Top brass at the Department of Homeland Security approached the Federal Emergency Management Agency this spring with a proposal: What if the company blocked hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in security grants awarded to Muslim organizations round the nation?
The suggestion of a blanket ban left the FEMA leaders bewildered and deeply involved, and so they instantly identified such a proposal could possibly be thought of discriminatory and even unlawful, in accordance to three sources with data of the episode who requested not to be named out of worry of reprisal.
While the DHS officers didn’t give a purpose for disqualifying Muslim groups after they floated the thought, the Trump administration at the time was in the throes of dramatically downsizing the federal authorities.
Ultimately, the thought was dropped.
But six months later, dozens of these Muslim organizations have been stripped of their eligibility for security funds that assist shield in opposition to hate crimes and extremist assaults after DHS and the Department of Government Efficiency alleged that the groups have ties to terrorism.
Five FEMA insiders — together with these with data of the proposal to block the funds — describe these allegations as questionable, given the normal vetting the groups endure and the uncommon circumstances that led to their lack of funding. Some prompt that the allegations of terror ties, which they stated got here with little proof, could also be a pretext to justify the cuts.
DHS, which oversees FEMA, denied to NCS that the division ever thought of imposing a blanket ban on Muslim organizations receiving these security grants.
“DHS and FEMA do not make policy decisions on the basis of religion,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in a press release. “Such claims are ludicrous and deeply unserious.”
The spokesperson stated FEMA has been conducting an inside evaluation of its grant recipients for months and has terminated funding to choose groups discovered to have hyperlinks to “terrorism or terrorist activities.”
But sources who spoke to NCS say the efforts to block funds from Muslim organizations elevate questions on equal remedy in federal grant applications and reveal the disproportionate impacts that the sometimes-chaotic makes an attempt to reshape the US authorities can have.
Several Muslim organizations contacted by NCS flatly denied any hyperlinks to terrorist groups, suggesting they had been singled out for political causes.
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) stated its FEMA security grant was abruptly rejected this summer season with no clarification. Sources and inside paperwork obtained by NCS reveal that, behind the scenes, DOGE spearheaded efforts to block funding from dozens of groups — together with ISNA — citing ties to terrorism.
“We absolutely deny these allegations,” ISNA Executive Director Basharat Saleem informed NCS. “This type of baseless information is very detrimental for civil society and for organizations that are doing good work.”
At the middle of the dispute is FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which offers funding for security upgrades reminiscent of surveillance cameras, bulletproof glass and security guards to 1000’s of nonprofit organizations, most of them spiritual establishments thought of extra weak to hate crime assaults.
In 2024, Congress injected an additional $400 million into the program amid a surge in each antisemitism and Islamophobia fueled by division over the ongoing battle in Gaza. The funds had been aimed toward bolstering protections particularly for Jewish and Muslim establishments like synagogues, mosques, group groups and cultural facilities.
After Trump took workplace, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ordered FEMA to pause nearly all of the company’s grants, together with these security grants, for officers from DHS and DOGE to perform a sweeping “manual review” of the spending. FEMA grant funds totaling billions of {dollars} had been successfully frozen in consequence.
By Spring, officers from DOGE and DHS had been in discussions with FEMA leaders about unlocking the security grants, the three sources informed NCS. The administration was going through strain from outdoors lobbying groups to expedite the launch of funds to Jewish nonprofits, a number of sources stated.
However, resuming the program would have doubtlessly awarded cash to Muslim organizations as nicely.
So, in April, senior officers at DHS requested FEMA management how Muslim groups could possibly be disqualified from receiving the funds, the sources informed NCS.
“I think they were worried about the optics of giving money to Muslim organizations,” one among the sources who heard the proposal firsthand informed NCS, including {that a} blanket ban can be “totally illegal and improper.”
The FEMA leaders emphasised to DHS officers that the organizations had already been vetted and authorised and mustn’t lose their eligibility and doubtlessly hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in funding.
The conversations appeared to fizzle as FEMA leaders pushed again, warning DHS officers {that a} blanket ban of Muslim groups might trigger important authorized and public blowback, the sources stated.
As the conversations had been happening and these grants had been paused, 1000’s of nonprofits representing a variety of religion groups – not simply Muslim organizations – had been ready for the security funds to be authorised, two of the sources informed NCS.
Among them: the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, the place a gunman killed a younger Jewish couple in May in what authorities known as an antisemitic assault.
In late Spring, a few of the funds had been unlocked. DHS introduced the first batch of nonprofit nationwide security grants for 512 Jewish organizations in June, which included the Capital Jewish Museum, a supply informed NCS. No Muslim nonprofits had been included in the announcement.
Around this time, scores of Muslim organizations, at DOGE’s route, had been quietly disqualified from the program.
DOGE officers embedded inside DHS claimed to have intelligence indicating that greater than 100 of those beforehand authorised organizations had ties to terrorist groups, in accordance to sources and paperwork reviewed by NCS. The officers stated the intel got here from somebody outdoors the company however didn’t specify the origin.
The White House, which oversees DOGE, referred NCS’s request for remark to FEMA.
