Neo-Nazi protests in America are being staged today by a small set of organized groups — Blood Tribe, Patriot Front, the Nationalist Social Club (NSC-131), and a growing decentralized network of “active clubs” — whose masked, uniformed demonstrations have spread to dozens of cities since 2023. Because the First Amendment protects most of what these marchers say and display, criminal prosecutions are rare; the main legal response has shifted to civil conspiracy lawsuits, state civil rights enforcement, and a patchwork of mask and hate-symbol laws.
Who Is Marching
Blood Tribe
Founded in 2021 by former Marine Christopher Pohlhaus, Blood Tribe is the most openly provocative of the current groups. Members wear matching red and black uniforms with masks, carry swastika flags, and perform Nazi salutes. The group’s stated goal is a white ethnostate achieved through the violent removal of Jews and non-white minorities, and its ideology incorporates esoteric Hitlerism, which treats Hitler as a divine figure.1George Washington University Program on Extremism. Blood Tribe2ADL. Blood Tribe
Blood Tribe first appeared publicly in Wadsworth, Ohio, in March 2023, protesting an LGBTQ+ event alongside Patriot Front and White Lives Matter. Since then it has staged demonstrations in more than a dozen cities, including Nashville (February 2024), Pierre, South Dakota (June 2024), and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (August 2024).2ADL. Blood Tribe Members typically arrive and depart in a U-Haul truck.
The group’s longest campaign targeted Springfield, Ohio, in August and September 2024, where members spread conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants and marched on City Hall and the mayor’s home. On August 2, 2025, roughly 20 Blood Tribe members marched through Concord, New Hampshire, with a scuffle breaking out on South Main Street; eyewitnesses reported marchers punching a man and spraying him with mace.3WBUR. Concord New Hampshire Neo-Nazi March Blood Tribe On December 6, 2025, about 22 members rallied at the Arkansas State Capitol and marched to Little Rock Central High School, carrying a banner reading “race mixing is communism.”4Arkansas Times. Little Rock Police Chief Gives Update on Neo-Nazis
Patriot Front
Patriot Front, led by Thomas Rousseau, is the largest organized neo-Nazi group currently operating in the United States. As of early 2026 it has more than 540 members across 32 states and at least 23 regional chapters, with the heaviest membership in Texas (78), Florida (36), Utah (35), California (28), and Tennessee (25). Rousseau has set a recruitment goal of 600 members by July 4, 2026.5Tallahassee Democrat. Patriot Front Florida Members
The group evolved from Vanguard America, one of the organizations at the 2017 Charlottesville rally, and conducts “flash demonstrations” in which members march in formation wearing chino pants, blue button-down shirts, and white face coverings while carrying shields. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee characterizes Patriot Front as a neo-Nazi organization, though it wraps its messaging in patriotic imagery. Internally, the group trains members to use shields as weapons and promotes the goal of an exclusively white United States.6FindLaw. Murrell v. Patriot Front5Tallahassee Democrat. Patriot Front Florida Members
NSC-131
The Nationalist Social Club, known as NSC-131, was founded in 2019 by Christopher Hood in eastern Massachusetts and operates as a network of small regional cells across New England. The numbers in its name stand for “Anti-Communist Action” in alphanumeric code. Members have targeted Black Lives Matter events, LGBTQ+ story hours, and immigrant communities, including a 2022 march through Lewiston, Maine, intended to intimidate the local Somali population.7George Washington University Program on Extremism. National Socialist Club NSC-131 Hood announced he was stepping back from the group in June 2024, and NSC-131 is now described as largely inactive while litigation proceeds.8ADL. Nationalist Social Club NSC-131
Active Clubs
Beyond the named organizations, a decentralized network of “active clubs” has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the white supremacist movement. The model was introduced in late 2020 by Robert Rundo, founder of the California-based Rise Above Movement, who called it “White Nationalism 3.0” — small, semi-autonomous cells organized around fitness, mixed martial arts, and preparation for what members describe as an inevitable racial conflict.9U.S. Congress. Active Clubs and Transnational Far-Right Extremism
U.S. chapters grew from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025, operating in at least 25 states. Internationally the movement spans 187 chapters across 27 countries. Clubs recruit through fitness branding and encrypted messaging platforms such as Telegram, introducing extremist ideology gradually.9U.S. Congress. Active Clubs and Transnational Far-Right Extremism Rundo was extradited from Romania in 2023, pleaded guilty in September 2024 to conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Riot Act, and was sentenced in December 2024 to two years in federal prison.10U.S. Department of Justice. Former Orange County Resident Linked to White Supremacy Group Sentenced to Two Years in Prison
Why Criminal Charges Are So Rare
When neo-Nazi demonstrators waved swastika flags and shouted racial slurs from a highway overpass near Lincoln Heights, Ohio, on February 7, 2025, police from Evendale and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office responded but made no arrests, citing de-escalation as the priority.11NBC News. Lincoln Heights Ohio Armed Protection Group Neo-Nazi Rally
