Eight Texas anti-ICE protesters were sentenced Tuesday to prison terms ranging from 30 to 100 years in a case that supporters and family members say marks a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration’s use of terrorism rhetoric against left-wing protest movements.
The sentences stem from a July 4, 2025 protest outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where demonstrators gathered against immigrant detention and the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies. Prosecutors portrayed the protest as part of an “antifa” operation. Defendants and their supporters described it as a planned noise demonstration in support of immigrants held inside the facility.
Benjamin Song received the harshest sentence: 100 years in prison. Prosecutors said Song shot and injured Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross outside the detention center. Song was convicted of attempted murder of an officer, rioting, “providing material support to terrorists,” and firearms-related charges. Maricela Rueda was sentenced to 70 years. Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Meagan Morris, Savanna Batten, and Elizabeth Soto each received 50 years. Daniel Sanchez Estrada was sentenced to 30 years.
One of the defendants sentenced to 30 years was not present at the July 4 protest, according to the source article. All defendants who were present at Prairieland that night, including guilty plea defendants Nathan Baumann and Seth Sikes, were ordered to pay $4,408.95 to the Prairieland Detention Center “jointly and separately.”
The case has become one of the starkest examples yet of the Trump administration’s effort to cast “antifa” as a domestic terrorism threat. In a press release, the Justice Department said the sentences were the first since President Donald Trump declared “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization. But antifa, short for anti-fascist, is not a single organization. It is an ideology and a loose political tendency, often used as an umbrella term for left-wing beliefs and anti-fascist politics. In recent years, it has also been associated with anti-Trump and anti-ICE protest activity.
“Today’s sentencings show the FBI remains committed to identifying, locating, and dismantling Antifa and its funding networks across the country,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Acts of violence against our law enforcement partners will not be tolerated, and we continue our work to protect communities across the country from domestic terrorism.”
That framing is central to the case’s broader implications. The defendants were convicted after a three-week trial in federal court in March, where prosecutors argued that the group was part of a broader cell that shared anti-ICE and anti-government beliefs. Jurors heard from the injured lieutenant, the government’s expert witness on antifa, and defendants who cooperated with prosecutors. They did not hear witnesses or see evidence from the defense, after defense attorneys rested immediately following the government’s case.
The charges included rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive. The explosive at issue was fireworks, which protesters had used as part of the noise demonstration. That detail has become central to criticism of the prosecution: materials commonly associated with disruptive protest were treated as part of a terrorism case, while the defendants’ alleged political beliefs were used to frame the broader narrative.
The shooting of Lt. Gross was the most serious allegation. Song was convicted of attempted murder and three counts of discharging a firearm. But in court, Song denied that he intended an ambush. Wearing an orange striped jumpsuit and cuffs, he told the court he did not hate police, Trump, or Nazis. He said that when he saw Gross exit his car and point his gun at another defendant, he feared an instance of police brutality.
Song called the idea that he intended an ambush “impossible.” He also denied being part of antifa or that antifa exists as an organization. He defended anti-fascism as a belief.
“What kind of people are not against fascism?” Song said.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman warned Song several times not to make a political statement and said Song had “obviously” not accepted responsibility or shown remorse. Pittman also rejected an attempt by Song’s attorney, Phillip Hayes, to discuss evidence he said showed Song fired at the ground as suppressive fire. Pittman said it was “by the grace of God” that Song and others were not dead.
“If we’re in a day and age that we use suppressive fire at an officer trying to stop a riot, we are in a really, really bad point in our history,” Pittman said.
After sentencing, Song’s mother, Hope Song, rejected the judge’s characterization of her son.
“He’s accepted full responsibility for what actually happened,” Hope said. “But he will never accept responsibility for a lie — a government lie made to prosecute innocent people in order to get political persecutions.”
Sanchez Estrada, who received 30 years, also rejected the terrorism label. He was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record. He and Rueda, his wife, were convicted of conspiracy to conceal documents.
“I’m many things, your honor, but I’m not a terrorist,” Estrada told U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor.
The scale of the sentences has drawn comparisons to the treatment of January 6 defendants. According to the provided reporting, the Prairieland sentences are far longer than any prison sentences given to January 6 rioters. The longest January 6 sentence was 22 years for a member of the Proud Boys, described in the source material as a far-right, neo-fascist militant group that embraces white nationalism, Islamophobia, and misogyny. That sentence was later commuted to time served after Trump pardoned the Proud Boys member, along with roughly 1,500 other January 6 rioters.
The comparison does not erase factual differences between the cases, including Song’s attempted murder conviction. But it raises sharp questions about how the federal government applies political violence frameworks across ideological lines, especially when left-wing protesters now face sentences that dramatically exceed those given to far-right defendants in one of the most visible attacks on U.S. democratic institutions.
The Prairieland case also follows Trump’s broader campaign to criminalize “antifa.” Days after issuing an executive order calling “antifa” a terrorist organization, Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs federal agencies to investigate and disrupt groups linked to “left-wing violence.” That framework has given federal agencies a political and legal basis to crack down on groups the administration associates with “antifa.”
“The Trump Administration has made it clear: Antifa terrorists and their networks will be investigated, disrupted, prosecuted, and neutralized with the full force of federal law,” the White House wrote in a press release earlier this month about what it called arrests of antifa “militants” and “thugs.”
The Prairieland prosecution is not unfolding in isolation. The source material notes other cases involving left-wing activists, including federal charges against eight Palestine solidarity activists in Michigan for pressuring the University of Michigan to divest from Israel, as well as charges against 15 protesters in Minnesota tied to activism during ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge” in January. Minnesota prosecutors have also alleged that 15 people charged in a conspiracy to injure federal officers were tied to antifa groups.
Experts told KERA News that the Prairieland case could become a playbook for how the Trump administration targets alleged left-wing violence, even though the material support charge was not necessarily tied to antifa or any specific set of beliefs.
For families and supporters, the case is already being understood as a warning about the future of protest, especially outside immigration detention centers. Friends and supporters of the defendants, organized as the DFW Support Committee, gathered around the case throughout trial, marching and speaking outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Family members said they plan to appeal.
Ana Marie Thorne of All People’s Church Unitarian Universalist in Fort Worth described the prosecution as an attack on ordinary people who opposed immigrant detention.
“These defendants are not militant monsters out to kill,” Thorne wrote. “They are everyday people who saw our country literally interning people in concentration camps and decided to show up at Prairieland Detention Center to let those incarcerated there know that they mattered. We leave here today knowing that the outcome of this trial is not the end. It is the beginning.”
The case now moves into its next phase. Seven more defendants — Nathan Baumann, Joy Gibson, Susan Kent, Rebecca Morgan, Lynette Sharp, John Thomas, and Seth Sikes — pleaded guilty last year to providing material support to terrorists in connection with the shooting and face up to 15 years in prison. Ines Soto, convicted during trial, is also scheduled to be sentenced July 1. In total, 22 people have been accused in state courts, federal courts, or both in connection with the events at Prairieland.
What began as a protest outside an ICE detention center has become a federal terrorism case with consequences reaching far beyond Texas. The sentences signal how quickly a protest can be recast as domestic terrorism when the government attaches a political label to it. They also show how the Trump administration’s anti-“antifa” framework can turn ideology, association, and protest activity into the scaffolding for decades in prison.
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