The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has opened an investigation into what happened to $30 million it sent to a Muslim nonprofit to help resettle Afghan refugees in the United States, and whether that group has ties to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. In letters dated June 9, the department told the governors of California and Washington that the matter could lead to suspension and proposed debarment if the allegations are proven.
The letters were written by HHS Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources Gustav Chiarello, who said the information the department received raises concerns about the business practices and ethics of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-California. They also say there may be connections between CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch, Hamas. HHS said it takes the allegations seriously because it may not do business with entities tied to designated organizations.
The money trail is large enough to explain why the review is moving now. HHS said CAIR-California’s most recent audit report for 2024 showed it received $36.45 million from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, while documents first obtained by the Intelligent Advocacy Network said more than $40 million in federal ORR funds were granted to CAIR-California through the California Department of Social Services. HHS also said it has traced roughly $1.3 million to the CAIR-WA chapter from the Washington Department of Social and Health Services.
That federal money was tied to one of the biggest refugee operations in the country. Between 2016 and 2025, about 43,000 Afghans were resettled in California using special humanitarian visas, and state agencies routed some of the work through CAIR-related chapters. Millions of those dollars were administered under a self-oversight structure in which CAIR-LA served as program administrator responsible for overseeing its own subgrantees, a setup that is likely to draw close scrutiny from investigators.
CAIR has rejected the allegations outright. Nihad Awad, who leads the group, says it only operates in the United States and strongly denies any ties to terror organizations. The organization has also denied any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, putting it in direct conflict with the concerns laid out in the HHS letters. The friction is not academic: the department is signaling that if those claims are substantiated, federal business with the group could end.
The June 9 letters urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson to contact the HHS Office of the Inspector General if they are aware of relevant information. The Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review began a separate probe last year into federal funds allocated to CAIR-California for Afghan resettlement, and the current HHS review now pushes the question further: whether the dollars were handled properly, and whether the nonprofit at the center of the program can keep working with federal money at all.
