Which specific far‑right groups have the FBI or DHS publicly identified as domestic extremists since 2016?

1. What the agencies actually say: categories not formal designations

Both agencies make a legal and procedural point that is central to answering which specific groups are “identified”: the FBI and DHS do not officially designate domestic terrorist organizations in the way the U.S. government designates foreign terrorist organizations; rather, they identify and describe domestic terrorism threat categories and the movements that populate those categories in strategic assessments and guidance documents ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The repeatedly named far‑right categories: white supremacists and racially‑motivated violent extremists

Across multiple joint and single‑agency reports since 2016 the FBI and DHS have singled out racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists — commonly shorthand for white‑supremacist extremists — as a persistent and often the most lethal domestic threat, noting that white supremacist actors were responsible for a large share of deadly extremist incidents in the post‑9/11 period ^{[3] [2] [4]}.

3. Anti‑government and militia movements: militia violent extremists and sovereign citizens

The agencies also consistently identify anti‑government and anti‑authority violent extremists — a category that explicitly includes militia violent extremists and sovereign citizen violent extremists — as core far‑right sources of plots and attacks, especially in the form of small groups or lone actors inspired by extremist militia narratives ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

4. Other far‑right subgroups referenced in reporting and briefings

Beyond broad white‑supremacist and militia/sovereign citizen labels, FBI/DHS products reference related subgroups and ideologies that are typically associated with the far right in U.S. counter‑extremism work, including accelerationist networks, “involuntary celibate” actors when they overlap with misogynist and race‑based grievances, and anti‑government conspiracist circles that have inspired violent acts ^{[5] [2]}. The agencies have also noted how online radicalization connects decentralized networks rather than only formal hierarchies ^[4].

5. What the agencies have named in specific public products since 2016

Concrete public products — for example the 2017 unclassified joint bulletin and the May 2021 Strategic Intelligence Assessment and later strategic updates — emphasize white supremacist extremism and anti‑government/militia violent extremism as top domestic threats and document trends and incidents tied to these movements, but these products stop short of listing a fixed set of organizational “designations” in the way foreign terrorist organizations are listed ^{[3] [2] [5]}.

6. Limitations, political context, and competing narratives

Scholarly, congressional and GAO reviews corroborate that federal practice is to track incidents, actors, and ideologies rather than to make formal domestic terrorist organizational designations; critics from across the political spectrum dispute whether that approach adequately names and prosecutes violent groups or whether it risks chilling protected political activity, and some partisan narratives have tried to pressure agencies to list or refrain from listing particular movements ^{[1] [6]}. Analysts and the agencies themselves emphasize that most lethal domestic incidents have been carried out by individuals or small cells inspired by far‑right ideologies rather than by a small number of monolithic, centrally directed groups ^{[4] [2]}.

7. Bottom line: specific groups vs. identified movements

Answering the question precisely: the FBI and DHS have publicly identified and warned about specific far‑right movements and ideological categories — notably white‑supremacist/racially motivated violent extremists, militia violent extremists, and sovereign citizens — and have discussed associated networks (accelerationists, conspiracist circles, related misogynist subsets) in public reports since 2016; however, they have not issued a public, formal list of “designated” far‑right organizations in the manner used for foreign terrorist organizations ^{[1] [2] [3]}.