The trial of nine suspected members of a self-admitted antifa cell is restarting, following an abrupt mistrial declared last week, as they face federal terrorism-related charges stemming from their alleged roles in a July 2025 ambush on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Alvarado, Texas.
The criminal proceeding, which will start again on Monday with jury selection, is considered the first-known federal trial to treat antifa as a terrorist organization after President Donald Trump officially designated far-left groups that organize behind an antifa ideology as domestic terrorism threats.
Here’s what to know about the case, seen by some observers as a test case for the federal government to put the broader antifa movement on trial for the first time in U.S. history.
Case background
On July 4, 2025, more than a dozen heavily armed anti-ICE militants lured law enforcement personnel outside the Prairieland Detention Center, an immigration processing site near Fort Worth, and opened fire on the correctional officers from various vantage points, authorities say. A local Alvarado police officer called to the scene of the large-scale assassination attempt was shot in the neck by the black-clad assailants.
Benjamin Hanil Song; Zachary Jared Evetts; Savanna Sue Batten; Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada; Maricela Rueda; Elizabeth Andrea Soto; Ines Houston Soto; Cameron James Arnold, also known as “Autumn Hill”; and Bradford Winston Morris, alias “Meagan Elizabeth,” were jointly indicted as coconspirators in connection with the Alvarado shooting.
TEXAS ANTIFA MEMBERS INDICTED ON TERRORISM CHARGES FOR ICE ATTACK: ‘FIRST TIME EVER’
The defendants, believed to be cell operatives or associates of a Dallas-area antifa faction, are standing trial on a slew of charges — including obstruction, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to conceal documents, attempted murder of federal officers, and unlawful use of explosives — for either allegedly participating in the coordinated attack or tampering with evidence afterward.
Some of the suspects are accused of supplying the antifa cell with communications equipment, weapons training, and transportation to and from the crime scene as getaway drivers.
Song, the cell’s suspected ringleader and a former Marine Corps reservist, eluded capture for more than a week thanks to a support network that mobilized to ensure his escape. While he was on the Texas Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, several now-convicted accomplices ferried Song between safehouses and supplied him with food, temporary shelter, and physical disguises. A multistate manhunt involving the FBI, however, eventually led to Song’s apprehension.
According to authorities, Song distributed firearms to the defendants as well as recruited members at gun ranges and combat sessions that he conducted around North Texas.
If convicted on all counts, the defendants could spend life in federal prison.
A shaky start for the defendants
Day One of jury selection abruptly ended in a mistrial last Tuesday over the “politically charged” outfit choice and questioning style of Rueda’s defense attorney, MarQuetta Clayton.
Clayton was wearing a T-shirt with messaging about civil rights during voir dire, a part of the jury-picking process in which attorneys ask questions to identify who to strike from consideration.
Judge Mark Pittman, in his decision to dismiss the jury pool, suggested that Clayton, who had mentioned the death of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson that morning to the prospective jurors, was trying to equate the defense’s side of the case with the civil rights movement.
Pittman found that Clayton’s courtroom attire, paired with her line of questions, may have influenced the jury panel toward a prejudiced view favorable to the defendants.
A new pool of candidates will be summoned this week for jury selection.
TEXAS ANTIFA TERRORISM CASE: CONFESSIONS MOUNT AS TRUMP DOJ CLINCHES MORE CONVICTIONS
Pittman, a Trump appointee, rejected many of the defense’s procedural requests heading into trial, including attempts to exclude “all physical evidence” obtained during the FBI’s search of the accused’s property.
The defense sought to suppress mounds of material, “including, but not limited to, firearms, ammunition, printing devices, laptops, notes, cell phones, pamphlets, knives, identification, documentation, radios, tablets, [and] storage devices” seized in the initial investigation.
An FBI search warrant shows that investigators were authorized to seize “Any and all flyers, printed materials, social media posts, and communications concerning: anti-government ideology; overthrowing the U.S. government; and interference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and/or other law enforcement or government functions.”
During the inquiry, investigators discovered a flag declaring, “RESIST FASCISM—FIGHT OLIGARCHY,” an agitprop pamphlet titled “Organizing for Attack! INSURRECTIONARY ANARCHY,” and flyers displaying slogans such as “FIGHT ICE TERROR WITH CLASS WAR!”
Pittman also denied the defense’s pretrial motion to preclude the admissibility of one codefendant’s statements to police.
While in custody, Morris made statements that incriminated other defendants. The defense moved in response to redact those names and replace them with “a neutral reference such as ‘other person’ when discussing the singular and/or ‘a few other guys’ when discussing the plural.”
The defense’s legal strategy
Several codefendants indicated when speaking to the press that their attorneys will argue at trial that they were just hosting a peaceful fireworks protest against ICE.
Prosecutors say that the suspects had set off fireworks that night as an intended trap designed to draw out the federal security guards into the line of fire.
Rueda, in an interview with NPR North Texas at the Johnson County Jail, claimed that the planned event was meant to be a “joyful” show of support for the illegal immigrants detained inside the ICE facility, not an assassination plot intended to kill the officers guarding the site.
Morris’s wife, Stephanie Shiver, similarly told the outlet that the suspects were merely rallying in support of the ICE detainees in a nonviolent display of solidarity.
“They were going in solidarity with the people ICE has been kidnapping and detaining,” Shiver said. “The whole point was to make noise and make the people inside feel that they’re not forgotten and not ignored.”
