'This is injustice': how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

[TygrBright]

Last edited Wed Jun 24, 2026, 12:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: The Guardian

Last year on the Fourth of July, a small group from Dallas-Fort Worth held a night-time noise demonstration, setting off fireworks outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility south of the cities, in solidarity with the detainees. A few protesters broke away and spray-painted graffiti on employees’ cars and a security post, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. The facility’s guards ordered the protesters to disperse, and most of them did. When a police officer arrived at the scene, drawing his gun, an armed protester shot her rifle, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

After a three-week trial, a jury found eight of nine protesters guilty of “providing material support to terrorists”, among other crimes. For the Sotos, this “material support” included owning a “printing press” used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued. The couple had already left the scene by the time guns were drawn. All eight of the defendants sentenced so far have received unusually harsh sentences – 30 to 100 years – essentially life in prison.
...
The Prairieland case was the first tried and convicted under the Trump Department of Justice’s “counter-terrorism” initiatives targeting “antifa” – short for antifascist – a decentralized movement the administration has officially categorized as a “domestic terrorist organization”. The federal government argued the Prairieland defendants, what they called a “North Texas Antifa cell”, had planned the demonstration as an assassination attempt against a law enforcement officer. The government alleged this conspiracy even though the defendants were loosely connected, and some who attended the protest did not even know each other.
...
But after the Prairieland conviction, federal prosecutors have had at least one other success: in Spokane, Washington, three people were convicted last month of conspiring to impede a federal officer over a protest to block an ICE vehicle attempting to transport two migrants. And the justice department shows no signs of stopping. Last week, 15 people in Minneapolis, Minnesota, were hit with the same charges of conspiracy to obstruct ICE operations, and were accused of being a part of “antifa” groups that “violently oppose immigration law enforcement”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/24/prairieland-texas-ice-protests-zines

---

Were you waiting to get to peak tyranny?

Congratulations, we're there.

You may not read this.

You may not wear that.

You may be arrested for the sticker on your purse.

You may not have private online chats or emails.

You may be arrested for belonging to a book club.

You may go to jail for the rest of your life for making a zine.

You may get sentenced to decades in prison for having the wrong friends.

You may get brutalized in jail for being LGBTQ.

You may not protest.

Sit down and shut up and take whatever the [Redacted] Regime chooses to dish out to you - grifting your hard-earned money, telling you thousands of lies and daring you not to act as though you believed them, killing your neighbors in the streets, disappearing "enemies of the regime", destroying the rule of law.

We're there.

ominously,
Bright

[walkingman]

1. The indifference by most Americans tells me a lot about what kind of country we have become. ☮

[PSPS]

6. The way the system is rigged, nothing can change until at least November or even January.

[popsdenver]

14. I often say:

That the perfect title for a book about the past 46+ years would be: WHILE THE NATION SLEPT

AND

"THEY" were all walking down the jungle path, swatting mosquitoes, and were oblivious to the herd of charging elephants.....
Pun Intended.....

Some of us here, have been screaming our heads off since HW committed TREASON to "install" Reagan in the White House...

[SpankMe]

2. I hope MAGA realizes these same laws can be used against them if a Dem ever sees the Whitehouse again. n/t

[relogic]

10. Little comfort

in that this means they’ve effectively accomplished their maga version of tyranny, fascism and nationalism. They intended for all this to be normalized as you see it unfold. It is now normal, for example, to have the most traitorous, corrupt, immoral Executive and Party undermine our society on every level with impunity.

When at least half the people do get used to seeing informed protestors actually demonstrating for justice as “terrorists”, one recognizes we’ve lost our country to their ignorance.

[popsdenver]

15. Well said, Lc

excellent commentary...........

[Seeking Serenity]

17. Can be? It damn well better be WILL BE, starting at 12:05p on January 20, 2029.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

3. I would imagine that the appeals are already being written and submitted,

and, hopefully, acted on toot sweet.

[LeftInTX]

11. The sentence length is the key here (consecutive vs concurrent) and if there were problems at trial.

I think they were facing 10 year sentences for each charge. But they had numerous charges and the judge just added them up and gave them 50. There are federal sentencing guidelines. These guidelines were used to sentence that Duggar guy on child porn.

I don't know the guidelines on consective vs concurrent, but a "normal" judge would have sentenced them concurrently. Often they are tried on numerous charges in order to get a guilty verdict on at least one and then they are sentenced currently. Found guilty on five charges and sentenced to 10 years or found guilty on one charge and sentenced to 10.

I guess you could call this malicious prosecution. This happened in the Kilmar Abrago Garcia case.

