Civil rights group sues Florida officials for designating CAIR a terrorist organization

Hours after Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that the state would soon designate the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) a domestic terrorist organization, the Muslim civil rights advocacy group filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging that designation as unconstitutional and are calling for an injunction to halt its enforcement.

DeSantis made the announced on the day a new law (HB 1471) went into effect allowing the move. It empowers the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to label organizations as domestic or foreign terrorist groups on evidence of specific criteria, including engagement in terrorist activity as defined by Florida law.

Targeted organizations must be based in Florida and pose an ongoing threat to the security of Florida or the United States. The governor and Cabinet would have to ratify the declaration.

The governor also announced that Antifa and the Muslim Brotherhood had also been recommended by FDLE head Mark Glass to be designated domestic terrorist groups, as well as more than 90 groups to be designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are among the legal groups acting as counsel for CAIR and CAIR Florida in the case, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee.

“The DTO [Domestic Terrorist Organization] regime contains no meaningful pre-designation, notice requirement, no evidentiary requirements, no standard of proof, and no requirement of a meaningful hearing before a neutral decisionmaker,” the lawsuit alleges. “It vests unbridled discretion in Florida’s executive branch to punish, ostracize, and silence civil society organizations with which it disagrees, based on nothing more than allegations of wrongdoing.”

DeSantis said Wednesday that he anticipated a lawsuit challenging the designation.

He’d attempted to designate CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as domestic terrorist organizations through an executive order in December. After CAIR legally challenged that in court, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking that designation, which the DeSantis administration has appealed.