(Ben Sargent)

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Late last week, federal prosecutors notched a victory in an unprecedented and controversial trial that sought to tie alleged members of “Antifa,” a decentralized anti-fascist movement, to domestic terrorism. A Tarrant County jury returned a mixed verdict for nine defendants, who were accused of a variety of crimes stemming from a July 4 “noise demonstration” outside the Prairieland immigrant detention center in Alvarado and the nonfatal shooting there of a police officer. 

Prosecutors argued the defendants constituted a “North Texas Antifa cell” that shared anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and anti-government beliefs—and that all nine played a role in the shooting that occurred, despite several government witnesses, who took plea deals, testifying at trial that they were surprised when the protest turned violent and that they and the other defendants did not belong to the purported Antifa group. The defendants said the protest, which involved setting off fireworks and acts of vandalism, was intended to show solidarity with migrants in detention at Prairieland. 

Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Autumn Hill, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto were convicted on felony charges of providing material support to terrorists, rioting, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive (the aforementioned fireworks). Daniel Sanchez Estrada was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record, and along with his wife, Rueda, was also convicted of conspiracy to conceal documents. Song, the alleged shooter, was also convicted on one count of attempted murder and other gun charges, while Hill, Evetts, Morris and Rueda were acquitted of the attempted murder and discharging a firearm charges.

“I think this is the worst-case-scenario verdict,” said Luis, a member of the DFW Support Committee, a group working to support the Prairieland defendants, who requested that the Texas Observer use only his first name for fear of reprisal. Even had the shooting never occurred, Luis said, the verdict suggests the jury would have convicted the defendants anyway for actions that are common to many protests.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and President Donald Trump in August (Shutterstock)

The case represents the federal government’s first use of material support for terrorism charges against alleged Antifa members. Experts say the outcome will give the Trump administration the green light to take a more aggressive stance against left-wing activity and further politicize the use of domestic terrorism laws.

“It probably will embolden them to perhaps offer additional characterization of entities or groups … animated by some sort of anti-administration agenda as some species of Antifa,” said Tom Brzozowski, former counsel for domestic terrorism at the Department of Justice.

Mike German, a former FBI agent specializing in domestic terrorism and covert operations who later worked for the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Observer that the case demonstrates the broad scope of domestic terrorism laws and the ability they provide prosecutors to target behaviors that most people wouldn’t consider terrorism.

This case was a difficult one for those who sought to protect anti-fascist First Amendment-protected activities, “because there was a shooting of a police officer,” German said. “We can debate the nature of that injury [the officer was hospitalized and released within 24 hours], but it provides the locus of attention for viewing this particular protest as a dangerous event. There was an act of violence. And the domestic terrorism laws are very broad in this country. The [legal] definition of what is an explosive would probably shock most people.”

German also worries about the further politicization of domestic terrorism charges. 

“The Trump administration and the media had demonized Antifa all through the first Trump term, and even more aggressively in the second,” German said. “This concept of terrorism tends to become politicized, particularly when government officials intentionally politicize it.”

The application of domestic terrorism charges in the case came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September labeling “Antifa” a domestic terrorist group, a designation that doesn’t exist in federal law. That same month, Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, which cited the Prairieland case and the assassination of Charlie Kirk as evidence of organized political violence from the left. 

“I still am highly suspicious of the sequencing,” Brzozowski said, noting that the series of indictments based on the Antifa terrorism claims came after Kirk’s death and the executive order. “It’s pretty facially an attempt to mollify the White House post Charlie Kirk’s assassination. … What I’m seeing is the unfettered use of these very powerful tools and these very powerful statutes, absent any sort of norms or guardrails that normally would be in place to guard against overreach.” 

KERA News reported that at least two jurors were “visibly distraught” before Judge Mark Pittman read the verdict and that families and friends of the defendants let out sobs as Pittman delivered it. 

Amber Lowery, Batten’s sister, was stunned. “I guess we allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security by the things that we saw,” Lowery told the Observer.  For example, the prosecution argued in filings and in court that the defendants used “black bloc”—a longstanding protest tactic of dressing in all-black to conceal identities from police and political adversaries—to make those who committed illegal acts indistinguishable to law enforcement. But video evidence and courtroom testimony revealed that the defendants did not in fact wear all black.

