Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that Florida will use a new state law to designate more than 90 organizations as terrorist groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Brotherhood and Antifa, his office said. HB 1471, which was signed earlier this year, went into effect Wednesday and the governor said the move would be the first use of powers created under the law.
Under HB 1471, the chief of domestic security may identify organizations as domestic or foreign terrorist groups, but the governor and Cabinet must approve or reject those designations by majority vote before they are published in the Florida Administrative Register, the law states. State officials have said the list also includes foreign entities such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and criminal groups including Cartel de Sinaloa, Tren de Aragua, Cartel del Noreste and Cartel del Golfo.
DeSantis said in a statement that the measures build on a December executive order and provide “permanent statutory tools to combat terrorism while defending the Constitutional rights of our citizens.” Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass said, “Keeping our community safe starts with identifying the threat,” and urged cooperation among officers, federal partners and the public.
The law directs state agencies to deny public support and taxpayer funding to designated groups and creates state enforcement mechanisms and criminal penalties for knowingly providing, attempting to provide or conspiring to provide material support to a designated domestic terrorist organization, according to the statute. It also says foreign or religious legal codes cannot override the U.S. or Florida constitutions in state courts.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the action and said it will continue to challenge the state in court, noting it has not been charged or convicted of any crime. “Throughout CAIR’s long history, our civil rights organization has worked to protect the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech, religious freedom and equality under the law,” the group said in a statement, adding it would fight what it called “baseless attacks.” The American Civil Liberties Union’s Hina Shamsi said the move threatens First Amendment protections and that the organization is seeking court relief for CAIR and CAIR-Florida.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
