At a White House policy meeting, the homeland security secretary this week compared antifa to MS-13, Hamas, the Iran-backed group and ISIS, calling the loosely affiliated street activists “equally threatening” as officially recognized terror groups.
“They are just as sophisticated as Mara Salvatrucha, as TDA [Tren de Aragua], as the Islamic State, as the Lebanese militia, as the Palestinian faction, as all of them, they are just as dangerous,” the secretary said. “Their goal is to dismantle our society, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for many, many years.”
The roundtable included conservative online reporters such as Andy Ngo, Nick Sortor, Katie Daviscourt and others who report on antifa protests.
Several organizations Noem cited – Hamas, Hezbollah and Isis – are officially classified as terror groups that hold land, operate military wings, maintain command structures and have carried out mass casualty attacks including explosions, abductions and assassinations.
Specialists in radical movements have long described the anti-fascist movement, in comparison, as having no centralized leadership, official membership or structured hierarchy, and it has often been portrayed by federal law enforcement as a loose network of campaigners who engage in protest activity, portions of which involve damage to belongings and street violence.
The roundtable comes after an executive order issued in September classifying antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization”.
Days before the announcement, a Proud Boys leader previously convicted and later pardoned for his actions during the Capitol events wrote on social media: “Who’s ready to go ANTIFA hunting? Since I am acquainted with several individuals.”
