Trump’s legal conspiracy (part two)
Attacks against the movement
Trump’s repression collapses in LA, Chicago, and Minneapolis
In LA, Chicago, and Minneapolis, Trump attempted to divide and weaken the movement by securing hundreds of indictments against individual activists for interfering with an ICE agent, destroying federal property, or similar crimes.
From the beginning, the scope, size, and determination of the protests frustrated ICE’s attempt to repress them. To begin with, despite the massive deployments, ICE did not have enough agents to control the crowds, detain the immigrants, and arrest the protesters whom they claimed had violated the law. Agents, moreover, had great difficulty in identifying and recording which individual had committed which allegedly criminal act. To overcome that difficulty, the ICE agents, who were untrained, incompetent, brutal, and dishonest, arrested first and came up with charges later. Occasionally, official or cell-phone videos confirmed what the agents said, but most often they revealed that the agent had erred or lied.
The U.S. attorneys were supposed to review the charges that any officer reported, but many of those attorneys had resigned in protest. Some of the remaining U.S. attorneys dismissed dishonest or unsubstantiated charges, but under relentless pressure from above, most sought indictments from the grand juries on weak or non-existent cases. As the cases wound their way ahead, many U.S. attorneys would have been happy to proceed to trial except for the fact that the judges and, even more, the juries were increasingly skeptical of any charge that ICE had filed.
Pressure from the defendants, the defense lawyers, and the movement increased the pressure on the prosecution. Many defendants turned down plea deals despite the risk of going to trial. The defense often filed numerous motions seeking dismissal, and in many cases, members of the movement showed up in court for the crucial proceedings.
In criminal cases that do not involve ICE, 90 percent of federal indictments end up in a guilty plea or verdict. But after an extensive investigation of 400 cases in which protesters were charged with assaulting or impeding ICE agents, the New York Times found that half of those cases ended in acquittals or dismissals and that many of the others were pled down to misdemeanors. Significantly, of the 26 cases that went to trial before a jury, 22 were acquitted.
Similarly, ProPublica and Frontline reported that the federal government arrested 132 U.S. citizens in southern California for interfering with or assaulting ICE agents, but only 32 were convicted, and most of those had been convicted when they pleaded to misdemeanors. In fact, the federal defenders in Southern California won six straight acquittals—an unheard-of event—because juries simply did not believe ICE agents, including Greg Bovino. Likewise, after a jury had acquitted a professor at California State on a charge of aggravated assault against an ICE agent, the California Faculty Association reported that as of April 16, 2026, the U.S. attorney in LA had filed over a hundred charges against anti-ICE protesters and still had not convicted a single one for assaulting an ICE officer.
The same was true in Chicago. According to the same ProPublica and Frontline report, the government dropped charges in 75 of the 109 arrests of protesters against ICE.
If anything, the government did worse in Minneapolis. Early in ICE’s occupation of the city, Kristi Noem published “wanted posters” for 16 protesters who had supposedly interfered with ICE agents. But as Minnesota Public Radio reported, of the 36 protesters charged with interfering with ICE officers (including the 16 on Noem’s list), the U.S. attorney dropped 18 and offered 11 others a deal to dismiss their cases in 18 months if they had no further offenses.
While there are no official statistics, the New York Times found that of the 26 cases of ICE protesters who went to trial before a jury, the jury found 22 were not guilty.
There is also a great deal of anecdotal evidence of the juries’ opposition to ICE in the New York Times and ProPublica reports, but two cases, one from Chicago and the other from LA, express what juries thought of the ICE campaign.
In the Chicago case, a man had posted an online picture of Greg Bovino above a caption which read: “10K if U take him down.” The government charged the poster with attempted murder-for-hire and, at trial, called him “a ruthless member of the Latin Kings.” But after the jury heard the evidence, it acquitted the man. In response, Steven Miller issued a statement saying that “leftist judges and juries were empowering violent insurrection against the government,” but his racist sputtering could not reverse the verdict.
Similarly, in Los Angeles, the government charged a tow truck driver with interference with ICE officers when he mistakenly towed an ICE vehicle away from a scene where the agents were attempting to arrest an undocumented immigrant from Colombia. Once again, the jury acquitted the defendant, and once again Miller issued a public statement saying it was “another example of blatant jury nullification in a blue city.”
Even in LA, Chicago, and Minneapolis, the government obtained some convictions, although often on lesser offenses. However, even those who were ultimately exonerated suffered financial and personal harm from the prosecutions. Even so, there were so many acquittals and dismissals that the government’s prosecution of individual protesters in those cities barely made a dent in the growing movement against ICE and Trump.
Trump’s conspiracy indictments.
As stated, Bondi directed the FBI and the U.S. attorneys to consider charging anti-ICE activists with substantive offenses and conspiracy to commit those offenses because that would make it possible to prosecute those who planned the event and to double the penalties for anyone who committed an unlawful act.