Elizabeth “Liz” Soto’s attorney, Xavier T. de Janon, likewise characterized the purpose of the late-night gathering as a so-called “noise demonstration.”
Asked if his client is a member of antifa, de Janon cast doubt on antifa’s existence, telling NBC’s Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate, “I don’t know what Antifa means. Antifa isn’t real, and I think it is fair to say that everyone who went to an anti-ICE noise demonstration stands against ICE, which is a violent, murderous agency at this point.”
“The accusations of a terrorist cell in North Texas, you would think that they would have found tanks and airplanes,” he said. “But instead, all we have is pamphlets, zines, signal messages, diaries.”
The peaceful framing was also reflected in Clayton’s jury questioning.
Noting the constitutional right to protest, Clayton reportedly asked the panel of possible jurors whether they knew the difference between a noise demonstration and a riot. Clayton then prompted them to answer whether they believed a peaceful protest could cross the line into becoming a riot, indicating so on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being in strong agreement.
Clayton’s co-counsel, Lesa Pamplin, brought a poster board juxtaposing scenes of seemingly peaceful protests with a fiery riot. Pittman subsequently admonished the defense team for trying to introduce the visual without informing the court or federal prosecutors for prior approval.
THE MEDIA’S GO-TO ANTIFA ‘EXPERT’ IS A FINANCIAL BACKER OF ANTIFA
Ahead of the trial, the defense lawyers selected a handful of researchers who study supposed right-wing radicalism and endorse “anti-fascist” activism themselves to take the witness stand as “experts” on the matter of political extremism.
The defense’s lineup of “expert witnesses” included Shon Meckfessel, a self-described anarchist; “old school anti-fascist” Devin Burghart; and longtime Portland activist Steven Gardiner.
Burghart, who sarcastically signs X posts as speaking on behalf of antifa, spread the claim that the Proud Boys “invented” antifa.
Gardiner has led resistance efforts in Portland since the 1990s, according to a profile from Political Research Associates, where he works as principal adviser. The group claimed in 2020 that concerns about leftist violence were part of “The Great Antifa Scare,” a campaign to purportedly protect the rise of “fascism.”
Meckfessel has sought through his work to blur the line between peaceful protests and criminal conduct. MeckFessel’s 2016 book, Nonviolence Ain’t What It Used To Be, debates the merits of violent and nonviolent protests. “My goal in this book is not to advocate violence or to prescribe nonviolence; it is, in fact, to move beyond the politically obstructive dichotomy of such prescriptions,” Meckfessel’s introduction reads.
According to the defense’s notice of expert testimony, the witnesses will testify that groups such as the Texas cell “sometimes adopt the aesthetic trappings of a paramilitary organization (i.e. wearing all black or camouflage clothing) in the course of a political demonstration even if there is no intent or desire to engage in violent conduct” and that “the actions of the defendants do not bear the hallmarks of an ANTIFA attack.”
In its effort to find experts, the defense hosted a Zoom call with Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and antifa’s foremost thought leader in the United States.
Defense attorney Christopher Weinbel told the Daily Caller that they did not end up using Bray, who financially backs an international antifa bail fund by way of his book’s proceeds, in part because he fled the U.S. following Trump’s promise to crack down on antifa’s domestic funding sources.
Unmasking antifa: What’s at stake for antifa’s forces
Preceded by the confessions of seven other cell operatives late last year, this month’s trial could further pull back the curtain on antifa operations in the U.S. by publicly airing the movement’s mobilization tactics and organizational structure, despite Democrats insisting that antifa is simply an idea.
Nearly half of the original 16 codefendants have entered guilty pleas and confessed, in exchange, that they belong to a highly sophisticated antifa cell based in the Dallas area.
Pursuant to plea agreements, the admitted antifa associates acknowledged in sworn statements their affiliation or membership, marking the first instance in U.S. history that antifa ideologues admitted in criminal court to being part of an organized antifa branch.
As part of the plea deals, they also admitted to aiding “acts of terrorism,” another win in the books for the Trump administration after the president directed federal investigative agencies to target, as terrorist enterprises, all criminal networks operating in the name of antifa.
The guilty pleas, along with their accompanying admissions, divulged in great detail how antifa’s ranks tend to organize in “cells or ‘affinity groups’” around their beliefs. According to court documents, the Texas cell members, in particular, found each other through far-left social media channels, and they coordinated via various chatrooms over Signal, an encrypted messaging platform, to prepare for the surprise attack on the Alvarado compound.
ANTIFA INC: HOW AN IDEOLOGY BECAME AN ORGANIZED CRIMINAL NETWORK
Extremism watchdogs envision that the trial, expected to last several weeks, will similarly lay bare antifa’s apparatus, tactical strategies, and on-the-ground operations.
Information revealed at trial could help debunk left-wing claims that antifa is an amorphous, leaderless movement existing only online — and thus, not a real-world threat. The defense appears poised to play off of that myth to confuse jurors about what antifa is and call into question whether the defendants are, in fact, foot soldiers committed to the cause.
Some of the cell members who pled out to avoid decades behind bars will be called to testify against their fellow comrades. Never before, in recent memory, have antifa operatives openly admitted their allegiance in the court record, let alone unmasked other associates.
“This is an unprecedented case,” Capital Research Center president Scott Walter previously told the Washington Examiner. “They have gone on the record, saying, ‘Here’s how we operated. Here are the other people I was working with. Here’s the person I was helping to hide out.’”