Again, officers inside FEMA had been alarmed by the orders, saying they noticed no clear proof linking the nonprofits to terrorist entities. One supply, a long-time FEMA official, questioned the unspecified outdoors intelligence cited by DOGE.
“Everything about it seemed wrong,” the official stated. “This felt like a manufactured narrative designed to justify excluding Muslim organizations from funding. What had always been an apolitical, risk-based grant process suddenly looked politicized in a way we’d never seen before.”
The particular person stated they’d by no means witnessed authorities businesses taking “an overt action or effort to implement a blanket prohibition like we saw earlier this year” in opposition to Muslim groups — not even after 9/11, after they felt “‘Islamophobia’ was at an all-time high.”
In a press release to NCS final week, DHS confirmed that it stripped funding from sure organizations, saying it did so after an inside evaluation uncovered hyperlinks to terrorism.
A spokesperson stated FEMA used “resources including the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and law enforcement” to decide that “multiple grant subrecipients had supported or were affiliated with organizations or individuals associated with terrorism or terrorist activities.”
DHS stated the division has improved its vetting course of however declined to present a full record of groups that misplaced eligibility and didn’t specify what new info led to their disqualification.
The division didn’t reply to questions on DOGE’s involvement.
The longtime FEMA official forged doubt on the validity of the division’s inside evaluation on condition that earlier administrations didn’t flag these organizations, a few of which had acquired funds for years.
“How did they not catch this during the first Trump administration?” the official requested. “The real question is, what has changed to prevent these types of organizations from being approved again?”
An outdoors group and disputed ‘terror’ claims
Around the time that Muslim nonprofits had been stripped of their grants, an outdoor group – the right-wing assume tank Middle East Forum – additionally raised allegations about terrorist ties.
The discussion board revealed a prolonged report claiming DHS and FEMA have been distributing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} annually to dozens of Muslim organizations with alleged ideological and financial ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The pro-Israel Middle East Forum has been criticized by varied groups, together with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for American Progress. Some have accused it of spreading anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian views, and of backing insurance policies that unfairly goal Muslim communities in the title of nationwide security.
Defenders argue that its efforts are aimed toward confronting extremist political Islam, not the faith.
After the report’s publication, DOGE circulated it to FEMA workers, instructing them to make sure that none of the nonprofits named would obtain funding, in accordance to two sources.
Once once more, FEMA leaders had been involved, questioning the so-called proof in the report. “If you read the report, it’s rather shallow on facts,” a former high-ranking FEMA official stated.
In July, a DHS spokesperson despatched NCS a press release touting the division’s effort to withhold funding from “groups with questionable ties.” When NCS requested for specifics, the spokesperson pointed to the Middle East Forum report and a Fox News story that claimed DHS had cancelled dozens of grants in the wake of the assume tank’s findings.
But now, DHS insists the assume tank wasn’t concerned in the division’s funding cuts. In an e-mail final week, a spokesperson stated FEMA workers have “methodically reviewed” grant recipients for months – “well before” the discussion board revealed its report.
Several organizations named in the Middle East Forum report have been below scrutiny for years, stated Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
“I’m not suggesting that these are terrorist supporting organizations, but if they have questionable views and ties, I think that’s fair to say, and I think the bar of what entities the government should be supporting should be set higher,” Vidino stated. “Some of the entities in the report are well-known, not just to the academic community, but to law enforcement, as being problematic.”
Still, Vidino added that every case ought to be thought of individually, and that funding ought to be withdrawn provided that there may be clear proof.
More than half a dozen groups named in the Middle East Forum report contacted by NCS denied the assume tank’s allegations, pointing to what they described as the discussion board’s lengthy historical past of Islamophobic rhetoric.
The Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, which MEF claimed is “arguably one of the most prominent outposts for radical Islam in North America” stated this was “a complete lie,” including: “Whatever the hate that some people are spewing against Islam or the Muslim community, we cannot stop them.”
Criticisms of Dar Al-Hijrah date back more than a decade, when the Northern Virginia mosque was accused of internet hosting terrorists, together with the 9/11 hijackers.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, labeled in the report as an “extremist group” with alleged ties to Hamas, pushed again forcefully in opposition to the report’s claims.
It additionally warned that if DHS is quietly blacklisting organizations with out totally vetting accusations — whether or not from DOGE, the Middle East Forum, or others — it marks a deeply troubling erosion of due course of.
“The government cannot ban American Muslim nonprofit organizations from receiving federal grants because of their religious identity” or different political causes, CAIR stated in a press release to NCS. “Doing so places American Muslim institutions at increased risk during a time of rising hate.”
The Middle East Forum didn’t reply to NCS’s request for remark, nevertheless it has publicly stood by the particulars of its report, urging Congress to implement everlasting vetting and transparency reforms.
In August, the group’s director warned: “MEF is watching — whether the money is intended for foreign aid, public education, or homeland security — and we will not rest until every last cent allocated to terrorist-aligned groups is returned to American taxpayers.”
Jenna Monnin and Deja Oliver contributed to this report