Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Cabinet on Tuesday voted to name more than 90 groups as terrorist organizations, and a legal challenge is already in the works to overturn the move.
With little comment from the state panel and none taken from the public, the Cabinet voted to apply domestic or international terrorism labels to a series of groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the anti-fascism movement known as antifa as terrorist organizations.
The designations will also be imposed on more than 90 foreign organizations already listed as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, including the Venezuelan crime syndicate Tren de Aragua, two Mexican drug cartels and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.
Under a new law (HB 1471) that became effective July 1, CAIR filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee, contending DeSantis is violating the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU National Security Project, said it intends to file on behalf of CAIR-Florida for a preliminary injunction against the designation on Thursday.
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“There is nowhere in that notice any allegation or evidence that CAIR has engaged in any violent or dangerous act in violation of Florida or U.S. law,” Shamsi said Tuesday outside the Cabinet meeting. “And that’s the first requirement for something as serious as this.”
Shamsi said a written objection was filed Friday and she requested to speak during the meeting on behalf of CAIR-Florida, but was not recognized to address the panel, which includes Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson.
When an emergency rule was approved Sept. 11 to spell out how the 2026 legislation could be implemented, DeSantis said the long-sought designations provide “an appropriate framework, where the state can take action appropriately to be able to defend the people of Florida against hostile actors and terrorists groups.”
Shamsi on Tuesday said the DeSantis administration’s “relentless” effort to label CAIR-Florida a terrorist organization is “unnecessary, unprecedented, unprecedented and unconstitutional.”
“When the designation goes into effect, because this is steamrolling its way forward, and if it is not prevented, our clients will be unable to carry out their constitutionally protected activities in this state,” Shamsi said. “And that, as we have said, and I would have said today, is in violation of their due process rights under the (U.S.) Constitution and in violation of their First Amendment rights, among other things.”
The designations take effect Nov. 5.
Shamsi described CAIR-Florida as an American nonprofit engaged in promoting civil rights.
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“Like any other U.S. nonprofit, in Florida and around the country, they carry out ‘know your rights’ trainings, they engage with and represent community members whose rights have been violated by government action,” Shamsi said. “They speak up for and against government policies. They are representing their communities and they're doing it every single day here in this state, for the benefit of the people of Florida.”
The legislation was approved in the Republican-controlled Legislature by votes of 80-25 in the House and 25-11 in the Senate.
The law bars a court from enforcing any provision of a religious or foreign law, with an emphasis against the Islamic code known as Sharia law, and requires expelling any student in the Florida College System who “promotes” terrorist organizations.
The law defines “promotion” as when a student’s actions can be “reasonably interpreted” as an actual threat of violence, disrupting the learning environment, infringing upon the rights of others or offering “material support for or the recruitment of members for such an organization.”
Other parts of the law bar schools affiliated with designated terrorist organizations from receiving state K-12 scholarship program money. Also, public universities and colleges are prohibited from spending state or federal funds to support programs or campus activities that promote a designated terrorist organization.
