Oklahoma orders an intelligence review of CAIR, stopping short of the Texas and Florida designations
Governor Kevin Stitt signed Executive Order 2026-29 on 12 August, directing state homeland security to assess whether the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR or their affiliates present a threat in Oklahoma, and to lobby Washington for a federal terrorist designation. He did not designate anything himself.
The order carries three operative directives, reproduced from the text by outlets across the state. The Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security is to conduct an “intelligence-based assessment” of whether the Brotherhood, CAIR “or any affiliates, agents, or persons acting in concert with them” are engaged in conduct presenting a terroristic or public-safety threat, and to take all lawful preventive and investigative measures the resulting intelligence supports; OKOHS and the Department of Public Safety are to advocate for federal designation of both as foreign terrorist organisations under 8 U.S.C. § 1189; and Stitt “highly encourage[s]” the legislature to enact a statute declaring the Brotherhood and “any chapter or subdivision thereof, including CAIR,” to be foreign terrorist organisations. “The United States has already recognized Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and Hamas emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood,” Stitt said. “Oklahoma will not turn a blind eye to organizations or networks that may support terrorism.”
The order’s predicate is documentary rather than local. It cites President Trump’s Executive Order 14362 of 24 November 2025, which began a process for considering certain Brotherhood chapters for FTO designation; the Holy Land Foundation prosecution, in which CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator and which the order says produced “ample evidence to establish the association[]” of CAIR with terrorist organisations; and the United Arab Emirates' inclusion of CAIR on its 2014 terrorism list. Oklahoma’s NPR affiliates, KOSU and KGOU, report flatly that the order offers no proof that CAIR or the Brotherhood in Oklahoma are colluding with terrorist groups, and note that it cuts against Stitt’s own 2021 advocacy for Afghan resettlement, in which CAIR Oklahoma took part alongside Catholic Charities. CAIR Oklahoma’s executive director, Veronica Laizure-Henry, declined an interview with KOSU, citing pending litigation in other states.
Assessment: Read this as the weaker instrument, not the escalation. Greg Abbott designated by proclamation in November and was sued within two days; Ron DeSantis’s designation is either enjoined or paused — the available accounts conflict, and that distinction decides whether Stitt is taking a next step or building a workaround. An assessment with no publicly reported deadline, milestone or budget is a posture; one with a clock is a policy, and nothing retrieved so far shows a clock. The tell to watch is procedural rather than rhetorical: whether an Oklahoma bill is pre-filed for the 2027 session, and whether CAIR sues before the assessment produces a finding it can litigate against.