Grand Prairie Eid Water Park Celebration Canceled After Abbott Threatens $530,000 in City Grants

A third-annual Eid celebration at Grand Prairie's city-owned Epic Waters indoor water park was canceled in May 2026 after Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to strip the city of $530,000 in state grant funding, labeling the Muslim community event "religious discrimination" and "unconstitutional." Organizer Aminah Knight, who had grown the gathering into a beloved tradition for the area's South Asian Muslim families over three years, was left waiting for any direct word from city officials as the cancellation was announced through a vague public statement. The episode quickly drew statewide attention, with Pakistani-American State Rep. Salman Bhojani publicly accusing the governor of Islamophobia and a broad coalition of Texas lawmakers signing a letter demanding Abbott withdraw his funding threat.

🗳️ Texas Law Invoked Against Eid Celebration — Organizers Say Their Community Was Targeted

KERA News reported that the cancellation of Grand Prairie's Eid gathering at Epic Waters was not simply a venue dispute but reflected the reach of a new Texas law that Muslim community organizers believe was strategically applied against their event. The law expanded the governor's authority to challenge publicly funded venues that hosted faith-based events deemed preferential — and organizers were clear that no equivalent pressure had been applied to comparable events organized by other religious communities using the same facilities. The Eid celebration at Epic Waters had been three years in the making, and for the Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, and broader Muslim communities of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it had become something genuinely cherished: a day when families could gather in a festive, halal-friendly environment to mark the Eid holiday in comfort. The organizers' sense of being singled out was acute. A public facility should, by definition, be equally accessible to all communities, and yet it was the Muslim community's booking that drew the governor's ire and threat of financial punishment. Community leaders speaking to KERA made clear they did not intend to accept the cancellation as a permanent outcome. They committed to pursuing alternative venues, exploring legal remedies, and continuing to press the city for a direct explanation — determined to protect the tradition they had built from the ground up and to prevent a politically motivated cancellation from becoming the community's lasting memory of the event. [1]

🗳️ Rep. Salman Bhojani Charges Abbott with Islamophobia Over Epic Waters Decision

Texas State Representative Salman Bhojani, a Pakistani-American Democrat from Euless in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, emerged as the most prominent political voice condemning the cancellation of Grand Prairie's Eid celebration. In comments reported by CBS News, Bhojani said without hesitation that Governor Abbott's intervention represented Islamophobia — a deliberate, politically motivated use of state authority to suppress a Muslim religious observance at a public venue while comparable faith-based events organized by other religious communities proceeded without interference or gubernatorial comment. Abbott had framed his objection as a principled defense of constitutional equality, characterizing the Muslim-focused swim event at the city-owned water park as religious favoritism that violated the rights of other residents. Bhojani rejected that framing entirely. He noted that private community groups regularly rent public spaces for faith-centered gatherings across Texas without triggering any response from the governor's office — and that the selective attention paid to the Eid celebration exposed the true nature of the objection. For Bhojani and the South Asian Muslim families he represents across his North Texas district, the cancellation was not a one-off administrative decision but part of a broader pattern of anti-Muslim hostility in Texas politics. He called on Abbott to issue a public apology to the Muslim community, rescind the funding threat, and commit to allowing the Eid celebration to be rescheduled. The story drew national coverage and renewed calls for stronger legal protections for Muslim Americans in the state. [3]

🤝 Organizer Aminah Knight Still Waiting as Grand Prairie City Officials Offer No Direct Word

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth spoke with Aminah Knight, the organizer who had built the Epic Waters Eid celebration from nothing into a three-year community institution, and found her in a state of frustrated uncertainty following the cancellation. Knight said that despite the city's public announcement ending the June 1 event, she had still not received any direct communication from Grand Prairie officials — no explanation, no apology, and no conversation about what might come next. The city's public statement was strikingly thin: the event would not move forward "after further review and in the best interest of the city," with no acknowledgment of the governor's role in forcing the decision. What the public record made unmistakably clear was the chain of events: Abbott had publicly labeled the event "religious discrimination" and "unconstitutional," and his office had warned the city it stood to lose $530,000 in state grants if the celebration went ahead. Faced with that financial pressure, city officials complied. The political aftermath brought some measure of encouragement — a significant number of Texas lawmakers from across the aisle signed a letter calling on Abbott to withdraw the funding threat — but for Knight and the hundreds of Muslim families who had come to count on the Epic Waters Eid gathering as a highlight of their holiday calendar, the damage had already been done. She told NBC 5 she remained committed to finding a path forward and to keeping the tradition she had worked so hard to build alive for the community. [5]

Sources: [1] keranews.org · [3] CBS News · [5] NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth