting-at-san-diego-mosque-urges-increased-community-vigilance>
the national office's "Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety", a
booklet
<https://www.cairwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CAIR_Mosque_Safety_Guide.pdf>
aimed at leaders and everyday congregants. Its recommendations take as
given that Muslims embracing "law enforcement" will protect mosques from
violence and desecration.

Best practices listed in the document thus include informing local police
of mosques' daily schedules, inviting police to mosques for meetings and
offering police training in cultural competency.

Recommendations also extend beyond local "law enforcement". The booklet
stresses: "Attempt to establish liaison with state and federal agencies in
the same manner as you did with the local police. Local police may be able
to facilitate this effort."

Cair's best practices appear less concerned with Muslim defence than with
having Muslims project respectability

It also reminds congregations unable to afford private inspections of their
security protocols that police departments can offer such assessments, as
can specialists from DHS.

Most bizarre is the booklet's jumble of non-evidence-based suggestions for
deterring anti-Muslim violence. For example, it urges mosques to
"acknowledge good work by individual police officers" and other local
officials through "complimentary letters, phone calls, tweets, social media
postings, annual award events, and the like".

It also recommends that mosque leaders "be personally acquainted and
friendly with the officer who is regularly assigned to [the mosque's] area".

Though presented as guidance on "safeguarding" Islamic institutions, Cair's
best practices appear less concerned with Muslim defence than with having
Muslims project respectability.

"The government exploits the Muslim community's perceived desire to fit
in," insisted Terry Albury
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/magazine/fbi-terrorism-terry-albury.html>,
an FBI agent-turned-whistleblower. Albury, who served a prison sentence for
leaking government documents, underscored that authorities are not kept at
bay by Muslims presenting as model citizens.

He emphasised: "[FBI] sources are often willing volunteers who offer their
services to the FBI in return for a favour... There are, however,
situations in which a member of the community is led to believe they are
doing their civic duty. An agent will often carefully cultivate this
relationship in such a fashion that the person never views him or herself
as a source and is simply being a 'good Muslim'."

Despite "law enforcement" capitalising on some Muslims' need to be viewed
favourably, Cair's booklet implies that deference and gratitude towards
police can help protect places of worship. Histories of Muslim
criminalisation, however, have demonstrated the opposite - that welcoming
police to the mosque funnels Muslims into government crosshairs
<https://www.aclunorcal.org/press-releases/fbi-using-mosque-outreach-gather-intelligence/>
.

Many Muslims who keep their guard up around the FBI still regard the local
precinct as something separate and safer. The architecture of US policing,
however, does not honour that distinction.

Through multi-agency partnerships such as Joint Terrorism Task Forces,
created to streamline communication between local and federal agencies, a Pizza
with a Cop
<https://mcceastbay.org/event/pizza-with-a-cop-pleasanton-police-muslims/>
event at the local mosque can easily become a venue for data collection and
community mapping.

For more than a decade after 9/11
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/911-attacks>, the New York Police
Department's Demographics Unit
<https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/matt-apuzzo-adam-goldman-eileen-sullivan-and-chris-hawley>
did just that, mapping Muslim neighbourhoods and cataloguing mosques,
restaurants and student associations in a surveillance programme run with
CIA assistance.

"The government uses community outreach and the pretext of liaison for
intelligence gathering... I would know because I employed these tactics
with the FBI in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Twin Cities of
Minnesota for many years," Albury warned.

Cair's "Best Practices" booklet is littered with advice that many civil
rights advocates would find alarming. Similarly concerning are Cair's
changing recommendations on DHS's Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP),
an initiative administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(Fema).
A transaction

Muslim access to the NSGP has been a major priority for Cair since the San
Diego mosque shooting.

Funds from the NSGP are to enhance the physical security of nonprofits
deemed "at risk of terrorist attack". Thus, money obtained through the
programme could help a mosque with deteriorating facilities appear more
like a military installation or sports stadium, with leaky pipes concealed
behind DHS-approved blast-resistant trash cans
<https://www.fema.gov/grants/tools/authorized-equipment-list>.

As a DHS programme, the NSGP is not a neutral means of protecting religious
minorities, but part of the War on Terror's environment of
information-sharing, in which federal agencies, local authorities and,
ideally, "community partners" work in tandem. Developing the infrastructure
for such interactions has arguably been DHS's key purpose.

