What began as a South Florida voter organization now has national funding relationships, political action committees, sophisticated election operations, and endorsements stretching from Congress to local school boards. Its history also leads back to CAIR, a federal watchlist controversy, and a group of Florida attorneys with direct connections to political campaigns.
In February 2012, the Miami New Times published an investigation involving South Florida attorney Khurrum Wahid. He was representing members of a family facing federal charges involving financial support for the Pakistani Taliban. During the reporting, Wahid disclosed something about himself: in 2011, the federal government had placed him on its Selectee List, a terrorism-related watchlist used to identify travelers for additional airport security screening.
Wahid had previously worked with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, including its Florida chapter. He was also involved in an organization established in South Florida in 2006 to increase Muslim-American voter participation. That organization was called the Center for Voter Advocacy, and over the next decade, it would operate under three additional names before becoming Emgage Action.
Today, Emgage Action endorses candidates for the U.S. Senate, Congress, governorships, state legislatures, county commissions, city councils, judicial offices, and school boards. Its federal political action committee reports hundreds of thousands of dollars in receipts and expenditures, while its nonprofit operations have received substantial grants from national political and philanthropic organizations. In Florida, relationships involving its founding attorney still connect to candidates on its endorsement list.
The Florida Division of Corporations identifies Emgage Action under document number N06000011777, with an original incorporation date of November 14, 2006. Its corporate filings trace four names across the same organization.
**November 2006:**Center for Voter Advocacy, Inc.**January 2013:**Emerge USA Committee for Voter Advocacy, Inc.**June 2015:**Emerge USA, Inc.**April 2017:**Emgage Action, Inc.
These were changes to the name of the same Florida corporation, which retained its original filing number. The dates also coincide with a period of organizational expansion, although the filings do not establish that government investigations prompted any of the changes.
In 2012, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding published a study examining Emerge USA’s work in Florida. The organization was registering voters, conducting civic education, and building relationships with elected officials. Its early activity centered on Muslim-American political participation, but Florida was becoming the starting point for operations in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Emgage’s 2015 annual report described restructuring, and its 2016 report documented election operations in multiple states. In January 2017, Wa’el Alzayat became its first chief executive officer as the organization worked to consolidate its operations nationally. Three months later, the Florida corporation adopted the Emgage Action name.
The corporate history establishes continuity through the changes. Its reports describe restructuring and national expansion during the same period, but do not identify government scrutiny as the reason for the rebranding. The original Florida entity remained active throughout.
Wahid’s professional background included civil-rights work, federal criminal defense, and involvement with CAIR. His representation of clients in terrorism-related prosecutions brought him into public view before Emgage became a national political organization.
The February 2, 2012 Miami New Times investigation reported Wahid’s account of being placed on the federal Selectee List in 2011. The Selectee List is separate from the No Fly List, and people on it may still travel but are subject to enhanced screening. The newspaper did not identify the government’s reason for Wahid’s placement.
The report also discussed his representation of members of the Khan family, who were facing federal allegations involving support for the Pakistani Taliban. Wahid was acting as a defense attorney, while his political organizing work had already begun several years earlier.
Emgage Action’s 2017 federal tax filing identifies Khurrum Wahid as president, with no compensation reported for that position. Florida’s 2023 corporate filing also lists Wahid as a director, alongside other officers and directors including Amin Mohamed Mitha.
By 2026, the organization’s Florida corporate report identified Muzammil Ahmed as chairman, Riaz Merchant as director, and Amin Mitha as treasurer. Mitha’s name also appears in federal and Florida campaign-finance records for Emgage’s political committees, connecting several parts of the organization’s operations through their registered officers.
Emgage’s national leadership changed in 2026 when Mohamed Gula became permanent CEO of Emgage Foundation and Emgage Action on September 1, following an interim appointment. Wa’el Alzayat had previously served as the organization’s national CEO, and the published leadership history also identifies Iltefat Hamzavi in Emgage Foundation leadership.
Emgage Foundation and Emgage Action perform different functions. The Foundation operates educational and civic-engagement programs, while Emgage Action is a 501(c)(4) organization involved in lobbying, policy campaigns, and political endorsements. Emgage Federal PAC and Emgage Florida PAC operate separately under federal and state campaign-finance reporting systems.
