A federal judge in Fort Worth handed down sentences ranging from 30 to 100 years Tuesday to eight defendants the Justice Department tied to antifa, closing the book on a July 4, 2025, armed attack outside a Texas immigration detention center that left a police officer with a gunshot wound to the neck. The ringleader, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist named Benjamin Song, drew the maximum, a full century behind bars.
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor did not hold back from the bench. He called the incident not a protest but "an assault on democracy" and said the defendants' conduct demanded the harshest available deterrent.
The case marks the first sentencing of defendants prosecuted under President Trump's executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, a designation signed last fall that turned a long-running conservative demand into federal policy. And the sentences signal that the Justice Department intends to treat political violence at federal facilities as exactly what the statute books say it is: terrorism.
The shooting took place outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas on Independence Day 2025. Prosecutors told the court that Song yelled "get to the rifles" and opened fire during a demonstration, striking a local police officer. Fox News identified the wounded officer as Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, who was shot in the neck.
The defendants claimed they had gathered in support of detained immigrants. Defense attorney Phillip Hayes argued that Song's shots amounted to "suppressive fire" and that a ricochet, not a direct round, struck the officer after he arrived on scene and "aggressively" drew his firearm.
That framing did not persuade the court. Judge O'Connor gave Song 100 years, the statutory maximum. Seven co-defendants received terms between 30 and 70 years. Defendant Autumn Hill and defendant Savanna Batten each received 50-year sentences. Some defendants had previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than face a jury.
Breitbart reported that the eight sentences totaled a combined 450 years and that the group was found carrying 11 firearms, body armor, and military-grade medical kits, hardly the equipment of peaceful demonstrators.
Benjamin Song's background makes the case especially troubling. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps reserves. National Review reported that Song used his military and martial arts training to instruct antifa members in close-quarters combat, and that a cache of firearms was recovered from his home. A man trained at taxpayer expense to defend the country instead turned that training against a police officer outside a federal facility.
His defense attorney tried to soften the picture. Hayes told reporters outside the courthouse:
"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."
Hayes also characterized the broader group as well-meaning young people who never intended harm:
"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."
The 11 firearms and body armor tell a different story. People who never intend violence do not arrive at a demonstration dressed for a firefight.
Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the court to impose the stiffest penalties available, framing the defendants' ideology as a continuing danger:
"People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison. They believe violence is justified."
The terrorism charges carry weight that ordinary assault counts do not. Some defendants pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists, the same charge the federal government has used for years against jihadist networks. Applying it to a domestic antifa cell represents a significant legal escalation, one made possible by Trump's executive order.
The administration's broader effort to name and confront domestic security threats has drawn criticism from civil-liberties advocates who worry about First Amendment implications. But the facts of this case, armed attackers shooting a police officer outside a federal immigration facility, sit well outside the boundaries of protected speech.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a statement after the sentencing, as AP News reported:
"The sentences handed down today make clear that antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice."
FBI Director Kash Patel echoed that warning. Just The News reported Patel's statement that the FBI "remains committed to identifying, locating, and dismantling Antifa and its funding networks across the country."
The sentencing hearing included emotional appeals from the defendants' relatives. Hope Song, Benjamin Song's mother, spoke at a news conference outside the Fort Worth federal courthouse. She disputed prosecutors' claim that her son shot the officer and said he did not intend to hurt anyone.
Amber Lowrey, sister of defendant Savanna Batten, told the judge her sister was a compassionate person who dreamed of opening a bakery. She described Batten's activism as having started with animal rights before evolving into anti-war and human rights advocacy.
"She's the best person I know."
Defendant Autumn Hill pleaded for leniency, telling the court the gathering "seemed more like a party to me than anything else" and insisting she and others "didn't expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur."
Judge O'Connor was unmoved. He noted from the bench that the officer who was shot was not even involved in enforcing immigration law, an irony that underscored the indiscriminate nature of the attack. His bottom line was blunt:
"The need to deter this type of conduct is high."
The Prairieland case does not exist in a vacuum. The same week as the sentencing, federal prosecutors in Minnesota charged 15 people with impeding the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, claiming those demonstrators were also antifa members who conspired against the federal government.
Violent confrontations at immigration facilities have become a recurring problem. Law enforcement recently cleared antifa protesters from a Newark ICE facility after fires and violence, and the administration has responded with an enforcement posture that treats attacks on federal operations as attacks on the rule of law itself.
The broader immigration enforcement picture has shifted dramatically. The administration has pursued a historic stretch of zero border releases along the southwest border, and federal investigators have uncovered criminal exploitation of immigration programs by gang members and sex offenders. The Prairieland attack sits at the intersection of these enforcement battles, an armed assault aimed at disrupting the federal government's ability to detain illegal immigrants.
Defense attorney Hayes said Song will appeal the 100-year sentence. The legal questions surrounding Trump's antifa designation remain partially unsettled. As CNN noted in its reporting, there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department's list of foreign terror organizations, which means the executive order's precise legal effect on prosecutions could face appellate scrutiny.
But the convictions themselves rested on well-established federal statutes, material support for terrorism, attempted murder, rioting, use of explosives, and related charges. Attorney General Bondi made clear the administration views these cases as the beginning, not the end, stating that "today's verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa."
Several questions remain unanswered. Five of the eight defendants were not publicly named in court filings available at the time of sentencing. The specific charges each defendant faced, and which went to trial versus which pleaded guilty, have not been fully detailed. The condition of Lt. Gross, the officer shot in the neck, has not been publicly updated.
For years, antifa operated in a gray zone, decentralized enough to dodge organizational accountability, violent enough to leave broken storefronts and bloodied bystanders in city after city, and politically convenient enough that few elected officials on the left ever paid a price for looking the other way. Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, the pattern was always the same. Destruction, followed by euphemism, followed by nothing.
The Prairieland case broke that cycle. Eight people arrived at a federal facility armed with rifles, body armor, and medical kits. They shot a cop. And a federal judge gave them sentences that will keep most of them behind bars for the rest of their productive lives.
The defense called them kids with big hearts. The evidence called them something else. When you show up to a protest carrying 11 guns and body armor, you are not there to make your voice heard. You are there to make someone bleed.
Four hundred and fifty combined years in federal prison is a message. Whether the people who need to hear it are listening is another question entirely.