DeSantis Signs Vague Anti-Terrorism Law Masquerading as “Anti-Sharia”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sign a vague law Monday that gives a handful of state officials — including him — the ability to designate groups as terrorist organizations and revoke their nonprofit status. Any student who supports said terrorist organization can be expelled under the new law.
Florida HB 1471 appears to target the state’s Muslim organizations, and DeSantis said as much at a news conference before signing the bill, calling it a way to protect against “Sharia law” and strengthen “public safety, our culture and our security.”
“We don’t want money flowing to these groups that are appendages of terrorist groups,” DeSantis added, mentioning the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations by name. “We will spend millions on public safety, millions on education, but never a cent on jihad.”
CAIR is an organization whose mission is to protect the civil rights of American Muslims. It is headquartered in Washington, DC and has chapters throughout the country. In a press release, the executive director of CAIR-Florida, Hiba Rahim, called DeSantis for “falsely calling CAIR terrorist without authorization or legal evidence” four months earlier in a different invoice it was later blocked in court.
“It’s not just about CAIR. This broad and deeply flawed framework can attack any organization that dares to express dissent,” Rahim said of the new law. “As Floridians, together, we will monitor how this unprecedented law is enforced and whether it is used or abused.”
References to sharia law in the bill could also prevent Muslim schools from receiving state vouchers if they are considered affiliated with a group labeled a terrorist organization. Sharia conspiracy theories are a right-wing phenomenon fixing for decades, conservatives have falsely claimed that Muslims are trying to establish a religious legal system.
The bill does not include any method for monitoring of how groups would be designated as terrorist organizations, either by the courts or by the Florida Legislature.
“There is no requirement for legislative approval,” Democratic Rep. Rita Harris said as the bill was debated. “There is no independent judicial decision before the designation takes effect. There is no meaningful built-in oversight mechanism to ensure transparency or oversight. In our system of government, we do not place broad labeling power in the hands of a few executive officials with no safeguards.”
The bill will likely face legal challenges due to violations of the rights to free speech and religion enshrined in the First Amendment, and may not survive in court. Islamophobia, by contrast, appears to persist in American political discourse, even as its spokespeople are routinely denounced as bigots.
