What is Antifa and why is Donald Trump targeting it?

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.”

He accused the group of recruiting, training and radicalizing young Americans to participate in political violence and said federal law enforcement would be “very threatening” in pursuing the movement.

Antifa, a loosely organized left-wing movement that opposes far-right, racist and fascist groups, has long drawn Trump's ire.

But experts question how the president would actually attack a group that has no clear leader, list of members or structure. In 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that Antifa was better defined as an ideology rather than a formal organization.

Antifa remains a popular touchstone for some right-wing influencers and politicians who say it is a key component of a left-wing network they say seeks to undermine the United States, free speech and gun rights.

Antifa is short for anti-fascist. It is a loose association without leaders, consisting mainly of far-left activists.

The word “Antifa” comes from the German word “antifaschistisch”, referring to a German anti-fascist group of the 1930s.

Although Antifa has existed in the United States for decades, it rose to prominence after Trump's first election victory in 2016 and the far-right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, where various anti-fascist groups began to unite.

Since then, activists identifying with Antifa have regularly clashed with right-wing groups, both in heated arguments online and in physical altercations across the US.

The lack of a centralized organization means that Antifa cells tend to form organically, both online and offline, and its activists include anarchists, communists and hardline socialists who generally share anti-government, anti-capitalist, pro-LGBTQ and pro-immigration views.

But conservative politicians and commentators sometimes use “Antifa” as an all-encompassing term that includes other liberal and left-wing groups they oppose politically.

Critics say what sets Antifa apart from mainstream left-wing groups is the willingness of some of its activists to use violence to advance their cause, which they in turn claim is self-defense.

Activists often dress in dark clothing and cover their faces in public. Online videos seen by the BBC show some holding batons, shields, sticks and pepper spray at rallies.

In 2017, about 100 masked activists carrying Antifa-related signs and flags attacked a group of right-wing protesters in Berkeley, California, leading to numerous arrests.

During the unrest that erupted in the US after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, self-proclaimed Antifa activist Michael Reinoehl, 48, shot and killed a supporter of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group in the Portland area. Reinoehl was subsequently shot and killed by police.

Anti-fascist activists also regularly reveal the identities and personal details of those they consider to be far-right activists. Commonly known as “doxxing,” this tactic aims to get people fired from their jobs and otherwise socially ostracized.

Following the murder of Charlie Kirk, BBC Verify saw posts from some self-proclaimed Antifa members on Reddit and X defending the shooting.

The US government can designate a group as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) – the “legal criteria” for this state that the target group “must be a foreign organization.”

The State Department has compiled a list of active FTOswhich include affiliates of ISIS and, increasingly, drug cartels from Latin America.

The FTO designation means group members can be banned from entering the U.S. or expelled from the country, and also gives the government the power to seize funding and target donors.

But it's unclear how those powers might be extended to Antifa.

Trump decree directs “all executive departments and agencies… to investigate, disrupt, and disrupt any illegal operations… conducted by Antifa” or its supporters.

We asked the White House what this means in practice.

“I am aware that there is no legal mechanism that would officially designate any group as a domestic terrorist organization,” Luke Baumgartner, a fellow at George Washington University's Program on Extremism, told us.

Other legal experts who spoke to BBC Verify noted that First Amendment rights to free speech could undermine Trump's efforts.

Professor David Shanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University, said: “The First Amendment protects the right of association, which includes the right of individuals to form groups and prohibits the government from interfering with the activities of those groups unless they have broken the law.”

“The president's designation of such a group as a 'major terrorist organization' does not change these fundamental constitutional rights,” he added.

Brad Evans, professor of political violence at the University of Bath, warned that Antifa's lack of organizational structure and membership “presents a wonderful opportunity to expand [government's] transmit and apply it to anyone who can be assumed to belong to an organization that is not clearly defined.”

“This means that anyone suspected of belonging to Antifa will have to deny their connection. The dangers of abuse are all too obvious.”

Other legal experts have questioned why the Trump administration has failed to challenge Antifa under existing laws aimed at combating crimes such as incitement of violence.

This is not the first time Trump has attacked Antifa: He said he would designate the group as a terrorist organization in 2020, but has not followed through on that request at the time.

His latest intervention is part of a wider campaign against the “radical left” following the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Authorities said Tyler Robinson, accused of killing Kirk, had a “left-wing ideology” but did not provide details and was not directly affiliated with Antifa.

In his speech after the fatal shooting, President Trump said: “Radical left-wing political violence has harmed too many innocent people and claimed too many lives.”

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has removed a study of political violence in America that concluded that far-right extremism has outpaced “all other types of violent extremism.”

The BBC asked the Ministry of Justice why the study, published in 2024 by the department's research agency, was removed. He said he had “no comment.”

BBC Verify analyzed five independent studies that examined politically motivated attacks in the US over recent decades. All of them show that there were more cases of political violence in the United States committed by people who researchers ascribe to a right-wing ideology than a left-wing ideology.

However, since there is no consistent or universal definition of “right” or “left” ideology, it is difficult to measure trends in political violence over time.

Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago said there had been a “historic high in political murders and assassinations” in recent years, with both Republican and Democratic politicians being targeted.

“From our data on what happens when a political leader blames one side for violence, we see that it generates more support for political violence, not less,” he added.

Additional reporting by Mike Wendling, Matt Murphy and Lucy Gilder