1st American Antifa terrorism trial reaches verdicts
Nine people accused of a leftist terror plot against a Texas migrant detention facility were found guilty of federal charges on Friday, according to multiple reports.
Benjamin Song, the group’s suspected ringleader, was convicted of attempted murder over a July 2025 anti-deportation protest in Alvarado that turned violent, Fort Worth Report and The Guardian reported. Jurors reportedly found seven other defendants guilty of material support for terrorism, rioting and other crimes while acquitting them of some offenses. A ninth defendant who was not at the protest was convicted of concealing evidence, according to Fort Worth Report.
Their charges marked the first U.S. terrorism case against accused supporters of Antifa, which President Donald Trump labeled a domestic terrorist organization in September.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said the agitators arrived in black clothing at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility with a trove of guns nearby. They vandalized property and threw fireworks until Alvarado police Lt. Thomas Gross tried speaking to them. The situation went haywire when Song shot Gross in the neck area, the DOJ alleged. That officer testified to jurors about the group’s actions, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
“I’m done with peaceful protests,” one defendant said in a messaging chat ahead of the protest, according to court documents. “Blue lives don’t matter.”
The defense argued that Antifa is merely an ideology and that defendants did not plan for violence that night, according to multiple reports. Defense lawyers also planned to call up several left-leaning “experts” as witnesses, the DCNF previously reported — but they rested their case on Wednesday after prosecutors finished, bringing no new witnesses or evidence. Jurors received more than 200 items of evidence to sort through, such as firearms, surveillance footage and the group’s materials calling for an “Alvarado City Fireworks” demonstration and “Peaceful Protest no more,” court records show.
“As we move into the sentencing phase of the case, it is fortunate that the judge was able to see a more complete picture than what the Government has painted in the indictment and press releases,” defense attorney Cody Cofer told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We still have First Amendment and sufficiency of the evidence issues to address on appeal. We look forward to continuing this fight.”
“We are thankful that the jury could see through the Government’s fear-mongering Antifa ‘ambush’ narrative,” Cofer said.
Beyond their federal trial, Song and other defendants face state-level charges over the incident in Johnson County, records show. County authorities charged two others with concealing evidence in the investigation of the attack and conspiring to hide Song, according to multiple reports.
Song, whom prosecutors called a leader of the Antifa cell, fled from the FBI and Texas authorities for eleven days after the July 4 shooting until a SWAT team captured him in a Dallas apartment. Before his trial began, four people pleaded guilty to federal offenses for helping Song remain a fugitive. Three more also pleaded guilty to aiding the Antifa cell in illegal activity.
Prosecutors reportedly had 51 witnesses testify, including accomplices who pleaded guilty, law enforcement officials and terrorism analyst Kyle Shideler from the conservative Center for Security Policy.
“Antifa is a militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law,” the DOJ said in court records.
The trial’s political fault lines became an obstacle on its first day. Trump-appointed Judge Mark Pittman declared a mistrial in February over a defense lawyer wearing a shirt that showed civil rights figures during jury selection, causing a restart.
“Don’t let political repression win!” reads a Wednesday Bluesky post from the DFW Support Committee, a group created to advocate and protest for the nine defendants. “It is right to rebel against ICE!”
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