Why Trump’s ‘non-profit killer’ bill threatens Palestinian solidarity

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill, dubbed a nonprofit-killer policy proposal.

The lower chamber of US Congress passed it on Thursday, empowering the Secretary of the Treasury — a cabinet position nominated by the US president — with the “unilateral authority” to revoke the tax-exempt status of any non-government organisation without due process.

The move, many rights groups fear, would give unchecked powers to the government to police Palestinian rights organisations in the name of fighting terrorism.

If passed by the Senate, civil liberties groups warn that the law could be weaponised by the incoming Trump administration to punish political opponents.

Muslim community representatives say the legislation will be used to further suppress the voice of pro-Palestine protesters who are spuriously accused of supporting groups such as Hamas, a resistance group fighting Israel’s brutal occupation in Gaza.

“This bill was designed to silence and financially drain organisations that oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, the slaughter of Lebanese, and the broader erosion of human rights in the region. It is an attack on free speech and advocacy,” said Robert S. McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation in the US.

The whys and hows of the non-profit-killer bill

President-elect Donald Trump has already vowed to root out “enemies from within” the state. The Senate approving the bill will let the incoming administration get the arbitrary power to suspend the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit, including religious and advocacy groups.

The Secretary of the Treasury will just designate a group as a “terrorist supporting organisation”. On the face of it, the move will only subject the entity to income tax and take away its ability to receive tax-deductible contributions.

However the seemingly innocuous regulatory action will create a reputational risk for the entity concerned. Many nonprofits are dependent on donations, which go down as soon as an organisation is accused of terror financing.

Moreover, the law doesn’t require the Treasury Department to adhere to any evidentiary standard in releasing its findings. The targeted group will have the right to appeal, but high legal costs mean few organisations will have the financial wherewithal to survive regulatory action.

The bill appears to sidestep due process because the legal mechanism already exists in the US to stop any entity from providing material support to terrorist groups.

The original version of the bill was introduced in November 2023 by staunchly pro-Israel Congresswoman Claudia Tenney. She falsely accused the US-based nonprofits of supporting terror groups because they took part in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Widespread opposition

Muslim civil rights body CAIR is urging the Senate leadership and the White House to reject the “undemocratic legislation” that threatens to undermine constitutional rights and empower government overreach.

Even though the House of Representatives passed the bill by a simple majority (219-184), the number of lawmakers opposing the legislation increased significantly from a previous vote.

The same bill was introduced on November 12, but the vote failed to pass under the suspension of the rules, a parliamentary procedure that requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass.

The latest vote, however, required only a simple majority to pass because it had already gone through the relevant House committee. The successful vote garnered far less Democratic support than it had only days ago.

“This is a dangerous and an unconstitutional bill that would allow unchecked power to target nonprofit organisations as political enemies and shut them down without due process,” said Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the first and only Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress.

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat lawmaker, said the law would grant the president “Orwellian powers” and give the not-for-profit sector “Kafkaesque nightmares”. He said the “sloppy” violated due process and contained “everything condemned by the Supreme Court”.

A coalition of nearly 300 leading human rights organisations jointly wrote a letter to the House of Representatives, urging them to oppose the controversial bill.

It said the bill would grant the US president “extraordinary power” to investigate, harass and effectively dismantle any nonprofit — including news outlets, universities and civil liberties organisations — based on a “unilateral accusation of wrongdoing”.

Separately, a coalition of 55 prominent Jewish organisations also issued a statement that condemned the legislation, saying it jeopardises constitutional protections and politicises free speech under the guise of combating terrorism.