Keith Self introduced a bill on November 12 that would order the U.S. Treasury to declare a Muslim nonprofit a terrorist organization. The group, the North American Islamic Trust, holds the legal title to mosques, schools and Islamic centers in 42 states. Self's own press release says so.
Self calls the bill the "DesigNAIT Act." It would:
- Require the Treasury to list the trust, and everything connected to it, as "Specially Designated Global Terrorists." That label freezes a group's assets and makes it illegal to do business with it without permission.
- Reach its investment funds, publications, loan programs and anything it owns or controls.
- Set up a process to hand its interest in the properties it holds to the local congregation or a new trustee.
In plain terms: a U.S. congressman wants the federal government to treat the deed-holder for mosques, schools and Islamic centers across 42 states as a terrorist group.
What Self says, and what the record says
Self's case rests on one thing: the Holy Land Foundation trial. In his release he says "evidence presented in the federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation documents associations between NAIT and Hamas."
Here is what he leaves out.
In that case, which went to trial in 2007, prosecutors filed a long list of "unindicted co-conspirators" — a list that took in "most major U.S. Muslim organizations." The North American Islamic Trust was on it. "Unindicted" means exactly what it sounds like: it was never charged. According to an ACLU account, the prosecutor said the trust was not a subject or target "in the HLF prosecution or in any other pending investigation," and the trial court itself wrote that none of the unindicted co-conspirators "have been charged with a crime."
A federal judge later ruled that making that list public violated the trust's Fifth Amendment due-process rights, because the groups on it never got a day in court to answer it. The judge, Jorge Solis, did keep the trust's name on the sealed list, saying the government had shown its "associations" with the Holy Land Foundation. But when the appeals court reviewed that, it said those findings did not amount to a ruling that the trust took part in a criminal conspiracy. A name on a list of groups the government chose not to charge is not a conviction, and it is not a terrorism finding.
Self's release goes further than the court record. It says the trust holds title to mosques that "harbored September 11 hijackers" and one described as "the defacto headquarters of Al Qaeda in North America." It doesn't name those mosques, and it doesn't say the trust itself did any of it. The trust is a property holder. Self wants to punish it for what he says happened in buildings it holds the paper on.
Who it would actually hit
The trust holds the paper; it isn't the congregation. The people who pray, study and send their kids to school in those buildings are American Muslims in 42 states. Self's bill would put the trust that holds their buildings' deeds under a terrorism label and set up a process to move those deeds somewhere else.
Self's own quote shows who he has in mind. "For far too long, Islamist networks have been allowed to build financial and institutional footholds inside the United States while exploiting our laws, our financial system, and our religious institutions," he said. "We are done turning a blind eye."
This is a pattern, not a one-off
The DesigNAIT Act is the latest step in a long run of Keith Self going after Muslims.
- He showed up at a city council meeting in his own district to try to stop a mosque. The council voted 7–0 against him.
- He went on Newsmax and said "the Muslims" have "no respect for U.S. law", and called for a Muslim charity to be indicted over a campaign booth. That post walked through the same Holy Land Foundation list he's leaning on now — and the fact that none of the groups on it were charged.
- CAIR says he spoke on an "electoral jihad" livestream where a guest talked about "killing and capturing" leaders, and apparently never objected.
He is also not the only Texas Republican doing this. Governor Greg Abbott declared the nation's largest Muslim civil rights group a terrorist organization, and twelve of his thirteen reasons matched an anti-Muslim think tank's report.
What the record shows
Keith Self has introduced a bill ordering the Treasury to label the North American Islamic Trust a terrorist organization and freeze its assets. The trust holds title to mosques, schools and Islamic centers in 42 states. Self rests the bill on the Holy Land Foundation case, where the trust was named as an unindicted co-conspirator — it was not charged, and a federal judge ruled that naming it publicly violated its constitutional rights. It is the latest of several moves by Self against Muslims, including an attempt to block a mosque in his own district that his city council rejected 7–0.
