Eight sentenced to decades in prison over anti-ICE protest shooting in Texas
Eight defendants were sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison over a shooting that wounded a police officer during a July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas. Benjamin Song, a former Marine reservist whom prosecutors say opened fire after shouting “get to the rifles,” received the maximum 100 years; Autumn Hill and Savanna Batten each got 50 years, and Daniel Sanchez Estrada received 30.
Prosecutors cast the gathering as a planned terror act, pointing to firearms, body armor, and first aid kits as evidence of intent and linking the defendants to antifa. Defense lawyers disputed the antifa characterization, describing a late-night protest in support of detained immigrants, arguing some defendants neither planned the event nor carried weapons, and noting no one was killed.
The case is the first sentencing of people alleged to be affiliated with antifa since the Trump administration’s executive order designating the movement a domestic terrorist organization. The length of the terms — and the contested factual basis for the antifa label — make the outcome a marker for how aggressively that designation will be used in prosecutions tied to immigration-enforcement protests.