Trump designates Antifa a domestic terrorist organization by executive order, directing all federal agencies to investigate and disrupt the movement

On September 22, 2025, President Trump signed a presidential order formally designating "Antifa" as a domestic terrorist organization and directing all executive departments and agencies to use every applicable authority to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle operations by anyone claiming to act on behalf of the movement. The order was published in the Federal Register on September 25, 2025, as Presidential Document 2025-18709. The document describes Antifa as "engaged in political violence to suppress lawful political activity," and requires all federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to treat Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization for purposes of investigation and prosecution.

The United States has no statutory authority equivalent to the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation framework under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act for domestic groups; that law covers only foreign organizations. No act of Congress authorizes the executive branch to designate domestic movements as terrorist organizations, making Trump's order an entirely executive — and constitutionally contested — action. Antifa is a political stance and decentralized movement rather than a formal membership organization with identifiable leadership, financing, or command structure. The Department of Justice and FBI have used the order as a charging predicate despite these structural limitations: the DOJ brought its first federal terrorism indictment under the designation against two individuals for a July 4, 2025, attack on a Fort Worth ICE facility (archived: October 16, 2025), and a December 2025 Bondi Justice Department memo operationalized the designation as a basis for investigating Americans expressing opposition to immigration enforcement and related political viewpoints.

The Standing records this as the originating executive act directing the federal law enforcement apparatus against a constitutionally protected political movement without statutory authority. The presidential order created the legal predicate subsequently used in documented terrorism prosecutions, making the signing itself the beginning of an ongoing pattern of viewpoint-based law enforcement.