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Sunday, May 10, 2026
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Florida Designated CAIR a Terrorist Organization — A Federal Judge Just Let It Stick

Ninety organizations now sit on Florida's domestic terrorist list. As of Wednesday night, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is one of them — and a federal judge just declined to do anything about it.

CAIR suspended all operations in the state on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor of the Northern District of Florida denied CAIR's emergency request to block the designation, ruling that the organization failed to prove the state had unconstitutionally restricted its freedom of association. The designation, made official on September 29 when Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet formally labeled CAIR a domestic terrorist organization under HB 1471, now carries the full weight of law.

The law empowers the state's Chief of Domestic Security — Larry Keefe, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner — to designate terrorist organizations. It bars designated groups' affiliated schools from receiving K-12 scholarship funds. It prohibits public universities and colleges from spending state or federal funds supporting designated organizations. It requires the expulsion of students who "promote" terrorist organizations, with "promotion" defined as actions "reasonably interpreted" as threats of violence, disruption of learning, infringement of rights, or material support and recruitment.

CAIR posted a notice on its website Thursday: "We have suspended our operations in Florida because of Governor Ron DeSantis and other state officials' baseless and unconstitutional enforcement of the state's new domestic terrorist organizations laws against us." The group also stopped accepting online donations from Florida residents.

State attorney Charles Cooper, representing Florida in the case, told the court that CAIR serves as a "terrorist front group" for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR's own legal complaint insists "neither CAIR nor CAIR-Florida is engaged in terrorist activity, and the state would be unable to prove its case in a court of law." Judge Winsor didn't need to resolve that factual dispute to reach his ruling. He found that the designation itself doesn't forbid specific communications. "It does not say what a designated terrorist organization can or cannot say," he wrote. "The Constitution does not prohibit legislation simply because it is novel."

The ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center, representing CAIR alongside the law firm Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, announced an appeal. ACLU Senior Counsel Ashley Gorski called the ruling "deeply disappointing," saying Florida officials "have been relentless in seeking to silence our clients' civil rights work." Winsor did issue one narrow piece of relief — Florida prosecutors cannot enforce the law against CAIR employees or third parties specifically with respect to providing legal services to the group.

This wasn't Florida's first attempt. Back in December 2025, DeSantis issued an executive order targeting CAIR. In March 2026, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked that order with a preliminary injunction, describing it as "a political statement at the expense of others' constitutional rights." The state appealed Walker's ruling and went back to the Legislature. HB 1471 was the answer — a broader law that didn't rely on executive authority alone.

CAIR-Florida's interim executive director, Hiba Rahim, and the national organization say they plan to fight the designation on First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment due process grounds. Attorney General James Uthmeier had a shorter statement. "Great win by our Solicitor General's office," he posted on X, "and for the people of Florida."

The designation covers 90 groups total. CAIR is the one that just went quiet.

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