AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to a case that’s been widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Texas handed down unusually harsh sentences, ranging from 30 to 100 years, to a group of anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges in March. Federal prosecutors had accused the nine defendants of being members of a North Texas, quote, “antifa terror cell” for attending a protest outside the Prairieland ICE jail on July 4th of last year, during which fireworks were set off and a police officer was shot and wounded.

AMY GOODMAN: Among those sentenced was Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who wasn’t even at the protest. He received a 30-year prison term for conspiracy to conceal documents, after he moved a box containing anti-fascist magazines and pamphlets. Another protester, Autumn Hill, received a sentence of 50 years after being convicted of rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive device, which was fireworks. This is Hill’s wife, Lydia Koza, speaking after the conviction in March.

LYDIA KOZA: Federal prosecutors in this case told a panel of Northern District of Texas residents, with a straight face, that lighting off fireworks on the Fourth of July was terrorism, was a riot. I cannot think of anything more un-American than that. And I cannot think of anything more inhumane than the horrors that ICE is inflicting through its state terror on our communities.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche welcomed the unusually harsh sentences, writing that, quote, “Antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice. Their violent extremism has no place in our country, and the Department of Justice will continue to aggressively investigate, disrupt, and prosecute those who threaten law enforcement officers or undermine the rule of law,” end-quote.

Former U.S. Marine Corps reservist Benjamin Song, who was convicted of the shooting, received a hundred-year sentence. In a statement, he said he only fired his rifle because he believed the officer was about to shoot another activist. Song said others have been punished just for knowing him, adding, quote, “This is mass punishment. Collective punishment. This is guilt by association. This is injustice,” he wrote.

AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Democracy Now! reached out to Federal Public Defender Jason Hawkins. He said, quote, “We have no comment, other than we look forward to appealing both the conviction and sentence.”

For more, we’re joined now by two guests. Sufia Khalid is deputy director of the National Security Criminal Defense Center at the Muslim Legal Fund of America, joining us from Dallas, Texas. She represents one of the Prairieland defendants, Maricela Rueda, at the sentencing on Tuesday and will be representing her on the appeal. Rueda received a 70-year sentence for her alleged role in a noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE jail that the government charged as material support of antifa terrorists, and an obstruction charge for allegedly asking her husband to move boxes of zines, magazines, after her arrest. And from Baltimore, Maryland, we’re joined by Matt Sledge, political reporter for The Intercept, who’s been covering the Prairieland case and just returned from the sentencing hearing, his latest piece headlined “Prairieland Defendant Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Moving a Box of Antifascist Zines.”

Let’s go first to Sufia Khalid. Explain what took place in this courtroom, what your client now faces, as well as the others.

SUFIA KHALID: Thank you for having me, Amy.

So, what happened on Tuesday, it’s shocking to all of us, devastating to the families, 50- to 100-year sentences. Those are essentially life sentences for all of the young people in this case, largely of whom were engaged in nonviolent protest at an ICE detention facility.

How did we get here? So, the government in this case sought a novel — first time that this has happened — use of a rarely used statute: the provision of material support to terrorists. And that has not been used in the purely domestic context for this kind of conduct. That statute also does not require any connection to a domestic terrorist organization or any kind of a domestic terrorist organization. When the government sought prosecution under this statute, they sought to seek a very dangerous precedent, that now allows them to target any American engaged in protest that results in even the most minor damage to property, property destruction. Any American can be targeted that way now. It does not require ties to antifa or to any domestic terrorist organization. It just requires one of these underlying statutes. That’s a dangerous precedent and what allowed them to stack these charges so high on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, what happened is the federal sentencing. People were anticipating maximum sentences of 20 years, maybe 30 years. The way they reached this sentence is the judge used this very rarely used and the most extreme federal sentencing guideline called the terrorism enhancement, to inflict maximum sentences on every count of conviction for these defendants, and then abused his discretion to do something that is very rarely done in cases like this. He ordered each sentence to be served consecutively, not concurrently. So, each sentence is served consecutively, resulting in sentences for 50 to a hundred years in these cases.

That terrorism enhancement that I mentioned only requires that the offense is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government through intimidation or retaliation. That’s a very, very broad — has a very broad application. And the government in past recent years has sought that in a lot of these prosecutions that people don’t pay a lot of attention to, and so now it’s very broadly applied.

Seeking it in this case meant that the guidelines, you know, the sort of federal sentencing structure that’s supposed to tailor a sentence to each defendant — my client, for example, a young mother to a 12-year-old daughter, an artist, a poet, never been in trouble with the law, never even missed a parking ticket. The sentences are supposed to account for all of these unique situations, the fact, you know, that she has no criminal history. But the terrorism enhancement undoes all of that. It recommends a maximum sentence on every charge for every defendant. That’s how it operates, because it automatically designates them as a career offender.

It’s particularly abusive in this case, though, because it results in a significantly unwarranted sentencing disparity in the United States amongst defendants that have been convicted of similar conduct. Now, in these kinds of cases, where the government is bringing this, a novel charge, under a rarely used statute and terrorism, you may only have a couple or a handful of cases that are relevant to kind of distinguish your client or show where the expected range should be. But in this case, we actually had 1,500-plus very recent federal prosecutions related to similar conduct, that should have informed what these sentences should have looked like. And that was of the January 6th defendants.

The January 6th defendants were involved in rioting, carrying massive arsenals of weapons, lots of discussions ahead of time — that didn’t exist in this case — about targeting law enforcement, wanting to kill members of Congress, them actually storming the Capitol, and it resulted in injury of 140 officers in that case. The government in that case could have sought prosecution under this same material support of terrorism statute. They didn’t for those defendants. And they could have sought the terrorism enhancement in those cases, because it applied. I told you that vague “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government,” could have applied it in all of those prosecutions. It only sought them in a small handful. And where they sought the terrorism enhancement, the courts then, rightly, decided not to apply it, in the vast majority of the small selection of cases where they sought it, because they said it was overkill, not representative, and would result in unwarranted sentencing disparity. The average sentence in the Capitol riots, which had far more serious conduct than the Prairieland 9 defendants, was 26 months.

