The governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, today passed a regulation that will allow the U.S. state to draw up its own list of terrorist organizations, regardless of the federal government list.
© Drew Angerer/Getty Images
12/09/2026
by
Lusa
Ron DeSantis
A standard, approved by teleconference on the 25th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, instructs the Head of Homeland Security of the State to propose in writing each designation.
The organisation will have seven days to make arguments and will only be able to appear before the office if it permits it.
If the office approves the designation, it shall be published in the administrative register of the State within seven days and shall enter into force 30 days later.
“We already have the process to name these groups, cut off financial support from taxpayers and hold those who finance them accountable,” Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote on social network X.
The regulation specifies that neither belonging to a designated organisation nor the provision of legal assistance to it is sufficient in itself to open criminal proceedings.
The designations may be contested before a state court in Leon County.
On July 1, DeSantis announced his intention to classify as terrorist organizations the American-Islamic Relations Council (CAIR), the Muslim Brotherhood and the anti-fascist movement known as Antifa.
They are joined by more than 90 foreign groups already included in the U.S. list, including the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, the Mexican cartels of Sinaloa, the Northeast and the Gulf, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran.
The CAIR, the country's largest civil rights organization, challenged the law that upholds the mechanism in July, together with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for considering that it violates freedom of expression.