From LA forward, the Justice Department was zealous in filing conspiracy charges, but almost immediately, the need to prove an “explicit or implicit” agreement to commit an unlawful act opened a weakness in those charges. If there were no electronic or other written statements suggesting such an agreement, a sympathetic jury could find defendants not guilty of the conspiracy charge if it concluded that there was either no agreement or that the agreement was limited to an agreement to carry out a lawful protest.
In the early days of the LA protests, the regime nevertheless stormed ahead with its conspiracy charges. Thus, in the first few days of the rebellion, Alex Jones (yes, that Alex Jones) provided the government with a video of a Latino man standing on the back of a truck, handing out water and face shields to crowds who had been gassed by ICE. Almost immediately, the government obtained search warrants, and ICE agents, surrounded by National Guard troops, used flash bangs to storm into his home and arrest him for conspiracy to interfere with ICE agents. When it turned out that the man was just a lone Good Samaritan, the government was forced to dismiss all charges against him and to incur months of adverse publicity
Similarly, on the first day of the occupation of LA, ICE agents arrested David Huerta, the President of California SEIU, for conspiracy to interfere with ICE agents because he had sat down by himself on a driveway outside a garment factory where ICE was conducting a raid. Since the only agreement that he had was with himself, the government was forced to drop the conspiracy charge. Months later, it was also forced to drop the charge of interfering with an ICE officer because Huerta had not interfered with anyone.
More seriously, in Ventura County, the government brought a twelve-count conspiracy indictment against two leaders of an immigrant rights group that had allegedly built blockades on the roads leading to a marijuana farm as ICE arrested and detained 400 or so immigrants. For unstated reasons, the government later dismissed all eleven felony counts in return for the lead defendant pleading to a misdemeanor and agreeing to 24-months of probation.
In Chicago, the situation was similar. The U.S. attorney obtained an indictment against six people, most of whom were associated with the Democratic Party, who had stood in front of an ICE vehicle and banged on its hood as it attempted to leave ICE’s Broadview Detention Center just outside of Chicago. Someone broke the rear windshield wiper, and that person or someone else also inscribed the letters PIG on the side of the vehicle. Fortunately, there were no text messages or other evidence of agreement to act together, but the government claimed that by standing side by side, the protesters had reached an implicit agreement to act together. On that basis, the government asked a grand jury to approve a two-count indictment against all six people for conspiracy to interfere with an ICE agent and conspiracy to damage federal property.1
Before the second Trump Administration, grand juries had almost never rejected an indictment requested by a U.S. attorney. But following in the footsteps of other grand juries that had rejected indictments requested by the Trump Administration, the first grand jury refused to approve the indictment against any of the six Broadview defendants. Undeterred, the U.S. attorney presented the same indictment to a second grand jury. As it turned out, a member of the first grand jury was also on the second, and when he saw the indictment, he told the U.S. attorney on the record that he thought that the first indictment was a “crock of shit” and that he had the same opinion about the second indictment.
The prosecutor then unlawfully excused him from the second grand jury and, after further unlawful acts, finally obtained a conspiracy indictment against the six defendants.2 Months later, when Trump’s newly (and illegally) appointed Acting U.S. attorney learned what had happened, he dismissed the conspiracy charges in an attempt to prevent the release of the full grand jury transcript. When the judge ordered it released and learned what had happened, she dismissed the remaining misdemeanor charge, saying that the prosecutorial misconduct was the worst that she had ever seen. Undeterred, the U.S. attorney said that no “civilized society” should tolerate conduct like that of the defendants, but other than sputtering out racist nonsense, he could do nothing to reinstate the conspiracy charges.
The government obtained conspiracy indictments and convictions in a case in Spokane, Washington where a crowd attempted to prevent an ICE bus from moving undocumented immigrants3, but until the most recent indictment in Minneapolis, it did not attempt to bring to trial a conspiracy indictment in any of the three cities where massive protests occurred.
The Minneapolis indictment
On June 11, 2026, the Trump regime filed an eight-count indictment against 15 activists who had fought against ICE during its occupation of Minneapolis. Of those counts, the key one is that the activists were accused of conspiring to impede or injure ICE agents as the agents attempted to arrest immigrants and to move them to sites from which they could be deported. As this case arose in the city where the most important victory over ICE occurred, it could become the national symbol of the regime’s attempt to disband and disrupt the movement that defeated it last January.
To begin with, the Minneapolis indictment is the most dishonest and hypocritical indictment that the government has filed. For weeks, the nation saw three thousand ICE agents rampaging through the streets of Minneapolis, breaking into cars and homes, arresting anyone who “looked like” an immigrant, shooting and severely wounding Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, and, most notoriously, shooting and killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The government has investigated none of those crimes but has instead spent its time investigating the signal chats, videos, and other “evidence” of a few minor incidents where it says those named in the indictment blocked ICE vehicles or agents for short periods.
