The named defendants are Wilton Simpson, Florida’s agriculture commissioner; Meredith Ivey, acting Florida secretary of economic opportunity; and Patricia Fitzgerald, chair of the Florida Real Estate Commission.

The plaintiffs claimed in the complaint that they “will be forced to cancel purchases of new homes, register their existing properties with the state under threat of severe penalties, and face the loss of significant business. The law … casts a cloud of suspicion over anyone of Chinese descent who seeks to buy property in Florida”.

The law also “intrudes on the federal government’s power to superintend foreign affairs, foreign investment, and national security; and it recalls the wrongful animus of similar state laws from decades past – laws that were eventually struck down by courts or repealed by legislatures”, the complaint added.

The Florida Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Previous acts cited in the complaint included “alien land laws” enacted in the early 20th century and primarily directed against people of Chinese and Japanese descent that prevented them from owning land. All such laws were struck down after being deemed unconstitutional.

State initiatives aimed at countering perceived threats emanating from China are proliferating in the US.

Louisiana’s House of Representatives, meanwhile, is expected to vote on a bill similar to Florida’s land law on Tuesday, after members of the chamber’s agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and rural development committees last week unanimously approved the measure.

The plaintiffs in the Florida case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, DeHeng Law Offices PC, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), in coordination with the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance (CALDA), a non-profit organisation.

AALDEF legal director Bethany Li also connected Florida’s law to discriminatory measures taken by the US government against Asian populations.

“Failing to call out the discriminatory impacts means our community will continue to experience racism, violence, and the erosion of rights.”

The plaintiffs also pointed out that the new law offers only a narrow exception allowing a person from China with a valid non-tourist visa or who has been granted asylum to buy one residential real property, and only if the property is less than two acres and is not within five miles of a military installation.

“Notably, there are more than a dozen military installations in Florida, many of them within five miles of city centres like Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Panama City, and Key West,” the complaint said.

Targeted people “owning or acquiring property in violation of the foregoing prohibitions are subject to civil forfeiture of their property”.

The complaint also asserted that measures intended to protect national security should be enacted on the federal level.

“The federal government manages foreign affairs, foreign investment, and national security in the United States, including through two federal regimes,” it said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews inbound investments for national security vulnerabilities, was given expanded powers in 2018 to unwind completed transactions, and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control administers and enforces economic regulations and trade sanctions.