
Benjamin Hanil Song, a former Marine Corps Reservist turned Antifa ringleader, will spend the next 100 years in federal prison. His crime: organizing an armed assault on the Prarieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, on the Fourth of July last year — an attack that left Alvarado Police Department Lieutenant Thomas Gross with a bullet wound to the neck.
But how can this be? According to Democrats and former FBI Director Christopher Wray, Antifa is just an idea. It doesn't actually exist.
Song didn't act alone. On June 23, a federal court handed down sentences to nine defendants convicted in the attack, totaling approximately 450 years in combined prison time. The sentences came after a jury conviction in March 2026 on 65 felony counts including attempted murder, aiding terrorists, and weapons charges.
The group — 11 people armed with 11 firearms — descended on the facility housing more than 1,000 ICE detainees at approximately 10:37 p.m. on July 4, 2025. They opened fire, shot a police officer, spray-painted "Fuck You Pigs" on a guard shack, and tagged a vehicle with "ICE Pig." This wasn't a protest that got out of hand. This was a planned military-style assault on a federal installation.
Song's own words, entered into evidence, made the planning explicit. "Cops are not trained or equipped for more than one rifle," he wrote, calculating the deterrent effect of bringing overwhelming firepower. His sentencing guidelines called for approximately 20 years. The judge gave him 100 — a significant upward departure that tells you everything about how the court viewed the severity.
The remaining defendants received sentences that matched the scale of what they did. Maricela Rueda got 70 years. Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Meagan Morris, and Elizabeth Soto each received 50 years. Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, a Mexican national, was sentenced to 30 years.
There's no ambiguity here. Nine people brought 11 guns to a federal detention center on Independence Day, opened fire on law enforcement, and wounded an officer. The DOJ didn't "say" they're terrorists. A jury of their peers did.
For years, we watched a peculiar kind of gaslighting play out in real time. Antifa violence was "mostly peaceful." The people in black bloc were "community activists." The fires were "expressions of frustration." Networks ran chyrons about "fiery but mostly peaceful protests" while buildings burned in the background. Every time someone pointed out that organized groups were coordinating violent attacks, the response was the same: Antifa isn't an organization.
The FBI and DOJ under the current administration apparently disagree. The Prarieland case was prosecuted aggressively — 65 felony counts across nine defendants, sentences that will keep every single one of them locked up for the rest of their natural lives. Song's 100-year sentence alone is five times what guidelines suggested.
The contrast with how domestic extremism was handled under the previous administration doesn't need to be spelled out. It's sitting right there in the sentencing documents.
Nine people planned an armed attack on American soil, targeted federal officers, and shot a cop in the neck. They got 450 years. The sentencing guidelines said 20 for the ringleader. The judge said 100.
Sometimes the gap between the guideline and the gavel is the whole story.


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