The Extreme Sentences Handed to Anti-ICE Protesters Should Terrify Us All
The sentences, ranging from 30-100 years, are part of an increasingly disturbing pattern of the Trump administration criminalizing speech and assembly.
“This is mass punishment. Collective punishment. This is guilt by association. This is injustice.”
So remarked former U.S. Marine reservist Benjamin Song after being handed down a 100-year sentence on Tuesday in connection with criminal convictions for a demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE prison in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4 of last year.
Dallas artist Daniel Sanchez Estrada wasn’t even at the protest, but he got 30 years after being caught on camera carrying a box of so-called “Antifa materials” (i.e., pamphlets) to a car, allegedly to protect his wife, Marciela Rueda, who attended (Estrada’s lawyer said he was moving boxes of his own personal material). Rueda was sentenced to 70 years behind bars.
Each of the other defendants got 50 years. They were convicted on a number of charges, including providing material support to terrorists.
This is part of an increasingly disturbing pattern of the Trump administration criminalizing speech and assembly in the United States. And it should alarm us all.