SUNRISE, Fla. — On its website, the Council on American-Islamic Relations describes itself as “America’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization” and a “grassroots civil rights and advocacy group.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday announced his intent to recommend CAIR be formally designated on a state list as a terrorist organization.
“We have to draw a very strong line in the sand here,” DeSantis said.
Signed in April, the governor’s office says HB 1471 allows the state to designate terrorist organizations, announcing an “intent to designate” list that includes CAIR, which DeSantis said would prevent “foreign and extremist influence from taking root in the state.”
“This is, I think, what the people of Florida expected when I signed this law, which took effect today,” DeSantis said.
Back in April, representatives for CAIR Florida told Local 10 News they opposed the law.
“Today is a dark day for the Florida Constitution and the United States Constitution,” Wilfredo Ruiz, the communications director for CAIR Florida, said at the time.
Omar Saleh, an attorney for CAIR Florida, said in April that “people don’t become a security risk just because you don’t like them and you don’t agree with them.”
The governor said organizations designated under Florida law may also be subject to dissolution as provided by statute.
DeSantis said upon confirmation by the Florida Cabinet, individuals who “knowingly” provide material support or resources to organizations designated under the new statutory authority as terrorist organizations could face criminal penalties.
State and local governments will be prohibited from providing the groups taxpayer funding and contracts.
Public schools and colleges will also be prohibited from using public resources to support or promote the organizations.
“It will impact Florida’s K-12 school choice scholarship,” DeSantis said. “I am not sending scholarships to schools that are in cahoots with groups like CAIR. That is not going to happen.”
“Florida is not the free state that it says it is, especially when you look at laws like this,” Saleh said in April. “It’s baloney.”
In December, DeSantis signed an executive order that resulted in litigation.
“It is being challenged under the First Amendment right now,” legal analyst Bill Barner said. “CAIR had a district court block the executive order, now the governor is taking to Federal Circuit of Appeals.”
Barner, a criminal defense attorney and ex-prosecutor who teaches at Nova Southeastern University, said, the district judge found that the governor “shouldn’t have the power to be able to do that and also suspects that this was politically motivated ― that it’s political theater."
Court records show a bench trial has been scheduled to start this upcoming January.
Barner said DeSantis “has announced that he plans on using the litigation, the discovery process behind the litigation, to try to find proof of what they’re alleging ― that there are ties with Hamas.”
An attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing CAIR, said in a statement to Local 10 News that it, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups “look forward to responding in court.”
“Regardless of what Gov. DeSantis thinks, the U.S. Constitution is supreme across our nation, including in Florida,” Scott McCoy, the SPLC’s deputy legal director, said. “Gov. DeSantis is seeking to unilaterally silence a leading American civil rights nonprofit and punish those who support it.“
Court filings:
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