Abdullah Bozkurt / Stockholm
Ibrahim Halil Demir, a longtime executive of a Chicago-based Islamic charity with close ties to the Turkish government, has been flagged as a security risk in the United States, subjecting him to repeated airport screenings and, at times, removal from flights.
Over the years Demir, a naturalized US citizen of Turkish origin, has maintained close ties with the Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He has coordinated influence campaigns along with Turkish officials and facilitated the transfer of funds to support operations in places such as Gaza, Syria and Yemen.
Although Demir has appeared to act as a vehicle for Ankara’s global political agenda under the guise of humanitarian work, neither he nor his organization appears in the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) database. FARA requires any person in the US who promotes the interests of a foreign power to register and file regular disclosure reports.
Details of Demir’s designation as a flagged individual by US authorities emerged in a civil lawsuit he filed on June 13, 2025, against the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), alleging the agency violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by withholding records related to his repeated flagging during air travel.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks the release of records that Demir believes will clarify why he has repeatedly been subjected to enhanced airport screenings and, on multiple occasions, removed from flights for questioning. He is requesting not only internal TSA records concerning him but also any communications between the TSA and other federal agencies that mention his name.
If TSA has intelligence linking Demir to foreign influence operations or to Islamist groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US government, it could explain the heightened scrutiny he faces at American airports.
Suspecting that he may be the subject of a confidential investigation, Demir has attempted to uncover what federal authorities may have on him by filing six complaints with the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP) since 2022. All were denied, likely to protect sensitive intelligence sources and methods used in tracking foreign influence actors, especially those operating under the cover of legal US residency or citizenship. He filed another complaint on December 10, 2024, which remains pending.
Demir’s name appeared among approximately 1.5 million entries in a 2023 leak by a Swiss hacker of a 2019 version of the TSA’s No-Fly List and the broader Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSD). The leak was discovered on an unsecured server belonging to CommuteAir, a regional airline affiliated with United Airlines. Demir’s name was listed multiple times, with both Turkish and Arabic spellings.
His longstanding involvement with Islamist networks and deep ties to Turkish government officials may explain why he was put on the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS), a federal watchlist used by the TSA to monitor confirmed or suspected terrorists.
The civil lawsuit filed by Halil Demir revealed that he was being flagged at US airports:
Demir is the executive director of the Zakat Foundation of America, an Islamic charity he founded in Chicago in 2001. He settled in the US after a period in Switzerland, where he helped build Islamic networks and launched fundraising campaigns across Europe, supporting Muslims affected by the wars in Bosnia and Russia’s Chechnya during the 1990s.
His ties with the Turkish government became more visible in 2024 when, reportedly at Ankara’s urging, he organized a Turkish Festival in Chicago. The event was supported and/or sponsored by several Turkish state institutions, including the Office of the Presidency, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), the national flag carrier Turkish Airlines and the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The inaugural event in May 2024 reportedly drew some 15,000 attendees. A second festival was held in May 2025.
The Zakat Foundation maintains an office in Turkey, covering the organization’s Middle East operations. This office is run by Mehmet Demir, likely a relative of Halil Demir, who shares the same surname. The foundation collaborates closely with Turkish government entities such as the Diyanet’s wealthy and powerful charity arm, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and various local municipalities and governor’s offices.
Demir frequently appears in Turkish state media. He is often featured in Anadolu reports and interviewed by state broadcaster TRT, where he routinely echoes Erdogan government talking points.
A staunch Erdogan supporter, Demir has praised the Turkish president’s electoral victories and openly presents Turkey, despite its authoritarian drift and widespread human rights violations, as a model for American Muslims and the broader global Muslim community.
His Chicago office has served as a hub for Turkish government outreach efforts to the US Muslim community. For instance, in September 2016 Numan Kurtulmuş — an Islamist politician and then-deputy prime minister, now speaker of parliament — visited Demir’s office during a US trip. Demir hosted a luncheon that included prominent Muslim-American figures, such as Oussama Jammal, secretary-general of the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) and a known Muslim Brotherhood affiliate.
In March 2017 Demir led a delegation of Muslim-American activists to Turkey to meet with high-ranking Turkish officials. The delegation included representatives from Palestinian, Rohingya and Syrian communities in the US as well as a representative from the Nation of Islam.
US federal agencies have become increasingly cautious about Turkish government-affiliated charities, NGOs and media organizations operating on American soil. Some, like TRT’s Washington, DC bureau and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) office in DC, have been compelled by the US Justice Department to register under FARA.
Over the past decade the Erdogan government has expanded its operations across North America and Europe, targeting diaspora communities, exporting political Islamism and bolstering intelligence-gathering efforts. Numerous diaspora groups have been identified as fronts for Turkish state propaganda, espionage and soft-power campaigns, often blurring the lines between religious outreach, humanitarian work, media operations and political lobbying.
Demir’s Zakat Foundation appears to fit this model. In recent years it has hosted Turkish officials, promoted pro-Erdogan events, helped export Ankara’s political Islamist ideology and served as a liaison between Turkish consulates and diaspora networks.
If the federal court compels TSA to release the requested records, the outcome could set a legal precedent for how individuals suspected of foreign-state ties can access information about their surveillance status. However, it may also risk exposing sensitive US methods for identifying foreign influence operations.
This case could become a key battleground in the ongoing debate between civil liberties and national security — especially when alleged foreign agents attempt to use American legal protections to cleanse their reputations and obscure their affiliations.