The most recent publicly available IRS financial returns are for fiscal year 2024. Emgage Foundation reported $4,069,674 in revenue and $4,310,789 in expenses, while Emgage Action reported $1,797,001 in revenue and $1,713,921 in expenses. Although both organizations filed their 2026 Florida corporate annual reports, their 2025 financial figures were not available in the public IRS records reviewed as of October 25, 2026.
Emgage Action revenue and expenses:
**2019:Revenue $673,689; expenses $292,5252020:Revenue $1,397,811; expenses $1,024,6172021:Revenue $542,559; expenses $989,5762022:Revenue $1,055,634; expenses $686,1082023:Revenue $1,628,698; expenses $389,4662024:**Revenue $1,797,001; expenses $1,713,921
Emgage Action’s revenue rose sharply in 2020, fell in 2021, and climbed again in 2023 and 2024. Its 2024 revenue was more than twice its reported 2019 revenue. The organization’s tax filings also document relationships with other nonprofits that provided grants or received funding.
An IRS-derived grant database identifies seven grants to Emgage Action for 2024 totaling $1,270,000. The organizations named in those records include major national advocacy funders and political nonprofits.
Reported 2024 grants:
Open Society Policy Center:$750,000Tides Advocacy:$150,000Proteus Action League:$125,000Future Forward USA Action:$100,000Michigan Civic Action Fund:$85,000Sixteen Thirty Fund:$50,000Communities United Action Fund:$10,000Total:$1,270,000
More recent grant records are beginning to appear. A Candid-derived database identifies a $10,000 grant from the Communities United Action Fund to Emgage Action in 2025 for political activity support, although another IRS-derived database records a grant of the same amount from that funder in 2024. Separately, Emgage Foundation is listed as receiving $25,000 from the National Partnership for New Americans in 2025. Complete 2025 financial returns and a verified 2026 grant roster were not available in the records reviewed.
Open Society Policy Center accounted for approximately 59% of these seven reported grants. The same IRS-derived database identifies approximately $5.1 million in grants to Emgage Action between 2019 and 2024, with the largest reported funders including Open Society Policy Center at approximately $2.5 million, All Hands on Deck Network at $940,000, and Tides Advocacy at $610,000.
Those amounts come from the grantmakers’ nonprofit tax filings, rather than a complete public list of donors supplied by Emgage. They document reported support for the advocacy organization, not necessarily contributions to particular candidates or payments for particular election advertisements.
Emgage Foundation also distributes grants to other organizations. Its 2024 records identify $137,000 for OCA–Greater Houston, $122,000 for the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, and $112,000 each for Neo Philanthropy and Every Voice Texas.
Other listed recipients include VN Teamwork, the Chinese Community Center, Boat People SOS Houston, and the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. Several of the largest recipients are based in Texas, and the Foundation’s grantmaking extends to organizations serving Asian-American, immigrant, Muslim, and other communities.
The nonprofit filings document money moving in both directions. Emgage Action receives grants from national funders, while Emgage Foundation distributes money to other organizations. Those transactions sit alongside a separate system of political committees governed by campaign-finance law.
Emgage Federal Political Action Committee registered with the Federal Election Commission on July 22, 2008, under committee number C00453704. The FEC classifies it as a hybrid PAC with a non-contribution account, a structure that permits separate activity involving candidate contributions and independent expenditures.
For the 2026 election cycle, the committee’s reported summary covers January 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026.
Federal PAC financial summary:
Total receipts:$418,196.56Individual contributions:$101,239.00Other receipts:$314,457.56Total disbursements:$410,203.44Contributions to other committees:$97,290.00Independent expenditures:$109,007.24Other disbursements:$189,641.82Operating expenditures:$6,764.38Ending cash on hand:$33,013.05
The largest category of incoming money was other receipts, accounting for $314,457.56. The largest spending category was other disbursements, totaling $189,641.82. The committee also reported $109,007.24 in independent expenditures and $97,290 in contributions to other committees.
