Prosecutors say indicted anti-ICE protesters have ties to antifa groups. What is antifa?
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A grand jury indicted 15 people Tuesday in connection to anti-ICE protests this winter.
The charges include “conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers” and stalking.
Federal prosecutors say these individuals are members of Direct Action Minnesota, which has ties to antifa — or anti-fascist — groups.
To help us better understand what antifa is and what these charges mean, Minnesota Now spoke to Mark Bray. He’s a history professor at Rutgers University and leading expert on antifa.
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Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
What is Antifa?
“Antifa” is short for anti-fascism and refers to “a politics or a movement of opposing the far-right and fascism from the bottom up,” according to Bray.
The term comes out of the history of resistance against Nazi Germany during the 1930s.
“But it’s transformed itself quite a bit over the generations and reemerged in a different color after World War II among different kinds of leftists and immigrants who aim to oppose a new Nazi threat, a new far-right threat in punk concerts or football stadiums around Europe,” said Bray.
He adds anyone looking to oppose the far-right can call themselves antifa because “there's no membership cards.”
How is the Trump administration using this term?
The Trump administration designated antifa as a domestic terrorist organization in September 2025, describing it as “a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”
Bray said the Trump administration’s characterization of antifa as an organized entity is not aligned with its history.
“It’s like calling socialism an organization or feminism an organization,” Bray said. “It’s more a set of ideas or practices.”
Bray added that the Trump administration appears to be using the term more recently when characterizing anti-ICE protesters.
“It seems to be an ongoing quest by Trump and his allies to find this internal enemy,” Bray said. “That’s really textbook authoritarianism, right there.”
What is the role of non-peaceful protest for antifa and how that can be traced to antifa in any way?
Bray said there are instances across the history of anti-fascism movements where violence was used, including during the opposition to the Nazis during World War II.
What we’re seeing with these charges, according to Bray, is a “long twisted web of misguided conflation.”
“It’s really trying to take the kernel of truth in the fact that sometimes antifa groups will use violent means to oppose the far-right, and transposing this into this imagined broader terrorist conspiracy.”
In its indictment, the federal government alleges that the defendants tracked federal immigration officers, organized blockades around the Whipple Federal Building, and conducted surveillance about immigration enforcement activities.
The indictment itself does not allege any specific acts of violence.
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