The prosecution relied on the expert witness testimony of Kyle Shideler, a researcher at the Center for Security Policy—a far-right think tank that the Southern Poverty Law Center has branded an anti-Muslim hate group—who said under questioning from a defense attorney that he provided language defining Antifa that prosecutors used in the indictments. 

As The Intercept reported, Shideler was the author of a September article titled “How to Dismantle Far-Left Extremist Networks: A Roadmap for the Trump Administration.” He also defined Antifa while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in October as: “a militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and system of law.”

Despite not having to actually prove that Antifa is an established terrorist organization in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith said in his closing arguments that tactics commonly used by Antifa-affiliated individuals were a key part of providing material support to terrorism.

Lowery worries that behaviors she considers normal—attending protests, using encrypted messaging apps, reading certain types of political literature—could be used to argue for domestic terrorism charges in future cases involving civil disobedience. For example, Estrada was charged and convicted for concealing documents after he moved a box of left-wing zines and literature from the home of another defendant.

“It’s anyone and everyone who is pushing back against the insanity that is gripping our country right now,” Lowery said. “This can happen to you, and if they can do it to you, they will.”

The trial itself was marked by surprises and irregularities: a mistrial, judge-selected jurors, limited access to the courtroom, the defense resting without calling a single witness, and the prosecution’s sharing of unredacted evidence with jurors. 

Judge Pittman declared an initial mistrial during jury selection, which began on the day of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson’s death, citing a shirt depicting civil rights leaders worn by defense attorney MarQuetta “MarQ” Clayton during questioning of jurors—a vocal portion of whom expressed anti-ICE and anti-Trump sentiments when questioned by Pittman and Smith. George Lobb, Rueda’s attorney in state court, questioned the motivations of that decision. “The shirt didn’t become a problem until the jurors started talking about their bias and prejudices against and for ICE and against and for guns,” Lobb told KERA. As a result, Pittman exercised his powers to make the unusual move to take control over jury selection for the second trial attempt. 

The convicted defendants are now awaiting sentencing. Most face up to decades in prison, while Song, the convicted shooter, could receive a life sentence. Most are expected to appeal, which will bring their cases to the 5th Circuit, a notoriously far-right court that has in recent years routinely issued opinions so extreme that they’ve been overruled by the Supreme Court, which is itself considered quite right-wing. 

Now, with an anti-Antifa victory under its belt, the federal government is poised to act on plans mapped out in a December 4 memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi that instructed law enforcement to investigate Antifa and other supposed domestic terrorist groups. On March 18, CBS News reported that federal agents are launching an initiative to investigate nonprofit organizations over suspected possible links to domestic terrorism.

Brzozowski, the former counsel for domestic terrorism, said he could now see prosecutors further targeting civil disobedience with “riot or civil disorder charges.” He also suggested the feds’ next steps could include cases where people, such as protesters, “are charged with things like impeding federal officials. … Are they going to feel emboldened to start characterizing all those individuals in a charging document as Antifa or Antifa-aligned?”

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In February, San Antonio pastor Dianne Garcia led a multi-day, 90-mile peace walk across South Texas in solidarity with children and families detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I had the honor of joining Pastor Dianne for the final leg of her journey, marching across San Antonio with hundreds of people who had gathered from across the country to demand freedom for families and an end to family detention. 

As we walked, we chanted, “Kids do not belong in cages!” We sang songs about liberation, and how—as James Baldwin famously wrote—”all of the children are always ours.” At times, we held silence, praying with our feet and holding detained children and families in our hearts. 

Our march was a political action, a spiritual practice, a grief ritual, a block party, and a walking love letter to our communities, all rolled into one. Along our route, members of the local community came out to the road to wave, pray, offer us water and food, and express their support. It was a powerful experience that left me feeling deeply connected to the people around me. As an advocate, I found myself thinking afterward: We need more experiences like these.

The current administration relies on a strategy of “flooding the zone” with harmful policies that inundate our nervous systems with fear and sadness to overwhelm and paralyze any resistance to its state-sponsored violence and cruelty. People of conscience empathize with those under attack, we feel grief as we watch lives and families torn apart, and the horror unfolding around us takes a toll on our emotional and even physical health. 

