A federal judge in Fort Worth handed Benjamin Song a century behind bars on Tuesday for opening fire on a police officer during a July 4, 2025 attack on an immigration detention facility in Texas, the harshest sentence yet in what the Trump administration calls its systematic dismantling of antifa.
Seven co-defendants received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years at the same hearing. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, who presided over the sentencing, told the courtroom that what happened at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado last Independence Day was not a protest but "an assault on democracy."
The sentences cap a prosecution that began after a group of demonstrators descended on the ICE facility, set off fireworks, vandalized vehicles, and ultimately fired on responding officers. Song, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist, shot and wounded Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross. He was convicted of attempted murder last March after a 12-day trial that featured testimony from more than 45 witnesses and over 210 exhibits, the New York Post reported.
The convictions marked a historic first. Nine members of what prosecutors called the North Texas Antifa Cell were found guilty on federal domestic terrorism charges, the first time antifa-linked defendants have been convicted under such statutes. Eight of the nine were found guilty of providing material support to terrorists, rioting, conspiring to use explosives, and using explosives during a riot, Just The News reported.
Song drew the most serious conviction: attempted murder. One co-defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was convicted of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. He received a 30-year sentence, the lowest of the group.
The prosecution leaned on President Trump's executive order, signed in the fall of 2025, designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization. That order gave federal prosecutors a framework to bring terrorism-related charges against the defendants, though critics have noted there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department's list of foreign terror organizations.
The administration has paired that legal architecture with sweeping immigration enforcement legislation and aggressive action against those who interfere with federal operations.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi framed the convictions as a warning. As Fox News reported, Bondi said after the March verdicts:
"Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities, not under President Trump. Today's verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa."
FBI Director Kash Patel was blunter still. "If you attack federal law enforcement this FBI will use every resource at our disposal to hunt you down," Patel said after the convictions.
Those statements set the tone for Tuesday's sentencing. Judge O'Connor did not soften the message from the bench.
"The need to deter this type of conduct is high."
Prosecutor Frank Gatto, as AP News reported, argued the defendants' ideology demanded the stiffest possible punishment: "People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison. They believe violence is justified."
Song's attorney, Philip Hayes, spoke outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth after the sentencing. He pushed back hard on the terrorism framing, casting his client and the co-defendants as misguided idealists rather than terrorists.
"Our issue with this case has always been this isn't a bunch of terrorists. This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard. It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired."
Hayes also pointed to Song's background before the attack. "Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student. He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could."
He confirmed Song will appeal.
The defense argument faces a steep climb. A jury already found Song guilty of attempted murder. The sentence, 100 years, the maximum available, reflects the court's view that this was not a protest that went sideways but a planned act of political violence. The contrast between a local police lieutenant lying wounded and a defense attorney calling the shooter a kid with a big heart will not be lost on the appellate judges.
That gap between rhetoric and reality has surfaced elsewhere. In Vermont, a district attorney dropped charges against anti-ICE protesters who assaulted officers, drawing sharp condemnation from police leaders who said the decision undermined the rule of law.
The Prairieland case is not an isolated prosecution. Just last week, federal prosecutors in Minnesota charged 15 people with impeding the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. Prosecutors alleged those defendants were antifa members who conspired against the federal government by setting up blockades and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles.
The pattern is clear: the Justice Department is treating organized interference with immigration enforcement as something more than civil disobedience. The antifa designation gives prosecutors a statutory hook, and they are using it.
National Review noted that all eight defendants sentenced Tuesday are connected to antifa, according to prosecutors, though the defendants deny formal affiliation. That denial is a familiar refrain. Antifa has long been described as a "decentralized anti-fascist organization", a structure that makes formal membership difficult to prove but also difficult to disprove.
The administration has not limited its enforcement posture to antifa alone. Actions against criminal organizations abroad, including a strike targeting a Tren de Aragua leader in Venezuela, reflect the same willingness to pursue threats wherever they surface.
A 100-year sentence is not a slap on the wrist dressed up for headlines. It is a life sentence in all but name. The 30- to 70-year terms handed to the co-defendants ensure that most of them will spend the bulk of their adult lives in federal prison.
For the wounded officer, Lt. Thomas Gross, the sentences deliver a measure of accountability. His name was largely absent from the defense attorney's remarks outside the courthouse, an omission that speaks for itself.
For the broader public, the case draws a line. Showing up armed at a federal facility, firing on police officers, and setting off explosives is not protest. It is not civil disobedience. It is not youthful idealism gone slightly wrong. It is political violence, and a federal jury and a federal judge treated it accordingly.
Some on the left have warned that the antifa designation and the aggressive prosecution of demonstrators could chill legitimate protest. That concern deserves honest engagement, but it does not apply here. No First Amendment principle protects shooting a cop. The defendants in this case crossed every line that separates lawful dissent from criminal assault, and the sentences reflect that reality.
Meanwhile, local officials in some cities continue to resist federal immigration enforcement. Philadelphia's district attorney has threatened to arrest ICE agents carrying out their duties, a posture that looks increasingly reckless as federal courts hand down century-long sentences for those who take resistance from rhetoric to violence.
The Prairieland case matters because it establishes a precedent. For years, antifa-linked violence was met with minimal federal consequences. Charges were dropped. Sentences were light. Prosecutors in progressive cities looked the other way. That era appears to be over.
The defendants' attorney wants the public to see a group of compassionate young people who made a terrible mistake. The jury saw something different: a coordinated attack on a federal facility that left a police officer with a gunshot wound. Judge O'Connor saw it the same way.
Song will appeal. His co-defendants may do the same. The legal process will grind forward. But the message from Fort Worth is already clear enough.
Shoot at a cop, call it a protest, and a federal court will call it what it is, and sentence you like it means it.
