The FBI cut off CAIR decades ago after federal prosecutors named the group an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing case in American history.
Now Florida has a permanent law to do what the feds have been too timid to do.
DeSantis signed it, waited for it to take effect, and moved on day one – and CAIR's lawyers are already threatening to see him in court.
What Florida's New Law Actually Does
HB 1471 went into effect July 1, 2026, and DeSantis held a press conference in Tampa within hours.
The list he announced: CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, Antifa, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, Cartel de Sinaloa, Tren de Aragua, and more than 90 foreign terrorist organizations total.
Once the Cabinet signs off, the law cuts off every dollar of taxpayer funding, every state contract, and every public institution from supporting designated groups.
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It also throws people in prison for knowingly providing material support to a designated terrorist organization.
And it explicitly bars foreign and religious legal codes – read: Sharia law – from overriding the U.S. or Florida Constitutions in state courts.
FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass put it simply: "Keeping our community safe starts with identifying the threat."
Why CAIR Belongs on This List
CAIR calls itself a civil rights organization.
Federal prosecutors called it something else.
In the Holy Land Foundation case – the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history – the Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator and identified it as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee.
A federal court upheld that finding on appeal in 2009, ruling that prosecutors had presented overwhelming evidence connecting CAIR to Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation.
The FBI suspended all formal contact with CAIR as a direct result.
That's not a conservative think tank saying this.
That's the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Multiple CAIR-connected individuals have been convicted of federal crimes.
Randall Royer, a former CAIR communications coordinator, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of conspiring to support al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
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Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community affairs director, pleaded guilty to bank and visa fraud after funneling money to support terrorism and was deported to Egypt.
CAIR fundraiser Rabih Kaddad in Ann Arbor was arrested on terrorism-related charges.
He was later deported after his organization was designated by the Treasury Department for financing al-Qaeda.
CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, stood at a podium in November 2023 and said he was "happy to see" Palestinians breaking free during the October 7 Hamas massacre that killed over 1,200 people.
The United Arab Emirates – a Muslim-majority country – designated CAIR a terrorist organization in 2014.
Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to the IRS in August 2025 demanding an investigation into CAIR's nonprofit status over its ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Congress introduced a bill earlier this year to formally designate CAIR as a terrorist organization at the federal level.
This is not a conspiracy theory.
This is a documented pattern stretching back 30 years, and DeSantis just gave Florida the tools to act on it.
Why This Matters Beyond Florida
Texas Governor Greg Abbott made the same designation in November 2025.
He invoked state law, banned CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood from buying land in Texas, and directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to launch criminal investigations.
CAIR sued.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a response calling the lawsuit "baseless" and built on "speculative claims."
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Trump's White House designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization and targeted Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations in 2025.
The pattern is unmistakable – conservative governors and the Trump administration are building a nationwide framework to strip terrorist-linked groups of the taxpayer-funded legitimacy they've been hiding behind for decades.
Florida just added permanent statutory teeth to that effort.
CAIR's lawyers are promising another First Amendment lawsuit, and the ACLU is already calling the designations unconstitutional.
Here's what they won't say out loud: a federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking DeSantis' December executive order – not because the underlying facts were wrong, but because the executive action lacked a permanent statutory process.
DeSantis responded by passing a law that creates exactly that process.
That's not backing down.
That's doing the work.
The feds knew what CAIR was and walked away from it in 2009.
It took 17 more years for a state to build the legal machinery to act.
DeSantis fired it up on day one.
Sources:
- Landon Mion, "DeSantis announces plans to use new state law to target dozens of alleged terrorist groups," Fox News, July 2, 2026.
- "Governor Abbott Designates Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR As Foreign Terrorist Organizations," Office of the Texas Governor, November 18, 2025.
- "Governor Abbott Directs DPS To Launch Criminal Investigations Into Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR," Office of the Texas Governor, November 20, 2025.
- Tom Cotton, "Cotton to Long: Investigate CAIR for Ties to Terrorists," U.S. Senate Press Release, August 5, 2025.
- "Attorney General Ken Paxton Takes Legal Action in Lawsuit Involving the Terrorist Organization CAIR," Office of the Texas Attorney General, December 23, 2025.
- "Text – H.R.4097 – Designate CAIR as a Terrorist Organization Act," 119th Congress, Congress.gov, June 24, 2025.
