CAIR suspends Florida operations after judge lets state 'terrorist' designation take effect
A federal judge has declined to block Florida's designation of CAIR and CAIR-Florida as domestic terrorist organizations, and the groups have suspended their Florida operations. The designation — made Sept. 29 by a vote of the governor and Cabinet under this year's HB 1471, with no charges and no trial — took effect Thursday. Judge Allen Winsor, who let it stand, called the law 'novel — and perhaps unprecedented.' The ACLU says it will appeal.
- U.S. District Judge Allen C. Winsor denied the emergency request Wednesday night (Nov. 4): CAIR was unlikely to succeed at this stage on its First Amendment and due-process claims under HB 1471, and had not shown the designation was criminal punishment. One narrow protection: prosecutors may not enforce the law over the provision of legal services.
- The designation took effect Thursday (Nov. 5). CAIR and CAIR-Florida — the largest Muslim civil-rights organization in the country and its Florida chapter — announced they have suspended Florida operations, exactly the shutdown CAIR told the court on Oct. 28 could come within days.
- What designation means under HB 1471: exposure to forced dissolution, a freeze on state funds and support, and public colleges required to report — and empowered to expel — students who 'promote' a designated organization. The designation was made by a Sept. 29 vote of Gov. DeSantis and the Cabinet; DeSantis signed the designation law in April.
- Both sides, in their words: DeSantis and AG James Uthmeier hailed the ruling. CAIR calls the enforcement baseless and unconstitutional; the ACLU of Florida says it will appeal. The underlying constitutional case continues.
Florida's new domestic-terror designation power has now been used, challenged, and — for the moment — upheld, and its first target has closed its Florida doors. On Wednesday night, U.S. District Judge Allen C. Winsor declined to block the state's designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Florida chapter, CAIR-Florida, as domestic terrorist organizations. The designation, voted into being on September 29 by Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, took effect Thursday. CAIR announced it has suspended its Florida operations — the outcome the group warned this same judge about on October 28, when it told the court enforcement could force it to shut down within days.
The law beneath it is HB 1471, signed in April, which empowers the state's chief of domestic security, the governor and the Cabinet to designate organizations as domestic terrorist organizations by vote. No criminal charges are required; there is no jury, and no trial precedes the designation. What follows one is severe: a designated group can be forcibly dissolved, state funds and support are cut off, and Florida's public colleges must report — and may expel — students found to have 'promoted' a designated organization. Judge Winsor's ruling turned on the emergency question only: whether CAIR was likely enough to win its First Amendment and due-process claims to justify freezing the law now. He found it was not, at this stage — while describing the statute itself, in his own words, as 'novel — and perhaps unprecedented.' He did carve out one protection: the law may not be enforced against the provision of legal services. The constitutional case itself continues, and the ACLU of Florida says it will appeal.
The official reactions split exactly where anyone would predict. Governor DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier hailed the ruling as a vindication of the state's authority to act against organizations it deems threats. CAIR calls the enforcement baseless and unconstitutional — a civil-rights organization extinguished in a state by executive designation rather than by any finding of crime — and has said so on its way out the Florida door.
This page takes no side on CAIR itself; readers will supply their own, in both directions, and the litigation will supply the legal answer in time. The structural fact is the one that outlasts this case, and it is the same fact running through this fall's coverage of preemption statutes and budget levers: a power now exists in Florida law by which a governor and three elected cabinet officers can designate an organization a terrorist organization, with dissolution and campus expulsions downstream, and the first federal judge to examine it let it operate while calling it unprecedented. Powers like that do not retire with the administrations that write them. They sit in the statute book, available in full to every future governor and Cabinet — of any party, aimed at any group the politics of that moment nominate. Whether that is a tool Florida needed is the argument the appeal will now carry. That the tool now exists, and has been used, is no longer an argument at all. It is the record.