The indictment does not charge anyone affiliated with the unions, the teachers, or the neighborhood and community groups who organized the mass patrols, marches, and semi-general strike that drove ICE out of Minnesota. Instead, it charges 15 people who it says were supporters of Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN) and several smaller “direct action” organizations. The indictment says the defendants organized specific direct actions during the mass struggles, including, for example, attempts to organize “soft blockades” (i.e., pickets) or “hard blockades” (i.e., debris, trailers, etc.) around federal buildings on the day of the largest mass march and the general strike.
The indictment apparently hopes to separate “legitimate” protesters from the “troublemakers.” This is an old tactic that has long been used by governments and strike-breaking employers, but after the great mass actions in January, most of the labor and community organizations that fought ICE in the streets have rejected that tactic by joining the campaign to defend those charged in this indictment.
If this case goes as most such trials have gone, the government will call an assortment of informants, turncoats, and the like to prove its claims. In addition, however, many of the 273 paragraphs in the indictment quote from text messages, chats, Facebook posts, and other electronic communications allegedly sent by some of the defendants in which they discussed plans to take various actions. A crucial part of the defense will thus be challenging the authenticity of those messages and whether the government broke laws to obtain them.
Given all that ICE did in Minneapolis, the movement should demand that the government dismiss this indictment. If the case goes to trial, however, the government will seek, as it has in other cases, orders prohibiting defense lawyers or witnesses from saying in the trial what happened to Renee Good or Alex Pretti or what in general happened during the occupation. It will also see orders prohibiting the defense lawyers from saying or implying that the jury has the right to find the defendants not guilty because of what ICE had done in the city. If the government obtains those orders—and it has done so in other cases—it will limit the ways in which the lawyers can point out the political nature of this case in the courtroom itself.
But many of the jurors will be from Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding cities, and they will know what happened. Especially with a mass defense campaign including shows of support at the court, it will be difficult for the regime to secure a conviction.
If the movement can prevent a conviction on the charges in this indictment, it will be important in the region and in the country. On the other hand, even if the regime secures a conviction on one or more charges, it cannot secure Prairieland-style sentences because the charges carry far less severe penalties and the movement is much stronger. While any conviction in Minneapolis will harm the movement, it cannot disrupt or uproot the movement in Minneapolis or the region. Nevertheless, the Minneapolis trial will be a crucial battle in the fight to defend the movement and thus in the fight to stop Trump’s deportations.
The Detroit indictment
In May 2026, the government obtained an indictment charging eight people affiliated in various ways with the University of Michigan with eight counts of conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate commerce, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of five years.
In essence, the indictment alleges that in a series of separate incidents, differing combinations of the defendants spray-painted and otherwise vandalized the homes of two regents, two senior university administrators, a university police official, two businesses, and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. The Federation, the businesses, and the University officials had actively supported the Israeli attack on Gaza, and the spray-painted slogans included calls like “Free Palestine, “Divest Now,” “Shame, Long Live the Intifada,” and the like. There were, however, no threats to any individual.
As in Minnesota, the Detroit indictment includes numerous seemingly incriminating statements allegedly made by defendants on Facebook pages, text messages, Signal chats, and the like. Once again, there is no reason to believe the government’s claim that the defendants made these statements or that the government obtained them by lawful means, but the fight over whether they are genuine or were lawfully obtained will be a crucial part of the defense effort.
In this case, the hypocrisy is again enormous. The U.S. supplied arms for a genocide, but instead of stopping that genocide, the Trump Administration is charging eight young people with federal felonies for alleged acts of vandalism which would have been charged, if at all, as minor misdemeanors if they had been committed during a fraternity’s pledge drive.
We must fight against this attempt to criminalize political opposition to the regime by organizing a movement to demand that these charges be dropped and that the defendants be acquitted if the case goes to trial.
Conclusion
After ten months, Trump’s campaign to “disband and uproot” the left and the movement has failed in key cities because the mass resistance in LA, Chicago, and Minneapolis and other cities sparked determined opposition among layers of the working and middle classes. In part due to the courageous defendants and an organized defense movement, that opposition reached into the court system and led to the acquittals and dismissals of hundreds of felony indictments.
The victory was not total. In Prairieland, Trump’s prosecutions led to unjust convictions and life-destroying sentences. Elsewhere, others were unjustly convicted and sentenced, although none of the other sentences were remotely comparable to those handed down after the Prairieland trial. Moreover, for every defendant, including those whose charges were dismissed, the convictions and sentences were still unjust. Even those who were exonerated suffered physical, economic, and emotional damage due to unjust arrests and prosecutions.
