US Intensifies Crackdown on Peaceful Protest Under Trump
Anti-protest bills that seek to expand criminal punishments for constitutionally protected peaceful protests – especially targeting those speaking out on the US-backed war in Gaza and the climate crisis – have spiked since Trump’s inauguration.
Forty-one new anti-protest bills across 22 states have been introduced since the start of the year – compared with a full-year total of 52 in 2024 and 26 in 2023, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) tracker.
This year’s tally includes 32 bills across 16 states since Trump returned to the White House, with five federal bills targeting college students, anti-war protesters and climate activists with harsh prison sentences and hefty fines – a crackdown that experts warn threaten to erode first amendment rights to freedom of speech, assembly and petition.
In one example, the Safe and Secure Transportation of American Energy act would create a new federal felony offense that could apply to protests that “disrupt” planned or operational gas pipelines – which would be punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for individuals or $500,000 for organizations.
The language in the bill is vague, which could, critics warn, lead to a rally blocking a road used for moving equipment or a lawsuit challenging a pipeline’s permit being classified as disruptive and prosecuted. It is sponsored by seven Republicans including the senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the country’s largest oil and gas producing state, who chairs the committee considering whether the bill should progress.
The pipeline bill closely resembles model critical infrastructure legislation crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a rightwing fossil fuel-funded group that brings together corporations and lawmakers to create draft bills on environmental standards, reproductive rights and voting, among other issues. So far, Alec-inspired bills restricting protests against fossil fuel infrastructure have been enacted in 22 states.
“The new federal pipeline bill is extremely concerning because of the breadth of the language, and with Ted Cruz as a co-sponsor it could move forward,” said Elly Page, senior legal adviser at ICNL.
“The anti-protest bills that have passed into laws since 2017 create a chilling effect and deter people from speaking out – and are incredibly repressive. It is especially concerning that now, when we see other pillars of civil society under attack, lawmakers are also trying to further suppress dissent and foreclose what is a critical means of democratic participation.”
Repressive anti-protest laws have proliferated since the 2016 Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protests on the Standing Rock Indian territory in North Dakota, with 52 bills introduced in 2017, when ICNL created its tracker.
Lawmakers across the US have repeatedly responded to new social movements with bills to crack down on protests. In 2021, 92 bills were introduced across 35 states in response to the social uprising triggered by the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Legislative sessions are still going in most states and so far 2025 is on track to be the second-worst year, after 2021, for anti-protest initiatives.
The current spike is a “clear response to the protests on Palestine and campus protests in particular”, according to Page.
In March, three federal bills targeting university campus protests were announced including the Unmasking Hamas Act, which would make it a federal crime subject to 15 years in prison for wearing a mask or other disguise while protesting in an “intimidating” or “oppressive” way. The bill, which is almost identical to the Unmasking Antifa bill introduced in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests, does not define “oppressive” or “disguise”.
A separate bill would exclude student protesters from federal financial aid and loan forgiveness if they commit any crime at a campus protest, even a non-violent misdemeanor such as failing to disperse. In both cases, sponsors have made clear that the bill is a legislative response to pro-Palestinian protesters, many of whom wore masks to avoid retaliation and doxing.
According to Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the slew of anti-protest laws threatens the core of US democracy.
“These state bills and Trump’s crackdown on protected political speech are intended to scare people away from protesting or, worse, criminalize the exercise of constitutional rights,” said Leventoff.
In North Dakota, where the Standing Rock tribe organized against the Dakota Access pipeline, lawmakers have approved four anti-protest bills since 2017. The latest initiative seeks to create a new criminal offense punishable by up to 12 months in jail for anyone wearing a mask “with intent to conceal the identity” while “congregating in a public place with any other individual wearing a mask, hood, or other device that covers, hides, or conceals any portion of the individual’s face”.
The bill exempts public gatherings such as Halloween and a masquerade ball, but does exempt masks worn during protests to avoid doxing, or for health or religious reasons.
