Antifa Chapters: Groups, Federal Designation, and Prosecutions

Antifa chapters in the United States are not branches of a single organization. They are independently formed local groups that share an anti-fascist ideology, pick their own names, set their own tactics, and in most cases operate with no formal tie to one another. The FBI, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project have all described antifa as an ideology or loose movement rather than a structured organization, which is why analysts and law enforcement generally refer to specific named groups instead of a national “antifa.”¹²

That structure, or lack of it, is the starting point for understanding which groups actually exist, what they do, and why the federal government’s recent attempts to treat them as a single terrorist organization have run into legal objections.

What Counts as an Antifa Chapter

Because there is no national leadership and no membership roll, chapters form locally, usually in response to perceived far-right organizing in a specific city or region. They communicate through social media, encrypted peer-to-peer networks, and messaging apps like Signal. Some run regular meetings with strict operational security; others are informal clusters of people who show up at the same demonstrations.¹

FBI Director Christopher Wray stated in 2020 that antifa is “more of an ideology than an organization.” ACLED takes the same approach in its tracking, listing groups that espouse the ideology under their own individual names rather than aggregating them.² The modern U.S. movement’s most direct ancestor is the Anti-Racist Action Network (ARA), active from roughly 1987 to 2013, which was itself a decentralized collection of groups that confronted racist skinheads, the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazis.³ In 2013, activists rebranded ARA into what became the Torch Antifa Network, a loose coalition of roughly a dozen groups that describes its members as “militant antifascists.”⁴

Known U.S. Groups

Rose City Antifa (Portland, Oregon)

Rose City Antifa, founded in 2007, is widely regarded as the oldest active U.S. group to use “antifa” in its name. About half a dozen activists, including former ARA members, started it after neo-Nazis attempted to hold a white-power music festival near Portland.⁵ It joined the Torch Antifa Network in 2016.³

Its primary tactic is doxxing: compiling evidence on individuals the group believes are tied to white-supremacist or far-right violence and publishing that information to employers, neighbors, and online audiences. Members say they hold their research to rigorous standards and only target people connected to violent rhetoric or acts. Early work focused on Volksfront, an international racist gang headquartered in Portland; members have said their exposure campaign contributed to Volksfront’s U.S. chapters disbanding in 2012.⁵

The group has also been at the center of violent street clashes with Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys, particularly in 2019 and 2020. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler publicly condemned members as “self-described anarchists who engage in regular criminal destruction.”⁶

The Torch Antifa Network and Its Affiliates

The Torch Network’s current active chapters are Asheville Anti Racism, Rose City Antifa, Atlanta Antifascists, Central Texas Anti-Racist Action, CV Antifa, Bay 161, and Front Range Anti-Fascists. Several former affiliates hold “emeritus” status: Chicago Anti-Fascist Action, Antifa Seven Hills, Pacific Northwest Antifascist Workers Collective, Rocky Mountain Antifa, and Antifa Sacramento.⁷

Despite sharing information and advice, Rose City Antifa has said there is “little practical collaboration” between affiliates. That matters when thinking about Torch as a “network”: it is a shared identity and a point of contact, not a command structure.⁵

Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (Seattle Area)

Founded in 2017, this group describes itself as an “anti-fascist, anti-racist, pro-worker community defense organization.” It gained national attention after member Willem Van Spronsen attacked an ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, in July 2019. Van Spronsen, armed with a semiautomatic rifle and incendiary devices, set a vehicle on fire and threw Molotov cocktails before being fatally shot by police.⁸

Although he had been one of the club’s earliest recruits, Van Spronsen had severed official ties with the group in the weeks before the attack and mailed a farewell letter to a member beforehand. His daughter later characterized the incident as an “orchestrated suicide” driven by personal struggles, while the Trump administration at the time labeled it a domestic terror attack.⁸

Other Named Groups

Additional local groups identified in reporting and research include NYC Antifa, Anti-Fascist Sacramento, the Houston Socialist Movement, and By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), which has been active in Berkeley, California. These groups vary in size, ideology, and willingness to engage in physical confrontation.¹

Modern chapters continue to use symbols dating to the early twentieth century, including the two-flag emblem of the German Antifaschistische Aktion and the three arrows of the Iron Front.¹

What Chapters Actually Do

Tactics differ from group to group, but a few recur across the movement:

Counter-protesting at far-right rallies with the goal of outnumbering, out-shouting, or physically blocking participants.
Black bloc, which is wearing all-black clothing, masks, and sunglasses to conceal individual identities during demonstrations. Black bloc is a tactic, not a group; anyone at a given protest can adopt it.
Doxxing: researching and publicly exposing the identities, employers, and social connections of people linked to white-supremacist or far-right organizations.
Direct action, a broad term that can range from blocking streets and vandalizing property to, in rare cases, armed confrontation.

Within any given chapter, participants may disagree about where the line falls. Some adherents oppose all violence. CSIS analysts have described a graduated approach among more militant participants, escalating from verbal confrontation through improvised weapons to, in extreme cases, firearms or explosives.¹

The 2025 Federal Designation

On September 22, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order formally designating antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” characterizing it as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” engaged in “organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures.” The order directed federal departments to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations” conducted by antifa or those providing material support.⁹

Three days later, the administration issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directed the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to coordinate a national strategy against antifa-linked networks, instructed the Treasury Department and IRS to identify and cut off funding streams, and ordered U.S. attorney offices to appoint domestic terrorism coordinators.¹⁰

In November 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated four European groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act: Antifa Ost (Germany), the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (Italy), Armed Proletarian Justice (Greece), and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense (Greece). The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control concurrently designated all four as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, triggering asset-blocking and sanctions authorities.¹¹ No U.S.-based chapter has been added to the FTO list, which by statute applies only to foreign groups.

