CAIR-Florida, the Muslim Civil Rights Organization, Sues DeSantis Over Defamatory ‘Terrorist’ Designation

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil-rights organization, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order issued last week designating the group as a “terrorist organization.” CAIR is asking the court to block the executive order and declare it unconstitutional.

The CAIR-Foundation and CAIR-Florida filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee on Monday.

DeSantis issued his executive order on Dec. 8, designating CAIR a “terrorist organization.” The order directed Florida’s executive and Cabinet agencies, as well as every county and city, to deny local or state contracts, employment, funding, benefits, or privileges to CAIR and anyone known to provide “material support” to CAIR, including “expert advice or assistance.”

The order directs the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) to undertake “all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities in Florida” against terrorist organizations designated in Section 1 of the executive order, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood.

“This executive order does not present facts, it does not cite investigations, it does not point to any criminal findings. It simply declares guilt by proclamation,” said Hiba Rahim, interim executive director for CAIR-Florida, during a press conference at the organization’s Tampa headquarters Tuesday.

“It does not matter whether you agree or disagree with our policies or our advocacy. What should concern every American is the implication of allowing a government official to apply criminal designations without due process. This is not how things work in America. In this country, allegations come with evidence and evidence is tested in court. And it is judges, not politicians, who decide what is lawful.”

CAIR has never been declared a foreign terrorist organization by any federal agency.

In alleging that DeSantis has violated the Constitution, the lawsuit contends that he has:

• Illegally usurped the exclusive authority of the federal government to designate American organizations as terrorist groups based on allegations of material support for foreign terrorist groups.
• Violated the Constitution’s guarantee of due process by unilaterally designating CAIR a criminal actor and then ordering immediate punitive, discriminatory action against CAIR and its supporters without any chance to appeal that punishment or designation.
• Violated the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech by punishing Americans who seek to provide CAIR with material support, including speech in the form “assistance” and “advice,” and retaliating against CAIR for speech he finds objectionable, including the organization’s past lawsuit against him and its activism in support of Palestinian human rights.

CAIR-Florida and DeSantis do have a history in the courts. In November 2023, one month after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel, CAIR National and CAIR-Florida filed suit against Florida officials including DeSantis, challenging state directives to deactivate Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Florida public universities. In January 2024, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the case was not valid because the ban had not been enforced.

Florida joins Texas

During Tuesday’s news conference, CAIR officials said that in filing the lawsuit, they weren’t just standing up for Muslim rights, but constitutional rights for others as well, and noted that they have been joined in the lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, and the Michigan law firm Akeel & Valentine.

Saying the executive order calls on the FDLE and FHP to prevent all “unlawful activity” by CAIR, attorney Omar Saleh added that he thought such laws were already in place. “But Gov. DeSantis wants to add additional penalties, just in case you’re Muslim or if you support a Muslim group, and it doesn’t work that way in this country,” he said.

DeSantis’ executive order listing both CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorist organizations” came three weeks after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation prohibiting CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and its members from purchasing or acquiring land in the state, accusing them of supporting terrorism and undermining Texas laws through harassment, intimidation, and violence.

On Nov. 24, President Trump issued an executive order that sets in motion a process by which certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood “shall be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” CAIR has previously said that it has no association with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Texas U.S. Republican Sen. John Cornyn announced Monday that he wants to eliminate CAIR’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, saying in a written statement that the group “is a radical group of terrorist sympathizers with a long history of undermining American values.”

CAIR was established in 1994 and now has 25 chapters around the state, including in Tampa and Miami. CAIR officials were asked Tuesday to speculate about why they are now being targeted by two states and a U.S. senator.

“This has been happening much longer than a month ago, but it’s picking up a lot more because public officials are being more brazen in showing what their true thoughts are about Islam and Muslims,” said Saleh. “When Texas happened, we knew Florida would be coming, because we know that’s what the governor’s sentiment is.”

Thania Clevenger, national chief operating officer for CAIR, agreed that negative allegations regarding the organization aren’t new, but said they have been growing steadily since the Hamas attack on Israel two years ago.

“The impact against the community has been growing steadily since Oct. 7 with the Palestinian movement,” she said. “Our work has been effective. We have sued governors across the country who are ‘Israeli First.’ And so that action has brought more scrutiny to CAIR.”

‘Discovery rights’

When asked for comment, the governor’s press office sent the Phoenix previous statements DeSantis has made over the past week on social media and in person regarding his decision to issue the executive order.

“I welcome the lawsuit because what will happen is, that will give the state of Florida discovery rights to be able to subpoena the bank records. … And honestly, it gives us even more reason. … And so this is something that our attorney general is ready, willing and able to fighting on this, DeSantis said on Dec. 9 in North Miami Beach.

“They have every right to sue, and then we’re going to have a right to get the information that we need to make sure. But our agencies are on notice about how any of our programs or any of our operations are impacted, or not impacted, and so to the extent that they can be, then they’re going to have a basis to be able to protect the people and the taxpayers from that.”

DeSantis added in that press conference that “people forget CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror financing trial in the history of the United States of America. If there were any other situation where that happened, then people would be up in arms, but somehow that’s something that just gets forgotten.”

“A lot of it is financial,” he went to say. “That’s why I think a lawsuit is something that we very much welcome for that.”

That was a reference to a 2008 federal conviction of five former leaders of a U.S.-based Muslim charity named the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

CAIR had been included in the list of un-indicted co-conspirators in the case. The organization was not indicted, however, and on its website CAIR says that “the U.S. Attorney who led the Holy Land Foundation case confirmed decisions to indict were based only on evidence and law — not politics.”

–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

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