Just days after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered by a gunman, it became clear that President Donald Trump would use the killing to crack down on free speech. To avenge Kirk’s death, the administration vowed to go after so-called “Antifa” (otherwise known as anti-fascist) terrorists. Now that promise is bearing fruit. This week, eight Texas activists were sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison – one for attempted murder, but mostly for allegedly belonging to the insurgent “Antifa cell,” one of whom was sentenced to 30 years for transferring a box of zines.
This unusually harsh sentence is a major victory for the Trump administration, which will likely serve as a blueprint for targeting activists across the US. The excited administration immediately convinced them. In a statement, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch said the sentences show the law will crack down tough on “Antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities.” But many of those who were punished did not do any such thing.
The Texas cases relate to a July 4, 2025 protest outside the Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas. About a dozen protesters set off fireworks and shouted messages in Spanish through a bullhorn. Then matters escalated: some people slashed the tires of an ICE van, broke a security camera, and vandalized a guard hut. When guards came out of the building and asked the group to leave, some complied, but others stayed. According to charging documents, after a police officer arrived at the scene and took out his gun, a man yelled “reach for the rifles” and opened fire with a rifle he had brought with him. The officer who was shot in the neck testified that he “knew” his life was in danger and spent three to four hours in the hospital after being shot.
The shooter, Benjamin Song, said he opened fire because he thought the officer was going to shoot at a protester, and was convicted of attempted murder. But in addition to the shooting charges, prosecutors labeled Song an “antifa cell leader.” As well as rioting and discharging a firearm during a violent crime, the conviction included providing material support to terrorists – and he was sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Other defendants were convicted of minor crimes ranging from rioting to providing material support to terrorists, all charges leveled by the government to inconsequential acts such as distributing anarchist literature and “dressing in black.” But his punishment also spanned decades.
Two people – Savannah Batten and Elizabeth Soto – were not involved in planning the protest, arrived separately from the others, and left when guards told them before the shooting. They were each sentenced to 50 years in prison. Among other allegations, the government announced that they were “part of a group that created and distributed insurgent materials known as ‘zines’.” Daniel Sanchez-Estrada, who did not attend the protests at all, was sentenced to thirty years in prison for transferring a box of zines – with prosecutors claiming it was “falsely concealing any document or record.” Elizabeth Soto’s husband, Ines Soto, was cleared to remain in the service and will be sentenced on July 1, according to the Justice Department. (Seven other people also pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorists, some of whom testified as witnesses at the trial.) The other sentences given suggest that their sentences will be similarly harsh.
The Justice Department reportedly held that the zines weren’t even illegal—they were created for a book club named after anarchist organizer Emma Goldman, which read about topics including feminism and “the eradication of artificial intelligence from the face of the Earth.” But it was claimed that Sotos had provided “material support to terrorists” by performing at a zine fair.
“The violence and terrorism of the defendants is an attack on democracy,” said Republican-friendly Judge Reed O’Connor, who handed down the sentence, among others. O’Connor argued that the government needed to “stop this type of conduct”. in a statement to GuardianSong called it “collective punishment.”
In a statement, FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency is “committed to identifying, locating, and dismantling Antifa and its funding networks across the country” and that more cases are coming. Last week, prosecutors indicted 15 people in Minnesota on charges including conspiracy to obstruct or injure a federal officer, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, assault on a federal officer and destruction of federal property. Like the Prairieland defendants, the DOJ claims the 15 people charged in Minnesota are connected to “Antifa.”
The DOJ is trying to punish people for stalking ICE officers — and if it’s successful, other activists could be next.
The indictment says the defendants are affiliated with the Black Cat Workers Collective and claims they “infiltrated and took advantage of legitimate protests” in the Twin Cities, where thousands of people protested Operation Metro Surge, a month-long DHS operation that resulted in the arrest of thousands of immigrants and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretty, efforts to investigate and prosecute whom the federal government has suppressed. It accuses some – but not all – defendants of using homemade shields, using debris to block traffic, and obstructing DHS vehicles with sticks, leafblowers and other objects as they exited the Whipple Federal Building to make arrests.
The indictment cites communications over Signal, which was widely used in Minnesota for ICE vehicles to coordinate mutual aid distribution and neighborhood patrols. Patel said during the protest that the FBI had started investigating the activists’ group chat. Here, the indictment says the defendants coordinated “anti-law enforcement actions,” practiced operational security – or OPSEC – techniques, and engaged in “counter-surveillance tactics.” One defendant is accused of kicking a government vehicle and “causing a dent”. Two are charged with traveling across state borders “with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or keep another person under surveillance.” In plain English, the DOJ is trying to punish people for stalking ICE officers — and if it’s successful, other activists could be next.
Although the indictment distinguishes between legal and allegedly illegal actions, its language is slippery. Eric Davis, a professor of religious studies at Macalester College in St. Paul and one of the arrested activists, expressed disbelief at the charges at a court hearing last week. Davis reportedly told the judge, “It looks like I’ve been convicted for organizing the meetings.” Indeed, the 94-page indictment claims Davis conducted an “emergency meeting on resistance to ICE operations” in January and sent messages about other meetings in the Signal groupchat. The indictment states that another defendant, Isaac Auman Sant, wrote an article for an “anarchist blog.” In his article, Sant allegedly mentioned seeing someone vandalizing an ICE vehicle. Notably, the indictment does not say that Saint vandalized the car, only that he was in the presence of someone who did.
The strategy here is guilt by association. Just as White House officials justified Alex Preti’s death by calling him a domestic terrorist and a “would-be murderer,” any of the thousands of regular people who protested the Twin Cities siege by ICE could be labeled an Antifa terrorist — and sentenced to life in prison as a result.
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