Congress: 119 · Status: active · Israel/Palestine classification: pro-Israel
Data (JSON) — machine-readable record of this bill (identifiers, sponsor, classification, actions, and the member-by-member vote breakdown).
Official record on Congress.gov — full text, actions, and cosponsor history for HR 8236.
Sponsor: Roy, Chip (R-Texas)
This bill directs the Treasury Secretary to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its chapters as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224. The designation would freeze CAIR's assets, prohibit financial transactions with the organization, and make it illegal for U.S. persons to provide material support to CAIR. The bill cites CAIR's founding ties to the Holy Land Foundation (a designated terrorist charity that funded Hamas), criminal convictions of seven CAIR officials on terrorism-related charges, CAIR leaders' public statements on Israel and the October 7 attacks, and designations by Texas, Florida, the UAE, and the FBI's suspension of contact with the organization.
This bill treats CAIR's speech on Israeli-Palestinian affairs and antisemitism allegations as grounds for federal terrorist designation, making it a high-stakes test of whether domestic advocacy organizations can be proscribed based on alleged Hamas sympathies and statements about Israel. If enacted, it would criminalize financial support to a major Muslim civil rights organization and set precedent for designating other U.S.-based groups based on their positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not conventional terrorist conduct on U.S. soil.