\n<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors are <\/span>making good on the Trump administration\u2019s threat to treat antifa-related activity as terrorism.<\/p>\n On Thursday afternoon, prosecutors in Texas announced that terrorism charges had been filed against<\/a> two people for alleged involvement in a shooting during a July 4 protest against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in which a local police officer was injured.<\/p>\n This is the first time federal terrorism charges have been deployed in association with the \u201cantifa<\/a>\u201d label, just a month<\/a> after President Donald Trump announced that he was designating antifa a \u201cmajor terrorist organization\u201d \u2014 a designation that does not exist under law for domestic groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Prairieland case is setting a chilling example for how the government will use so-called counterterrorism efforts to crush anti-fascist dissent. Neither of the people named in the indictment are accused of shooting the gun. Instead, Zachary Evetts and Autumn Hill are accused of \u201cproviding material support to terrorists\u201d and having \u201caided and abetted\u201d the alleged attempted murder of government officers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe framing of the case by the federal government should worry all of us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n The federal indictment accuses Hill, who prosecutors dead-named, and Evetts as being part of an \u201cantifa cell.\u201d<\/p>\n The terrorism charges are an escalation of government efforts to criminalize protest movements by attempting to attribute collective guilt.<\/p>\n With tactics like using RICO laws built to combat organized crime, the government has made a habit of mass-prosecuting activists for individual, individuated crimes alleged to have taken place in the context of legal protest activity \u2014 even when there is no direct link between those charged and the alleged crimes. Though such charges frequently don\u2019t stick, the lengthy prosecutions hamper protest movements and chill dissent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe framing of the case by the federal government should worry all of us,\u201d a support committee for arrested protesters said<\/a> in a statement on its website. \u201cThe glaring inconsistencies in the official narrative and the alarmist accusations are a clear attempt to bolster the Trump administration\u2019s claims that the United States is on the verge of chaos, and to excuse a dramatic increase in militarized police action.\u201d<\/p>\n On the night of July 4, protesters from Dallas-Fort Worth held a noise demonstration and set off fireworks outside the ICE facility. Federal officers called local police to the scene. There was an exchange of gunfire between an Alvarado police officer and one other person, in which the officer was injured. The cop was taken to a hospital and released within a few hours.<\/p>\n In a lengthy preliminary federal hearing in September, an FBI official told the court that he could not say for certain whether or not the police officer shot first.<\/p>\n Nine people were arrested that night in the area, and numerous others were arrested in the days that followed, including during aggressive multiagency raids on homes and community spaces. Seventeen people in all now face a mixture of state and federal charges relating to the event, including state terrorism charges.<\/p>\n Neither of the two people now charged with federal material support for terrorism were arrested at the detention center. Members of a support committee for friends and loved ones of the arrestees fear that further federal terrorism and other hefty charges are in the pipeline.<\/p>\n While there is no such thing as a terrorism designation for domestic organizations, and while there is no centralized formal organization known as \u201cantifa,\u201d by associating the antifa label and anti-fascist activism with terrorism, Trump\u2019s administration can marshal and direct vast law enforcement powers and resources into investigating and targeting networks of left-wing activists.<\/p>\n Even though there are no designated domestic terrorism organizations, only \u201cForeign Terrorist Organizations,\u201d there are domestic terrorist offenses under U.S. law. The government is attempting to portray the Prairieland Detention Center shooting as one such act.<\/p>\n The \u201cterrorism\u201d label has, after all, always been a tool for the government<\/a> to categorize ideological enemies and deploy extraordinary resources<\/a> to target them. At another preliminary hearing in July, prosecutors said that as many as 200 FBI agents were working on the Prairieland case \u2014 a massive overreach for a singular shooting incident leading to a minor injury in the context of a protest.<\/p>\n \u201cThis appears to be investigation by proclamation instead of investigation by sound intelligence,\u201d Thomas Brzozowski, a former Justice Department lawyer working on domestic terrorism, told<\/a> the New York Times on Thursday in reference to the government\u2019s treatment of the Texas defendants as an \u201centerprise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what happens,\u201d he said of Trump\u2019s targeting of antifa, \u201cwhen you open such a broad investigation into what is essentially an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\u201cInvestigation by Proclamation\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n