Antifa lacks a structure, so Trump鈥檚 terror group label might not stick
An antifa member wears a road cone as a hat during a protest in Washington, June 24, 2022.
Kevin Wolf/AP/File
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an designating the left-wing political movement antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. The move comes amid vows by senior Trump administration officials to crack down on liberal groups following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10.
In a a week after the shooting, Mr. Trump called antifa a 鈥淪ICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER.鈥� The president鈥檚 order directed federal agencies to 鈥渋nvestigate, disrupt, and dismantle鈥� illegal operations carried out by antifa. Antifa is a smattering of loose associates without a clear leader or a defined physical location.
U.S. law provides no legal mechanism to designate purely domestic groups as terrorist organizations. But President Trump is not the first to suggest doing so.
Why We Wrote This
President Donald Trump says antifa, which often confronts right-wing demonstrators, is 鈥渄angerous鈥� and is now considered a domestic terror group. Because the movement lacks structure, his declaration raises concern that any protester could be targeted.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of debate and bluster 鈥� particularly when something terrible happens in the United States 鈥� [over whether] we need a law criminalizing domestic terrorism,鈥� says William Banks, a longtime scholar of U.S. national security and professor emeritus at Syracuse University. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do it, because ugly words are protected just as pleasing words are.鈥�
But recent Trump administration actions 鈥� from pressuring ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel鈥檚 late-night show off the air, to threatening discipline against who mock Mr. Kirk 鈥� have raised concerns that the president might use his declarations against antifa to target liberal viewpoints more broadly. Here鈥檚 a look at what antifa is 鈥� and what the president can, and can鈥檛 do, to target it.
What is antifa?
Antifa, short for 鈥渁ntifascist,鈥� refers to those people around the globe who oppose fascism and far-right politics. Many scholars trace the movement to Europe, where it emerged across the continent between World War I and World War II, growing as an ideological counterweight to fascist dictatorships. Antifa made its way to the U.S. in the 1980s.
The movement has no central leader, assets, physical location, or formal membership rolls. Followers are instead united by shared political views, says Stanislav Vysotsky, associate professor of criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. He has studied antifa for nearly two decades and authored a book on the subject.
鈥淪ome scholars think of antifa as being more of an orientation because of how informal it is, and how it is centered more on a set of beliefs and a common understanding,鈥� he says.
Adherents to the belief system might form small, localized groups, Dr. Vysotsky adds. But such cells primarily operate autonomously from one another.
Antifa followers counterprotested at the 2017 鈥淯nite the Right鈥� rally, where neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups paraded through Charlottesville, Virginia. Many of the clashes between competing
In 2019, a antifa activist was killed by police after attempting to firebomb an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Federal marshals also fatally shot another activist in 2020, after he allegedly killed a member of a far-right group.
Though antifa followers are now mostly known for staging protests that sometimes turn violent, Dr. Vysotsky says they primarily conduct education campaigns, collect intelligence on far-right groups, and attempt to shame such groups publicly.
Still, violent protests might fairly be categorized as terrorism even though they do not rise to the level of a highly visible attack like a bombing, says Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow in counterterrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations. Association is not as important as the action itself, he says.
Can Trump designate antifa as a terrorist organization?
Not under current law 鈥� even if antifa had a leader and organized structure. Although the secretary of State may designate foreign groups as international terrorist organizations under the , no such process exists for groups based in the United States.
Experts generally express skepticism that antifa could be called a foreign group. Though it is a global movement, its diffuse nature means American followers have little, if any, association with those based abroad, Dr. Vysotsky says.
Suppose a group is designated as a foreign terrorist organization. In that case, the federal government can issue monetary sanctions, and it is for Americans to provide the group with 鈥渕aterial support or resources.鈥� Because of a , it can include supporting activities that would otherwise be protected under the First Amendment. The law permits this because foreign entities are not afforded the same free-speech protections as those based in the U.S.
Extending those prohibitions to a homegrown group, however, could prove legally problematic. In the 2010 Supreme Court case, Chief Justice John Roberts drew a distinction between foreign groups and domestic ones. 鈥淸The court does] not suggest that Congress could extend the same prohibition on material support at issue here to domestic organizations,鈥� he wrote.
Mr. Trump鈥檚 declaration also raises due process concerns. Antifa鈥檚 lack of formal membership might enable law enforcement to target people 鈥� whether mistakenly or on purpose 鈥� who have nothing to do with the ideology. And because 鈥渕aterial support or resources鈥� can be broadly interpreted, someone who, for example, drives a friend to an antifa protest could become a target of law enforcement, says Jonathan Hafetz, a law professor at Seton Hall University and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
鈥淚t would untap an enormous range of investigative power that could easily be abused,鈥� Mr. Hafetz says.
Has anything like this happened before?
President Trump made in 2020. He and other Republicans blamed antifa for inciting violence amid widespread protests in response to George Floyd鈥檚 murder in Minneapolis. He did not follow through on that statement. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the FBI concluded that 鈥渃riminals 鈥� not antifa or other ideologically motivated individuals鈥� were responsible for most of the looting and violence.
Yet, Mr. Trump is not the first person to suggest a domestic terrorism designation, says Professor Banks. The subject has been a matter of off-and-on debate for years, both on the right and the left. But 鈥渃ooler heads eventually prevailed,鈥� in those efforts, he says.
鈥淲e鈥檝e built our nation on a principle of tolerating dissent,鈥� he adds. 鈥淪o long as these individuals are merely dissenters, they should be protected by the Constitution. It鈥檚 really one of the most important principles in our society.鈥�
In 1996, a year after a right-wing extremist killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing, President Bill Clinton signed into law the . The legislation, among other things, added harsher sentences for acts of terrorism involving explosives and allowed the secretary of State to deny asylum petitions from members of foreign terrorist groups.
Mr. Clinton, however, had sought even greater powers to investigate domestic terrorism, including and using the military to assist in investigating certain cases involving chemical or biological weapons. Those provisions were stripped out of the bill after Republican lawmakers objected to further expanding government power.