(Johnny Edwards, The Center Square) The City of Atlanta paid more than $250,000 to a Chicago-based Muslim organization, which at the time was raising money for another group that’s been accused of aiding Hamas.
The Inner-City Muslim Action Network’s founding executive director is a Palestinian-American community activist earning a salary of $225,000, according to tax filings. During the period Atlanta paid the group, it staged a “Benefit Concert for Gaza” held in Chicago that raised money for another nonprofit called Anera. Anera has been flagged by two Israeli watchdogs for allegedly working alongside terrorists, which the nonprofit strongly denies.
“I think there are a lot of questions that need to be raised about any organization that’s operating in Gaza right now,” said Yona Schiffmiller, director of research for the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, which has issued warnings about Anera. “And there needs to be a lot more uncovered about the way the NGOs have operated in Gaza.”
According to city records, Atlanta’s payments to the Muslim network were to help migrants pouring through U.S. borders – part of a larger tranche of federal dollars paid out to a list of nonprofits “to stabilize families and individuals that are encountered by Department of Homeland Security.”
At the time, the federal government was still handing out massive bucks to local governments to shelter, feed, transport, and provide other services for “noncitizen migrants.” Before President Donald Trump took office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began nationwide immigration sweeps, taxpayers shelled out out $1.72 billion to shelter and accommodate some of the same population now being targeted for removal.
The money flowed to local governments, who passed the money along to contractors and nonprofits. The Inner-City Muslim Action Network has a branch in Atlanta and became a beneficiary.
“It’s hard to make the case that there was some kind of long-term benefit for taxpayers,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. “Because the people that benefitted don’t have a path to legal status, for the most part, and are now being expected to leave the country.”
According to city council records, Atlanta received at least $11.75 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants to accommodate “unhoused immigrants.”
The city’s online payment records show millions of dollars flowing to non-governmental organizations including the Hispanic Alliance ($2 million), Inspiritus ($1.9 million), International Rescue Committee ($838,000) and the Latin American Association ($283,500). None of those groups, nor the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, responded to interview requests from The Center Square seeking to know how the money was spent.
The Atlanta City Council approved two resolutions to fund the groups, both brought forward by Councilmember Andrea Boone. One of the resolutions said the city used a federal exception to bypass the regular competitive procurement process.
Boone told The Center Square money paid to the Inner-City Muslim Action Network went toward food and medical care.
Asked if any of the funds might have been used on the concert for Gaza, Boone said Monday, “I doubt that, but let’s try to find out,” explaining her search may take a few days.
Atlanta offers just one example of how the Biden administration threw money at the border crisis, and how that money wound up flowing to NGOs.
“My general impression was that there was not a lot of oversight,” Vaughan said, “that the program was created kind of with a sense of panic, and the numbers were so huge that the state and local governments were really scrambling to do something with these people and get them off the streets.”
The money came through FEMA – $715 million from a humanitarian subset of its Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which morphed into the Shelter and Services Program, racking up more than $1 billion.
Now, the federal government is spending exponentially more money to detain, deport and keep out unauthorized immigrants.
With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress appropriated $170 billion over four years toward immigration enforcement, including $75 billion for ICE and $47 billion for border wall construction. ICE operations in Minnesota have sparked an organized resistance, with civil unrest, violence and deaths.
The Inner-City Muslim Action Network, or IMAN, expanded to Atlanta in 2016 and has a 10-unit apartment building just south of Interstate 20. Its scope of services includes health and wellness, arts and culture, social justice and transitional housing for men and women recently released from prison, according to its most recent Form 990.
The tax filing says Founding Executive Director Rami Nashashibi earns a salary of $225,000. Also earning six-figure salaries: its medical director, an associate medical director, a chief program director, a chief executive director, and a chief growth and strategy director.
When The Center Square called IMAN’s media line last week, a man answering the phone said Nashashibi was not available for an interview and suggested reaching out to the Atlanta branch. A TCS reporter visited that office, but a person inside the administration and communications office would not open her door. A message left wasn’t returned.
The organization did not offer any other officials to speak with The Center Square and did not respond to emailed questions.
IMAM was among 10 nonprofits chosen by city council to receive FEMA funds for unhoused immigrants, council records show. In October 2024 – at a point when Atlanta had already paid the nonprofit more than $54,000 – it staged a “Benefit Concert for Gaza” at the Ramova Theater in Chicago, headlined by the rapper Common. News accounts say tickets ranged from $35 to $125.
IMAN said concert proceeds went to two other nonprofits working in the Gaza Strip: World Central Kitchen and American Near East Refugee Aid, or Anera.
Anera has faced allegations by two Israeli groups, NGO Monitor and the Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin, of coordinating with and assisting Hamas.
In 2017, the Shurat HaDin law center called on then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to cut the tens of million of dollars in USAID money going to Anera, accusing the group of helping to build a mosque used to recruit terrorists and a kindergarten used to indoctrinate children.
As recently as last year, NGO Monitor accused Anera of working with Gaza’s Ministry of Social Development, run by a high-ranking Hamas official, to open shelters and launch a women’s empowerment program. In 2024, the Ministry was headed by Ghazi Hamad, designated a “senior Hamas official” by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Asked if American donors or taxpayers should be concerned about money going to Anera, Schiffmiller advised an “abundance of caution.”
“What we’ve seen is that people have to be very careful about funding NGO activities in Gaza,” he said.
In a 2017 news release rebutting the Israeli law group’s letter to the State Department, Anera’s then-president said, “Anera rejects in the strongest possible terms the letter’s allegations of any complicity with terrorist organizations in Gaza or anywhere.” The statement said the kindergarten facility had received no material benefit, cash or goods from the group and that the legal center had mixed up the name of an organization it worked with in Jabalia, in the Gaza Strip.
The Washington-based nonprofit responded to The Center Square’s interview request with a written statement, saying NGO Monitor also mixed up two different organizations.
“The claims within these reports are simply erroneous and reflect a critical area of confusion surrounding aid in Gaza,” the statement emailed by Anera spokesman Steven Fake said. “There are two entirely separate Ministries of Social Development: one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. Anera does not and did not work with the Hamas-led Ministry of Social Development in Gaza. As part of our rigorous protocols, we do sometimes coordinate our lists of beneficiaries with the Ministry of Social Development in the West Bank, through their committee in Gaza – a process in which Hamas has no input or involvement.”
However, Schiffmiller, of NGO Monitor, said its reports linking Anera to Hamas are based on Hamas internal documents obtained by Israel Defense Forces.
