On June 23, 2026, the federal U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas sentenced eight violent protestors convicted of assaulting the Prairieland Detention Center, an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, in an anti-Independence Day attack on July 4, 2025. Their stiff punishments ranged from 30 to 70 years in prison for rioting and providing material support to terrorists, among other charges. An exception was made for Benjamin Song, the group’s leader, who got a total of 100 years with an additional conviction piled on for attempted murder.
Texas is a Republican red state that isn’t soft on these kinds of criminals. A court in Minnesota, California, Seattle, Oregon, Illinois, New York or other Democrat-controlled blue states might have let them off with community service or even found them not guilty. Don’t be surprised if some left-wing legal organization pays for legal fees to appeal the verdict and the sentencing all the way to SCOTUS. Several other protestors were scheduled to be sentenced on July 1.
Prosecutors said the protestors vandalized vehicles, launched fireworks at the ICE facility, wounded an Alvarado police officer with a firearm and shot at unarmed corrections officers. The thugs were identified as a cell of radical ANTIFA left-wing anarchists who claim to be anti-fascist although they resort to standard fascist tactics in their violent protests.
A preposterous defense
The defense presented by lawyers who represented this bunch was preposterous. As was expected, none of the defendants took to the stand to testify at the trial. Meagan Morris’s attorney, D. Miles Brisette, claimed Meagan went to Alvarado that night expecting a peaceful demonstration and “felt deceived by what unfolded.” Likewise, Zachary Evetts was portrayed by his attorney, Patrick McLain, as a pacifist who also expected a peaceful protest claiming the fireworks were only intended to gain the attention of the (illegal alien) detainees so that they could hear the protestors’ (screamed) words of support. Apparently, this was the collective script of the group’s defense who should be treated like misguided juvies deserving nothing harsher than being grounded for a week or, at worst, sent to a reform school. This innocent-lambs defense is especially incredulous when the perps are ANTIFA thugs who proudly love to bust heads. A department of Homeland Security spokeswoman applauded the stiff sentences as “a win for the rule of law.”
Given its customary liberal bias, the spin in an Associated Press story was sympathetic to the protestors, including quotes from Phillip Hayes, the attorney representing the aforementioned Benjamin Song who was found guilty of attempted murder. Hayes described the protestors as just “a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard. It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”
Following the Marxist playbook
Really? So, why did they bring guns? Their real intent was clearly to obstruct the DHS and ICE from doing their jobs which is also the intent of violent mobs that interfere with ICE officers all over the country, especially in Minnesota, under the pretense of social justice and compassion for their wonderful neighbors who just happen to be illegally present in the United States. Baloney! The leaders of this movement and its paid-provocateurs by financiers like George Soros is to “resist” the governance of the Trump administration and advance the open borders and progressive Democrat socialist agenda.
Civil violence is right out of the Marxist handbook of permanent revolution.
The DFW (for Dallas-Fort Worth) Support Committee, providing financial support for the legal defense of the protestors, said the defendants were wrongly being “thrown away for the rest of their lives.” It added, “The egregious sentencing is to send a message to anyone with the same beliefs.” No. These sentences weren’t punishment for the “beliefs” of these criminals. It was for their unlawful “behavior.” And I certainly hope this sends a message discouraging violent criminal action by radical activists and the useful idiots who are duped into following them. The message: “If you commit a crime, you’ll do the time.”
I greatly doubt that any of these criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison. It’s more than likely that their stiff sentences will be reduced during the appeals process, especially if they come in front of liberal judges. Failing that, the next Democrat in the White House, maybe President AOC, will commute their terms or, even worse, pardon them and throw in the Presidential Medal of Freedom as a bonus.
Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.
