D$25 million taxpayer cash handed by DHS, FEMA to groups with extremist ties: report

Taxpayer funds totalling $25 million were handed to US groups with alleged links to terror organizations or extremist ideology, a bombshell new study has found.

In a twist of irony, the funds were originally allocated to help deradicalize would-be terrorists, but may have ended up in the pockets of groups that support Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, according to the report.

The Department of Homeland Security gave out the cash through its disaster relief programs, including the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), between 2013 and 2024, according to the report released by the Middle East Forum, a think tank based in Philadelphia.

“We’ve seen the left allocate billions of dollars towards the latest woke pet projects, but the Middle East Forum’s study of DHS spending uncovered something far more sinister,” said Ben Baird, a project director at the Middle East Forum and co-author of the study.

“Instead of protecting the homeland, the federal government is bankrolling extremists who idolize 9/11 hijackers and sympathize with the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre in Israel.

“Taxpayer dollars meant to strengthen American security were used to undermine public safety.”

The group says it is now working with DHS to “rescind grants to extremist groups” and work on making the granting process more transparent.

Under President Biden, DHS established the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council (FBSAC) that works with the secretary of DHS to help with the security and emergency preparedness of religious institutions.

“The FBSAC provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary and other senior leadership on matters related to protecting houses of worship, preparedness and enhanced coordination with the faith community,” according to a description of the council on FEMA’s website.

Among the leaders appointed as consultants to the group was Mohamed Magid  — director and imam of a controversial Virginia mosque complex that was raided in a federal counterterrorism investigation in 2002, although no charges were brought. Salaam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who once blamed 9/11 on Israel, was also a consultant to the group.

Al-Marayati later said that his comments were taken out of context but he did not apologize for them, according to the Los Angeles Times. Neither Magid nor Al-Marayati returned a request for comment this week.

Some of the groups DHS allocated money to have ties to extremists. Ones named in the report include:

The Council on American Islamic Relations, which has links to extremist groups, including Hamas, received nearly $250,000 in DHS security grants to its national office in Washington as well as chapters in Miami and Los Angeles, the report says.

Federal prosecutors named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism funding case in US history. Ghassan Elashi, one of the leaders of HLF was also a founder of CAIR Texas. He was convicted and sentenced to 65 years for funneling $12 million to Hamas.

And after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, CAIR’s founder Nihad Awad said he was “happy to see” the terrorist strikes on the country. He later said his comments were taken out of context and that he condemned the violence on October 7.

CAIR’s spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said “the American Muslim community has the same right to apply for nonprofit grants as other faith communities.”

He added CAIR “condemns all forms of unjust violence, including hate crimes, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide as well as all forms of bigotry, including ani-Black racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism.”

Elsewhere, DHS earmarked $10.3 million in disaster relief to the Islamic Circle of North America following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The group was accused by the Middle East Forum and other think tanks that study extremism of acting as the US-based proxy for Jamaat-e-Islam, which has been linked to violence and terrorism in South Asia. ICNA has denied being a proxy for the group.

The Islamic Society of Baltimore, a mosque and community center where the FBI conducted surveillance after it caught one of its members plotting to bomb an Army recruiting center in Maryland in 2010, was awarded $375,000 in DHS grants between 2017 and 2023, the report says.

The group was under surveillance by the FBI for several years beginning in 2010 and was dubbed “a breeding ground for terrorists.” The group did not return a request for comment.

Mosques in Michigan and Texas that preach Iran’s extreme brand of Shi’a Islam received $750,000.

The Islamic House of Wisdom, a mosque in Dearborn, received $330,000 in 2023, according to the report. The group is led by Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi, who has close ties to the Iranian regime and mourned the 2010 death of Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollah’s spiritual guide and a proponent of suicide bombing. Elahi did not return repeated requests for comment.

Other groups with alleged ties to radicalism received the rest of the $25 million in grants, per Middle East Forum.

“DHS officials must be more discerning,” said the report. “Under FEMA’s latest… guidelines, grantees may use security grants to install bulletproof glass and security fencing, or even to hire armed security guards [at their US-based offices].

“Should an insular, fundamentalist commune that expresses loyalty to Al Shabaab or Al-Qaeda receive funding for these purposes?”

Since taking office, the Trump administration has fired hundreds of DHS employees in order to streamline the bureaucracy of the federal government.

“We won’t rest until Congress ensures that future administrations cannot fund extremists in the name of fighting extremism,” Baird told The Post.