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US INTENSIFIES CRACKDOWN ON PEACEFUL PROTEST UNDER TRUMP  
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Nina Lakhani
April 9, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Forty-one anti-protest bills in 22 states have been introduced
since start of 2025, according to law tracker _

Palestinian supporters, including Mahmoud Khalil, second from left,
demonstrate during a protest at Columbia University, Thursday, Oct.
12, 2023, in New York., (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

 

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 [[link removed]] 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
[[link removed]] 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
[[link removed]] for
Manhattan Institute, which has called on the federal government to
crack down on protests “by invoking statutes like Rico
[racketeering], 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
[[link removed]]’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
[[link removed]] published
shortly before last year’s election by the Heritage Foundation, the
creators of Project 2025
[[link removed]].

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
[[link removed]].

“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
[[link removed]].

Last month, a jury in rural Morton county in North Dakota ruled that
the environmental group Greenpeace
[[link removed]] must pay $667m
[[link removed]] 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
[[link removed]]”.

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 [[link removed]]_

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