Hannah Meyers, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a rightwing thinktank criticized for promoting skepticism about climate science, testified in favor of the masking ban, which has now passed the statehouse.
Last year, Meyers co-drafted similar model legislation for Manhattan Institute, which has called on the federal government to crack down on protests “by invoking statutes like Rico , the anti mafia, anti organized crime statute, to look at the organizations that deploy civil terrorists for their own ends”.
According to Meyers, referring to masking bans as anti-protest was “incorrect”. “Mask ban laws are aimed – many explicitly – at individuals masking to conceal their identity with the intent to commit crimes, menace others, or avoid arrest and prosecution. They are not related to ‘retaliation and doxing’,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League, a group criticized for conflating criticism of Israel and the defense of Palestinian rights with antisemitism, has lobbied in favor of a bill banning protest encampments on campuses in Arizona and for harsher sentencing for protesters wearing masks in Missouri.
“The large number and variation of anti-protest bills introduced in just three months – in combination with the self-proclaimed ‘law-and-order president’ administration’s revoking of student visas and disappearing of student protesters – indicates a movement towards fascism,” said David Armiak, research director with the Center for Media and Democracy.
An ADL spokesperson said: “ADL objects to the wearing of full-face masks by those who seek to intimidate and harass others. We support anti-masking laws that create an additional penalty for already-prohibited behavior (engaging in targeting, threatening, vandalizing or violence). Such laws are not a mask ban and have no bearing on peaceful protest.”
The Trump administration’s effort to cast pro-Palestinian protesters as terrorists – and then use anti-terror and immigration laws to deport legal residents and quell campus demonstrations – appears to be inspired by Project Esther, an anti-protest blueprint published shortly before last year’s election by the Heritage Foundation, the creators of Project 2025.
Project Esther, which claims to be about rooting out antisemitism, promotes public firings of pro-Palestinian professors and using anti-racketeering laws to break up progressive anti-war groups. Critics say the plan promotes censorship and is a tool of Christian nationalism.
“The Trump regime claims to be cracking down on antisemitism on campus by kidnapping and deporting student activists,” said Jay Saper, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace – an anti-Zionist group that organizes anti-war and Palestinian liberation protests. “Make no mistake, this is not about Jewish safety. This is about advancing an authoritarian agenda to clamp down on dissent.”
The latest attacks on protest also include expanding civil penalties, which can tie up activists in expensive litigation for years.
Five states – Alaska, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio – are considering bills that introduce new or harsher civil penalties for protesters. Free speech experts have warned that malicious civil litigation or so-called Slapps (strategic lawsuits against public participation) – are being increasingly deployed by the fossil fuel industry, wealthy individuals and politicians to silence critics and suppress protest movements.
Last month, a jury in rural Morton county in North Dakota ruled that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay $667m to the pipeline company Energy Transfer and is liable for defamation over the Standing Rock protests – in a ruling widely condemned as “chilling”.
In Minnesota, a new bill seeks to create civil and criminal liability for funders and supporters of protesters who peacefully demonstrate on pipeline or other utility property. In Ohio, legislators are considering whether participants of noisy or disruptive but non-violent protests – as well as people and organizations who support them – could face expensive lawsuits.
Data from 2017 shows that the majority of bills fails or never make it out of committee and expire. And while most anti-protests bills enacted into law have been in Republican-run states, there are notable exceptions.
The ACLU is urging the Democratic governor of New Jersey to veto a 2024 bill intended to improve community safety by cracking down on street brawls but which is “overbroad, vague, and risks undermining fundamental freedoms protected under the first amendment, including the right to protest and assembly”.
On Monday in Washington DC, a non-violent climate protester was convicted on felony charges of conspiracy against the United States and property damage for putting washable finger paint on the protective case of the Little Dancer statue in the National Gallery. Timothy Martin, who faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count, will be sentenced in August.
The Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Nina Lakhani is senior reporter for Guardian US. Twitter @ninalakhani