On Nov. 13, the State Department added four European entities to the U.S. government’s list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), claiming that they are affiliated with “Antifa.” All four – Antifa Ost, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI), Armed Proletarian Justice, and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense – will be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) on Nov. 20.
The Trump administration has been hyping the threat posed by Antifa for months. “Antifa is an existential threat to our nation,” Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has argued that the “network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as” ISIS and Hezbollah, two international terrorist organizations that have murdered tens of thousands of civilians and combatants in attacks and guerilla warfare around the globe.
The new designations do not support the administration’s case that Antifa presents an “existential” threat to Americans. Indeed, the move appears to do little, or nothing, to protect Americans either at home or abroad. If anything, the State Department’s announcement shows that the administration is unsuccessfully laboring to portray “Antifa” – an amorphous “anti-fascist” movement with no clear leadership or hierarchy – as a significant terrorist threat. And it could be used to undermine the civil liberties of U.S. citizens.
A Far Cry from the Threat Posed by Al-Qaeda on 9/11
The U.S. government created the SDGT listing process as part of Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which was signed by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Nearly 3,000 people perished during al-Qaeda’s attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Thousands more have succumbed to, or still suffer from, related illnesses. Around that same time, the United Nations Security Council, NATO, and Organization of American States mobilized to respond to the al-Qaeda threat.
From that moment forward, the SDGT list created a powerful tool, overseen by the U.S. Treasury Department, to cut off the international finances of terrorists capable of such large-scale attacks. Prior to the second Trump administration, the overwhelming majority of entities on the list were associated with al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iranian proxies or other global terrorist networks that had killed or threatened Americans.
The threat posed by the four newly designated entities, which have been responsible for small-scale attacks resulting in minimal casualties outside of the United States, falls far short of al-Qaeda or the other global terror networks previously designated. The State Department does not allege that any of the newly designated entities are capable of 9/11-style attacks. The Department does not claim that any Americans have been killed in their operations. Nor has the Department demonstrated that they endanger Americans or U.S. interests either at home or abroad, even though such threats are a prerequisite for inclusion on both the SDGT and FTO lists, which are authorities statutorily provided through congressional legislation. Indeed, the relevant statute giving the Secretary of State authority to designate an FTO requires “the terrorist activity of the organization threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States.”
Under E.O. 13224, the Secretary of State is authorized to “designate foreign individuals or entities that he determines have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the U.S.” The criteria for inclusion on State’s FTO list, under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), contains similar language.
Nothing in the State Department’s fact sheet satisfies this criterion – even if one were to read it in the broadest possible manner. Antifa Ost’s followers have engaged in street fights with suspected “fascists” in Germany and Hungary (more on that below). The FAI/FRI “primarily operates in Italy,” has affiliates elsewhere, and has threatened “political and economic institutions” in other countries, but the State Department does not claim it has plotted against the U.S. government or Americans. The remaining two entities – Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense – are based in Greece and have targeted the Greek government and police. The latter group, Revolutionary Class Self-Defense, has claimed responsibility for two minor attacks in Greece that resulted in little damage and no injuries. As Reuters reports, such attacks are hardly new, as “[s]mall-scale attacks on businesses, police, politicians and embassies are frequent in Greece, which has a long history of political violence by leftist and anarchist groups.”
If the Trump administration has intelligence indicating that these groups pose a real threat to Americans, the U.S. government or its interests, then it should present it. The publicly available evidence does not support such a conclusion. Instead, the evidence shows that the targeted networks are responsible for a low-level of violence in European countries.
Inflating the Threat Posed by “Antifa”
The Trump administration has not clearly defined what it means by “Antifa.” Experts have long recognized that Antifa is an amorphous movement with no clear national, let alone international, leadership or hierarchy. According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) assessment published in 2020, the “U.S. antifa movement appears to be decentralized, consisting of independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals” and “lacks a unifying organizational structure or detailed ideology.” The first Trump administration’s national security leaders agreed with this assessment.
As mentioned above, in contrast, DHS Secretary Noem has compared Antifa’s “network” to ISIS and Hezbollah. She also compared Antifa to international criminal gangs such as MS-13 and Tren de Arugua, as well as Hamas. But Antifa lacks the organizational structure and hierarchy of each of these five organizations. Indeed, Noem’s comparison inadvertently reveals the weakness of the Trump administration’s case, as it has failed to demonstrate how Antifa is a cohesive group or “network” comparable to the world’s leading terrorist organizations.