Even acknowledging the pain inflicted by Trump’s attack on the movement, the movement defeated Trump’s attempt to “disrupt and uproot” it. Indeed, the overall movement against ICE is stronger today than it was on the day Trump signed NPSM-7, which means that the movement can continue the fight against Trump’s deportations and other attacks. The defendants who faced down the government are now seen as heroes, and large sections of the movement see more clearly the tasks ahead and the need for a militant fight against ICE and against Trump.
Obviously, much remains to be done. Above all, the regime has found new ways to increase deportations, and the movement must find new ways to stop those deportations, because, as we have seen, the overall success of the movement is the best way to defend the movement itself.
Beyond that, we need special movements to defend against the indictments in Minneapolis and Detroit, to support the appeal from the convictions and sentences in Prairieland, and to defend against any new indictments that may be filed, including those for events that have already occurred and those for acts of resistance that will occur in the future.
We must also fight for broader political demands because the public trials and the jury system cannot prevent every unjust conviction (or prosecution) and because the current wave of popular opposition, which made it possible to defeat these prosecutions, will either grow or shrink depending upon the overall development of the struggle. We must thus link the fight against these prosecutions to the overall struggle against the regime, including the fight to drive Trump from the Presidency and the fight against fascism and for demands that will eliminate the conditions that gave birth to Trump and Trumpism.
Until we can prevail in that larger political struggle, we must also take steps to protect the movement itself. To do that, we must assess the strategic and tactical lessons of the fight against Trump’s attempt to destroy the movement.
The liberals have said or will say that the defense of the anti-ICE fighters shows that the system “worked.” But while the jury system, public trials and the media are the most important checks on state repression within the capitalist legal system, they have failed too many times—including, for example, in Prairieland—in the face of the resources and the demagogy that the regime can bring to bear. Contrary to what the liberals say, the grand juries, juries, and judges who dismissed these specific indictments did so because of action by the mass movements. The dismissals and acquittals again confirmed that the most important check on repression by the capitalist state is not the checks and balances within the State, but organization and action by the working class and the oppressed.
Similarly, anarchists have said and will continue to say that the leaders of the mass movements are too weak and too bureaucratic and that we need “direct actions” to stop the deportations. But while a mass movement sometimes needs direct action, the struggle over the last year has decisively shown that it was mass action that slowed Trump’s deportations and his attempts to prosecute the movement. A mass movement must be able to defend itself, but that cannot be done by building small squads of activists who are separate from and unaccountable to the movement because they cannot defeat the state and they are extremely vulnerable to state repression. Instead, the answer is to fight to build a new, militant, and democratic movement leadership,
Finally, while only a few now say that we can defeat Trump and ICE by “civil disobedience,” the sheer brutality of the regime and the success of the mass movement have shown the utter falsity of those claims.
On a tactical level, there are a few simple and clear lessons.
First, we must take steps to ensure that no member of the movement posts any electronic communication that they do not want to see as an exhibit in a federal prosecution. While we must maintain our right to use electronic means to debate general political issues and to organize many events, we should not make any comments —however innocent they may be —which suggest that any form of “violence” may or should occur at any specific event. Those comments can survive forever, and their meaning can be twisted by Trump’s henchmen.
Second, we must consider seriously every tactical decision as to when, where, and how to conduct every demonstration, picket, or other event. In most such events, there is little if any risk, but in some cases the risk is much higher, and while we must sometimes take such risks, we should not take them without carefully evaluating and discussing whether the risk is necessary.
Third, and more specifically, while we must defend the right of armed self-defense, we must carefully consider whether and how to use it at specific events because having firearms at a protest and even loose talk about using firearms in the struggle for self-defense creates great risks.
Finally, while we must fight to build a mass movement, we cannot do that without recognizing the weaknesses in the current movement. Above all, we must recognize that even though large sections of the working class and of the Black, Latinx, and other oppressed communities adamantly oppose the deportations and Trump, the active movement is dominated by the white middle class. We must take every possible step to overcome that gap because only a movement of the multi-racial and multi-gendered working class and the oppressed can defeat Trump and Trumpism.
How to do that is far beyond the scope of this article, but the fact that it can be done is confirmed by what has been described in this article. For many reasons, those grand juries and juries whose actions were composed of citizens from the middle class and the upper levels of the working class. But if those levels of the working and middle classes were willing, as Miller said, to “nullify” Trump’s policies, that is a signal that there is even more militant opposition to Trump among the more oppressed sections of the working class. How to turn those sentiments into active support and leadership of a movement is a complicated question, but it is what must be done if we are to eliminate horrors like NSPM-7 and the ongoing nightmare of Prairieland.
Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: U.S. Northern Command, Chad Davis, SwissAmish; modified by Tempest.
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George B. Washington is a labor and civil rights lawyer in Detroit and is now an independent Trotskyist.
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