In January, a previous member of Extinction Rebellion, who is staying anonymous, picked up a call from someone who said they were a “special agent with the FBI”. As many people would, he assumed it was a scam caller. “I said, ‘No, you’re a fraud’ and hung up,” he tells Dazed. A few minutes later, he got a text, also apparently from the FBI, stating that they were at one of his old addresses and wanted to ask him some questions. “When I saw that text, I was even more convinced that it was a scam, so I completely put it out of my head and forgot about it,” he says. “So it was a surprise to me when they showed up while I was finishing breakfast.” 

On a recent Friday in February, the former climate activist claims he was visited at home by a woman, accompanied by a man, who identified herself as a counterterrorism agent with the FBI. They told him he was not in any trouble, but they did want to ask some questions about Extinction Rebellion, a protest movement using nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act on climate change. His mind went blank. He told the FBI agents he wouldn’t speak with them. After the two agents left, he called his lawyer, Ronald L. Kuby, who represents several climate activists. 

“I was in a state of shock for the first couple of days,” he says. “Then, I thought about it more, and I feel like this is just the price of being a decent human being [in America] right now.” He had been involved in prominent New York actions in the past, but is no longer active with XR and no longer even lives in New York. The group has also said that in March 2025, agents identifying themselves as part of the FBI attempted to speak with six different activists affiliated with Extinction Rebellion Boston. 

Members of Extinction Rebellion have been known for their theatrical and crowd-pulling protests around the world. Everyone from activist Greta Thunberg to actor Michael Hall has previously attended XR actions. In New York, this has included lying in pools of fake blood outside the New York Stock Exchange to call attention to people killed by climate-related disasters and chanting along to the music of a mariachi band outside a Citibank office to call out US banks for funding fossil fuel projects. The non-violent actions, while sometimes disruptive, should hardly make them a target for the FBI’s counterterrorism unit under a working democracy, where protests are protected. Unfortunately, many political experts believe the US is in the midst of a democratic backsliding. We’ve seen this as students face deportation proceedings for participating in pro-Palestinian protests. 

The Trump administration, which is currently working to roll back environmental protections in the country, is casting a wide net to clamp down on protesters, including youth climate activists. In 2020, documents obtained by the Guardian revealed that members of Climate Direct Action engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting the oil industry were listed in internal Department of Homeland Security documents as “extremists”. Today, partaking in “domestic terrorism”, as defined by the memorandum President Trump released after the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, can currently mean anything to do with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and “extremism on migration, race, and gender”. It’s an intentionally vague strategy aiming to “disband and uproot networks, entities, and organisations”, which could include any number of intersectional youth climate activists, whose beliefs may involve protecting migrants and ending the oligarchy. 

“I was in a state of shock for the first couple of days. Then, I thought about it more, and I feel like this is just the price of being a decent human being [in America] right now”

Nate Smith, a member of Extinction Rebellion in New York, says they are used to being the “slap on the wrist” type of disruption activism, but Kuby has told them that the FBI visit is “very serious”. “I was even advised to let my friends and family know what to do in case they get a knock because of their investigatory processes, and how they could start with less central members to work their way in,” he says. According to Henry Pratt, another XR member, Kuby also advised them that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. With that, they decided to go public with the fact that the FBI is investigating the group, posting about it on their Instagram on February 12.  “This is an everybody problem right now, which is another reason to be speaking for everybody,” says Smith. 

Pratt feels like XR has been “singled out”. “I think one interesting element here is the youth element,” he says. “Most of the green movement in the US is predominantly older and conservative, whereas XR New York City has predominantly had more younger people.” So, why would the Trump administration come for a youth climate activists group specifically? Smith has a theory: there’s something powerful about the energy of young people. “All movements in the US for the last hundred or so years have largely happened on campuses among young people,” he says. “Young people bring the energy of spontaneity – just look at Greta hitting the headlines and, a couple of weeks later, there are millions of people protesting across the world.” Pratt concurs. “Youth civic engagement is an enduring challenge in this country, but I think there’s a sense that if they did get involved in actions, things would shift very soon,” he adds.  

For now, the previous member of Extinction Rebellion who was visited by the FBI is feeling rightfully spooked. “We now know how vicious this administration can be, making visiting me in the boondocks in the middle of nowhere, years after I’ve been involved in any action, actually kind of scarier,” he says. But for some of America’s youth climate activists – which Smith says there are only a couple of “real” ones left – the recent events are a call to action. “It feels counterintuitive to say, because the climate numbers have just got fucking apocalyptic, but we’re in a better moment for hope now because we were once all working under a pretty faulty assumption of winning in a couple of years, maybe,” he says. “If your posture right now is just ‘protect the rivers’, God love you, but we must defeat these powers. We’re now seeing if that means it’s time for the big kids to show up.”