Thus far, the Justice Department has led the charge, with an assist from the Department of Homeland Security. Both agencies have routinely branded protesters as “Antifa” and terrorists, often exaggerating the gravity of small-bore offenses and pushing for maximal punishment. DHS claims that doxing ICE agents amounts to terrorism, and it has treated criticizing the agency on social media as a crime. The attorney general’s memorandum implementing NSPM-7 directs law enforcement to prioritize what it calls “organized doxing of law enforcement, mass rioting and destruction in our cities, [and] violent efforts to shut down immigration enforcement.” It lists a range of laws prosecutors can use and instructs them to charge as severely as possible and seek the harshest sentences available. Its implementing efforts include an NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center at the FBI, which is a joint effort between the FBI and IRS to investigate nonprofit organizations for suspected domestic terrorism links, and a task force in the deputy attorney general’s office to investigate the funding of antifa-linked groups.
The administration’s strategy of using the antifa-terrorism narrative to maximize the scope and severity of punishment saw its first major success in the Prairieland case. The prosecution involves several defendants and cases (both federal and state) and a complicated record, which has been extensively reported. To summarize, in July 2025, a group of activists took part in a noise demonstration outside an ICE facility. One of the participants brought a gun and shot at a police officer. Initially, the government brought normal criminal charges: attempted murder and discharging a firearm. Shortly after NSPM-7 was issued, however, the Justice Department indicted nine members of the group for material support for terrorism, alleging that they were part of the “North Texas Antifa Cell,” and on separate riot and explosives charges. They also charged one defendant with conspiring to conceal documents for asking her husband to move pamphlets from their home. He, too, was charged, even though he wasn’t even at the demonstration. All were convicted, as were others who were charged separately and some who pleaded guilty.
The government’s evidence that defendants were part of an antifa cell was thin and consisted almost entirely of innocuous and First Amendment–protected activity: belonging to a book club named after a famous anarchist, owning political “zines,” wearing black clothing, and communicating via an encrypted messaging app. These facts proved sufficient for a jury to convict the defendants of material support for terrorism — even though all defendants accused of attempted murder, except the shooter, were acquitted on those charges. The material support conviction rested instead on destruction of government property: throwing fireworks, vandalizing a facility van and guard shack, and damaging a surveillance camera. The convictions were possible because the material support statute criminalizes support for malicious destruction of government property without distinguishing between setting off a bomb and tossing a firework.
The disconnect between conduct and consequences sharpened at sentencing. Seven defendants convicted based on property damage received sentences in the 50-to-70-year range. The man who didn’t even attend the protest and had simply transported pamphlets received a 30-year sentence. Prosecutors achieved these eye-popping sentences by stacking counts and obtaining consecutive sentences, further inflated by a terrorism sentencing enhancement. The result far exceeds the reported 7.7-to-8.6-year average for earlier domestic terrorism cases involving property damage or injury — and even exceeds sentences imposed in ISIS terrorism trials.
Material support charges are not the only tool used by the administration for branding opponents as “Antifa” and deploying the most severe tools at its disposal. In June 2026, federal prosecutors announced charges against 15 people connected to the group Direct Action Minnesota, describing the charges as part of the NSPM-7 effort to combat “Antifa groups that violently opposed the enforcement of federal law.” All were charged under a statute that criminalizes conspiring to prevent a federal officer from doing their job “by force, intimidation, or threat.” The federal felony charge, which carries a sentence of up to six years, is based on conduct that would normally be prosecuted as a state-level misdemeanor at most. As in the Prairieland case, prosecutors relied heavily on the defendants’ First Amendment–protected activity: attending meetings, posting on Facebook and Instagram, and tracking ICE vehicles on a shared database. Four defendants face individual charges beyond conspiracy based on conduct such as knocking an officer’s notebook out of his hand, denting a government vehicle by kicking it, and an ambiguous traffic incident.
The case against Direct Action Minnesota is one piece of a sprawling investigation into left-leaning organizations involved in organizing protests against the federal immigration crackdown launched in December 2025. DHS investigators issued administrative subpoenas for three years of financial records from the Sunrise Movement (a youth-led organization focused on climate change) and major labor unions — well beyond the time frame of the protests — apparently on a “domestic terrorist financing” theory. Undercover agents reportedly infiltrated Signal chats and attended activists’ meetings related to ICE activity, compiling the attendees’ names, license plates, and social media profiles. None of these organizations has been charged with any crime, but the government linked them with other entities — from the country’s largest union, the AFL-CIO, to a bike repair shop — as part of the alleged conspiracy that led to the Direct Action Minnesota case.
It remains to be seen whether the Direct Action Minnesota case will result in convictions, as in the Prairieland case, or fall flat like other attempts by the same U.S. attorney’s office to crack down on anti-ICE protesters. That office charged 38 people under Section 111 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which makes it a crime to assault or forcibly impede a federal officer. Twenty of these cases have been resolved so far, with nineteen dismissed and one defendant pleading guilty to a reduced charge. This is an even worse record than the government’s weak national track record under that statute.
Anti-ICE protesters are not the only ones in the administration’s crosshairs. It has also taken aim at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization known for tracking and litigating against white nationalist and hate groups. In a 2025 report, the SPLC listed Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk, on its Hate Map for embracing the white nationalist “great replacement” theory. After Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, House Republicans quickly accused the SPLC of placing a “target” on Kirk and called for a hearing on “the money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.” NSPM-7, published two weeks later, invoked Kirk’s killing as proof of an organized left-wing terror campaign requiring a zealous response from the government.
In April 2026, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted SPLC for wire fraud, false statements, and money laundering. The government’s central claim is that SPLC’s practice of paying informants to infiltrate far-right groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations amounted to financial support for these movements. Former prosecutors have questioned the validity of the indictment, noting that it is unclear why deploying informants — a tactic commonly used by law enforcement — runs counter to the SPLC’s mission of dismantling hate groups. The government recently added as a defendant a former SPLC employee who had directed the organization’s intelligence project and, per the government, oversaw payments to informants, including one with whom she had a personal and financial relationship.
The Prairieland, Direct Action Minnesota, and SPLC prosecutions were brought under different laws, but they share a common factor: the government’s disapproval. Prairieland and Direct Action Minnesota involved anti-ICE activity, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has drawn the ire of the administration and its allies for suggesting that right-wing groups, including Kirk’s Turning Point USA, are hate groups. NSPM-7’s list of disfavored viewpoints also helps explain the reach of the broad Minnesota investigation. Criminalizing “anti-capitalism” provides the basis for targeting the unions and socialist collectives, while a crusade against “extremism on migration [and] race” sweeps in the racial justice and anti-ICE groups. The point of these investigations and prosecutions is plain: to quash opposition.
