Greg Abbott threatens Dallas, Houston airports’ grant funds over Islamic washing facilities
By Ayden Runnels, The Texas Tribune
August 14, 2026
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport canceled plans to install a facility commonly used for Islamic prayer after Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday threatened to withdraw state and federal funding.
Abbott sent a letter to the North Texas airport’s CEO Christopher McLaughlin, as well as the mayors of Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, stating his office was in the process of reviewing all grant funds over facilities in their cities’ airports. He also sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to refer the airports for federal investigations.
“These ablution facilities appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion. That is illegal,” Abbott said in a news release announcing the grant reviews. “Both airports are government-owned facilities. The federal and state constitutions prohibit government from facilitating this sort of discrimination. Just as the government cannot favor the secular over the sacred, it also cannot favor one religious view over all others.”
At the center of the investigation and grant reviews are ablution facilities, used by Muslim people for wudu, in which hands and feet are rinsed prior to prayer. Abbott said the facilities “appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion” in his letter to the mayors and said funding would be revoked if their use continued.
Houston’s airport has had an ablution room since 2024, described as for use by people of all faiths. DFW told KERA that it has had a station since 2019.
Houston Airport did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Shortly after Abbott’s public announcement about the grant reviews, a DFW airport spokesperson said in a statement that plans for the facility had been cancelled after deciding it “would not deliver the originally anticipated operational benefits.”
“Like all proposed projects, the airport ultimately considers the operational benefits, customer service impacts, operational risks and costs before approving them,” the statement read.
Anti-Islamic rhetoric has been at the forefront of Texas Republican messaging through the year, as GOP leaders have railed for months about the urgency of ending the so-called “Islamification” of Texas.
Abbott has repeatedly used threats of withdrawing funding as a means of exerting control over Texas cities to press issues important to the GOP base in the state. Most recently, Abbott threatened $530,000 in grants for Grand Prairie unless the city canceled an event at a water park initially advertised as a “Muslims only” gathering. He also threatened funding for transportation last year unless cities removed rainbow crosswalks intended to show support for LGBTQ+ communities.
Abbott’s letters about the ablution facilities follow another letter sent Thursday by Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, to DFW airport officials. Parker, who chairs the state Senate’s transportation committee, sent a list of questions to administrators asking how the private donation for the facility was accepted and who it came from.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.