CAIR Sues DeSantis Over Terrorist Label Order

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights organization, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, challenging his recent executive order that designates the group as a foreign terrorist organization. The suit, lodged in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, argues that the order violates CAIR's First Amendment rights to free speech and due process, stemming from the group's advocacy for Palestinian human rights.

DeSantis issued the order last week, titled "Protecting Floridians from Radical Islamic Terrorist Organizations." It labels CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist entities and directs state agencies to bar them and their supporters from receiving contracts, employment, or funding. The governor's office justified the designation by citing CAIR's past ties to the Holy Land Foundation, a now-defunct Muslim charity convicted in 2008 of providing material support to Hamas. CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in that case but has never faced charges, and the organization maintains the reference caused undue reputational harm without legal basis.

CAIR, founded in 1994 as a 501(c)(3)...