Texas Man Faces Up to 40 Years in Prison for Transporting Constitutionally Protected Pamphlets
The government treats anarchist zines as evidence of terrorism.
Federal prosecutions against nine members of what the Justice Department calls a "North Texas Antifa Cell," allegedly responsible for an anti-immigration enforcement demonstration that turned violent in July, are scheduled to move forward to arraignment next week. The supposed members are facing charges that range from attempted murder to providing materials to support terrorists. But it is one defendant's case, based on the transportation of "anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents," that raises serious First Amendment concerns.
On the night of July 4, anti-immigration enforcement protestors arrived at the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas. According to the indictment, these individuals "began shooting and throwing fireworks…and vandalizing vehicles and a guard shed." In response, a Department of Homeland Security officer called local police. Shortly after an Alvarado Police Department officer arrived, shots were allegedly fired from protestors, and the officer was nonlethally struck in the neck.
The incident eventually led to the arrest of 16 individuals, some of whom were not present at the Prairieland ICE facility during the shooting.
Although Daniel Rolando Sanchez was not at the facility when shots were fired, his wife, Maricela Reuda, was and was subsequently arrested. According to the criminal complaint filed against Sanchez, Reuda called her husband from the Johnston County Jail and told him to do "whatever you need to do, move whatever you need to move at the house."
Officers later watched Sanchez load a box from his home onto his truck and then drop it at another residence. Sanchez was stopped shortly after and arrested on state traffic offenses. Following his arrest, law enforcement conducted a search warrant at the second residence and "found in what appears to be the same box [Sanchez] was seen carrying a handwritten training, tactics, and planning document for civil unrest with anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-Trump sentiments." The documents inside included zines and pamphlets ICE called on X "literal insurrectionist propaganda."
Based on this, Sanchez faces up to 40 years in prison for conspiring to and "transport[ing] a box that contained numerous Antifa materials…intending to conceal the contents of the box and impair its availability for use in a federal grand jury and federal criminal proceeding," according to the most recent indictment.
But these materials, although controversial in their advocacy for insurrection, squatting, and anarchy, are all squarely constitutionally protected speech. The government cannot infringe upon one's First Amendment right to read, possess, or write—unless the author is inciting imminent lawless action—anti-government or pro-revolution literature. And while some may see the ideas in Sanchez's box as dangerous, anti-government zines and pamphlets are far more similar to the Revolutionary-era literature popular when the First Amendment was passed than today's social media landscape, as Seth Stern of The Intercept points out.
However, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September designating "antifa" as a "major terrorist organization, prosecutors, like the ones in Sanchez's case, are attempting to use materials that "explicitly [call] for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law" as evidence of criminality, despite their constituitonal protection.
Sanchez's case shows why giving the government the power to designate and prosecute "domestic terrorist organizations" is so dangerous. Whether it's writing an op-ed or being lumped into the vague anti-fascist movement, sweeping government powers always lead to the same result: constitutional rights violations and shuttering dissent.
