On this edition of Your Call's Media Roundtable, we're discussing the Trump administration’s unprecedented attacks on activists and protesters.
Award-winning journalist Adam Federman details the trial of nine individuals recently convicted in federal court in Texas on charges including "material support for terrorism."
Reporting for In These Times, he writes that on March 13, the jury convicted all nine defendants on a variety of charges, ranging from providing material support to terrorists to attempted murder. The ruling could have far-reaching consequences for activists, protesters and NGOs that have aligned themselves in any way with anti-fascist organizing.
The case centered around a demonstration on July 4, 2025, in which roughly a dozen activists set off fireworks outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, which is about a 45-minute drive south of Dallas. Noise demonstrations are a common protest tactic, sometimes involving fireworks, whistles or megaphones, and a way of expressing solidarity with immigrant detainees or inmates who have little contact with the outside world. At least one protester spray painted a guard shack and a vehicle in the Prairieland parking lot with expletives and anti-ICE slogans and dismantled a security camera. Some of the protesters also had firearms—which in Texas, an open-carry state, is generally legal.
Guest:
Adam Federman, reporting fellow with Type Investigations, and author of Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray
Resources:
Type Investigations: Exclusive: FBI Files Counter Government Argument in Texas “Antifa” Trial
The New Yorker: The Trial of Anti-ICE Protesters Accused of Terrorism
Texas Observer: How the Prairieland ‘Antifa’ Verdict Threatens the Anti-Trump Resistance