The more time we spend anxiously doomscrolling on our phones while separated from each other and from meaningful ways to respond, the more helpless we feel and the more likely we are to numb out or shut down instead of taking action to protect our communities. Yet to give into despair would be to fall for the administration’s bluff and willingly give up our power. 

That’s why embodied, communal practices such as singing, marching, and dancing together are so important at times like these: they reconnect us to our bodies, to each other, and to our power. They are ancient, effective tools for shaking off despair, fear, overwhelm, and paralysis. When we come together to share stories, make music, or eat a meal with others—anything that brings us into our bodies and into community—we can access courage and even joy in the face of suffering. 

These kinds of shared experiences also open the door to deep connection and belonging that build trust and motivate people to protect and support one another. As we take action alongside each other, this generates further energy and hope, fueling our ability to respond to injustice with creativity and sustain our resistance over time.

All of this is crucial, because it has never been more important for us to advocate for an end to family detention.

First, ICE is detaining families under dangerous, life-threatening conditions. Since Trump took office, ICE has detained more than 3,800 children and the daily number of children in immigration detention has exploded. At the Dilley detention center in South Texas, children are hungry and sick, imprisoned in squalid conditions without access to adequate food, clean drinking water, healthcare, or education. Hundreds have languished there for a month or longer. During a recent oversight visit, U.S. Representative Katherine Clark met a detained toddler who appears to have such a painful tooth infection that she cannot eat. This child is not receiving treatment, which places her in grave danger; a man seeking asylum who was detained in another ICE detention facility recently died from a tooth infection after being denied medical treatment.

Second, a growing number of families are at risk of detention. As ICE moves forward to drastically expand its immigration detention system and to imprison tens of thousands more people, including families and children, in repurposed warehouses, Congress is considering increasing the agency’s budget to fund its deadly violence, kidnappings, family separations, and prison camps for children. 

Even now, ICE is detaining children at hotels and in secret hold rooms in unsuspecting communities, in addition to imprisoning them in Dilley. 

(Courtesy of Trudy Taylor Smith )

Third, advocacy against family detention is having an effect, and a growing number of members of Congress are beginning to emerge as champions for this cause. After a family of three from her district was arrested in the process of seeking emergency medical care for their seven-year-old daughter, Oregon U.S. Representative Maxine Dexter’s advocacy helped secure the family’s release. Similarly, public outcry and Congressional oversight visits by Congressman Joaquin Castro, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and others have contributed to the release of the Gamez-Cuellar family and five-year-old Liam Conjeo Ramos and his father. Castro has publicly stated that his “goal is to shut down Dilley,” and he notes that the number of people detained there has decreased since he first visited the facility in January.

Meanwhile, those with power or money to lose are attempting to cover up the cruelty of family detention. After ProPublica revealed the truth about distressing conditions at Dilley by publishing children’s artwork, handwritten letters, and recorded interviews, staff at the facility reportedly began raiding children’s cells to confiscate their letters and drawings. Later that month, the Department of Homeland Security released a public statement seeking to discredit reports of medical neglect and other well-documented abuses at Dilley.

We cannot let this cruelty continue. There are so many ways to take action, and even small acts make a difference when we do them collectively. We can volunteer with local mutual aid networks that support immigrants, and we can donate to support trusted advocacy organizations and service providers. We can educate ourselves about our rights when interacting with ICE, and share this information with people we know. We can choose to learn more about family detention, make other people in our lives aware of this issue, and come together to plan an event focused on freedom for detained families. Finally, we can use an online action tool, a specialized advocacy toolkit, or a simple phone call or email to advocate against this inhumane policy by contacting members of Congress and telling them to put a stop to it. 

Congress has the power to end family detention right now by passing legislation to make it illegal, such as the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act or the Melt ICE Act. Congress also has the power to cut off the funding for family detention by refusing to allocate further funding to ICE during the current appropriations process, and by passing the Drain ICE Act to rescind the $75 billion that was allocated to ICE under HR 1 last summer. 

As hundreds of voices sang with Pastor Dianne in the streets of San Antonio, the children are always ours, and now is the time to ensure their freedom and safety by calling for an end to family detention. Now is the time to vote, march, pray, sing, dance, grieve, and advocate alongside each other until we bring about the future our children deserve. 

The post We Have the Power to End Family Detention in Texas—and We Must  appeared first on The Texas Observer.