Without specific criteria for defining “Antifa,” the U.S. government has no firm basis for concluding which groups or individuals belong to it, beyond those who somehow self-identify as its adherents. This opens the door for the Trump administration to abuse the term as a catch-all for leftwing groups and individuals who are broadly opposed to “fascism,” but may otherwise have no ties to one another.
This talk of “Antifa” untethered to facts is evident in the State Department’s treatment of the four foreign entities.
Only one of the four entities designated by the State Department, the German-based Antifa Ost, openly brands itself as part of the Antifa movement. But the administration has not alleged that Antifa Ost is connected to any American Antifa adherents. It is not clear what ties, if any, there are between Antifa Ost and the other three entities, which are based in Italy and Greece. Nor is it clear if the other three have any ties to Antifa at all, either in other countries or inside the United States. It appears that the administration is simply conflating other far-left extremists and anarchists with Antifa, as if they are all part of the same network.
For instance, the first known American Antifa group was established in Portland, Oregon in 2007. As the State Department itself notes, the anarchist FAI/FRI began operating approximately four years earlier, in 2003, meaning that it predates the birth of the American Antifa movement. The Trump administration has not explained why it considers FAI/FRI, which has a long track record of violence on its own, to now be a part of Antifa in any meaningful sense.
The Trump administration has not designated neo-Nazi groups banned by democratic allies
The first entity listed by the State Department is Antifa Ost, also known as Antifa East and the “Hammer Gang,” a name its adherents earned by wielding hammers in their street attacks. Although Antifa Ost is based in Germany, the Trump administration reportedly did not coordinate its designation process with the German government. It is easy to see why. After the designation was announced, a spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry explained that Antifa Ost’s capacity for violence has “decreased significantly” after a series of arrests – an assessment that directly undermines the Trump administration’s desire to portray Antifa as a global menace. Indeed, the State Department does not attribute any attacks to Antifa Ost’s adherents since February 2023 — that is, more than two and half years ago.
The State Department notes that Antifa Ost is “accused of having conducted a series of attacks in Budapest in mid-February 2023.” But the Department’s announcement omits a key detail – namely, these “attacks” occurred during the “Day of Honor” event – an annual neo-Nazi rally held in the Hungarian capital.
The “Day of Honor” rally commemorates a battle in which Nazi soldiers and Hungarian troops joined forces to break the Soviet Union’s siege of Budapest in 1945. Even though the joint Nazi-Hungarian campaign was unsuccessful, modern neo-Nazis see it as an inspiration. Hundreds of far-right extremists from around the world attend the “Day of Honor” event in Budapest each year, including in February 2023, when Antifa Ost’s adherents showed up as counterprotesters.
The “Day of Honor” rally is organized by Légió Hungária, a neo-Nazi organization. According to Bellingcat, Légió Hungária maintains close relationships with other international neo-Nazi and skinhead groups that participate in the “Day of Honor” rally. These include Blood & Honour (B&H), which originated in the United Kingdom and has maintained presence inside the United States since the 1990s, and Hammerskins. America’s allies have long recognized the international threat posed by both groups.
In 2000, Germany banned B&H after it was linked to a series of racially motivated murders. In 2010, a Spanish court ordered the dissolution of a B&H chapter after 18 of its members were “found guilty of illicit possession of arms and inciting hate for racist and anti-Semitic reasons.” In 2019, the French government dissolved a B&H affiliate inside the country. The Canadian government banned B&H and Combat 18 that same year, explaining that the group had carried out “murders and bombings” across several countries, including the murders of two homeless men in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late 1990s. In 2020, Germany then added Combat 18 to its list of prohibited groups. Finally, in January of this year, the U.K. government froze B&H’s financial assets, finding that there were “reasonable grounds to suspect [it] of being involved in terrorist activities through promoting and encouraging terrorism, seeking to recruit people for that purpose and making funds available for the purposes of its terrorist activities.”
In 2023, the German government banned Hammerskins (also known as Hammerskin Nation), which was founded in Dallas, Texas in the late 1980s. The German interior ministry explained that “Hammerskins affiliates exist in a number of countries” and its “members call each other ‘brothers’ and see themselves as part of an elite ‘brotherhood,’” with approximately 130 members in Germany alone. Authorities “seized cash and large quantities of weapons,” as well as Nazi paraphernalia, in raids across the country. The interior ministry specifically thanked the American government for its cooperation, saying it “worked closely with its U.S. partner agencies to bring about this ban on a right-wing extremist and racist organization.” Such bilateral cooperation stands in direct contrast to the U.S. government’s unilateral designation of Antifa Ost.
