Benjamin Song, a former Marine who organized and led an antifa cell's July 4 armed assault on a Texas ICE detention center, was sentenced to 100 years in federal prison Monday in the first antifa terrorism prosecution under President Trump's domestic terrorist designation.
One hundred years. That is what Benjamin Hanil Song will serve for organizing, arming, and leading an antifa cell in a premeditated midnight assault on the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4, 2025. A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas handed down the sentence Monday after Song was convicted in March of attempted murder, among other charges, for shooting an Alvarado police officer in the neck during the raid. The Department of Justice confirmed the sentence in a press release the same day.
Seven co-defendants were sentenced alongside Song. Maricela Rueda received 70 years. Cameron Arnold, Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Bradford Morris, and Elizabeth Soto were each sentenced to 50 years. Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada drew 30. Eight defendants, 450 combined years in federal prison for a single night of organized political violence.
The attack had been months in the making. Song, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist, recruited cell members at gun ranges and combat training sessions he personally ran, according to DOJ filings and trial testimony. The group collectively acquired more than 50 firearms in the Dallas-Fort Worth area before July 4. They used encrypted messaging apps to map the Prairieland facility's layout and identify nearby police stations. They brought Faraday bags to defeat electronic tracking and showed up in black-bloc tactical gear. When Alvarado officers arrived that night, Song was captured on police bodycam footage yelling "get to the rifles!" before opening fire. The officer he struck in the neck survived. Song fled and evaded capture for 11 days before federal agents tracked him down on July 15, 2025.
By the DOJ's own accounting, Monday's proceeding marks the first sentencing of antifa-affiliated defendants since President Trump signed an executive order in September 2025 designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. That designation reshaped how the Northern District of Texas built the prosecution and what charges were available. It produced sentences that, under prior administrations, would have been almost unimaginable for a single violent incident. Thirty years for the least-culpable defendant. One hundred years for the ringleader. The jury heard 12 days of testimony, more than 45 witnesses, and over 210 exhibits before returning convictions on all major counts in March.
Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department has been explicit that it views Prairieland as a template, not an outlier. One week before sentencing, on June 16, federal prosecutors in Minneapolis indicted 15 members of Direct Action Minnesota, a group the DOJ says has antifa ties, on felony conspiracy charges for obstructing ICE enforcement operations in the Twin Cities. Those defendants face up to six years each under charges that are structurally similar but factually lighter. No officer was confirmed shot in Minneapolis. The comparison makes the point: the DOJ is treating organized anti-ICE resistance as a sustained enforcement category, calibrating sentences to what the evidence actually shows.
Critics of the prosecutions, particularly civil liberties groups who have called the antifa designation overbroad, got some traction in Minnesota, where the U.S. Attorney acknowledged at a June press conference that he could not confirm any officers were injured. That is harder to argue in Texas. A police officer was shot in the neck. A bodycam recorded Song calling for rifles. A cooperating witness testified that Song admitted to firing the shot. The 12-day trial produced convictions on every major count.
What Comes Next
A ninth Texas defendant faces separate proceedings still pending. The Minneapolis 15 head toward arraignment in the coming weeks, and the DOJ has indicated it views the post-July 4 period as part of a broader coordinated campaign against federal immigration infrastructure. Song will be eligible for release at an age he is actuarially unlikely to reach. That was the point. Organizing an armed cell, acquiring 50 firearms, training members in tactical combat, mapping a federal facility, and then shooting an officer in the neck is not political protest the law will treat leniently. The 450 years handed down Monday make that calculus unmistakable for anyone thinking about the next July 4.
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