Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order labeling Muslim groups terrorist

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A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from enforcing a state executive order that designated two Muslim groups as “foreign terrorist organizations,” halting the order while a lawsuit proceeds. In a preliminary injunction issued on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker said the First Amendment limits what a governor can do through an executive office in non-emergency circumstances.

Walker’s order stopped enforcement on Wednesday of the executive order DeSantis issued last year. The judge said the governor’s action continued a “troubling trend” of using executive authority as a political statement in a way that, in the court’s view, burdens others’ constitutional rights.

The executive order targeted the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood. DeSantis’s office had directed Florida agencies to prevent the two groups and people who provided them material support from receiving state executive or cabinet agency contracts, employment and funds.

The lawsuit challenging the order was filed in December by CAIR and other civil rights groups. The plaintiffs alleged that the order is unlawful and unconstitutional, including that DeSantis “usurped the exclusive authority of the federal government to identify and designate terrorist organizations.”

Walker’s written decision focused on whether the governor could unilaterally designate a major Muslim civil rights group as a terrorist organization and withhold government benefits from those providing material support to it while no emergency was asserted. “The question before this Court is whether the Governor can, in a non-emergency situation, unilaterally designate one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in America as a ‘terrorist organization’ and withhold government benefits from anyone providing material support or resources to the group,” Walker wrote.

The case also comes amid what the plaintiffs and other groups described as persistent anti-Muslim bias, including in the years since Sept. 11, 2001, and what they described as a rise in Islamophobia during more than two years of war in Gaza. The AP report said CAIR’s lawsuit stated that the organization condemns terrorism and violence and that the plaintiffs said DeSantis targeted CAIR for defending free speech rights in cases involving support for Palestinian human rights.

The Muslim Brotherhood designation in the Florida executive order builds on a federal action described in the AP report. The report said that President Donald Trump in January issued an executive order designating three Middle Eastern branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, while DeSantis’s order applied the “foreign terrorist” label to the Muslim Brotherhood in Florida.

The injunction will keep the executive order from taking effect or being enforced while the litigation continues. The AP report said DeSantis’s office did not immediately respond Wednesday evening to an email seeking comment about the judge’s order.

Florida’s estimated Muslim population is about 500,000, according to CAIR, which also said it has more than 20 chapters in the United States and carries out legal actions, advocacy and education outreach.