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Politics|Trump Signs Order Targeting Antifa Movement
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/trump-antifa-order-terrorism.html
President Trump’s executive order threatened to prosecute donors who support antifascist philosophy and issued a domestic terrorism designation that doesn’t exist under U.S. law.
Sept. 22, 2025, 9:05 p.m. ET
Mr. Trump had threatened last week to designate antifa a terror group, after trying and failing to do so in his first administration after the group gained prominence in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
Even though the language of Mr. Trump’s executive order echoes those he has aimed at foreign criminal organizations like Latin American drug cartels and gangs, it lacks the same teeth.
Federal law empowers the government to label overseas groups “foreign terrorist organizations,” a status that allows the U.S. to freeze their assets and makes it a crime to provide material support to them. But there is no equivalent domestic terrorism law, and legal experts downplayed the legal effect of Mr. Trump asserting his authority to label domestic groups as terrorists.
The antifa order does not attempt to use those powers, instead directing agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations” by the movement — something they already have the authority to do.
Even if a domestic terrorist organization designation did exist, using it against antifa would face practical difficulties.
Antifa does not have a leader that could be targeted, a roster of known members, bank accounts to freeze or a centralized structure.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
