Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed legislation expanding the state’s counterterrorism powers, allowing a handful of officials to issue domestic terror designations and implement restrictions on Sharia law.
HB 1471 prohibits Florida courts from enforcing foreign or religious law that conflicts with the U.S. Constitution and blocks foreign judgments, contracts, or legal provisions that attempt to bypass those protections.
The legislation also requires disciplinary action, including expulsion, for students who “promote terrorist violence” and allows state institutions to lose funding for violating the law’s provisions.
“To uphold the rule of law, our state must operate under one legal system, the Constitution must remain the law of the land, and we must defend our institutions from those who would harm us—especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education system,” DeSantis said on X.
To uphold the rule of law, our state must operate under one legal system, the Constitution must remain the law of the land, and we must defend our institutions from those who would harm us—especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education… pic.twitter.com/dyUHJCnBux
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 6, 2026
Under the law, a top official at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can designate a group as a domestic or foreign terrorist organization, subject to approval by the governor and members of his cabinet, according to the Associated Press.
The measure passed both chambers of the state legislature mostly along party lines.
Florida’s bill follows a recent legal battle over DeSantis’s designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a controversial Muslim civil rights group, as a terrorist organization. On March 5, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker issued a preliminary injunction blocking the order.
Sharia law represents the religious legal system and moral code of Islam, which derives mostly from the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslim-majority countries apply aspects of Sharia law to their legal frameworks, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Pakistan, and Iran, according to NBC News.
The Sunshine State follows other conservative-led states in enacting anti-Sharia legislation. A University of California, Berkeley analysis finds that at least 13 states, mostly located in the South, have passed and implemented anti-Sharia laws between 2010 and 2020.
In November 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.
“We have a responsibility to defend and reinvigorate Western Civilization, and that means protecting against creeping sharia in all its forms,” DeSantis said in a social media post.
CAIR’s Florida chapter decried the legislation as “draconian” and “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“By empowering the Governor’s cabinet with new powers to designate his political opponents as terrorists without due process using secret evidence, these bills flout the basic notions of justice that all Americans expect from their government,” CAIR-Florida Interim Executive Director Hiba Rahim said.
The law is set to take effect on July 1.
