DFW Support Committee

Month: October 2025

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  • NLG Stands with Anti-ICE Dissent, Calls for Solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants

    Reproduced below is a statement of support for the Prairieland Defendants issued by the National Lawyers Guild, which describes itself as the oldest and largest progressive bar association in the United States. It was published on October 17, 2025.

    Yesterday, a new indictment was revealed in North Texas that uses Trump’s new directive to go after “antifa” to prosecute the Prairieland Defendants. This is the first instance where the Trump Administration has framed “antifa” as a terrorist group in a criminal case. The National Lawyers Guild stands with anti-ICE dissent and calls for solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants. We cannot tolerate the dangerous criminalization of a noise demonstration against ICE.

    The U.S. government is no stranger in designating groups within the U.S. as enemies. It did so during the Second Red Scare, against alleged communists. The FBI declared war on the Civil Rights movement and crushed the Black Panther movement. In the middle of the so-called “war on terror”, it discretely framed environmentalists as “domestic terrorists” during the Green Scare. More recently, the supporters of the Free Palestine movement have been systematically attacked, and Stop Cop City protesters have been targeted as “domestic terrorists”. With each new wave of popular protest, the U.S. government has invested in creating enemies where there are none.

    That same federal government is attempting to paint a picture of organized “antifa” members, armed and willing to commit violence, in Texas. This is not the case. On July 4, people stood up for immigrants outside an ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, as thousands are doing elsewhere, through a noise demonstration. We know what the current administration is doing against anti-ICE dissent: using the FBI to target political enemies.

    Importantly, Texans routinely show up to protest with guns. It is not an anomaly, particularly because there is always a threat of armed right-wing counter protesters. Meanwhile, the federal government is allowing ICE and CBP to shoot and kill people, while using the National Guard to intimidate protestors. It is making enemies out of people exercising their First Amendment rights.

    We are alarmed by the appearance of federal prosecutors and agents coordinating with the Alvarado Police Department and Johnston County District Attorney’s Office to indefinitely detain the Prairieland Defendants through concurrent, extreme state and federal charges. Despite this incident occurring over three months ago, with allegations against defendants who weren’t even at the noise demonstration, the government is only now declaring that there was a so-called “antifa terrorist cell”, pursuant to Trump’s new directive. We reject the validity of these new claims.

    We must continue to fearlessly stand up for immigrants and against fascism. 

    Support the Prairieland Defendants here: https://dfwdefendants.wordpress.com

  • Defendant Dario Sanchez’s experiences in jail and after release on bond

    Read more about Dario Sanchez here.

    At first, my incarceration was the same as everyone else’s. Isolation, in a dirty cell. After my bond was lowered and I was released, they pull a bait & switch at a hearing to add conditions to my release. They indicted me on a second charge and sent me to jail for labor day weekend.

    While I was in booking for two days, I heard a young, disabled man in an isolated cell scream and beg for his parents for hours at a time. I can still feel the thump of his body against the door and walls because it shook my cell too. When I went to make a phone call, I watched a guard spark up his taser and joke about hurting that boy. Eventually, the guards agreed to put him in our holding cell if he calmed down. I had to take the lead and comfort him, talking to him about his loved ones while trying not cry, because I knew that if I couldn’t keep him calm, they’d hurt him again. Guards would taunt and laugh at him or crack jokes, and I couldn’t bear to see it happen again. Hours later they housed me in gen-pop and I hoped he made it home.

    My third arrest was a clown-show. My local PD followed me halfway to Johnson County where I was called in for a random piss test. They boxed me in and drew guns on me, ordered me out, and cuffed me before cussing each other out because one guy didn’t properly execute their tactical twink capture.

    Later, at the jail, they got the cuffs stuck on me because the guard bought his key off of Amazon and it got stuck. Fifteen minutes later, they popped it free and put me in stripes. All of this happened because my bond officer saw me search for how to replace my Gameboy Advance SP battery, then he apparently searched up how to use that battery to make “trigger devices” and passed it off to the DA who then said I searched that up. When my lawyers showed them proof that I never did that, they had to back off immediately.

    Between now and the end of my trial I cannot look at anything anti-government or violent, not even movies or music. My phone is monitored by spyware that logs all my activity.

