Applications for this year's round of security grants from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) close on 24 July - and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) is urging mosques, Islamic schools and Muslim nonprofits to apply before the deadline.
Since May's mosque shooting in San Diego, which killed three people, Cair has aggressively pursued renewed Muslim community access to this source of government funding, presenting it as a means of protecting mosques from such violence.
Cair has since also encouraged Muslims to build closer ties with the police - reviving a debate over policing that reflects a growing divide within the community, between those eager to collaborate with "law enforcement" and those who view it as an arm of an unjust social order.
Cair has long walked an ambivalent line on this issue. As a self-described civil rights and advocacy nonprofit with nearly 30 chapters, it positions itself as Muslims' primary defence against "overly-broad" policing.
Yet, at the same time, it has spent decades encouraging Muslims to "build bridges" with the very police agencies whose practices it claims to challenge.
Cair's encouragement suggests that Muslims and "law enforcement" are two groups separated by unfamiliarity or misunderstanding. However, the history between them is not one of insufficient contact.
Muslims have come to know local and federal police agencies all too well through a history of hostile encounters: decades of FBI door knocks, entrapment cases, raids of Palestine encampments that local police have turned into prosecutions of Muslim students, harassment outside Zionist land sales and relentless attempts to conscript Muslims into disciplining their own communities.
Though spread unevenly, suspicion towards "law enforcement" has long existed among Muslims in the United States. Such sentiments became more visible in 2020, during the nationwide demonstrations following the police murder of George Floyd. And they have only become more pronounced since Israel's genocidal war in Palestine.
Indeed, when any meaningful resistance to US foreign policy is met with police violence, it becomes difficult to ignore the link between occupation abroad and state repression at home. Despite this growing political consciousness among Muslims, Cair remains committed to strengthening Muslim cooperation with "law enforcement".
In the aftermath of the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, numerous Cair branches disseminated the national office's "Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety", a booklet aimed at leaders and everyday congregants. Its recommendations take as given that Muslims embracing "law enforcement" will protect mosques from violence and desecration.
Best practices listed in the document thus include informing local police of mosques' daily schedules, inviting police to mosques for meetings and offering police training in cultural competency.
Recommendations also extend beyond local "law enforcement". The booklet stresses: "Attempt to establish liaison with state and federal agencies in the same manner as you did with the local police. Local police may be able to facilitate this effort."
Cair's best practices appear less concerned with Muslim defence than with having Muslims project respectability
It also reminds congregations unable to afford private inspections of their security protocols that police departments can offer such assessments, as can specialists from DHS.
Most bizarre is the booklet's jumble of non-evidence-based suggestions for deterring anti-Muslim violence. For example, it urges mosques to "acknowledge good work by individual police officers" and other local officials through "complimentary letters, phone calls, tweets, social media postings, annual award events, and the like".
It also recommends that mosque leaders "be personally acquainted and friendly with the officer who is regularly assigned to [the mosque's] area".
Though presented as guidance on "safeguarding" Islamic institutions, Cair's best practices appear less concerned with Muslim defence than with having Muslims project respectability.
"The government exploits the Muslim community's perceived desire to fit in," insisted Terry Albury, an FBI agent-turned-whistleblower. Albury, who served a prison sentence for leaking government documents, underscored that authorities are not kept at bay by Muslims presenting as model citizens.
He emphasised: "[FBI] sources are often willing volunteers who offer their services to the FBI in return for a favour... There are, however, situations in which a member of the community is led to believe they are doing their civic duty. An agent will often carefully cultivate this relationship in such a fashion that the person never views him or herself as a source and is simply being a 'good Muslim'."
Despite "law enforcement" capitalising on some Muslims' need to be viewed favourably, Cair's booklet implies that deference and gratitude towards police can help protect places of worship. Histories of Muslim criminalisation, however, have demonstrated the opposite - that welcoming police to the mosque funnels Muslims into government crosshairs.
