By Alex Colwell
July 31, 2026

Originally arrested in connection with a noise demonstration held on July 4, 2025, the Prairieland defendants have dealt with nothing short of fascistic oppression and humiliating conditions since then. What started with inhumane jail conditions and accusations of terrorist activity has culminated in the sentencing of some defendants in early July 2026 who pled guilty to no less than 22 months in prison.

Ines Soto received a 50-year sentence, just for expressing criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its ethnic cleansing program.

A week earlier on June 23, eight of the defendants were given sentences of up to 100 years in prison, all of this based on trumped-up accusations of terrorism and attempting to incite a riot. Benjamin Hanil “Champagne” Song, who received the 100-year sentence, was falsely charged with “attempted murder.”

Anyone who knows even the basic facts of the case knows that these alleged offenses only occurred in the mind of the state thugs such as U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor. What we as revolutionaries and allies of the oppressed must ask ourselves is this: How can we most effectively express solidarity with the defendants and aid their struggle against the fascist-oriented regime?

The basics: Who is closest to the fight and where to find them

The DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) Support Committee is by far the most connected to the defendants, having direct contact with them. They are most active on their Instagram — @dfwsupportcommittee — and at their website — prairielanddefendants.com — regularly posting the latest news, events and updates surrounding the defendants. The Support Committee lists fundraisers, in addition to more information on events and the case.

Their every effort should be supported by the progressive movement! They are deeply involved in this struggle in North Texas and the whole struggle against ICE and anti-migrant repression in this country.

By showing up for the defendants in person and digitally across the country, we can bolster the efforts to defend our comrades in North Texas and thereby increase our ability to defend future comrades from police repression. Through our support, the state will be weakened in its ability to throw people in jail for simply having left-wing zines in their car or attending an anti-ICE event.

The defendants: marginalized champions for marginalized people

The history of this case is deeply entwined with the history of the defendants, who are themselves active participants in the history of their own targeted communities. Autumn Hill, who is currently saddled with a $10,000,000 bond, is a neuroqueer trans woman. Ines Soto is a Latine man whose community is directly affected by ICE’s actions; this includes the arrests of his spouse, Elizabeth Soto, as well as many other Latines acting in solidarity with their people.

While some of these heroes aren’t Latine or women or queer, they are all workers living in the belly of the beast, dealing with the daily abuses of the capitalist class in the largest, most corrupt empire on Earth.

The demographics of the people involved in the case demonstrates a pattern, one which shows the trends of racism, queerphobia, misogyny and overall unfettered reaction, which the U.S. ruling class has gleefully orchestrated throughout its entire history. To anyone who shares Workers World Party’s revolutionary view of history, the struggle of these pro-immigrant activists is immediately relevant to the current goals of our movement.

In our every movement, let the defendants be honored

Actions must reflect the support we offer in words to the Prairieland Defendants. As with Renee Nicole Good and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the Prairieland Defendants must be honored by all those resisting ICE occupation and oppression.

Not only do we have every reason to support the Prairieland Defendants however we can, but we actually owe them a debt. The DFW Support Committee has offered us something invaluable: their support for Mumia Abu-Jamal. On July 25, the Committee held a teach-in, fundraiser and letter-writing event. Here, they included not only the defendants, for whom they are steadfast advocates, but Mumia Abu-Jamal as well. This move demonstrated the group’s clear understanding of police repression in Texas and the history of government-sanctioned murders being carried out in the form of death sentences for incarcerated individuals in Texas and across the U.S.

The Committee could have ignored Mumia’s plight, “stayed in their own lane,” so to speak. But instead they showed consistency and reached out to all those who see the injustice in Mumia’s case. We in Workers World Party remain proudly within that category.

So let us take this as our duty, comrades, to be the next link in the chain which connects the Prairieland Defendants to Mumia and builds the front which will turn back the brutal immigration policies of the Trump administration.

Long live the Prairieland Defendants!