Prairieland Immigration Detention Center Protest Case Update
In a case weve been closely following, a federal jury in Texas has delivered a verdict in what may become one of the most consequential protest-related decisions in recent memory. Nine activists connected to a 2025 demonstration outside the Prairieland immigration detention center were convicted on charges ranging from rioting to providing material support for terrorism. At the center of the governments case was the claim: antifa is a coordinated, violent enterprise"one rising to the level of domestic terrorism. Prosecutors leaned on expert testimony and political declarations to argue that common protest tactics"black clothing, encrypted messaging, even reading certain literature"were evidence of a broader criminal conspiracy.
But reporting by investigative journalist Adam Federman, based on FBI records he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, tell a very different story. The documents show that, as recently as 2018, the Bureau itself concluded that Antifa DFW, or Dallas-Fort Worth posed no threat to national security and warranted no further investigation. But those records were not disclosed at trial"raising serious constitutional questions about withheld evidence and the integrity of the prosecution.
Guest - Xavier de Janon is a criminal defense lawyer and the Mass Defense Director with the National Lawyers Guild where he provides protest defense and support for the right to dissent. Based in North Carolina, Xavier also represents individuals in politically-motivated cases across the South.
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The Trump Administration's Policy Impacts On Civil Rights And The Black Middle Class
According to the New York Times, within hours of taking office, President Donald Trump immediately began to target the Black community. On his first day, he ordered the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the firing of the predominantly Black employees who staffed them. He branded Black history as unpatriotic and divisive. He equated diversity with incompetence and removed high-ranking Black officials in the government. He moved to weaken longstanding civil rights guardrails to restore what he called merit and fairness.
By the end of his first year, Trump had slashed the federal work force by nearly 300,000 people. His biggest cuts targeted agencies that had employed a disproportionate number of Black employees, a measure that economists and experts say poses the biggest threat to the Black middle class in modern history. Infamously, Trump recently posted a racist video clip on his social media feed portraying President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. Trump deleted the video but refused to apologize for it.
Guest - Professor Kim Hester Williams is a Professor of English and Black Studies and Ethnic Studies at Sonoma State University. She is co-editor of the award winning collection,Racial Ecologies, published with the University of Washington Press in 2018. Currently, she serves asco-editor of the journal,Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writersand previouslyserved as guest editor for the special issue ofGothicNatureV: Decolonising the EcoGothic. She also published a co-authored essay, Familial and Communal Histories as Environmental Care Work, in the academic journal,Environmental Communication.Additionally, Prof. Kimwrites poetry grounded in the eco-feminist, Black Womanist tradition of Poetics. Last year, she published her poem, "I Saw a Butterfly" inVoices Unbound: An Anthology of International Poetry. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Prof Kim following a screen of the movie Origin, based on the book Caste by Isabell Wilkerson. It was so illuminating that I wanted to continue the conversation.
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