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During a White House roundtable discussion, the homeland security secretary this week compared antifa to the notorious gang, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State, calling the decentralized street activists “just as dangerous” as officially recognized terror groups.

“They are just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA [Tren de Aragua], as Isis, as the Lebanese militia, as the Palestinian faction, each one of these, they are just as dangerous,” the secretary said. “They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for decades.”

The roundtable featured conservative online reporters such as several prominent commentators among others who cover antifa protests.

Some of the groups mentioned by the secretary – Hamas, Hezbollah and Isis – are formally designated terrorist organizations that hold land, operate military wings, maintain command structures and have executed mass casualty attacks such as bombings, abductions and assassinations.

Extremism experts have frequently characterized the anti-fascist movement, by contrast, as lacking a central command, official membership or structured hierarchy, and it has often been portrayed by federal law enforcement as a decentralized movement of activists who participate in demonstrations, portions of which involve damage to belongings and public clashes.

The roundtable comes after an executive order issued in September classifying anti-fascist activists as a “domestic terrorist organization”.

Shortly prior to the declaration, a Proud Boys leader who was convicted and then pardoned for his actions during the Capitol events posted on X: “Who’s ready to go ANTIFA hunting? Because I know a few guys.”