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a December 2025 memorandum directing federal law enforcement to focus on potential tax crimes and fraud by organizations characterized as extremist, and the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation division set up a joint operations hub for those probes. In May 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the investigation had made “substantial progress,” and the department began requiring nonprofits to identify grant recipients on tax filings. As of mid-2026, no specific organizations have been publicly identified as targets and no tax-exempt statuses have been publicly revoked.¹²

Chapters That Have Been Prosecuted

The North Texas Cell and the Prairieland Attack

On July 4, 2025, a group the government described as a North Texas antifa cell attacked the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, using firearms, fireworks, and vandalism. An Alvarado police officer who responded was shot in the neck and survived.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

In March 2026, a federal jury in Fort Worth convicted nine defendants after a twelve-day trial. Song was convicted of attempted murder, providing material support to terrorists, and other charges. Seven additional defendants had already pleaded guilty to a single count of providing material support to terrorists.¹³ FBI Director Kash Patel said the guilty pleas were the first “material support to terrorism” charges brought against antifa-affiliated defendants.¹⁶

Sentencing in June 2026 produced some of the longest federal prison terms ever imposed in a case linked to anti-fascist activism. Song received 100 years. Maricela Rueda received 70 years. Five defendants received 50 years each. Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada received 30 years. The remaining defendants are awaiting sentencing.¹⁴

Direct Action Minnesota

On June 16, 2026, federal prosecutors in Minnesota unsealed a 94-page indictment charging fifteen members and associates of Direct Action Minnesota, a Minneapolis-based group the government described as having antifa ties. The charges include conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, interstate stalking, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, assault on a federal officer, and destruction of government property.¹⁷

Prosecutors alleged that the group used encrypted Signal messaging, organized “hard” and “soft” blockades at a federal building in St. Paul, surveilled and followed ICE officers, and conducted an “Anarchist Speaking Tour” in April 2026 to train other groups in Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Seattle.¹⁷ Twelve of the fifteen defendants were arrested the day the indictment was announced; two remained at large.¹⁸

Unlike the Prairieland case, no terrorism charges were filed, and the indictment does not allege that any officers were physically injured.¹⁹ Defense attorneys and the New York Times reported that roughly half of thirty-six prior federal cases in Minnesota involving assault or interference charges against ICE agents had been dismissed by judges for insufficient evidence.¹⁸

Where the Legal Fight Stands

Antifa activity sits at the intersection of protected political expression and criminal conduct. The First Amendment protects the right to assemble, counter-protest, and express unpopular political views. Courts have held that governments may impose content-neutral “time, place, and manner” restrictions but cannot deny permits or single out groups based on viewpoint, and police must treat protesters and counterprotesters equally.²⁰ Protection ends when protest activity crosses into violence, intimidation, or destruction of property; the Supreme Court held as early as 1941 that an injunction against picketing does not violate the First Amendment when the protest is intertwined with violent conduct.

The Brennan Center for Justice has argued that the September 2025 executive order lacks legal authority, noting that no existing statute empowers the executive branch to designate a domestic group as a terrorist organization the way the Immigration and Nationality Act allows for foreign groups. The Brennan Center called the designation legally unenforceable and warned that applying “material support” frameworks to a domestic political movement risks criminalizing lawful speech, association, and fundraising.²¹

The executive order itself states it “shall be implemented consistent with applicable law” and does not create any enforceable legal right or benefit.⁹ Whether the “domestic terrorist organization” label survives court challenge is still unresolved. As of mid-2026, no court rulings on the designation’s validity have been reported, and the government’s prosecutions have so far proceeded under conventional criminal statutes rather than any new authority created by the designation itself.

1
CSIS. Examining Extremism: Antifa
2
ACLED. Antifa Is Not a Single Group, So What Is It?
3
Congressional Research Service. Antifa Background
4
Torch Antifa Network. About
5
The New Yorker. Trump, Antifa, and the Portland Movement
6
ABC News. A Year of Protests: Portland Residents’ Waning Patience With Antifa
7
Torch Antifa Network. Chapters
8
KUOW. One Activist’s Violent Death Became a Symbol for the Right and Left
9
The White House. Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization
10
The White House. Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence
11
Federal Register. Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation of Antifa Ost, Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front
12
Washington Times. Scott Bessent Says IRS-FBI Investigation Into Antifa Has Made Substantial Progress
13
U.S. Department of Justice. Antifa Cell Members Convicted in Prairieland ICE Detention Center Shooting
14
U.S. Department of Justice. Leader of Antifa Cell Members in North Texas Sentenced to 100 Years in Prison
15
U.S. Department of Justice. Antifa Cell Members Indicted in Prairieland Shooting
16
PBS NewsHour. 5 Plead Guilty to Terrorism-Related Charges Tied to Antifa After Texas Shooting
17
U.S. Department of Justice. 15 Members of Direct Action Minnesota Indicted
18
The New York Times. Minnesota Immigration Charges Target Group With Antifa Ties
19
The Guardian. Minnesota Immigration Enforcement Conspiracy Charges
20
ACLU. Protesters’ Rights
21
Brennan Center for Justice. Trump’s Orders Targeting Antifascism Aim to Criminalize Opposition