By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0First\u00a0Amendment\u00a0and\u00a0the due process clause of the\u00a0Fourteenth\u00a0Amendment.<\/p>\n
Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU National Security Project, said they intend to file on behalf of CAIR-Florida for a preliminary injunction against the designation on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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,\u201d Shamsi said Tuesday outside the Cabinet meeting. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the first requirement for something as serious as this.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201can appropriate framework, where the state can take action appropriately to be able to defend the people of Florida against hostile actors and terrorists groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shamsi on Tuesday said the DeSantis Administration\u2019s \u201crelentless\u201d effort to label CAIR-Florida a terrorist organization is \u201cunnecessary, unprecedented, unprecedented and unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Shamsi said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The designations take effect Nov. 5.<\/p>\n
Shamsi described CAIR-Florida as an American nonprofit engaged in promoting civil rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike any other U.S. nonprofit, in Florida and around the country, they carry out \u2018know your rights\u2019 trainings, they engage with and represent community members whose rights have been violated by government action,\u201d Shamsi said. \u201cThey speak up for and against government policies. They are representing their communities and they\u2019re doing it every single day here in this state, for the benefit of the people of Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legislation was approved in the Republican-controlled Legislature by votes of 80-25 in the House and 25-11 in the Senate.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cpromotes\u201d terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n
The law defines \u201cpromotion\u201d as when a student\u2019s actions can be \u201creasonably interpreted\u201d as an actual threat of violence, disrupting the learning environment, infringing upon the rights of others or offering \u201cmaterial support for or the recruitment of members for such an organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Cabinet on Tuesday voted to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-414675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}