This month, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025, renewing his years-long push to formally designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The bill cites the group’s ideological and operational links to terrorist networks such as Hamas and al-Qaeda, stating that the Brotherhood has repeatedly provided “ideological, political, financial, and logistical support” to violent Islamist groups.
In a press release, Cruz explained that the Brotherhood is “committed to the overthrow and destruction of America and other non-Islamist governments across the world” and poses “an acute threat to American national security interests.” He added that “American allies in the Middle East and Europe have already labeled the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and the United States should do the same, and do so expeditiously.”
Cruz’s legislation is not without precedent. The U.S. has long recognized Hamas—a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood—as a terrorist organization, and even Muslim-majority countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have already outlawed the group.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood does not “officially” operate within the United States, its ideology has deeply influenced numerous Islamist organizations and student groups here. The most well-known example is Anwar al-Awlaki, a former president of the Muslim Students Association—an organization with historical ties to the Brotherhood. After the 9/11 attacks, al-Awlaki emerged as one of the world’s most prolific jihadist ideologues, playing a role in several terrorist attacks, including the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the failed Christmas Day “underwear bomber” plot, and the attempted 2010 Times Square car bombing.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy and later the leader of al-Qaeda, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As NATO advisor and historian Professor Emre Demiroğlu told me in an interview, “Every group that spurs and offers assistance to jihadism, especially ideological backing, should be designated as a terrorist organization.”
Demiroğlu and others warn that the Brotherhood’s threat goes beyond direct violence. The group is engaged in a broader ideological effort to undermine Western society through subversion, cultural infiltration, and the gradual normalization of Islamist values, a mission carried out through proxy groups. A French Interior Ministry report described the Brotherhood as “a promoter of a clandestine Islamism” that uses liberal rhetoric and democratic freedoms to weaken the very foundations of free societies.
As Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, one of the key intellectual leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, put it in a chilling 2002 speech, “With your democratic laws we will colonize you, and with our Koranic laws we will dominate you.” In a 2004 message, the Brotherhood also said that “Americans will embrace Islam out of conviction.” A 1991 internal Brotherhood memorandum spoke of sabotaging Western civilization “from within.”
Counterintelligence specialists interviewed for this column described the Brotherhood’s methods as including “resistance to assimilation, persuasion by ideological warfare, subversion by entering democratic bodies, and resistance by the exploitation of protest laws.” These tactics have allowed the Brotherhood and its affiliates to embed themselves within Western political and civic institutions, using the language of individual rights and pluralism to undermine both.
The United States is not immune to this ideological infiltration. As AMAC Newsline has previously reported, Islamist organizations are attempting to build a 400-acre all-Islamic community in Texas that would effectively operate outside the jurisdiction of American laws and be patrolled by its own private Islamic police force. This is not merely a cultural experiment—it is a direct challenge to American sovereignty.
From 2007 to 2023, the percentage of U.S. adults identifying as Muslim increased from 0.4 per cent to 1.2 per cent, marking the only significant growth in religious affiliation during this period. Notably, about 10 per cent of these Muslims were Hispanic. More than half of all Muslim adults (59 percentUnited States.
Europe offers a chilling preview of what happens when ideological colonization continues unchecked. In countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Islamist groups openly recruit and radicalize within migrant communities.
Massive street demonstrations have featured pro-Hamas slogans and Palestinian flags waved by migrants, along with a shocking rise in antisemitic violence. Viral videos across social media show mobs shutting down city streets and chanting anti-Western slogans—scenes that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.
In France, senior government officials have begun to acknowledge the scale of the problem. A new report by Hauts-de-Seine prefect Alexandre Brugère, a former senior official at the Interior Ministry, identified the Muslim Brotherhood as a group hostile to the freedoms and values of the French Republic. Brugère warned that “Islamism attacks every aspect of French collective life” and said that it must be declared “persona non grata.”
“Each of us, in our place—the state, local authorities, and civil society actors—has the responsibility to force them to bend,” Brugère said.
Brugère highlighted how Islamist groups use sports, education, commerce, and places of worship to spread their ideology. The group “Les Hijabeuses,” for example, campaigns for the right to wear the hijab in sports, eroding Western norms of unity and neutrality on the field. Islamic home-schooling networks—often dubbed “Koranic schools”—indoctrinate children with anti-Western beliefs. The widespread imposition of halal standards in trade, he warned, reshapes markets while feeding Islamist control.
Perhaps most troubling was Brugère’s revelation that 139 mosques in France are now affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, serving roughly 91,000 worshippers. In his own department, one-third of all mosques are either under the Brotherhood’s control or actively being targeted for takeover.
French officials are finally beginning to connect the dots. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described Islamization as a “replacement strategy,” in which Islamist immigration is being used to dilute and ultimately displace the Judeo-Christian foundations of European society. Brugère went further, arguing that Islamism amounts to a disruption of public order and can be grounds for deportation.
The United States should not wait until the situation reaches such extremes here. Designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization is a critical first step–to be followed by an immigration policy that weeds out new arrivals hostile to Western values. Such an approach would not only cut off access to American
funding and charitable networks but also signal that the U.S. is no longer willing to tolerate ideological colonization masquerading as multiculturalism.
Muslims are, like all peaceful religious individuals, still free to practice their faith in the United States under the protection of the First Amendment. There is a distinction between Islam as a faith and Islamist ideology and institutions. Critically, however, the First Amendment does not grant license to attack fundamental American values and promote hostility toward the United States while using religion as a shield to accomplish an act of open political subversion.
Senator Cruz’s bill recognizes what much of the world is only now beginning to understand: Islamist organizations do not need to launch attacks to undermine a society. They only need to infiltrate, influence, and outlast. The Muslim Brotherhood knows this. Now it’s time the rest of America does too.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
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