A federal jury convicted nine members of an Antifa cell on Friday for their roles in a violent attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Alvarado, Texas, marking what is believed to be the first American trial to treat left-wing political violence as terrorism under federal law.
Benjamin Song, the group's suspected ringleader, was convicted of attempted murder. Seven other defendants were found guilty of material support for terrorism, rioting, and other crimes, though jurors acquitted them of some offenses. A ninth defendant who was not present at the protest was convicted of concealing evidence.
The convictions land at a moment when the country is finally reckoning with a strain of political violence that was, for years, treated as a myth by much of the political establishment.
The attack grew out of a July 2025 anti-deportation protest at the ICE facility in Alvarado that turned violent. According to prosecutors, the defendants arrived in black clothing with a trove of guns nearby. They allegedly vandalized the facility and set off fireworks before the situation escalated sharply, as The Daily Caller reports.
Alvarado police Lt. Thomas Gross tried speaking to them. He was shot in the neck.
That officer testified to jurors about the group's actions. Messaging recovered in court documents revealed the mindset behind the violence. One defendant wrote plainly in a group chat:
"I'm done with peaceful protests."
Another message was even more direct: "Blue lives don't matter."
These are not the words of protesters who got swept up in a chaotic moment. They are statements of intent. The jury apparently agreed.
After the July 4 shooting, Song did not turn himself in. He ran. For eleven days, the FBI and Texas authorities pursued the Antifa cell leader until a SWAT team captured him in a Dallas apartment on July 15, 2025.
Song's flight triggered its own cascade of criminal liability. Four people pleaded guilty to federal offenses for helping him remain a fugitive. Three more pleaded guilty to aiding the Antifa cell in illegal activity. County authorities in Johnson County charged two others with concealing evidence and conspiring to hide Song.
That is a small army of people who allegedly mobilized not to seek justice or protect the innocent, but to shield a man accused of shooting a police officer in the neck. The network of support tells you something about the organizational depth behind what the media long dismissed as a "loosely affiliated movement."
The Department of Justice's characterization of Antifa in court records deserves attention. Prosecutors described it as:
"A militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law."
Read that again. This is the federal government, in an official court filing, stating that Antifa explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government. Not a conservative think tank. Not a cable news commentator. The DOJ.
For years, Americans were told Antifa was "an idea, not an organization." That talking point aged poorly. It aged especially poorly for the officer who took a bullet in the neck.
President Trump labeled Antifa a domestic terrorist organization in September. The conviction of nine members on terrorism-related charges vindicates that designation with the weight of a jury verdict.
The case nearly went sideways before it started. Trump-appointed Judge Mark Pittman declared a mistrial in February after a defense lawyer wore a shirt displaying civil rights figures during jury selection, forcing the entire process to restart.
When the retrial proceeded, prosecutors brought force. They called 51 witnesses and presented more than 200 items of evidence to jurors. Among those who testified was Kyle Shideler, a terrorism analyst from the conservative Center for Security Policy.
Defense attorney Cody Cofer attempted to reframe the narrative after the verdict:
"We are thankful that the jury could see through the Government's fear-mongering Antifa 'ambush' narrative."
A curious victory lap for a case in which every one of his clients was convicted. Cofer also told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the defense intends to appeal:
"We still have First Amendment and sufficiency of the evidence issues to address on appeal. We look forward to continuing this fight."
The First Amendment protects speech. It does not protect shooting a police officer. That distinction should not require a law degree to grasp.
Even after the convictions, the defendants' allies were unbowed. The DFW Support Committee, in a Wednesday Bluesky post, urged supporters not to give in:
"Don't let political repression win!"
The same post declared: "It is right to rebel against ICE!"
This is the ecosystem. A police officer is shot. Nine people are convicted in federal court of terrorism charges. And the response from the activist left is to frame enforcement of federal law as "political repression" and to call rebellion against immigration authorities a moral imperative.
There is no introspection. No acknowledgment that a man was shot. No reckoning with the fact that their movement produced attempted murder. Just the immediate pivot to victimhood. The convicted are recast as political prisoners before the sentencing hearing is even scheduled.
Song and the other defendants still face state-level charges in Johnson County. The federal convictions alone carry serious consequences, but the state cases will add another layer of accountability.
The broader significance extends well beyond Alvarado. For years, Antifa-aligned violence operated in a strange legal gray zone. The property was destroyed. People were assaulted. Fires were set. But federal prosecutors rarely pursued the ideological infrastructure behind the violence. The preferred framing treated each incident as isolated, each perpetrator as a lone actor swept up in passion.
This trial shattered that framework. Prosecutors presented Antifa as an organized militant enterprise. They secured material support for terrorism convictions. They demonstrated a coordinated cell with a leader, a plan, weapons, and a support network that activated to shelter a fugitive from federal law enforcement.
The jury heard 51 witnesses and reviewed more than 200 pieces of evidence. They deliberated. They convicted.
The facts did the work. An officer carries the scars. And for the first time, the legal system treated left-wing political violence with the seriousness it deserved all along.
