Members of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—including senior leaders—established a presence in the United States as early as the late 1950s. From the outset, they replicated core dynamics developed in Egypt: secrecy, selectiveness, sophisticated internal bureaucracy, and the formation of public-facing organizations not openly associated with the Brotherhood. Over time, this early infrastructure, which remains active today, has enabled the systematic recruitment of young Egyptian students—such as former Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi—who arrived in the U.S. for higher education.
Several organizations they helped establish are now among the most influential Muslim organizations in the United States. Founded in 1992, the Muslim American Society, for example, openly acknowledges its historical and ideological links to the Brotherhood; however, it denies any operational connection. Recent evidence uncovered by the Canadian government, however, challenges this claim, revealing how Brotherhood members in the Middle East and Canada have been able to transfer their membership seamlessly through MAS when relocating to the United States.
Following the 2013 overthrow of the Mursi government and the subsequent crackdown in Egypt, additional Brotherhood members relocated to the U.S. Since then, key figures have built a decentralized, yet tightly interconnected ecosystem composed of individuals, institutions, and platforms. Within this ecosystem, religious authority, institutional anchoring, political advocacy, and charitable activity converge through overlapping networks, forming a durable architecture of influence that advances the Brotherhood’s agenda from within American society.
Today, this ecosystem functions through several mutually reinforcing nodes:
- Advocacy and lobbying efforts are channeled through organizations presenting themselves as civil rights or democracy-oriented initiatives. In practice, their campaigns, messaging, and coordination patterns reflect a strategic effort to re-legitimize the Brotherhood’s political narrative, particularly within Washington-based policymaking circles.
- Organizations such as the Center for Egyptian-American Dialogue, Egyptian Americans for Freedom and Justice, and Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights, alongside high-profile individuals, actively promote Brotherhood-aligned narratives, maintain close interlinkages, and have lobbied members of Congress.
- Religious authority is exercised by key figures embedded in mosques, religious centers, and imam training initiatives across the United States. These actors maintain transnational ties to Brotherhood-affiliated theological structures, allowing them to shape ideological discourse at the community level while remaining under the public radar.
- Individuals connected to the Brotherhood’s most influential transnational networks—such as Mohamed Elbar and Akram Kassab, who was a close associate of the late spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi—embed religious legitimacy in the New York–New Jersey area, while simultaneously linking these institutions to the Brotherhood’s broader global sphere.
- Strategic philanthropy is a key vector of legitimacy and network expansion. Members of this ecosystem hold senior positions in major charitable organizations, including Islamic Relief USA, thus expanding their social credibility, transnational reach, and access to civil society platforms, while avoiding overt political identification.
- Key figures heading philanthropic organizations in the U.S., such as Khaled Lamada and Ahmed Shehata, demonstrate the linkage, intentionally or otherwise, between philanthropic endeavors and Brotherhood-aligned activism.