Nine defendants are on trial in federal court in Fort Worth over a July 4, 2025 protest outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, that ended with a police officer being shot. Prosecutors say the demonstrators operated as a coordinated “North Texas antifa cell” and have pursued terrorism-related counts alongside charges such as attempted murder and rioting—an approach the defense disputes and that legal analysts say could shape how courts handle protest activity and group-label evidence.
A federal trial in Fort Worth is focusing national attention on how the Justice Department is using terrorism-related statutes in a case tied to a July 4, 2025 protest outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas.
According to court filings and reporting from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and CBS Texas, prosecutors allege the protest escalated into an attack involving fireworks, property damage and gunfire directed at responding officers. An Alvarado police officer was struck in the neck and later survived.
Nine men and women have pleaded not guilty and are being tried on an array of federal charges that include attempted murder, rioting, weapons- and explosives-related counts, obstruction, and providing material support for terrorism. Prosecutors have argued that the defendants were part of a “North Texas antifa cell,” while defense attorneys have said the government is stretching an ideological label to portray a protest as a terrorist conspiracy.
The case has drawn broader scrutiny because it is among the first major prosecutions to lean on the Trump administration’s move to treat “antifa”—a decentralized movement rather than a single hierarchical organization—as a domestic terrorist threat. In separate court actions linked to the same episode, federal prosecutors have expanded terrorism-related charges to additional defendants and have announced or secured guilty pleas from some people accused of supporting the alleged attack.
The trial and the government’s legal theory were also discussed in Slate’s “What Next” podcast episode “The DOJ Is Trying Protesters As Terrorists. Will They Win?”, released March 9, 2026. In the episode, host Mary E. Harris speaks with Leeja Miller, a Minneapolis-based lawyer and YouTuber, about the proceedings and what the outcome could mean for how prosecutors and courts treat protest-related conduct, association evidence, and politically charged group descriptors in future cases.
