Why We Have to Fight Back Against ICE Protesters’ Terror Convictions

Since his first inauguration, Trump has been throwing charges at protesters and seeing what sticks. He always failed — until now.

Natasha Lennard, March 17 2026

Excerpt: "It started on President Donald Trump’s very first day in office in 2017. Over 200 #InaugurationDay #protesters were mass arrested and charged with hefty riot and conspiracy felonies for simply being present and wearing black at a rowdy demonstration.

"Since then, the government has sought and failed to convict left-wing activists on thin, unconstitutional claims of collective guilt.

"Just as the J20 prosecutions, as the inauguration cases were known, fell apart, so too did cases accusing dozens of participants in the Atlanta-based #StopCopCity movement of #DomesticTerrorism, #racketeering, and conspiracy.

"It became a pattern of sorts. Prosecutors on both the federal and state level throwing extreme and overreaching charges at leftists, based on infirm theories of collective liability, aiming to paint #antifascist, #AntiRacist movements as criminal terrorist networks. The evidence marshaled in these cases was consistently no more than typical #FirstAmendment-protected activity, like making protest signs, raising bail funds, or being present at a demonstration. The cases drained movement energies and resources.
Again and again, though, they failed.

"This was the pattern repeated in the malign, overreaching cases against protesters in #FortWorthTX. The #AntiICE activists had mounted a demonstration at a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement jail in nearby #Alvarado.
There were consistencies with other anti-protest cases. There had been some illegal activity outside the #PrairielandDetentionFacility last July, and a police officer was shot. The government latched onto these circumstances to build its strategy of criminalizing dissent through guilt by association.

"Even in conservative Texas, I didn’t think a jury would buy the government’s case that these defendants were 'North Texas Antifa Cell operatives' — an organization fabricated whole cloth by the Trump administration — who had orchestrated an elaborate ambush of the ICE facility.

" 'Most people looking at this case are still stuck on the shooting aspect, but the jury decided the shooting was beside the point,' a member of a support group for the defendants told me. 'The verdict is that a normal #NoiseDemo deserves to be called terrorism and people should spend potentially the rest of their lives in prison. The implications of this are obvious, and people should know that the DOJ is going to try this again.' "

Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/17/ice-protester-terrorism-convictions-trump-prairieland/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/uvx92

#USPol #DomesticTerrorism #AntiICEProtests #Texas #ResistICE #SilencingDissent #AntiTerrorismLaws
#CriminalizingProtest #Resistance

MoveOn's open call: Artists Against ICE

Share with anyone you think would be interested!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DV_kACmEppJ/ DEADLINE MARCH 27th 2026

#art #artists #ICE #AntiICE

Will #DomesticTerrorism charges be brought against these #AntiICE #protestors?

#ICE enforcement action leads to #protest, violent clashes in #SouthBurlington, #Vermont

by Derek Brouwer, Liam Elder-Connors, Zoe McDonald, March 12, 2026

"A tense, day-long standoff outside a South Burlington, Vermont house ended Wednesday night with federal immigration agents removing three people inside and a series of violent clashes between police and hundreds of #activists who tried to impede the apprehension.

"It marked the first major confrontation between protesters and federal immigration authorities in Vermont. Federal law enforcement deployed #TearGas and #flashbangs on a normally busy street in the state’s second largest city to disperse the activists who had surrounded their vehicles. Roughly 60 local and state law enforcement officers were also on scene, though the departments sought to distance themselves from ICE’s conduct.

"The incident began when a man fled Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who had been surveilling a Dorset Street residence where he was staying.

"According to an ICE affidavit, the subject of the warrant was Deyvi Daniel Corona-Sanchez, a Mexico native who was removed from the United States in 2022, and later illegally reentered the country. In January, Corona-Sanchez was arrested by Middlebury police and charged with drunk driving, the affidavit says.

"Following a multi-vehicle crash, Corona-Sanchez escaped to a house on Dorset Street, authorities said.

"A growing number of protesters and police assembled outside throughout the day as immigration authorities waited for a criminal warrant to enter and arrest him.

