{"id":77449,"date":"2025-12-09T20:49:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/77449\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T20:49:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:49:36","slug":"floridas-cair-vows-lawsuit-against-desantis-over-foreign-terrorist-label-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/77449\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida’s CAIR vows lawsuit against DeSantis over ‘foreign terrorist’ label"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. — A day after Gov. Ron DeSantis designated a leading Muslim civil rights organization<\/a> as a \u201cforeign terrorist organization,\u201d leaders of the group’s Florida chapter on Tuesday promised a lawsuit and said the state had no legal basis for such a declaration.<\/p>\n

The governor’s executive order against the Council on American-Islamic Relations was an attack based on conspiracy theories, similar to those aimed in past decades at other minority groups like Jewish, Irish and Italian Americans that created fear and division, Hiba Rahim, the Florida chapter’s deputy executive director, said at a news conference in Tampa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very proud to defend the founding principles of our Constitution, to defend free speech,\u201d Rahim said. \u201cWe are proud to defend democracy, and we are proud to be America first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rahim blamed DeSantis’ support for Israel as a reason for the executive order because she said the group’s activism had caused \u201cdiscomfort\u201d to Israel. In October, the group played an active role<\/a> in advocating for the release of a 16-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida who had been held in an Israeli prison<\/a> for eight months. Mohammed Ibrahim was released last month.<\/p>\n

Florida has an estimated 500,000 Muslim residents, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not back down here,\u201d said Rahim, vowing to sue.<\/p>\n

The order also gives the same \u201cforeign terrorist\u201d label to the Muslim Brotherhood<\/a>. Neither CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood is designated as<\/a> a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

Questioned by reporters at a press event in North Miami Beach on Tuesday, DeSantis doubled down on his administration\u2019s decision to label the Muslim civil rights group a \u201cforeign terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI welcome the lawsuit,\u201d DeSantis said, calling the designation \u201ca long time coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor also said he expects state lawmakers to push \u201cfollow-on legislation\u201d on the issue during the regular session that starts in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think our executive order is kind of the beginning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The governor’s executive order instructs Florida agencies to prevent the two groups and those who have provided them material support from receiving contracts, employment and funds from a state executive or cabinet agency.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1994, CAIR has 25 chapters around the country. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a similar proclamation in Texas. CAIR last month asked a federal judge to strike down Abbott\u2019s proclamation, saying in a lawsuit<\/a> that it was \u201cnot only contrary to the United States Constitution, but finds no support in any Texas law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Florida news conference Tuesday, Tampa attorney Miranda Margolis said the governor didn’t have any legal authority to unilaterally designate a nonprofit as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis designation is without legal or factual basis and constitutes a dangerous escalation of anti-Muslim political rhetoric,\u201d said Margolis, who was representing the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Mike Schneider on Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. — A day after Gov. Ron DeSantis designated a leading Muslim civil rights organization as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[43555,1111,30275,43554,43553,28,30,29,477,33991,4137,1105,99,1739,2374,1110],"class_list":["post-77449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-43555","tag-article","tag-civil-rights","tag-conspiracy-theories","tag-executive-orders","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-general-news","tag-islam","tag-lawsuits","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-terrorism","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77449","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=77449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}