Overview
- DeSantis, who signed HB 1471 on Monday at the University of South Florida, created a state system to label organizations as terrorist groups and to remove students found to support them.
- Under the law, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s chief of domestic security recommends a designation that must be approved by the governor and the three-member Cabinet, with public notice and a 30-day window to challenge it in Leon County court.
- A designation can dissolve corporations, cut off state money to agencies, schools, and programs tied to the group, force public universities to expel students who “promote” it, and require reporting of expelled visa-holding students to ICE, with new felonies for material support.
- The statute also bars courts from applying foreign or religious codes such as Sharia, and a companion bill, HB 1473, limits public access to records used in designation decisions.
- CAIR, the ACLU of Florida, and PEN America warn that vague terms like “promote” could punish protected speech, noting a federal judge blocked DeSantis’s December order against CAIR, and lawsuits are being prepared before the law takes effect July 1.