Attorney General Andrew Bailey joined a coalition of 12 states in supporting Shen v Simpson by signing an amicus brief that was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
The lawsuit, filed by an Asian American advocacy group, challenges Senate Bill 264 as unconstitutional because it limits where Chinese people who are not US citizens, permanent residents, or whose domicile is in China, can buy land in Florida.
“It does not surprise me that other states filed in support of the Florida bill,” said Cindy Tsai, interim president, and executive director of Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese-Americans. "The Department of Justice also filed an amicus brief but in support of the plaintiff for the preliminary injunction and what they outline is that the law likely violates the Federal Fair Housing Act as well as the equal protection law of the 14th Amendment."
Also known as Florida’s new Alien Land Law, SB 264 exempts Chinese people with non-tourist visas or who have been granted asylum and allows them to purchase one residential property under two acres that is not within five miles of a military installation.
The Amicus Brief categorizes China as an unfriendly foreign government and argues that Florida’s limitations on Chinese citizens are not unconstitutional or unlawful.
“States play a central role in preserving their citizens’ well-being,” wrote Idaho’s Deputy Solicitor General Joshua Turner in the brief. “One way that at least 24 states have elected to protect their citizens is by restricting non-resident land ownership in some way. These are perfectly legitimate laws that do not discriminate against people in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. They do nothing more than draw sensible distinctions between state residents and nonresidents.”
In January, Senate Joint Resolution 41, was introduced to Missouri lawmakers and would have created a permanent Joint Committee on State Security whose mission was to ban land purchases in Missouri by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korean companies.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, foreign companies are permitted to control up to only 1% of Missouri’s farmland.
Other attorney generals that signed the brief include the states of Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, New Hampshire, Indiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Idaho, and Utah.
“I think a lot of Chinese people living in these states are thinking about moving and where they can be safe…so it's a chilling effect on those states and the economies of those states, but I think it's also a chilling effect on the entire country,” Tsai told the St. Louis Record.
Last year, the U.S. Census Bureau determined that 82.5% of Missourians are white, 11% are black or African American, 4.8% are Latino, 0.6% are Native American, 2.3% are Asian, 0.2% are Pacific Islanders, and 2.7% are two or more races.