  • NLG Stands with Anti-ICE Dissent, Calls for Solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants

    Reproduced below is a statement of support for the Prairieland Defendants issued by the National Lawyers Guild, which describes itself as the oldest and largest progressive bar association in the United States. It was published on October 17, 2025.

    Yesterday, a new indictment was revealed in North Texas that uses Trump’s new directive to go after “antifa” to prosecute the Prairieland Defendants. This is the first instance where the Trump Administration has framed “antifa” as a terrorist group in a criminal case. The National Lawyers Guild stands with anti-ICE dissent and calls for solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants. We cannot tolerate the dangerous criminalization of a noise demonstration against ICE.

    The U.S. government is no stranger in designating groups within the U.S. as enemies. It did so during the Second Red Scare, against alleged communists. The FBI declared war on the Civil Rights movement and crushed the Black Panther movement. In the middle of the so-called “war on terror”, it discretely framed environmentalists as “domestic terrorists” during the Green Scare. More recently, the supporters of the Free Palestine movement have been systematically attacked, and Stop Cop City protesters have been targeted as “domestic terrorists”. With each new wave of popular protest, the U.S. government has invested in creating enemies where there are none.

    That same federal government is attempting to paint a picture of organized “antifa” members, armed and willing to commit violence, in Texas. This is not the case. On July 4, people stood up for immigrants outside an ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, as thousands are doing elsewhere, through a noise demonstration. We know what the current administration is doing against anti-ICE dissent: using the FBI to target political enemies.

    Importantly, Texans routinely show up to protest with guns. It is not an anomaly, particularly because there is always a threat of armed right-wing counter protesters. Meanwhile, the federal government is allowing ICE and CBP to shoot and kill people, while using the National Guard to intimidate protestors. It is making enemies out of people exercising their First Amendment rights.

    We are alarmed by the appearance of federal prosecutors and agents coordinating with the Alvarado Police Department and Johnston County District Attorney’s Office to indefinitely detain the Prairieland Defendants through concurrent, extreme state and federal charges. Despite this incident occurring over three months ago, with allegations against defendants who weren’t even at the noise demonstration, the government is only now declaring that there was a so-called “antifa terrorist cell”, pursuant to Trump’s new directive. We reject the validity of these new claims.

    We must continue to fearlessly stand up for immigrants and against fascism. 

    Support the Prairieland Defendants here: https://dfwdefendants.wordpress.com

  • Defendant Dario Sanchez’s experiences in jail and after release on bond

    Read more about Dario Sanchez here.

    At first, my incarceration was the same as everyone else’s. Isolation, in a dirty cell. After my bond was lowered and I was released, they pull a bait & switch at a hearing to add conditions to my release. They indicted me on a second charge and sent me to jail for labor day weekend.

    While I was in booking for two days, I heard a young, disabled man in an isolated cell scream and beg for his parents for hours at a time. I can still feel the thump of his body against the door and walls because it shook my cell too. When I went to make a phone call, I watched a guard spark up his taser and joke about hurting that boy. Eventually, the guards agreed to put him in our holding cell if he calmed down. I had to take the lead and comfort him, talking to him about his loved ones while trying not cry, because I knew that if I couldn’t keep him calm, they’d hurt him again. Guards would taunt and laugh at him or crack jokes, and I couldn’t bear to see it happen again. Hours later they housed me in gen-pop and I hoped he made it home.

    My third arrest was a clown-show. My local PD followed me halfway to Johnson County where I was called in for a random piss test. They boxed me in and drew guns on me, ordered me out, and cuffed me before cussing each other out because one guy didn’t properly execute their tactical twink capture.

    Later, at the jail, they got the cuffs stuck on me because the guard bought his key off of Amazon and it got stuck. Fifteen minutes later, they popped it free and put me in stripes. All of this happened because my bond officer saw me search for how to replace my Gameboy Advance SP battery, then he apparently searched up how to use that battery to make “trigger devices” and passed it off to the DA who then said I searched that up. When my lawyers showed them proof that I never did that, they had to back off immediately.

    Between now and the end of my trial I cannot look at anything anti-government or violent, not even movies or music. My phone is monitored by spyware that logs all my activity.