Sen. Cornyn Funded Islamic Group Linked to Planned Texas Muslim Community, Terrorism, Antisemitism
by Olivia Rondeau
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) recently fell under media scrutiny for praising the American branch of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), a charity that the U.S. State Department, multiple banking institutions, and several other governments have severed ties with due to concerns of terrorism and antisemitism — but he also voted for a bill that funneled USAID money and other federal grants to the organization.
The incumbent senator caught flak after Fox News reported this month that he had “repeatedly” voiced support for the international group’s wing based in the U.S., IRUSA — one of the Muslim organizations that provided funding to the Texas’s East Plano Islamic Center, the mosque behind the contentious planned Islamic community known as EPIC City.
Around this time last year, Cornyn sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting that the federal investigators look into the controversial community, citing concerns of “religious discrimination” and “Sharia Law.”
However, the senator has voted for U.S. taxpayer dollars to go to IRUSA, which provided the IRW with tens of millions of dollars per year in 2021 and 2022, making it the worldwide group’s largest source of funding, according to a Fox News report on its financial disclosures.
Through fiscal year 2016’s appropriations bill, IRW received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a $270,000 sub-award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The resolution passed 65-33 with Cornyn’s help, while 26 other Republicans voted against it.
Just a few years later, 990 filings show that IRUSA gave $10,000 grants in both 2020 and 2021 to the East Plano Islamic Center — the mosque that announced their Muslim-based planned Texas community in 2024 that would feature over 1,000 homes, a K-12 school, community college, and commercial shopping.
“As we witness a rise in anti-Semitism in every corner of the globe, it is incumbent on all people of good conscience to stand strong and exhibit zero tolerance for the blatant and horrifying anti-Semitism and glorification of violence exhibited at the most senior levels of IRW,” the State Department wrote in December 2020 of IRW. “We encourage all government bodies currently examining IRW activities and their relationship with IRW.”
IRW was officially dropped by the State Department in January 2021 after multiple accusations of antisemitism from watchdog groups, detailing how the organization’s senior leaders praised Hamas leaders and referred to Jewish people as the “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs.”