Chinese citizens sue Florida over ban on buying real estate
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A group of Chinese citizens living and working in Florida sued the state Monday over a new law that bans Chinese nationals from purchasing property in large swaths of the state.
The law applies to properties within 10 miles of military installations and other “critical infrastructure” and also affects citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea. But Chinese citizens and those selling property to them face the harshest penalties. The prohibition also applies to agricultural land.
The American Civil Liberties Union says the law will have a substantial chilling effect on sales to Chinese and Asian people who can legally buy property. The suit says that the law unfairly equates Chinese people with the actions of their government and that there is no evidence of national security risk from Chinese citizens buying Florida property.
The law “will codify and expand housing discrimination against people of Asian descent in violation of the Constitution and the Fair Housing Act,” the ACLU said in a news release announcing the suit. “It will also cast an undue burden of suspicion on anyone seeking to buy property whose name soundsremotelyAsian,Russian, Iranian, Cuban, Venezuelan or Syrian.”
U.S.-China ties are strained amid growing tensions over security and trade. In nearly a dozen statehouses and Congress, a decades-old worry about foreign land ownership has surged since an alleged Chinese spy balloon traversed the skies from Alaska to South Carolina this year.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a presidential campaign Wednesday, signed the bill May 8. His office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The law is set to take affect July 1. It will be a felony for Chinese people to buy property in restricted areas or for any person or real estate company to knowingly sell to them. For the other targeted nations, the penalty is a misdemeanor for buyers and sellers.
It applies to military installations as well as infrastructure such as airports and seaports, water and wastewater treatment plants, natural gas and oil processing facilities, power plants, spaceports, and telecommunications central switching offices.
The ACLU says the law “will have the net effect of creating ‘Chinese exclusion zones’ that will cover immense portions of Florida, including many of the state’s most densely populated and developed areas.”
“This impact is exactly what laws like the Chinese ExclusionActof1882andthe California Alien Land Law of 1913didmorethanahundred years ago,” the lawsuit says.
Those on the restricted list who already own property near critical infrastructure must register with the state or face fines of up to $1,000 a day. They’re also prohibited from acquiring additional property. The law has provisions to allow the state to seize property from violators.
The number of states restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land has risen by 50% this year.
Before this year, 14 states had laws restricting foreign ownership or investments in private agricultural land. This year, restrictive laws have been enacted in Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
Foreign land ownership has become “a political flashpoint,” said Micah Brown, a staff attorney for the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas.
Brown said the recent surge in state laws targeting land ownership by foreign entities stems from cases of Chinese-connected companies purchasing land near military bases. This year, the U.S. Air Force said Fufeng Group’s planned $700-million wet corn milling plant near a base in Grand Forks, N.D., poses a “significant threat to national security.”