Over 550 years! That’s the combined sentence handed to 15 anti-ICE protesters in June on federal charges of “terrorism.” Known as the Prairieland defendants, their only crime was participating in a demonstration outside a Texas detention center. Protester Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who was not present at the demo, will spend 30 years behind bars for moving a box of leftist zines.
By comparison, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists received an average sentence of 26 months before being pardoned by Trump. This double standard lays bare the domestic war launched by Trump’s McCarthyite witchhunt. The Prairieland case confirms the seriousness of his threats to “find and kill” those his administration deems “terrorists,” that is, “violent left-wing extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”
With the real terror coming from inside the White House, free speech defenders need a united effort to stop the persecution. During the Red Scare of the 1920s, communists, anarchists, unionists and labor militants formed the International Labor Defense to fight for class-war prisoners.
As more immigrant advocates, leftists and demonstrators are rounded up, a coalition like this can demand their immediate release and protect the right to protest.
