President Donald Trump has designated the movement known as Antifa as a major “domestic terrorist” organization.
The president originally announced the policy on Truth Social last month while on a state visit to the U.K. He said he’s also calling for investigations into people believed to be “funding” the movement.
“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump wrote. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices.”
Since then, officials have said a key reason behind their campaigns to send federal agents and troops to Portland and Chicago has been to crack down on the group, though local officials have sued and deny there’s any sort of law-and-order crisis in the cities justifying this military-style intervention.
“They beat journalists. They attacked courthouses,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said during an October 8 federal roundtable on Antifa. “They attacked police stations. They doxx and assault our law enforcement officers.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a driving force behind the administration’s immigration policy, said earlier this week that ICE officers in these cities have to do “hand-to-hand combat every night” against Antifa to leave federal facilities, which have attracted regular protests.
Here’s what you need to know about the radical movement being targeted by the Trump administration.
What is Antifa?
Antifa, which is short for anti-fascist, is a not a single organization but rather a loosely affiliated, radical left-wing movement with no central hierarchy, organization, or clear membership structure, according to experts.
Its adherents have used a variety of protest methods, including violence, as part of their activism, and Antifa-style protesters have a noted presence on the West Coast in cities like Portland and Seattle.
Trump’s former FBI director, Christopher Wray, told Congress in 2020 that Antifa is “not a group or an organization,” but rather a “movement or an ideology.”
The Anti Defamation League similarly describes Antifa as “a decentralized, leaderless movement composed of loose collections of groups, networks and individuals.”
These characteristics distinguish Antifa from others that have been targets of law enforcement attention, including jihadist cells or right-wing militias, which often operate as groups with concrete officers and membership criteria.
Where has Antifa been active?
Anti-fascist activism dates back to Europe in the 1920s and ‘30s, during the rise of authoritarian leaders like Mussolini and Hitler.
It has taken a variety of forms since making the jump stateside.
Antifa-style groups in the U.S. later sought to combat the growing prevalence of neo-Nazis in the 1980s rock scene, while such protesters were spotted at demonstrations against globalization and unchecked free trade in the 1990s and early 2000s.
In contemporary politics, they came to many people’s attention during the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where fights broke out between the massed white supremacists and Antifa counter-protesters. Antifa activists are known for sometimes wearing all black clothing.
Since then, those with Antifa-like ideologies have been found mixed into larger protest crowds during social movements including the Black Lives Matter movement.
Antifa-style actions have sometimes occurred in reaction to the presence of right-wing groups, like the Proud Boys, who brawled with anti-fascist activists in 2021 outside the Oregon state capitol.
During the second Trump administration, federal officials have accused individuals affiliated with Antifa ideology of doxxing immigration officials and violently breaching a Portland Immigrant and Customs Enforcement building in June.
The Department of Homeland Security alleges that individuals arrested for protesting outside an ICE office near Chicago in September on charges of assault are “Antifa-aligned,” though the Justice Department has refrained from using such language when actually describing their alleged criminal offenses in legal complaints, instead describing the attacks without references to connections to any radical group.
What happens now?
It’s unclear exactly what practical effects this designation could have. The U.S. government does not provide a “precise, comprehensive, and public explanation” of groups it may consider to be domestic terrorist organizations, in part because of free speech concerns, according to a 2023 Congressional Research Service report.
“Listing groups in this way may infringe on First Amendment-protected free speech—or the act of belonging to an ideological group, which in and of itself is not a crime in the United States,” the report says.
The Independent has contacted the White House for more information.
Right-wing influencers and media outlets frequently report on alleged Antifa action at protests, including a claim Tuesday from podcaster Benny Johnson that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had faced down an “army of Antifa” at a Portland ICE building. Photos of the confrontation showed Noem standing on a rooftop looking down at a small smattering of protesters, including a person in a chicken costume.
The journalist Andy Ngo frequently reports on alleged Antifa members, and has said he’s been attacked by the group, though critics have accused him of deceptive reporting tactics and fueling online hate campaigns against those he denounces.
The announcement that Antifa would be considered a terror group comes in the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk being shot and killed while speaking at an event on Utah Valley University’s campus in September.
Trump and his allies have since railed against left-wing groups and blamed them for growing hostility against conservatives. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both vowed to investigate left-leaning organizations in the wake of Kirk’s killing, Bloomberg reports.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, has praised Trump’s Antifa announcement, according to the Associated Press.
“Antifa seized upon a movement of legitimate grievances to promote violence and anarchy, working against justice for all,” he said. “The President is right to recognize the destructive role of Antifa by designating them domestic terrorists.”
Others have been more critical, including CNN’s David Axelrod, who warned that the designation could be “a pretext to go after their political enemies.”
“They will go after everyone and everything that they put under that umbrella, even though it isn’t an organization,” Axelrod said.
Trump first vowed to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization during his first term, during nationwide protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd in 2020. However, legal experts at the time raised free speech concerns and warned that the designation lacked legal backing, Reuters reports.
