Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday announced that he is designating the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) - the largest civil liberties group for American Muslims - as both foreign terrorist organisations and transnational criminal organisations.

As a result, both groups would be barred “from purchasing or acquiring land” in the state of Texas, Abbott said.

The proclamation gives the state’s attorney general leeway to sue the groups accordingly.

It also specifically names Nihad Awad, the executive director of Cair, citing his past remarks that American Muslims are “ready to move to the next phase”, and that within the next 15 years the Muslim community “will have 50,000 - an army - of these people” who “will design [Islam’s] image, protect the truth and the news [and] many of these people will run for public office, and they will become lawmakers”.