America has a recurring institutional failure: it grants tax advantages first and asks hard questions later.
That is the frame for two new reports from the open-source research firm ColEven, which say MyFundAction and the Islamic University of Minnesota are engaged in a kind of subterfuge. The reports say both present themselves as nonprofits while seeking to advance the ideological mission of terrorist groups like Hamas.
MyFundAction is described as a Malaysia-based nonprofit that routinely hosts events and fundraisers in partnership with Muslim student associations in California. Its own website describes it as a youth-run nonprofit that provides education, food, medical relief, and financial support to the poor. The group also hosts informal coffee chats and potluck dinners featuring MyFundAction speakers.
In December, MyFundAction’s American branch received tax-exempt status in the United States.
That is the consequence worth naming plainly. Tax exemption is not a decorative status. It is a subsidy in the form of forgone revenue, granted by the public to organizations that are supposed to serve lawful charitable or educational ends. If the reports are right, then taxpayer money is not merely being spared from a charity; it is being exposed to institutions that can be used to launder extremism through respectable language.
The editors of The Free Press say that from 9/11’s buildup to today, America has too often allowed terror groups and their sympathizers to use tax-exempt charities to advance their poisonous causes. Whether one is focused on universities, nonprofits, or student associations, the incentive problem is the same: weak scrutiny invites abuse, and abuse follows the path of least resistance.
The record here is narrow but serious. The reports say MyFundAction has a track record of unabashed support for Hamas. They also say the Islamic University of Minnesota is among the entities using charitable status in this way. Those are accusations in the reports, and they should be read as such. But even at this stage, the facts already on the page justify tougher oversight.
A free society does not have to surrender due process to insist on due diligence. It can protect liberty and still demand that charities, universities, and affiliated groups prove they are not giving cover to movements that celebrate terror.
The broader lesson is older than this case. Institutions that are built on trust are easiest to game when administrators treat compliance as paperwork rather than as a duty. Once tax exemption becomes automatic, the administrative state stops filtering for merit and starts laundering risk.
Say it plainly: if America is serious about counterterrorism, it cannot treat nonprofit status as a right, and it cannot let ideological camouflage pass as charity.
