Overview
- The law that took effect July 1 gives Florida a permanent process for naming domestic and foreign terrorist organizations and Gov. Ron DeSantis announced an initial slate that includes CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, Antifa and more than 90 foreign groups.
- Under HB 1471 the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s chief of domestic security may recommend designations and those recommendations must be approved by a majority of the governor and Florida Cabinet before they take effect.
- The statute ties designations to concrete penalties by allowing the state to deny public funding and contracts, restrict participation in state scholarship and campus programs, create state crimes for material support, and in some cases seek administrative dissolution of organizations.
- Civil‑rights groups and CAIR have said they will sue and legal challenges are likely after a federal judge in March issued a preliminary injunction blocking elements of DeSantis’s earlier executive order targeting CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.
- Key enforcement questions remain unanswered about how Florida will identify decentralized movements such as Antifa, how criminal penalties will be applied to individuals, and whether the governor will call an emergency Cabinet session to finalize the designations.