Those classifications are important because direct contributions and independent expenditures are different forms of political spending. The FEC’s itemized schedules contain the individual transactions underlying the totals, including named contributors, recipients, vendors, and dates.
The PAC’s 2024 cycle was larger. Its records show approximately $590,007 in receipts, $632,357 in spending, and $426,350 in independent expenditures. That activity preceded the 2026 cycle in which Emgage Action expanded its published endorsements across federal, state, and local races.
Florida maintains a separate Emgage political committee. The Florida Division of Elections identifies Emgage Florida PAC under account number 45307, with Shahmeer Alam as chairperson and Amin Mitha as treasurer. The federal PAC, Florida PAC, Emgage Action, and Emgage Foundation have separate legal and financial records, but their filings show how the organization’s activities extend across nonprofit advocacy, state politics, and federal elections.
Emgage’s political work extends beyond endorsements and campaign contributions. During the 2020 presidential election, it participated in the Million Muslim Votes campaign, a national effort to increase Muslim-American turnout.
Its 2020 impact report identified political technology and voter-data providers including Civis Analytics, TargetSmart, Catalist, Spoke, ThruTalk, ThruText, Phone2Action, and EveryAction. The organization also described a name-matching algorithm and an ethnicity-identification method associated with University of California, San Diego researcher Tom K. Wong.
Those tools helped organizers identify potential voters, build contact lists, and coordinate election outreach. In Florida, Emgage reported more than 400,000 calls, 401,000 texts, approximately 370,000 mailers, and more than 5,900 doors knocked during its 2020 campaign.
The eight Florida priority counties were Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Duval, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Osceola, and Seminole. Emgage’s national operation also involved organizations including the Muslim Public Affairs Council, MPower Change, Poligon, the Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition, the Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance, and the Movement Voter Project.
Emgage reported providing participating groups with organizing support and access to voter-data resources. Its 2023 Florida figures included 21,500 texts, 6,672 calls, and 1,297 doors knocked, demonstrating continued outreach after the presidential election.
The organization’s 2023 annual report also described political events involving Florida Representative Marie Woodson, Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, Khurrum Wahid, and Farooq Mitha. The reports describe a sustained operation involving voter identification, direct outreach, community organizing, and relationships with elected officials.
Emgage Action endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Its reporting described engagement with the Biden campaign and efforts to secure policy commitments on issues important to Muslim-American voters.
That same year, Emgage faced a public dispute with the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations. On October 8, 2020, USCMO announced that Emgage was no longer a member of its coalition, citing disagreements over Emgage leaders’ relationships with the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, and Muslim Leadership Initiative.
USCMO criticized those relationships because of the organizations’ positions concerning Israel, Palestinian advocacy, and boycott campaigns. The council reported discussions with Emgage representatives before announcing the split, while Emgage disputed the allegations publicly.
A separate campaign called #DropEmgage also criticized Emgage’s cooperation with Jewish advocacy organizations. Its materials identified leaders including Khurrum Wahid, Farooq Mitha, Wa’el Alzayat, Nabila Mansoor, and AJ Durrani.
The dispute exposed disagreements within Muslim-American political organizations over cooperation with Jewish advocacy groups and the role of Israel-related policy in domestic political organizing. It occurred during the same presidential election in which Emgage was organizing voters and supporting Biden.
Emgage Action’s published endorsement criteria identify the issues and relationships it considers when selecting candidates. Its priorities include voting rights, immigration, healthcare, economic policy, civil rights, and foreign affairs, but its rules also specifically address relationships with pro-Israel political organizations.
The criteria exclude candidates funded by or aligned with AIPAC-affiliated PAC networks. Emgage also names HA PAC and certain Hindutva-aligned political networks in its exclusion criteria, placing these funding relationships directly within its candidate-selection process.
Emgage Action’s Palestine advocacy materials support the right to participate in boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns targeting Israel. They describe engagement with President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, while identifying CAIR as a collaborating organization on Palestine-related advocacy.
On October 6, 2026, Emgage Action issued a statement accusing Israel of genocide, demanding a halt to U.S. military sales to Israel, and calling for a ceasefire. Its positions concerning Israel are therefore present in both its policy advocacy and its published endorsement rules…
