A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a Florida law banning Chinese citizens from buying property.
A federal appeals court has issued a limited temporary block on a Florida law that bans citizens of China from buying property in the state that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said was needed to counteract the “malign influence” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in his state.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order on Feb. 1 that temporarily halts enforcement of a law called SB 264, or the Interests of Foreign Countries Act, with respect to two out of five plaintiffs who sued Florida over the law, claiming unconstitutional discrimination.
SB 264 was signed by Mr. DeSantis on May 8, 2023, and it was almost immediately challenged in court by four Chinese citizens residing in Florida and a real estate brokerage firm primarily serving Chinese and Chinese American clients.
The appeals court has halted enforcement of the law with respect to two of the five plaintiffs until it rules on the merits of the case (oral arguments scheduled for April), with the judges arguing that because of recent and pending transactions, the two plaintiffs face “imminent risk of irreparable harm” if enforcement of the law isn’t paused.
The temporary limited freeze of SB 264 was met with a critical response from Mr. DeSantis’s office.
“We disagree with the 11th Circuit’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction pending appeal to two of the plaintiffs in this case,” Julia Friedland, deputy press secretary for the Florida governor’s office, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
“That being said, our law is still very much in effect, we are confident in our legal position on the merits, and we will continue to fight back against foreign malign influence in Florida,” she added.
By contrast, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is one of several groups representing the Chinese nationals in their legal action, praised the decision.
“There’s no doubt that Florida’s discriminatory housing law is unconstitutional,” Ashley Gorski, senior staff attorney at ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement. “The court’s decision brings two of our clients tremendous relief, and we will continue fighting to prevent this law from being enforced more broadly.”
By Tom Ozimek
