Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced on Tuesday, November 18, that he is officially labeling the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “foreign terrorist organizations” and “transnational criminal organizations” under Texas law.

This action came one week before U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he intended to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization at the federal level.

Abbott’s directive, which utilizes powers from the Texas Penal Code and Property Code, means the two groups face tougher criminal penalties and are prohibited from buying or owning land in Texas. The designation also allows citizens to file civil lawsuits against them under state law.

Texas law says a foreign terrorist organization is a group of at least three people operating partly outside the U.S. who engage in crime and threaten the safety of Texas or its residents. The governor’s proclamation references past criminal cases involving individuals connected to CAIR, including a major 2009 federal terrorism-financing case in which CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator.

At the beginning of November, the Federal Election Commission and OpenSecrets, a government transparency group that tracks political spending, reported that a Muslim civil rights organization, which some federal lawmakers have described as having “deep ties to terrorist…