In the wake of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, and in response to ongoing protests against snatch and grab raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, the Trump administration publicly declared Antifa a terrorist organization — one that must be addressed with the full force of U.S. law enforcement and regulatory agencies. These declarations came in the form of an executive order, a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7), and a White House roundtable on Antifa that featured so-called “experts” with strong ties to fascist movements and ideology. Setting aside the absurdity of labelling Antifa – or the opposition to fascism – a terrorist organization when such a designation doesn’t exist in U.S. law, and the spectacle of table of experts who have made a name for themselves targeting antifascists and the left, the seriousness of this shift in federal law enforcement priorities is a serious danger to antifascist activists and the broader left in the United States and around the world.
The NSPM-7 directive focusing law enforcement priorities in the U.S. on the activities of a vague label of Antifa serves to potentially criminalize lawful activities by antifascists and the left in general under the guise of addressing political violence on the left. By explicitly naming Antifa as a target of federal law enforcement, it places additional scrutiny on militant antifascists who largely engage in legal activities protected under the first amendment to the Constitution. The document also creates a broad category of potential enemies by listing the following indicators of potential left-wing political violence:
- anti-Americanism,
- anti-capitalism,
- anti-Christianity,
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
- extremism on migration,
- extremism on race,
- extremism on gender
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.1
This intentionally vague list of criteria for potential left-wing political violence allows U.S. law enforcement to engage in investigative activity of a wide swath of Americans who oppose the actions of the Trump administration or promote progressive political and social policies.
Even though Antifa is not a formal organization, or possibly because it is not, NSPM-7 allows for law enforcement and regulatory agencies to cast an exceptionally wide net in their hunt for supposed left-wing political violence. Federal agencies are treating the directives from NSMP-7 as a 9/11 moment and reorienting their priorities in the search for violent actors on the left.2 Activists, non-profit organizations, and foundations that provide grants for progressive causes are already preparing for additional scrutiny from the federal government as a result of this vague directive. Individual activists have already received visits from the FBI,3 and two activists in Texas have been charged with providing material support for terrorism by federal prosecutors.4 It is likely that there will be more prosecutions of antifascist and other leftist activists because of this type of law enforcement scrutiny.
This intense focus begs the question as to? why the Trump administration would expend so much energy on Antifa when it is a movement that is relatively marginal in American society. It is precisely this relative marginalization and vague nature of antifascist activism that makes it an easy target for the right and the current administration. Serious, formal Antifa activism represents a small portion of the U.S. left. Because of serious concerns for their safety, many American Antifa activists hide their identities for fear of violent reprisals or exactly the kind of criminal prosecution that NSMP-7 encourages. The decentralized nature of contemporary Antifa activism also means that there isn’t a coherent public voice for the movement. To the extent that there have been public representatives of Antifa, they face major threats to their safety. In the wake of Trump’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization and NSPM-7, Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook and history professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, faced serious threats to his family and had to flee the country for their safety. Their first attempt to leave was denied, despite receiving boarding passes and passing through airport security. These threats and political prosecutions are successful specifically because Antifa activism is considered marginal and extreme. It therefore becomes the second target of state repression after migrants who face daily threats from ICE.
The actions of the Trump administration are intentional in their desire to wield authoritarian control of the United States; they first target Latin American migrants through kidnapping and deportation raids, then they expand their repressive capacity by going after their most marginal political opposition by targeting antifascists. This repressive power is then expanded to focus on other opponents of the administration through a vague expansion of the definition of political violence and terrorism that places progressive non-profits and grant-making foundations in their crosshairs. This strategy is designed to break solidarity on the left while taking out some of the most committed and vociferous opposition to the actions of the state.
However, there are signs that this repressive strategy hasn’t been effective. Rather than generating fear in their opposition, the increasing violence of ICE raids has stirred mass efforts of solidarity and confrontation. The labelling of Antifa as a terrorist organization, combined with a vague directive that focuses repression on the entire left seems to be creating more sympathy for Antifa activists among liberal opponents of the administration. At the recent No Kings protests across the country and around the world, there were numerous signs referencing Antifa. Antifascist-oriented activists demonstrating against ICE facilities in Portland wearing inflatable costumes have become a meme among the radical and mainstream left, and the tactic has spread to other protests across the country. These protests have especially captured people’s imagination for their creativity and use of nonviolent civil disobedience as a tactic against fascist activities of the state. The images of militarized police violently attacking and arresting peaceful protesters in ridiculous costumes provide a perfect juxtaposition of fascism versus people’s protest. The administration may even find its attempts at prosecution thwarted by juries that refuse to indict people who act in opposition to the militarization of cities and ICE activity.5 Rather than repressing opposition, labelling Antifa as terrorists may be strengthening antifascist sentiment in the U.S. as people recognize the importance of opposing the fascist policies of the Trump administration.
- https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs ↩︎
- http://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/magas-911-is-an-assassination ↩︎
- https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/video-fbi-agents-visit-anti-ice-protester ↩︎
- https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-prosecutors-bring-first-antifa-terrorism-charges-texas-police-shooting-case-2025-10-16/ ↩︎
- https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/dc-sandwich-thrower-grand-jury-indictment-decline-matters-rcna227748 & https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/08/feds-dropping-charges-against-couple-who-lawfully-carried-guns-outside-ice-facility ↩︎
To cite this article:
Stanislav Vysotsky, ‘The Criminalization of Antifa,’ The Helsinki Notebooks, Vol. 2, No. 6 (15 December 2025).
The Criminalization of Antifa © 2025 by Stanislav Vysotsky is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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