Communities are being told that the "threat" in question is the Islamophobic
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/islamophobia> attacker outside the
mosque door, but the programme's own paperwork belies that messaging. In
it, the mosque is not only the protected party but an object of suspicion.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-dhs-reviews-security-funding-muslim-organisations-places-worship>

US: DHS reviews security funding to Muslim organisations, places of worship

Read More »
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-dhs-reviews-security-funding-muslim-organisations-places-worship>

Mosques cannot apply to Fema directly: applications are routed through
state homeland security agencies, which score and rank them.

Each applicant must submit a site-specific vulnerability assessment - a
documented map of the facility's weaknesses - alongside the names and
addresses of its board members, whose resumes are "subject to approval".

The application also requires a mission statement, which the state assesses
to validate "the central purpose of the organization". Houses of worship
fall under DHS's "ideology-based" category, wherein applicants must flag
any "practices that may elevate the organization's risk" and substantiate
threats against them "based on their ideology, beliefs, and/or mission".

A mosque seeking cameras must first submit its beliefs for review - and its
staff for citizenship checks. This year's funding notice
<https://www.caloes.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Grants/Documents/FY26_NSGP_NOFO_Final.pdf>
states that grantees "should not include foreign nationals or noncitizens",
and that any they employ must be vetted under a policy it calls "staff
American, stay in America".

Before any award, DHS checks applicant organisations against "U.S.
intelligence community reporting". Integration with these agencies is among
the programme's stated objectives, and applications score higher for it.

The notice's own funding priorities include "community engagement efforts
to foster trust and encourage threat reporting", coordination with the
government's suspicious activity reporting system, and "information-sharing
platforms between ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and local
agencies".

Before releasing a single dollar, Fema asks whether a recipient's "work or
mission involves supporting aliens".

Consider, then, a mosque whose Friday sermons defend Palestine or criticise
US policy. The application requires it to decide whether that advocacy
counts among the "practices that may elevate the organization's risk" - and
to substantiate the threats it faces "based on [its] ideology, beliefs,
and/or mission". To document why it is threatened, it must first file its
politics with the state.

That file is then checked against intelligence community reporting for
"derogatory information" - a term the notice never defines - by the same
department that arrested Mahmoud Khalil
<https://www.ilrc.org/immigration-enforcement/federal-tracking/political-arrests/mahmoud-khalil>
on the theory that his Palestine advocacy harmed US foreign policy. Any
award can be terminated whenever Fema decides it "no longer advances the
national interest".

A mosque that wants to keep its new cameras has every reason to censor its
sermons.
Not a gift

DHS also houses Customs and Border Protection, along with ICE, whose agents
have shot and killed
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/14/ice-kills-26-year-old-in-maine-what-happened-and-who-else-has-ice-killed>
immigrants during raids and traffic stops, and whose detention cells last
year saw their highest death toll in two decades. Muslim institutions are
being pressed into partnership with the agency overseeing it all.

As the NSGP's own 2025 call for applications
<https://www.fema.gov/fact-sheet/department-homeland-security-dhs-nsgp-notice-funding-opportunity-nofo-fiscal-year-2025>
emphasises, DHS emerged from the consensus that failures in communication
helped make the 9/11 attacks possible. A quarter-century later, this origin
story continues to shape how DHS views Muslims: as either threats to
monitor or sources of intelligence to exploit.

Thus, as attorney and researcher Ahmed Shaikh writes
<https://ehsan.substack.com/p/free-money-might-be-expensive-for>: "The
[grant] is not a gift; it is a transaction in which you trade your
community's sovereignty for lighting fixtures and a security camera."

Cair actually offers the NSGP an easy path to future community buy-in. It
also sanitises the broader counter-terrorism apparatus of which the
programme is a part

In this light, recent complaints about Muslims' unequal access to the grant
(some citing structural Islamophobia
<https://x.com/nadiarahmansf/status/2057486709621985333>) suggest either a
naive assumption that the NSGP is an impartial tool or a cynical attempt by
politicians and "community leaders" to appear as defenders of Muslim
interests.

Cair itself expressed hesitation
<https://www.cair.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/DHS-NPSG-Guidance-CAIR-3.5.20-1.pdf>
about the grant programme in 2020, warning that it could "enlist civil
society organisations in activity that should remain in the purview of law
enforcement". However, the same Cair statement concludes: "*new DHS
provisions* [emphasis added] produce a de facto quid pro quo that pits the
security of vulnerable communities against cooperation with law
enforcement".

While the statement correctly recognises DHS's attempt to fuse Muslim
institutions with policing agencies, it reduces the problem to specific
caveats within the NSGP rather than the post-9/11 reasoning underpinning
the programme itself.

