Overview
- State lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will not make any formal terrorist designations until it completes implementing regulations.
- The law, HB 1471, creates a state process to label domestic or foreign groups as terrorist organizations, bans taxpayer-funded support for designated groups, creates new state crimes for material support, and allows administrative dissolution of some entities.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly said on July 1 that he would seek to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Brotherhood, antifa and more than 90 foreign groups, but those moves are on hold while FDLE writes rules.
- CAIR, backed by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida and the Southern Poverty Law Center, sued to block the designations and points to a March preliminary injunction that halted a related December executive order as evidence of serious constitutional questions.
- The delay reduces immediate legal and operational risk for nonprofits and schools but leaves key questions unanswered about how officials would identify decentralized movements, apply criminal penalties, affect contracts and scholarships, and when the court will get a further update on July 22.