The Trial of Anti-ICE Protesters Accused of Terrorism
Benjamin Song’s mother was regularly present at the trial. She wore elegant pantsuits and professed absolute confidence in her son’s innocence. At least publicly, relatives of the accused seemed reluctant to blame Song and instead offered various theories about what happened that night. Perhaps the officer fired first and Song fired in self-defense or to protect another protester. Maybe he had aimed at the ground, but missed. Only one parent quietly condemned the shooting to me. “I think it’s despicable,” they said. “It made terrorism what everyone else did.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, law enforcement searched cars, apartments and a brick house, affectionately known as the Big Gay House, where some of them lived. They seized more weapons, bulletproof vests and a printing press. They took photos of a hoodie that read “chinga la migra,” bumper stickers that read “be gay, do crime” and a drawing of President Trump with a swastika. They looked into the Emma Goldman Book Club, an anarchist reading group to which several of the defendants belonged. They collected publications with titles such as “Organize an Attack! Insurrectional Anarchy,” “Visualize Industrial Collapse” and a zine called “The Satanic Death Cult is Real,” which offers feminist analysis of horror films. Law enforcement arrested Daniel Sanchez Estrada, Rueda’s husband, who was not in Prairieland that night, on suspicion that he had removed a box of explosives from her home. The box turned out to be full of other zines and an old love letter. Sánchez Estrada was charged with conspiracy and concealment of evidence; he too was found guilty.
Even though none of the posts were illegal — and neither were the weapons, defense attorneys noted — the government argued that the evidence pointed to a shared ideology. In Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith’s closing statement, he said the defendants should and could have known that Song was going to shoot a police officer, “because of Antifa.” Unlike other groups designated as terrorist threats, Antifa is more a set of tactics and political philosophy than a discernible group. Broadly speaking, it is a form of militant anti-fascism that encompasses direct action – clashes with right-wing protesters, for example, or sabotage of infrastructure. But the Trump administration has adopted a broader definition. In the presidential memorandum, Trump called the “common threads” of anti-fascism “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States government; extremism in migration, race and gender; and hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
Some cooperating witnesses, who pleaded guilty in exchange for lighter sentences, were asked by prosecutors to identify defendants who were aligned with Antifa. But under questioning by defense attorneys, they described their political beliefs and those of their friends using various labels: libertarian, socialist, communist, anarchist and anti-authoritarian. The government attempted to reconcile the mix of left-wing ideologies and micro-factions through testimony from Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst at the Center for Security Policy, a far-right think tank. Shideler, who has presented himself as an expert on radical Islam and “black identity extremism,” also focuses on Antifa. Shortly after Kirk’s assassination, he released a “Road Map for the Trump Administration” detailing how to “dismantle far-left extremist networks”: targeting progressive nonprofits likely to fund left-wing organizations and revoking visas for people who “demonstrate support” for anarchist or Marxist groups. According to the roadmap, environmental or abortion rights groups are also potentially suspect, as they can be used “as a recruitment tool to activate individuals…and further involve them in a movement whose true goal is revolution.” Shideler is a regular guest on right-wing podcasts and cable TV programs, but this was the first time he has testified as an expert in court. In his testimony, he purported to identify various “characteristics” of Antifa in the defendants’ behavior, including the use of Signal, wearing black bloc, and crowdfunding.
Later, I spoke with Tom Brzozowski, a former domestic terrorism attorney in the Justice Department’s National Security Division, who told me that the vague language around Antifa, both in this case and in federal filings, was troubling. “There is no way of knowing whether you know that the activity you are engaged in could be interpreted in some way by the government as Antifa or aligned with Antifa,” he said. “The guy dressed in black mixing that with a ICE physically, it’s a problem. You can’t attack ICE officers. But then you had the guy who was at the same protest and wasn’t attacking anyone. Let’s say they both went to the same training session two days ago on how to peacefully protest in ICE facilities and how to know your constitutional rights. And this training was funded by a philanthropic organization interested in promoting civil liberties. This entire movement is now under active investigation – to you, it’s “Antifa-aligned.”
