DeSantis says police ‘working already’ to treat CAIR as terror group, says he wants to prevent money going to jihad

By Robert Spencer | April 12, 2026

Governor Ron DeSantis, Office of Governor Ron DeSantis, Public domain

None of this should be remotely controversial. Every governor should be doing the same.

“DeSantis working to designate CAIR, antifa as terrorist groups under new law,” by Lawrence Mower, Miami Herald, April 7, 2026:

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday allowing him to identify and label domestic terrorist organizations — and he said state police were already building cases against several of them.

At a news conference at the University of South Florida, he said police were “working already” to apply the label to the Muslim civil rights organization Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist movement….

HB 1471, passed by the Legislature last month, allows the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to identify groups as “domestic terrorists,” powers that are typically reserved for the federal government.

Groups would have to be found engaging in “terrorist activity” as defined in state law and pose “an ongoing threat” to security. The governor and Cabinet would have to approve the designation.

The bill provides no new powers to arrest or prosecute such organizations. Instead, it would bar state and local governments from providing public money to them — a response to reports of Islamic schools receiving public vouchers.

The bill would also immediately expel college students found to support terrorist organizations in what critics believe is an attempt to stamp out left-wing and anti-Israel protesters on college campuses. A University of South Florida student who spoke at Monday’s news conference referenced the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests at USF in which 10 people were arrested, mostly for misdemeanors such as trespassing.

DeSantis, whose office first drafted the bill, said Monday he wanted to prevent “one red cent” for “jihad,” or holy war.

“The legislation we’ll sign today is the strongest action Florida has ever taken to protect its people from this influence,” he said….