TALLAHASSEE, Fla. >> A group of Chinese citizens living and working in Florida sued the state today 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 the law unfairly equates Chinese people with the actions of their government and 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 sounds remotely Asian, 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 spiked since a Chinese spy balloon traversed the skies from Alaska to South Carolina last month.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a presidential campaign this week, signed the bill May 8. His office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The law is set to take effect 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 restricted people. For the other targeted nations, the penalty is a misdemeanor for buyers and sellers.

It applies to military installations as well as infrastructure like 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 Exclusion Act of 1882 and the California Alien Land Law of 1913 did more than a hundred years ago,” the lawsuit says.

Those on the restricted list that 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.

Heading into 2023, 14 states had laws restricting foreign ownership or investments in private agricultural land. So far this year, restrictive laws also 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 some highly publicized cases of Chinese-connected companies purchasing land near military bases. Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force said that the Fufeng Group’s planned $700 million wet corn milling plant near a base in Grand Forks, North Dakota, poses a “significant threat to national security.”

After a Chinese army veteran and real estate tycoon bought a wind farm near an Air Force base in Texas, that state responded in 2021 by banning infrastructure deals with individuals tied to hostile governments, including China.