The Prairieland Nine convictions are an example of lawfare designed to criminalize political dissent and intimidate movements challenging the national security state.
Originally published in Black Agenda Report.
The Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the Prairieland Nine following their convictions in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, and we condemn this ruling as lawfare against people’s movements. These verdicts must be understood as part of a broader escalation in the U.S. state’s war against the people and popular organization.
The prosecution of the Prairieland Nine demonstrates how the architecture of the so-called War on Terror is increasingly being turned inward. By applying terrorism frameworks to a protest connected to the Prairieland ICE detention center, the federal government is advancing a precedent meant to criminalize political dissent and suppress movements challenging the violence of the U.S. national security state.
This is the domestic byproduct of imperial decline. As the United States wages aggressive wars abroad and seeks to maintain full-spectrum dominance, repression intensifies domestically. ICE raids, expanded surveillance, political prosecutions, and the militarization of policing all function together as mechanisms to discipline the population and fracture collective resistance. Working-class tax dollars are diverted into the military-industrial complex while communities are subjected to detention, deportation, and incarceration.
The Prairieland case is an attempt to normalize the use of extreme federal charges, including “material support to terrorism,” against individuals engaged in protest activity. The objective is clear: isolate movements, intimidate communities, and establish a legal framework that can be deployed against organizers across the country.
The prosecution’s narrative rested on the weaponization of the word “Antifa,” which describes anti-fascist movements, but is now a term that has been weaponized by the far right and the national security state to manufacture a domestic enemy. By framing protest activity and even attire (such as wearing all-black clothing) through a counterterrorism lens, the state seeks to normalize extreme charges, lengthy sentences, and sweeping prosecutions that can be replicated against movements in the future, without the burden of material evidence.
Equally troubling are the irregularities surrounding the trial itself: restricted public access, heavy judicial control over jury selection, and barriers to independent observation. These conditions reinforce the reality that the outcome of this case was shaped within a broader political context designed to secure convictions and establish precedent.
But repression of this kind is not simply about punishing nine individuals. It is about sending a message to all who resist the violence of the U.S. system of detention, deportation, and border militarization. It is about intimidating movements and attempting to isolate those who challenge the legitimacy of the state’s institutions. It is about reinforcing the legal architecture that will strengthen repression and surveillance toward the aims of ‘full spectrum dominance’ on the domestic front, as well as globally.
The Black Alliance for Peace rejects this strategy of intimidation. We recognize that the expansion of repression inside the United States is inseparable from the broader crisis of the imperialist system. As the U.S. ruling class struggles to maintain global dominance, it increasingly turns to coercion at home to discipline the population and suppress opposition.
Yet history teaches us that repression also reveals weakness. When the state must rely on political prosecutions and terrorism frameworks to silence dissent, it is acknowledging the growing legitimacy of resistance, and its inability to contain it by other measures.
We extend our solidarity to the Prairieland Nine, to their families and communities, and to the networks organizing in their defense. Their case underscores the urgency of building stronger, more disciplined, and more unified movements capable of confronting the expanding national security state.
In support of the Prairieland Defendants, we share the demands put forward by Dare to Struggle:
- Drop all federal and state charges against the Prairieland Defendants
- Release all Prairieland Defendants from pre-trial detention
- End ICE terror against the people of Texas and around the country
- Donate to the collective defense and support for the Prairieland Defendants. They need more money for lawyers. GiveSendGo | Support DFW Anti-ICE Protesters
No Compromise, No Retreat!
Nina Farnia is an assistant professor at Albany Law School in New York. She is a legal historian, focusing on the role of modern imperialism in U.S. law and politics, and a member of the Anti-…
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