Free the Prairieland defendants!
The trial and sentencing of the Prairieland defendants and the grotesque sentences handed them June 23 — from 30 to 100 years in prison, for each of eight defendants — was the closest thing to the reactionary and legal lynchings that have been all too common in the history of Texas.
And remember, Texas is a state whose ruling class was made up of enslavers who seized and settled the land of the Indigenous population and whose founding was based on a war of conquest against the Mexican nation.
Regarding the facts of the events of the July 4, 2025, demonstration and protest of the government persecution of migrant workers — and anyone who the border guards, immigration storm troopers or local racist cops believed might be migrant workers and their families — Workers World accepts the explanations of the Prairieland defendants (see prairielanddefendants.com) as logical and consistent with our own experiences as organizers of protests against the violence of the capitalist state.
The story as presented by the state authorities, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) storm trooper agents and their fascist ideologists in the MAGA administration (like Stephen Miller), we recognize as the invention of those serving the white supremacist rulers of U.S. imperialism.
In short, Workers World believes the Prairieland defendants. We don’t believe a single word from the state authorities.
We also have our own take on the political impact of the events and how the politics influences how we and anyone on the side of the oppressed in this country, anyone who is for justice, should react.
The pro-ICE and pro-white supremacy forces, in short, the MAGA administration, have targeted the Prairieland defendants in an attempt to intimidate all people who hate ICE and hate white supremacist ideology.
The superb Minneapolis mass protests against the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the mobilizations of people in dozens of cities and hundreds of towns to defend their migrant siblings and their families from the violence of ICE have terrified the MAGA white supremacists. The administration chose a reactionary judge in a reactionary district of a reactionary state to hold a kangaroo court trial and mete out these grotesque sentences — to try to stifle this workers’ solidarity movement.
All-out support for the Prairieland 8!
To reverse the Prairieland injustice, to reinforce the confidence of millions of workers who sympathize with their migrant siblings, we must give full legal and popular support to the Prairieland defendants.
This means combating the prosecutors’ fiction that there was a conspiracy to commit violence. Conspiracy is the state’s invention when even under capitalist laws, there is no real crime.
It also means giving full legal and popular support to Benjamin Hamil Song, the one defendant sentenced to 100 years in prison, allegedly for attempted murder. Song, a Marine veteran and firearms instructor, says the cop he wounded had taken a stance that showed he was about to fire on one of the other demonstrators, who was fleeing.
Attention: The U.S. Marine Corps taught Song how to shoot. Song managed to learn through his own life experience who were his real allies and who was the enemy. And which way to point his weapon.
Thus, he is a positive example to many other U.S. veterans, who have been forced to commit war crimes should they follow the illegal and unconstitutional orders from the U.S. imperialist regimes. They too can learn from Song who their class allies are and who their enemies are. For that alone, Song deserves popular support.
The MAGA regime has called the defendants part of “Antifa,” which doesn’t really exist as an organization. It means anti-fascist, it’s an idea that people have to unite in solidarity to fight the ruling-class elements who use white supremacist and bigoted ideology to divide the workers and keep them in chains. It’s a good idea. Antifa doesn’t exist as an organization, but maybe it should.
We are all Antifa!
Free the Prairieland defendants!
