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This week, Minnesota federal prosecutors handed down a blockbuster indictment of 15 activists involved in efforts to resist Operation Metro Surge, part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that flooded 2,700 federal agents into the Twin Cities to target Somali communities. Eleven of the 15 activists are charged only with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer. The indictment spans 94 pages, much of it cataloging Signal messages in group chats. While the indictment mostly focuses on protests involving more confrontational tactics — using U-Haul trailers and shields to block roadways to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings — it also covers conduct common to ICE resistance across the country, such as tracking the license plates and locations of ICE vehicles. At every opportunity, the indictment underscores the anarchist affiliations of the activists, citing out-of-state Anarchist Speaking Tour engagements and articles written for the anarchist website CrimethInc.

From the 1919-1920 Palmer Raids deporting anarchists to the more recent Stop Cop City and DisruptJ20 mass prosecutions, the government has long directed investigative and prosecutorial firepower toward disrupting anarchist movements. Two new indictments in the past two weeks now signal a new era of protest-related prosecutions. In addition to the indictment of ICE protesters, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment of two Stop Cop City protesters alleged to have set fires outside of the office building of Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, in 2022. Troublingly, both indictments were credited as part of the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) initiative, an effort to investigate and prosecute civil disobedience and protest-related petty offenses as domestic terrorism. This week, the Trump administration also officially claimed the prosecution of protesters over events that transpired at a July 4, 2025, noise demonstration at the Prairieland ICE detention facility as part of the NSPM-7 initiative. One protester received a 100-year sentence for nonfatally shooting a police officer; another received 30 years for moving a box of antifascist zines.

Last year, 12 days after the Charlie Kirk assassin engraved bullet casings with “Hey fascist, catch!”, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization — never mind the fact that antifa is not an organization, and no federal law provides for the designation of domestic terror groups.

Days later, on September 25, 2025, Trump issued the National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” As examples of domestic terrorism and political violence, the memo cites the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the attempted assassinations of Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and “anti-police and ‘criminal justice’ riots.”

Prairieland Protesters Sentenced to 30 to 100 Years for “Terrorism” Charges

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