2017

White nationalist and neo-Nazi groups including the Proud Boys, League of the South, and Identity Evropa converged on Charlottesville, VA. Marchers chanted 'Jews will not replace us.' Counter-protester Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd; 19 others were injured. Trump said there were 'very fine people on both sides.' Fields was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.

On August 11–12, 2017, white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups including the Proud Boys, League of the South, Vanguard America, and Identity Evropa converged on Charlottesville, VA, for the Unite the Right rally ostensibly opposing removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Marchers carried tiki torches and chanted 'Jews will not replace us.' Counter-protester Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd; 19 others were injured. Trump said there were 'very fine people on both sides.' Fields was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. The rally marked the most visible mass neo-Nazi mobilization in decades.

President Trump's Executive Order 13769, signed January 27, 2017, banned entry from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Several banned nations had large Black populations. Somalia and Sudan, in particular, are majority-Black African nations. The ban separated families, stranded visa holders, and created terror in Black Muslim and African immigrant communities. Subsequent versions of the ban were challenged in courts; a revised version was upheld by the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii (2018). The ban disproportionately affected Black African immigrants and Black American Muslims with family ties abroad.

The DOJ's consent decree with Baltimore, entered April 7, 2017, documented systematic constitutional violations by the Baltimore Police Department including: racially discriminatory stops (44% of pedestrian stops in two Black neighborhoods accounting for less than 12% of city population); use of force against those posing no threat; retaliatory force against those exercising First Amendment rights; and unlawful arrests. The decree required extensive reforms. It followed the Obama DOJ's 2016 investigation triggered by Freddie Gray's death. The Trump DOJ initially sought to delay implementation but a federal judge required it proceed.

In August 2017, the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit published an intelligence assessment designating 'Black Identity Extremists' (BIE) as a domestic terrorism threat, citing anger at police killings. The report was leaked to Foreign Policy magazine in October 2017. Civil rights organizations said the designation echoed COINTELPRO's targeting of civil rights organizations and could be used to surveil Black Lives Matter activists, community organizers, and others engaged in constitutionally protected protest. The FBI did not produce a similar category for white nationalist violence. Following Congressional pressure, the FBI reportedly replaced the BIE designation in 2019.

In August 2017, the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Analysis Unit published an intelligence assessment designating 'Black Identity Extremists' as a domestic terrorism threat. The report echoed COINTELPRO's targeting of civil rights organizations and could be used to surveil Black Lives Matter activists. The FBI did not produce a similar category for white nationalist violence. The FBI reportedly replaced the designation in 2019 following Congressional pressure.