Navigation Judge denies injunction against Florida law restricting Chinese noncitizens from owning land near military bases
A new Florida law that limits landownership rights of certain noncitizens domiciled in China or other specific countries was upheld by a federal judge this week.
United States District Judge Allen Winsor decided that plaintiffs in Shen v. Simpson have a substantial burden that they have not come close to meeting and that, as a result, their equal protection claim against Senate Bill (SB) 264 fails on the applicable level of scrutiny.
“Plaintiffs are unlikely to show that strict scrutiny applies,” Winsor wrote in his Aug. 17 opinion. “The challenged law classifies based on where an alien is domiciled. It does not facially discriminate against noncitizens based on race or ancestry. So, contrary to Plaintiffs’ arguments, the challenged law is facially neutral as to race and national origin. It would apply to a person of Chinese descent domiciled in China the same way it would apply to a person not of Chinese descent domiciled in China. And its application would never turn on a person’s race.”
