In the days leading up to July 4, 2025, prosecutors allege at least six people in a Signal group chat named the "4th of July Party!" discussed what to bring to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado: fireworks, guns, medical kits.
The night of July 4, about a dozen people started shooting fireworks toward the facility holding people in ICE custody. Correctional officers called 911, and Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross arrived minutes later.
That's when federal prosecutors say someone in a green mask fired at Gross and the correctional officers from the woods. Court records alternately say Gross was shot in the neck or back.
Within a few days, 10 people were in federal custody and charged with the attempted murder of federal agents, and one was on the run. Nine more were arrested in the months to come.
“It was a planned ambush with the intent to kill ICE corrections officers,” then-Acting U.S. Attorney Nancy Larson told reporters the next Monday. “Make no mistake, this was not a so-called peaceful protest.”
But Maricela Rueda remembers things differently. In an interview from the Johnson County Jail last year, the 33-year-old mother from Fort Worth told KERA News the night of July 4 was meant to be a noise demonstration, a “joyful” show of support for the immigrants inside the ICE facility.
Rueda said she was afraid when she heard gunshots ring out, and described a scene of aggression and fear when she and a handful of others were arrested while walking away from Prairieland.
“I saw the mass of vehicles, police vehicles, state troopers' vehicles, sheriff's official vehicles. They put another person in the back of the car with me, and we didn't speak. We all didn't speak throughout this,” Rueda said. “Even through this time, what is there to cooperate when they want us to give them information to fill in the narrative they want to portray?”
A federal jury will decide how much of each narrative is true as Rueda and eight other defendants go on trial starting this week, with jury selection scheduled for Tuesday.
The case could prove the first major test of President Donald Trump’s push to prosecute antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Tensions are rising across the country over the administration’s immigration enforcement, and government officials have described individuals involved in anti-ICE activism — like Minnesotans Renee Good and Alex Pretti — as terrorists, with little to no evidence.
Testing ground
Prosecutors have called the defendants a “North Texas Antifa Cell” that shared anti-government and anti-ICE sentiments. The group was mostly tied together by a web of friendships, romantic relationships and leftist activism online and in real life — while some defendants didn’t know each other at all.
None of the defendants have a history of violent crime.
"Antifa" is short for anti-fascist. The government describes antifa in court records as a network of groups that adhere to anarchist or Marxist ideology and oppose the U.S. government, especially ICE.
In an unprecedented move, Trump designated antifa a domestic terrorist organization in September. It came after a year marked by high-profile incidents of political violence that some politicians deemed the work of violent leftists.
But antifa is not a formal organization, and there's no method to specifically charge people for domestic terrorism under federal law like there is for foreign terrorism. Experts say the Prairieland case could be a testing ground for that prosecution strategy.
That’s concerning for Xavier de Janon, director of mass defense for the National Lawyers Guild. Members of the left-leaning legal association have worked with some defendants in this case, de Janon said.
“One of the National Lawyers Guild's biggest fears is that if the federal government is successful against the Prairieland defendants and in society making the Prairieland defendants evil, terrorist, bad,” de Janon said, “they are going to repeat that in another city, in another town again and again and again until it is way past beyond a point of return as a society with a fascist government.”
In court filings, attorneys for the defendants asked judges to not let prosecutors use language around antifa to bolster the government’s case. Those efforts have been mostly unsuccessful.
In their own words
Benjamin “Champagne” Song of Dallas, 32, is accused in an indictment of being the group’s leader and the lone shooter. Several of the guns found at the scene were tied to Song, according to court records.
Song was named a defendant in a lawsuit brought by a Christian nationalist group with a history of protesting drag shows in 2023. Before that, Song was arrested for aggravated assault in 2020 during a protest over the death of Garrett Foster.
Song was eventually dropped from the lawsuit, and a grand jury no-billed him on his protest charges.
Era Yousuf said she first met Song and other defendants while working with the food distribution nonprofit Food Not Bombs, then the DFW Socialist Rifle Association. She described the defendants as caring, loving and passionate people.
“These aren't enemies of the state,” Yousuf said. “These aren't dangerous people. They want to help innocent folks that are being kept prisoner.”
Court documents also portray Meagan Morris as having a significant role in planning the trip to Prairieland. The latest indictment alleges Song, and co-defendant Autumn Hill met for a "gear check" at Morris and Hill's house July 3, and the defendants are accused of using Morris’ home in Dallas for planning hours before the shooting.
Morris, 41, denies that — her house, she said, was just a spot to meet and carpool.
Like others, Morris' wife Stephanie Shiver said the event was meant to show solidarity — not enact violence. The allegations, she told KERA News, amount to a “suicide mission.”
“They were going in solidarity with the people ICE has been kidnapping and detaining,” Shiver said. “The whole point was to make noise and make the people inside feel that they're not forgotten and not ignored.”
The case could also set a precedent for what kind of speech or actions are treated as terrorism.
Daniel Sanchez Estrada wasn't at Prairieland on July 4. But he's accused of dropping a box of "zines,” or DIY published booklets, and other insurrectionary “antifa materials” at a friend's apartment in Denton in an attempt to conceal incriminating evidence.
Prosecutors allege this was after Rueda, who’s Sanchez Estrada’s wife, called him from jail with instructions.
The Denton Record-Chronicle reported Sanchez Estrada is friends with Denton City Council candidate Kris Cox. The FBI searched Cox’s apartment and seized some of his property in connection with the Prairieland investigation, but he wasn’t arrested and faces no charges.
Cox’s roommate, who is friends with three people arrested, told the Record-Chronicle Sanchez Estrada asked her if she would keep his artwork at her place because he didn’t feel comfortable having it at his house in Garland.
“They’re trying to charge someone for having their own artwork and their own zines,” said the roommate, who asked to remain anonymous.
Hill, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, Zachary Evetts, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto are charged with rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive and use and carry of an explosive — the explosive being fireworks, according to the latest indictment in the case.
Song is also charged with attempted murder of officers and employees of the United States and discharging a firearm during, in relation to, and in furtherance of a crime of violence. Hill, Evetts, Morris and Rueda are charged with aiding and abetting.
Sanchez Estrada and Rueda are charged with conspiracy to conceal documents.
Song, Hill, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda could face anywhere from 10 years to life in prison if convicted. Batten and the Sotos face 10-50 years in federal prison. Sanchez Estrada faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count.
Court records show jurors are expected to hear from Alvarado police officer Gross, the nine defendants on trial and others charged in connection with the shooting but who made plea deals with the government. Family and friends of the defendants are also slated to testify.
“The Prairieland case is a protest case involving people expressing solidarity with detained immigrants,” Amber Lowrey, Batten’s sister, said in a press release Thursday. “The federal government is trying to reframe protest activity as terrorism, and we’re seeing this attempted across the country, in Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and now here in Dallas-Fort Worth.”
Additional reporting by KERA's Penelope Rivera and Caroline Love and the Denton Record-Chronicle's Christian McPhate.
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA’s law and justice reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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