They also used two judges in this case, which is not standard practice.

I think they can get some of this reduced on appeal. However, they certainly weren't "innocent". They try to make like they were peacefully protesting, but they were doing more than that. (Think of Jan 6th)

[dpibel]

12. It's the Fifth Circuit, Jake

Not a good place to seek justice.

[Faux pas]

4. Kicking with DISGUST!

[SpankMe]

5. It's hard to believe this made it all the way to sentencing

This was clearly first amendment protected speech with a few cases of vandalism. This is not terrorism. The judge should have thrown most of this out on first reading. But then a jury didn't see through the BS? And sentencing of a decade?

I hope this gets appealed and higher courts invalidate this BS.

[stopdiggin]

7. suspect that the rather big problem here (and probably including in eyes of the jury)

Is that someone brought a gun (and AK?) to this little hoedown - and then used it against a police officer.

Were these people a 'terrorist cell'? Pffffft. Deserving of draconian sentences? Not by most lights.
Was what they did overtly (and with clear intent) criminal and well beyond the bounds of ordinary protest .. ? Yeah, probably. Particularly in the case of gun toting Jane. And, no - it probably wouldn't be too hard for a jury to get on board ...

[MichMan]

8. We know there was at least one assault weapon

The others could have been armed as well.

[Shipwack]

13. If any other weapons had been found...

… it would have been trumpeted from the rooftops.

Not condoning the shooter, but let’s not paint with a broad brush here.

[TygrBright]

16. Which of course raises many issues about who gets prosecuted for what when guns are involved...

Certainly the lack of judgment to fire in a crowded milieu, merits some kind of legal sanction.

And had the prosecutors made the charge anything from unlawful or negligent discharge of a firearm up to assault with a deadly weapon, it would be valid (although perhaps arguable in the assault case as intent may be required for that charge.)

While the second amendment theoretically protects everyone's right to keep and bear, its noticeable that RWNJs and militia loons seem to have much more equal 2A rights than anarchists, brown people, etc. But that's not necessarily part of this case.

And no one else at the protest had a firearm, and a virtual life sentence even for the more serious vandalism might raise 8th Amendment concerns - it certainly would if the protesters were Proud Boys or other RW wackadoodles. But, apparently, not these dangerous lefty types.

I think they are sowing the wind, here... but whether they will ever face the whirlwind in my lifetime, I do not know.

reflectively,
Bright

[UpInArms]

18. Hypocrisy is a bit obvious

Shootings, Arrest, Trial and More: The Kyle Rittenhouse Story Explained

BREAKING: A jury has found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts in his murder trial connected to the shootings of three people during unrest in Kenosha during the summer of 2020. Details here.

_________________________________________________________________________

On the night of Aug. 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse went from being described as a 17-year-old police enthusiast to a teenage gunman accused of shooting three people, two of them fatally.

His story became the center of bitter nationwide divisions on issues of guns, protests and policing. Soon, his fate will be in the hands of a jury.

So what exactly happened? Here's a look back at how the case began and where it has gone since.

An Overview of What Happened

Rittenhouse, 17 at the time, traveled the few miles from his home across the state border to Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, as the city was in the throes of damaging protests that followed a white police officer's shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, after a call to a domestic disturbance.

Bystander video captured the critical minutes when Rittenhouse, with a Smith and Wesson AR-style semiautomatic rifle, shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28.

It’s okay if you bring a gun to a protest and kill people, so long as you are a hate filled reichwinger

[Torchlight]

9. The right wing so desperately wants this case

to be a slam-dunk and they're going to predicate their arguments on flawed sampling and variants on 'ifs, maybes, and coulds' in order to pretend better positioning for flawed arguments.

[lostnfound]

19. Almost lost it over this topic yesterday. People don't recognize what is happening before our eyes

A family member thinks the American people will wake up and stop the fascists if they push it too far, or that the Dems will turn the country around in the November election, etc. etc.

But a story like this, where people got sentenced to 50 years who not only did not pull the trigger but weren’t even there when it happened?
That’s Nazi germany or Russian style of intimidation and oppression of dissidents.
It’s purely a fear tactic.

And instead of commiserating with me and discussing the meaning of this event, i just got counseled that these were bad people because at least one or more was carrying a gun or because ‘a few’ went and slashed tires.

Complete and utter nonsense, and people are just believing what is more comfortable to believe.

When i get that kind of reaction from someone who certainly should know better, it makes me ready to throw in the towel, close my eyes and go to sleep like Rip Van Winkle. Resistance is futile — and apparently punishable by 50 years in prison.

How lucky for fascists that people are so trusting or earnest.