The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is preparing to sue Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after he issued an order designating the civil rights organisation as a “foreign terrorist” group — a label that legal experts say the state has no authority to enforce.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Hiba Rahim, the interim executive director of CAIR’s Florida chapter, said that while DeSantis’s move has no immediate legal impact, it risks inflaming Islamophobia across the United States.
“We’ll continue doing the work that we do every day to defend civil liberties and protect American Muslims,” she said, stressing that the order would not deter the group’s mission.
DeSantis announced the designation on Monday, directing state agencies to act against anyone providing what he called “material support” to CAIR. Critics, however, argue that the governor’s decree is largely symbolic: only the federal government can classify an organisation as foreign or terrorist, and CAIR — founded in 1994 — is a domestic civil rights group run by American citizens with dozens of chapters nationwide.
Legal analysts also note that “material support for terrorism” is a serious federal charge that requires evidentiary proceedings, none of which CAIR currently faces.
DeSantis’s declaration mirrors a similar action taken in November by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, another Republican ally of pro-Israel advocacy networks.