New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella is one of a dozen state attorneys general asking a judge to side with Florida and its state law protecting land near sensitive locations from foreign ownership, Politico reports.
The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year, bans citizens of China, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea from owning property within 10 miles of military installations or other “critical infrastructure,” as well as farmland.
In an amicus brief signed by Formella and led by Idaho Attorney General Raúl R. Labrador, the Republicans noted two dozen states legally restrict foreign ownership of land. “They are … fulfilling their most basic state functions by exercising sovereignty over their soil,” according to the brief.
“As our amicus brief argues, a state is not required to allow foreign governments, foreign officials, and non-citizen, non-domiciled foreign entities, or persons to have unrestricted abilities to own land within a state’s borders,” Formella told NHJournal. “I signed on to this brief because I believe that it is critical for a state to have the ability to protect land within its borders in order to safeguard the health and welfare of its citizens.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing in protest of the new law. Representing a group of Chinese citizens living in the Sunshine State, the ACLU said in a statement the new law would “codify and expand housing discrimination against people of Asian descent in violation of the Constitution and the Fair Housing Act. 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.”
But military and foreign policy experts say the danger of foreign land ownership near military installations is a serious threat, particularly from China. In February, the U.S. Air Force told North Dakota officials that a Chinese company’s plans to build a plant near its Grand Forks base posed a “significant threat to national security.” City backers of the plant pulled their support.
Last week, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, introduced bipartisan legislation at the federal level to prevent foreign adversaries from purchasing land adjacent to military bases and other sensitive sites.
“The United States cannot allow foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies to acquire real estate near sensitive sites like military bases or telecom infrastructure, potentially exploiting our critical technology and endangering our servicemembers,” Gallagher said in a statement. “This bill gives CFIUS jurisdiction over foreign adversary real estate transactions to guard against the threat of the CCP and other adversaries purchasing land for malign purposes, and it also encourages [The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] to consider food security issues as it evaluates the national security risk of a given transaction.”
No member of the New Hampshire delegation is a co-sponsor of that bipartisan bill.
New Hampshire ranks 48 on the list of states by acres of farmland, and it has few military facilities as well. However, it is the home of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, whose mission is “the safe overhaul, repair, and modernization of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet, specifically Los Angeles and Virginia-class submarines.”
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