FORT WORTH, Texas — Eight individuals convicted on terrorism-related charges stemming from a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center last July 4th are scheduled to learn their fates in a Fort Worth federal courtroom Tuesday.
A federal jury returned guilty verdicts in March after a trial lasting nearly three weeks. The convictions included charges of providing material support to terrorists, among others. For most of the defendants, federal sentencing guidelines call for prison terms ranging from ten to sixty years.
Benjamin Song, identified by prosecutors as the demonstrator who fired a weapon and wounded a local police officer outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, was convicted of attempted murder. He faces a minimum sentence of 20 years and could receive up to life behind bars.
A second defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was convicted of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. He could face up to 40 years in federal prison.
Several others who chose to plead guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than go through a full trial are also being sentenced Tuesday. Those individuals face up to 15 years in federal prison.
Federal prosecutors contend that all eight defendants are members of antifa, a loosely organized anti-fascist movement that has become a focus of the Trump administration. The defendants have rejected that characterization, saying they were at the demonstration simply to show solidarity with immigrants held inside the detention facility.
FBI Director Kash Patel has described the Prairieland case as the first in which people the Trump administration believes are affiliated with antifa have been charged with terror-related offenses.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last fall designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Legal experts note, however, that no domestic equivalent exists to the State Department’s official list of foreign terrorist organizations, which raises questions about the legal standing of such a designation.
Civil liberties advocates have raised alarms that this case could set a broad precedent affecting protest rights across the country, since organizations operating within the United States are generally protected under First Amendment free-speech guarantees.
The term antifa is short for “anti-fascists” and does not refer to a single unified group. Rather, it is an umbrella label applied to various far-left militant factions that confront neo-Nazis and white supremacists at public demonstrations.
The sentencing comes just days after federal prosecutors in Minnesota charged 15 people with obstructing the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. Prosecutors alleged those individuals were antifa members who conspired to block federal arrests and deportations by erecting barricades around government buildings and hurling chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.
