A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Florida can restrict home and land purchases by Chinese citizens, dismissing claims that the 2023 law is discriminatory.
It comes after a court dismissed a challenge to a similar law in Texas that restricts the ownership of properties by Chinese individuals or entities.
The 2–1 ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for Florida to enforce SB 264, or the Interests of Foreign Countries Act, which bans individuals who are domiciled in China from buying property in the state unless they already owned all or part of a property before July 1, 2023.
The ruling could also encourage other states to adopt so-called alien land laws, which were once common but fell out of favor a century ago.
The court said the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the law’s purchasing restriction because they failed to show an imminent injury.
According to court documents, three of the individual plaintiffs are domiciled in Florida, and the fourth, who’s “at least arguably domiciled in China,” already has a home in Florida and has no plans to buy another. The last plaintiff, a real estate brokerage firm primarily serving Chinese and Chinese American clients, also failed to establish an imminent injury, circuit judges said.
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