A Washington state jury convicted three protesters of federal conspiracy charges for trying to stop federal officers from transporting two detained illegal immigrants out of Spokane last June. Jac Archer, Justice Forral, and Bajun Mavalwalla II each face up to six years in prison and $250,000 in fines after a trial that lasted nearly two weeks.
The convictions mark one of the most significant legal consequences yet for organized obstruction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and a clear signal that federal prosecutors are willing to treat interference with immigration enforcement as a serious crime, not a protest footnote.
The case traces back to a Facebook post by Ben Stuckart, the former Spokane City Council president, who urged people to join him in physically blocking an ICE transfer bus near the agency's facility in downtown Spokane. Stuckart served as a sponsor for one of the two detained illegal immigrants who were seeking asylum. Hundreds of people responded to his call. Nine were ultimately arrested on federal conspiracy charges, as Breitbart reported.
Of the nine arrested, six, including Stuckart, accepted guilty pleas in exchange for reduced sentences. That left Archer, Forral, and Mavalwalla to stand trial alone. The jury returned guilty verdicts on Thursday.
Stuckart did not attend the trial. He posted on Facebook afterward that he had been advised his presence could violate his parole. His explanation did not sit well with at least one elected Democrat.
Washington State Representative Natasha Hill, a Spokane Democrat, publicly rebuked Stuckart after the verdict. She thanked the defendants' supporters, then turned her aim squarely at the man whose social media post set the entire chain of events in motion.
"You started this and you couldn't even show up to finish it. So I call on you, and I call on others to do what you said you were going to do, and stand up for your community because the fight is not over with this conviction."
That a sitting Democratic state legislator would openly criticize a former Democratic city council president, not for organizing the blockade, but for failing to face the consequences, tells you something about where this case sits politically. The internal fault lines among Democrats on immigration enforcement continue to widen, a pattern visible in recent intra-party clashes at the national level as well.
In his post-verdict Facebook statement, Stuckart expressed sympathy for the three people who went to trial on charges that originated with his call to action.
"I feel awful about the guilty verdict. I feel awful for Jac, Bajun and Justice and their families. I support those that took plea deals, and I support those that went to trial."
The statement reads like a man who understands he lit the fuse but negotiated his way out of the blast radius. Stuckart took a plea deal. Archer, Forral, and Mavalwalla did not. Now they face the full weight of federal sentencing guidelines, up to six years behind bars and a quarter-million dollars in fines each.
Defense attorneys told reporters they expect to appeal the convictions. No sentencing date has been announced.
Bajun Mavalwalla Sr., the father of convicted protester Bajun Mavalwalla II and himself a congressional candidate, called the prosecution "political and vindictive." He told an NPR affiliate that U.S. attorneys wanted to make an example of his son.
Fox News reported that the elder Mavalwalla framed the case as a broader threat to civil liberties, saying: "The right to protest, the right to dissent, the right to assemble, all of those things are now in question because of this case."
That framing deserves scrutiny. No one was charged for holding signs or chanting slogans. The federal conspiracy charges stemmed from an organized, coordinated attempt to physically prevent federal officers from carrying out a lawful transport of individuals in ICE custody. There is a wide legal gulf between peaceful assembly and blocking a law enforcement operation, and a jury of their peers concluded the defendants crossed it.
The distinction matters. The First Amendment protects the right to protest. It does not protect the right to obstruct federal officers executing their duties. Conflating the two is a rhetorical move, not a legal argument.
The Spokane case did not happen in a vacuum. Across the country, local officials and activists have tested the boundaries of resistance to federal immigration enforcement. Some have declared sanctuary policies. Others have refused cooperation with ICE detainers. A few have gone further, actively interfering with enforcement operations.
What sets this case apart is the result. Federal prosecutors charged nine people. All nine now carry federal convictions or guilty pleas. The message from the U.S. Attorney's office is plain: organized physical obstruction of immigration enforcement will be treated as a federal crime, not a misdemeanor inconvenience.
The political consequences extend beyond the courtroom. Democrats who encourage or enable this kind of direct action increasingly find themselves facing uncomfortable questions about accountability. When leaders urge citizens to block federal operations and those citizens end up with felony records, the leaders owe more than a sympathetic Facebook post.
That dynamic is not unique to immigration. Across the Democratic coalition, elected officials who push ideological confrontation often leave their constituents holding the bill, a pattern of political recklessness that has cost some Democratic incumbents their seats as voters grow weary of theatrics over results.
Several questions hang over the case. The specific actions the protesters took to block the transfer, whether they formed a human chain, sat in the road, or used some other method, have not been detailed in available reporting. The names of the five other individuals who accepted plea deals, beyond Stuckart, remain publicly unidentified. The two illegal immigrants at the center of the incident have not been named, and the status of their asylum claims is unclear.
Stuckart's parole situation also raises questions. Why would a former city council president believe that merely attending a trial as a spectator could trigger a parole violation? The explanation he offered on Facebook was thin and unverified.
And then there is the appeal. Defense attorneys have signaled they will challenge the convictions. The grounds for appeal have not been specified. Whether a higher court sees the case differently remains to be seen, but the jury's verdict stands for now, and it carries real weight.
Nine people answered a politician's call to block a federal law enforcement operation. That politician took a plea deal and skipped the trial. Three others refused to plead and lost. They now face years in federal prison.
The law does not care how righteous you felt when you stood in front of that bus. And the man who told you to stand there is posting about it from home.
