A group of alleged “antifa” activists were sentenced to a combined 560+ years of prison following a protest last year outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center. In this grotesque miscarriage of justice, one of the defendants got 30 years for moving a box of leftist zines. Others did little more than wear all-black clothing and use the Signal app to communicate. Now the Prairieland defendants are appealing their convictions, and The Intercept has identified major holes in the evidence presented in court. But local authorities are shamelessly refusing to comply with state open records laws, and we’ve racked up thousands of dollars in legal bills fighting to gain access to documents that may contain crucial information relevant to the appeal. Unfortunately, July was one of our worst fundraising months of the year. We need an urgent influx of reader donations to help us continue our investigation into the Prairieland antifa convictions. Will you donate $5 to help The Intercept expose the truth about Prairieland? If you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately: The Prairieland case is the government’s first set of convictions under President Donald Trump’s executive order designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, and we’re already seeing similar prosecutions in other states. In June, the Trump administration charged 15 alleged antifa “anti-ICE rioters” in Minnesota for “conspiracy to impede or injure an officer,” despite the fact that the government’s own indictment makes no mention of an officer injury. Just like in the Prairieland case, the administration appears to have constructed a baseless antifa conspiracy out of First Amendment-protected speech. Their goal? Intimidate and silence anyone who engages in speech critical of the current administration — and ultimately criminalize political dissent itself. There’s no bigger reporting priority for The Intercept right now than exposing the Trump administration’s assault on free speech, and we refuse to back down until the government reveals every document we’re entitled to see relevant to the Prairieland defendants’ appeals. Will you donate $5 to help The Intercept expose the truth about Prairieland? 
Thank you,
The Intercept team
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