"A neighbor, Richard Landsman, said an Ecuadoran family with two children had lived in the house for roughly a year. At one point in the afternoon, people helped a child leave the house; they were driven away.

"When the warrant came through after roughly nine hours, federal agents approached the front door with #TacticalGear and weapons drawn. They were supported by #VermontStatePolice troopers.

"Police wrenched away protesters blocking the front entrance and ICE agents broke down the door. Federal agents removed three people from inside, forcing them into an unmarked car. They attempted to drive off, but protesters linked arms and blocked the street. Confrontations ensued, and the agents eventually managed to drive off by running over a median and exiting via a driveway."

Read more:
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2026-03-12/ice-enforcement-action-leads-to-protest-violent-clashes-in-south-burlington-vermont

#ResistICE #SilencingDissent #AntiTerrorismLaws #CriminalizingProtest #Resistance #USPol #VTPol #ACAB

Setting up my new feed aggregator (FreshRSS running inside my network on YUNOhost) and I'm looking for feeds.

Please link send your favorite (not overwhelmingly voluminous) feeds that are #AntiICE #NoAI #Leftist #Politics #Technology #Progressive

I guess all #Goths are #Terrorists?

Wearing #AllBlack at #Protests Makes You Guilty of #Terrorism, Prosecutors Tell Jury

The Prairieland case is a major test of the Trump administration’s push to label “#antifa” protesters as #terrorists.

“They’re here asking you guys to put protesters in prison as terrorists.”

by Matt Sledge
March 12 2026,

"Federal agents raiding the home of two alleged #antifa 'operatives' seized a telling piece of evidence, a defense attorney said during closing arguments in a landmark trial Wednesday.

"A printing press.

"That printing press was never presented to jurors. Still, the government has kept it locked away because it hated the #pamphlets and #zines it published, lawyer Blake Burns said.

"Burns represents Elizabeth Soto, one of nine defendants whose fates were in the hands of jurors as deliberations began Thursday. All are accused of roles during or after a late-night noise demonstration outside #PrairielandDetentionCenter, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility near Dallas that ended with a local police officer wounded by gunfire.

"The case has become a bellwether for the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent from the left. The government charged people involved with the #AntiICE protest with a slew of charges, including attempted murder and terrorism counts that defense attorneys said are being used to #CriminalizeProtest.

" 'They’re here asking you guys to put protesters in prison as terrorists,' Burns, the defense lawyer, told jurors. 'That’s not happened before. And you are literally the only people in the world who can stop it.'

"During 10 days of testimony in a packed Fort Worth, Texas, courtroom, prosecutors bombarded jurors with images of radical zines printed on the press, anti-government internet memes, drawings of burning cop cars, and a video of an unidentified street brawl between far-left and far-right protesters.

"Prosecutors acknowledged those materials were protected by the #FirstAmendment but said they showed the roughly dozen people who assembled outside the ICE facility were steeped in antifa tactics.

"Eight of nine defendants on trial this month face material support for terrorism charges for wearing '#BlackBloc' clothes at the protest. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have hailed the first-ever use of terrorism charges against alleged antifa members."

Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/12/antifa-ice-protest-texas-trial-terrorism/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/UFFO9

#USPol #CriminalizingDissent #CriminalizingProtest #Fascism #Authoritarianism #CharacteristicsOfFascism

Anti-ICE #Protesters Convicted on #Terrorism Charges for Wearing All Black

By Matt Sledge, March 13, 2026

Excerpt: "The defendants said the protest was a peaceful demonstration meant to show solidarity, pointing to the megaphone that one member of the group brought to shout slogans to detainees. Prosecutors pointed to the guns, ballistic vests, and trauma first-aid kits they brought as evidence of malicious intent."

Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/13/ice-protesters-terrorism-prairieland-antifa/

#Antifa #RadicalZines #AntiICE #PrairielandDetentionFacility #Texas #USPol #CriminalizingDissent #BlackClothes #BlackBloc #CharacteristicsOfFascism #BenjaminSong #AutumnHill #ZacharyEvetts #SavannaBatten #MeganMorris #MaricelaRueda #ElizabethSoto #InesSoto