In June 2025, Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich confirmed that no charges would be filed. Her office had reviewed potential counts including disorderly conduct, ethnic intimidation, rioting, and anti-mask violations, and concluded that First Amendment protections shielded the speech. Charges like ethnic intimidation required an underlying criminal offense that had not occurred.12WVXU. Hamilton County Prosecutor No Charges Nazis Lincoln Heights
That outcome illustrates the general pattern. Marching, wearing a uniform, carrying a flag, and shouting slurs are protected activities. Criminal exposure typically requires something more — a specific threat, an assault, a conspiracy to riot — and masks and anonymity make even those harder to pin on individual marchers. The Idaho case against Patriot Front is one of the few exceptions: in June 2022, police in Coeur d’Alene stopped a U-Haul packed with 31 members headed toward a Pride parade, and five were convicted of conspiracy to riot in July 2023. Each received five days in jail, a year of unsupervised probation, a $1,000 fine, and a restraining order. The jury deliberated roughly one hour.13New York Times. Patriot Front Idaho Pride Convicted
The Civil Lawsuit Playbook
Where criminal law has fallen short, civil litigation has become the primary tool for holding neo-Nazi groups accountable. The template was set by Sines v. Kessler, filed by nine people injured at Charlottesville against two dozen white supremacists and hate groups. The suit used an 1871 federal statute originally passed to protect Black Americans from the Ku Klux Klan, arguing the defendants had conspired to plan and carry out the violence that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens.14BBC. Charlottesville Rally Violence
On November 23, 2021, a jury found every defendant liable.15Integrity First for America. Charlottesville Case The Fourth Circuit affirmed the verdict in July 2024 and reinstated $2.8 million in punitive damages a lower court had capped, bringing the total — compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees combined — above $9 million.16Courthouse News Service. Fourth Circuit Affirms Charlottesville Conspiracy Verdict James Alex Fields Jr., the attendee who drove his car into counter-protesters, was separately convicted of state murder in December 2018 and sentenced to life in federal prison in June 2019 after pleading guilty to 29 of 30 hate crimes.14BBC. Charlottesville Rally Violence
Two more recent cases follow the same strategy:
Springfield v. Blood Tribe. On February 6, 2025, the City of Springfield, its elected officials, and residents filed a federal lawsuit against Blood Tribe, Pohlhaus, second-in-command Drake Berentz, and seven unnamed members under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 (conspiracy to interfere with civil rights). The suit alleges a months-long campaign of harassment including brandishing weapons and contributing to at least 33 bomb threats against schools, hospitals, and government buildings, and seeks damages on nine counts including public nuisance, ethnic intimidation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.17ADL. City of Springfield Files Federal Lawsuit Against Neo-Nazi Group Blood Tribe The court granted sanctions against Pohlhaus in October 2025 after he failed to cooperate, and a default was entered against him. The case remains active.18Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. City of Springfield v. The Blood Tribe
Murrell v. Patriot Front. A federal court in Massachusetts awarded $2.755 million in damages against Patriot Front and Rousseau in January 2025 after both failed to respond to a lawsuit filed by a man attacked during one of the group’s demonstrations. The default judgment found the organization and its leader jointly and severally liable for conspiracy to deprive equal protection, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rousseau was served at the McLennan County Jail in Waco, Texas.6FindLaw. Murrell v. Patriot Front
New Hampshire v. NSC-131. In December 2023, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Civil Rights Unit filed an enforcement action against Hood and 19 NSC-131 members over a June 2023 incident at the Teatotaller Café in Concord. The complaint alleges members shouted homophobic slurs, performed Nazi salutes, banged on windows, and intimidated attendees for more than an hour during a drag queen story hour. The case was brought under New Hampshire’s Law Against Discrimination, which carries a potential $10,000 administrative fine per violation.19New Hampshire Department of Justice. Attorney General Formella Announces Civil Rights Unit Enforcement Action Against NSC
Whether these judgments can actually be collected from decentralized, often impoverished defendants is an open question. The Charlottesville plaintiffs’ organization, Integrity First for America, wound down operations in December 2022, treating the verdict itself as the deterrent.15Integrity First for America. Charlottesville Case
What States Have Tried to Pass
Mask Laws
Before the pandemic, 15 states and the District of Columbia had anti-mask statutes, many originally aimed at the Klan. Several have tightened those laws or proposed new ones in response to masked extremist marches. North Carolina passed a broad mask ban that includes sentencing enhancements for crimes committed while masked, overriding a gubernatorial veto.20Christian Science Monitor. Mask Bans States Neo-Nazis Maryland’s proposed “Unmask Hate Act” (SB 709 / HB 1081), introduced in early 2025, would make it a misdemeanor to harass, intimidate, or threaten someone while concealing one’s face, with penalties of up to 90 days in jail for a first offense.21Maryland General Assembly. Unmask Hate Act Committee Testimony Opponents warn such laws can be written too vaguely and chill legitimate protest; supporters point to the practical difficulty of identifying masked marchers.