So, we have a massive, unwarranted sentencing disparity here. What happened in the court in Fort Worth was unconstitutional and should concern everybody in this country in the direction that it is taking us.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sufia, could you talk about this sentencing in the context of a presidential memo issued by Trump in September 2025 — that is to say, the National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, which is titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence”?

SUFIA KHALID: Yes, that is how we got here. So, in that memorandum, the president ordered the DOJ to change the definition of what is a domestic terrorist. When you hear “domestic terrorism,” when people see “antifa” in these headlines, “Antifa Receives 50 to 100 Years,” their mind clicks off, because you hear “domestic terrorism,” and you assume it must be really serious, it must be violent, it must be planned mass violence. That’s not what — that’s not what happened here. And in that memorandum, they changed the definition to “domestic terrorism” to include trespass, property damage and civil disorder for people with specific political leanings: anti-fascist, anti-Christian, anti-traditional values.

So, now anyone engaged in basic protest with the wrong political beliefs can be labeled a domestic terrorist, when they have no intention of violence, not engaged in any violence, not interested in any violence, not what we would typically think of as domestic terrorism. This can be minor trespass, civil disorder, even doxxing — reporting somebody online what their identity is. That can all result in this domestic terrorism tab.

And in that presidential memorandum, they order prosecutors to seek the highest charge and seek terrorism charges in these political prosecutions. And that’s what happened here, what didn’t happen in the January 6th cases, and that was political enough. The courts were right there not to seek the terrorism enhancement or terrorism charges, but it is happening here.

And the problem is, this precedent lasts. That statute, that — this is now what the precedent is for what can be charged as domestic terrorism in the United States. The administration changes every four years, so this will be applied to both sides. So, it should — it concerns every American. If you’re left, if you’re right, if you’re in the middle, this concerns everyone. A government that punishes its nonviolent critics 10 times more harshly — actually, in this case, 30 times more harshly — than its violent insurrectionist supporters is not a democracy in any meaningful sense.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Matt Sledge into the conversation, who’s been writing some really interesting pieces for The Intercept. Matt, the acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who President Trump is trying to make permanent, welcomed the unusually harsh sentences, writing, quote, “Antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice. Their violent extremism has no place in our country, and the Department of Justice will continue to aggressively investigate, disrupt, and prosecute those who threaten law enforcement officers or undermine the rule of law.” Your response to what has taken place?

MATT SLEDGE: Yeah, I mean, I think you can tell from that statement from the acting attorney general that a playbook has now been set, and it’s going to be pursued in places like Minnesota. A grand jury in Illinois was obviously more skeptical about similar charges. But I think the administration is going to keep pursuing really aggressive charges like this. And they have received a message from these judges now in Fort Worth that they can secure some really harsh sentences from pursuing this playbook.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what do you expect, Matt, the precedent that this sets for people participating in protests elsewhere around the country on different issues?

MATT SLEDGE: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, some protesters, it will make them think twice about, you know, even going out for nonviolent, daytime demonstrations, when conduct can be painted as criminal and, you know, can be so aggressively prosecuted in places like Texas.

AMY GOODMAN: You note in your piece, Matt, that several defendants received sentences longer than many, of course, of the January 6th defendants. You talk about former U.S. Marine Corps reservist Benjamin Song, convicted of the shooting, receiving a hundred-year sentence. He said he fired only because he thought an officer was about to shoot another activist. And he also talked about the collective punishment of all of these defendants, he said, anyone who had relationship with him. Talk more about who Song is, and also the fact that these people on a July 4th weekend had fireworks — as they’re referred to now, explosives.

MATT SLEDGE: Yes, Song is former military and was painted by the prosecutors as kind of a ring leader in this, you know, brought weapons to the demonstration. Many of the other folks there did not bring weapons. Some of them brought fireworks. And, you know, they say that their intention was just to shoot those fireworks off and show solidarity with folks inside the ICE detention facility. You know, several of them spoke at the sentencing on Tuesday and said they never intended to hurt anybody. One person described a festive atmosphere before the police came. Many of the people who showed up that night were gone by the time the shooting actually started.

But, you know, this incident between the responding police and Song, which results in one of the police officers wounded, is really the spark for a very wide-reaching manhunt in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that rolled up a bunch of people associated with Song and is just a huge chunk of the kind of left-wing activist cohort in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

AMY GOODMAN: In this last minute we have, Matt Sledge, what struck you most? I mean, you’re referring to all these cases that, of course, we’ve been covering. In Chicago, a first grand jury going after anti-ICE protesters had voted not to indict. And now all everything has come out, and everything has been put aside, the charges, once the judge started to read the grand jury transcripts. You’ve got a case in Tacoma. What are you concluding at this point? What do you think is most important to follow?

MATT SLEDGE: You know, I think we just have to watch for this playbook to be applied elsewhere. In North Texas, in the Fort Worth area, the federal government obviously found judges and jurors who were receptive to their arguments. So I think they may be looking elsewhere to find judges and juries who are similarly receptive.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, Matt Sledge, political reporter for The Intercept. We’ll link to your articles at democracynow.org. And Sufia Khalid, deputy director of the National Security Criminal Defense Center at the Muslim Legal Fund of America, representing one of the Prairieland defendants, Maricela Rueda.

Coming up, we speak with acclaimed journalist, tech activist, sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow, author of a new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It’s Too Late. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Living in Dystopia” by Sarah Michelle Ozelle.