Thus far, the administration has failed to employ the U.S. government’s powerful designation authorities against the neo-Nazi organizations that participate in the “Day of Honor” rally, or any other like-minded groups, even though several allied democratic nations have already done so. Instead, Trump’s State Department has followed the course set by Viktor Orban’s autocratic regime, focusing the power of the state mainly on the leftwing counterprotesters who clashed with neo-Nazis in Budapest in February 2023. The administration has done so even though the far-right was also culpable for the violence.
For example, a previous report by the State Department clarified that violence broke out during the 2023 event when “extreme-right and neo-Nazi groups clashed with antifascist counterprotesters.” Although local police attempted to ban the rally beforehand, “several hundred extreme-right and neo-Nazi sympathizers gathered” and “antifascist demonstrators … assaulted several individuals they assumed to be affiliated with the extreme right.” The violence was not one-sided, however, as “extreme right sympathizers reportedly attacked groups they took to be antifascist demonstrators.”
Concern that the Trump Administration Will Abuse the Designation Process to Target Domestic Opposition
Since the murder of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, senior administration officials have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that a leftwing terrorist network, supported by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), threatens the security of Americans. Antifa is the main foe they cite.
On Sept. 22, President Donald Trump issued an E.O. deeming Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.” The E.O. lacked legal teeth, as the label does not create any new legal authorities to target groups operating inside the United States. Still, the E.O. signaled that the administration was probing for ways to conduct a broader crackdown on leftwing groups.
On Sept. 25, Trump followed up with a national security presidential memorandum (NSPM-7) claiming that the “anti-fascist” “lie” is used by “domestic terrorists” to threaten America’s “democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties.” The memorandum directs agencies of the U.S. government to take various actions against these supposed “networks.” Civil liberties and pro-democracy groups immediately saw NSPM-7 as a threat to free speech and civil society, as the memorandum imagines a broad conspiracy requiring a whole of government effort to combat. The memorandum seemingly invites branches of the U.S. government, including Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) around the country, to surveil and investigate groups and individuals based on “indicia” (beliefs) such as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked those three types of beliefs when announcing the designations of the four “Antifa” groups, vowing to “continue using all available tools to protect our nation from these anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-Christian terrorist groups.” Indeed, the State Department’s SDGT and FTO designations are the latest step in the administration’s campaign to portray Antifa as a top-tier threat.
FTO designations are powerful by design, as Thomas Brzozowski, the former counsel for Domestic Terrorism in the Counterterrorism Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, has written in these pages. Once a group is designated as an FTO, the U.S. government can invoke legal authorities that allow it to surveil and harass any party connected to it – including organizations inside the United States. It is for that reason that the State Department’s designations of four alleged “Antifa” groups is potentially worrisome. Although the administration has not yet branded “Antifa” in its entirety as an FTO, it is apparently seeking ways to invoke those intrusive authorities against an enemy that is conjured without evidence and conceptually undefined.
None of this is to suggest that the threat of leftwing political violence should be dismissed. It is real, but the U.S. government already has the tools needed to combat it. And as the review above is intended to show, the new designations are unnecessary. They are surely not based on a bottom-up assessment of the threat that these entities pose, but instead a top-down desire to create a bogeyman.
When Trump first announced his intent to designate “Antifa” as a foreign terrorist organization in mid-September, Hungary’s Orban quickly cheered. Orban’s enthusiasm was telling, as he has used the power of the state to hollow out opposition to his autocratic regime, which he has described as an “illiberal democracy.” Some hard-right politicians in different parts of Europe followed Trump’s statement by announcing their own interest in designating “Antifa” a terrorist organization. On Sept. 26, Hungary declared Antifa Ost a terrorist organization and then “added the group to its national anti-terrorism list.” It was conspicuous that Orban did not take a similar action against any of the neo-Nazi groups that march in Budapest every February. After all, they do not protest his rule. Meanwhile, the policy actions taken by the Trump administration to address domestic terrorism thus far, including NSPM-7, fail to address the threat posed by far-right extremists in the United States.
