The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today announced the publication of CAIR’s 2026 Civil Rights Report, titled The Right to be Different, which documents a pattern of public officials using their offices to narrow the definitions of what Americans can look like, say, or believe in 2025.
SEE: 2026 Civil Rights Report: The Right to Be Different
WATCH: CAIR-SFBA 2026 Civil Rights Report News Conference
In a statement, CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor said:
“In 2025, powerful public officials argued—explicitly or by implication—that ‘freedom’ means the right to be like them: to speak the approved lines, worship the approved way, and trace ancestry to approved places. Protecting the right to be different is not a favor to any one community. It is the operating system of a free country.”
In a statement, CAIR-SFBA Civil Rights Managing Attorney Jeffrey Wang said:
“This report makes clear that Islamophobia is not just persisting—it is evolving. We are seeing public officials and institutions bypass normal safeguards and use discretionary power to target our communities and punish people for their identity, beliefs, or advocacy. While the courts have at times provided an important check on that abuse, justice should not come only after the harm is done. The right to be different should be protected by default—not only through the courage and resources it takes to fight back.”
CAIR’s research staff identified five key trends in the report:
- Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Texas are national standouts in a record setting year. These states have all seen increasing complaints in each of the last three years. CAIR-Minnesota reported 693 complaints in 2025, a 96 percent increase over 2024. 23 percent of their year’s total was recorded in December. CAIR-Chicago reported 877 complaints in 2025, 65 percent over 2024.
- Anti-Muslim narratives more clearly resurfaced in 2025, particularly the notion that the religious principles followed by Muslims are inherently threatening and anti-American. In 2025, five extreme bills were proposed at the federal level that would effectively ban the practice of the world’s second largest religion in the United States or entry of its adherents into the nation (for example, H. R. 5512). By February, Texas Governor Greg Abbot was instigating a campaign against Muslim life in Texas while claiming he banned sharia. In December, Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Keith Self (R-TX) founded the “Sharia-Free America Caucus.” As of late February 2026, they claimed 45 members. Member remarks make it clear that Islam is the target of the caucus’ work. In a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in December, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed that American Muslims are working to impose “sharia law” and “Islamic principles” across America through the “use of laws or violence,” specifically citing the cities of Paterson, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas.
- Government officials used collective and ideological punishment to target both non-citizens and citizens who are perceived to be ethnically or ideologically undesirable. The report documents three Muslim majority groups—Afghans, Somalis, and Syrians—that were targeted. Framing speech supporting Palestinian human rights as inherently threatening and biased, the Trump administration justified high-profile detentions based on the targeted individuals’ viewpoints. At least three students and a journalist were the subjects of widely publicized arrests and allegations of wrongdoing. In each instance, court evidence did not support the allegations. By September, a federal judge ruled in a case brought by the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association that government officials “deliberately and with purposeful aforethought” coordinated two federal agencies to “intentionally chill the rights” of members of a Middle Eastern professors’ organization to free speech and peaceful assembly.
- Discretionary powers replaced normal civil rights safeguards. A defining feature of 2025 was the increased use of discretionary authority—including executive proclamations, emergency powers, immigration discretion, regulatory investigations, and funding conditions—to achieve outcomes that would likely fail under traditional evidentiary or judicial scrutiny.
- Constitutional rights narrowed. By the end of 2025, the legal status of American Muslims remained formally unchanged, but the conditions under which rights could be exercised had narrowed. Equal access to social opportunities, including education, travel, civic participation, and nonprofit activity, was increasingly contingent on political alignment, silence, or litigation capacity. Equal protection depended less on neutral administration and more on after-the-fact judicial correction.
The analysis paints a grim picture while also demonstrating the impactful decisions of civil rights defenders. American Muslims and allied institutions exercised agency through legal action, public advocacy, and institutional engagement. Litigation proved relatively effective in asserting constitutional boundaries, with courts repeatedly rejecting censorship and viewpoint discrimination while protecting some rights to privacy.
These interventions demonstrated that formal legal protections remain operative—with the caveat that litigation is often reactive rather than preventive. Courts and public pressure provided partial correctives, largely after harm had occurred and often at the very latest stages.
CAIR-SFBA is an office of CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
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CONTACT: CAIR-SFBA Communications Manager Lorrie Adam, (408) 498-5779, ladam@cair.com