Hate Symbol Restrictions
New York has targeted the display of hate symbols on public property. In 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation banning the sale or display of “symbols of hate” — defined to include symbols of white supremacy, neo-Nazi ideology, and the Confederate battle flag — on state property, with an exemption for educational use. First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams called the law “highly likely to be held unconstitutional.”22Georgetown Free Speech Project. Governor Bans Hate Symbols From Sale or Display on New York State Property In 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul extended the ban to municipal property, including fire departments, police departments, and school districts.23Governor of New York. Governor Hochul Signs Legislation Prohibiting Municipal Corporations Selling or Displaying Symbols of Hate The measures apply only to government property, not to private individuals or protesters on public sidewalks.
Open-Carry Gaps
Residents of Lincoln Heights, a predominantly Black Ohio community without its own police department since 2014, responded to the February 2025 overpass incident by forming “Lincoln Heights Safety and Watch,” with armed volunteers patrolling in tactical gear. Under Ohio law, people legally permitted to own firearms may openly carry without a permit. Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey has advocated for a state law prohibiting mask-wearing for the purpose of intimidation while openly carrying firearms, warning that the current gap risks unintended confrontations.11NBC News. Lincoln Heights Ohio Armed Protection Group Neo-Nazi Rally24WLWT. Lincoln Heights Residents Form Armed Group After Nazi Rally
When Protest Turns to Attack
The deadliest neo-Nazi attack in the United States in three years occurred on May 18, 2026, when two teenagers — Cain Lee Clark, 17, and Caleb Liam Vazquez, 18 — opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing security guard Amin Abdullah, Nader Awad, and Mansoor Kazziha. Both shooters died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.25New York Post. Manifesto Reveals Motive Behind Islamic Center of San Diego Shooting
Investigators recovered a 75-page manifesto titled “The New Crusade: Sons of Tarrant” containing anti-Islam, antisemitic, and racist rhetoric. The document glorified the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter, Timothy McVeigh, and Anders Breivik, referenced Atomwaffen Division, and expressed a desire to “spark a race war.” Authorities seized more than 30 firearms from locations linked to the attackers. A 2025 welfare check had previously flagged one suspect’s “idolizing [of] Nazis and mass shooters.”26Los Angeles Times. San Diego Attack Manifesto
The international dimension of the active-club network became visible in June 2026. After a Sudanese asylum seeker stabbed a man in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 8, roughly 250 masked individuals set fire to vehicles and homes in ethnic minority neighborhoods. The “Ulster Youth Club,” Northern Ireland’s branch of the active-club movement, provided tactical guidance via Telegram, instructing rioters to avoid carrying smartphones, cover tattoos, and wear specific clothing to evade identification. More than two dozen people were left homeless and 12 police officers were injured.27Wired. A White Supremacist Youth Group Helped Orchestrate the Belfast Riots
The current groups are adapting around the limits of the law. Blood Tribe stages flash rallies designed as much for online recruitment videos as for street-level intimidation. Active clubs use decentralization and encryption to evade monitoring. Patriot Front keeps internal manuals instructing members to avoid violent confrontations in public while training them to use shields as weapons. Civil lawsuits, state discrimination statutes, and narrowly drawn mask laws are the main legal tools available, and each reaches only part of a movement built to operate at the edges of what the First Amendment permits authorities to touch.