Cair's position has thus frequently oscillated
<https://ehsan.substack.com/p/cairs-flip-flop-and-true-cost-of>, at times
reacting to DHS's shifting grant language, at other times to the party in
power, and ultimately, to the functional exclusion
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-dhs-reviews-security-funding-muslim-organisations-places-worship>
of Muslims from the grant in 2025.

It is not surprising, then, to see public statements
<https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-advises-nonprofits-not-to-apply-for-dhs-or-fema-grants-until-it-drops-requirements-on-ice-collaboration-ban-on-israel-boycott/>
by Cair criticising the terms of the NSGP - namely, its prohibition on
grantees boycotting Israel and its mandating of cooperation with ICE.

But this performance of critique is precisely what makes reformist politics
like Cair's so insidious. By confining its objections to particular
provisions, Cair actually offers the NSGP an easy path to future community
buy-in. It also sanitises the broader counter-terrorism apparatus of which
the programme is a part.

As recently as 2024, Cair disseminated sample NSGP applications
<https://www.cair.com/press_releases/community-advisory-cair-releases-new-guide-to-assist-muslims-in-applying-to-dhs-fema-nonprofit-security-grant-program-fy-2024/>
for mosques to emulate. In the model application, the fictional "Unity
Mosque" emphasises its dedication to "maintaining a strong relationship
with state and local homeland security partners". It seems Cair knows what
kinds of proposals DHS actually funds.

This focus on becoming the state's partner follows in the footsteps of
Zionist organisations that have long been the primary beneficiaries
<https://forward.com/news/142542/how-an-anti-terror-program-became-a-jewish-earmark/>
of the NSGP. In fact, it is not only Cair but also Jewish Federations of
North America that have been leveraging
<https://www.jewishfederations.org/blog/all/jewish-federations-statement-on-san-diego-mosque-shooting-517422>
recent deaths in San Diego for access to greater NSGP funding.

Perhaps the endpoint of Cair's trajectory is to resemble a group like the
notoriously Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Decades of close
coordination
<https://www.thenation.com/article/society/adl-palestine-terrorism-letter/>
between the ADL and FBI gradually eroded the line between the two groups.

In this sense, the issue with the NSGP - as far as the Muslim community
goes - is not a particular provision nor the administration in power but
its fundamental purpose: dissolving the boundary between Muslim communities
and the police.

But Cair has yet to reject the NSGP as such - hence its recent call for
Muslim institutions to submit applications for the programme's 2026 funding
cycle.
Police work

Cair's contradictions stem from its double role: it presents itself both as
lawyer (defender of Muslims) and politician ("good" Muslim). The first role
demands an adversarial posture towards state power and its categories of
criminality, such as extremism and terrorism.

This, however, conflicts with the aims of Cair-the-politician, whose
appeals to local, state and federal officials revolve around portraying
Muslims as law-abiding Americans.

It can be difficult to discern where Cair ends and the police begin

This muddiness in mission has enabled many puzzling occurrences over the
years: a retired police officer as a Cair banquet keynote
<https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2015/11/14/san-diego-muslims-condemn-paris-attacks/>
speaker, a deputy sheriff <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Goh5dUiog>
moonlighting as a Cair director for nearly a decade, the same officer
reappearing
<https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-hosts-protecting-your-mosques-self-defense-webinar-in-wake-of-san-diego-mosque-terror-attack/>
as a "mosque security expert" following the San Diego mosque shooting, and
even the occasional Know-Your-Rights training
<https://www.facebook.com/cairct/posts/pfbid026bGgeYb2NpQxPncp3hqbav428XCW2cFjFwDFKYaxMxRiNR6Z9fd8QvHfnwnBhsgVl>
presented with "law enforcement".

Akin to a cat instructing mice how to avoid capture, a civil rights
workshop involving police is fraught from the outset.

Whether through joint programming or recommendations that mosques honour
police officers, Cair uses its trusted position as a community advocate to
launder the image of predatory institutions. Because such efforts typically
fall within the purview of police departments themselves (Community
Relations Units), Cair's activity exceeds simple "bridge-building". It is
police work.

There is no shortage of "bridges" joining Cair and law enforcement - so
many, in fact, that it can be difficult to discern where Cair ends and the
police begin. It is therefore misleading to imagine Cair as standing on one
shore and the police on another, constructing a "bridge" in between.

A more accurate picture would place both on the same side of a river,
extending a single bridge towards everyday Muslims. Will we step across, or
choose a different path?

*Cair did not respond to this author's request for comment.*

*The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.*
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