The government has largely won its first case, bringing material-support-for-terrorism charges against protesters alleged to belong to “antifa,” which President Donald Trump designated as a domestic terror group in 2025, despite the fact that no such organized group exists, and the president has no legal authority to designate organizations as domestic terror groups.A federal jury in Fort Worth, Texas, agreed on Friday to convict eight people of domestic terrorism because they wore all black to a protest outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas on July 4, 2025, at which one of the protesters shot and wounded a police officer. Legal experts say the verdict could bolster attempts by the administration to stifle dissent.“A case like this helps the government kind of see how far they can go in criminalizing constitutionally protected protests and also helps them kind of intimidate, increase the fear, hoping that folks in other cities will then think twice about protesting,” Suzanne Adely, interim president of the National Lawyers Guild, told The Associated Press.The administration promised it would be the first such case of many.“The US lost today with this verdict.”“Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities—not under President Trump,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Friday. “Today’s verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America’s streets.”The trial revolved around a nighttime protest at which participants planned to set off fireworks in solidarity with the around 1,000 migrants detained inside the Prarieland ICE facility. Some participants brought guns, which is legal in Texas, as The Intercept reported.Sam Levine explained in The Guardian what happened next:Shortly after arriving at the facility, two or three of the protesters broke away from the larger group and began spray painting cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. Two ICE detention guards came out and told the protesters to stop. A police officer arrived on the scene shortly after and drew his weapon at one of the people allegedly doing vandalism. One of the protesters was standing in the woods with an AR-15 and hit him in the shoulder. The officer would survive.At first, the federal government charged those arrested after the event with “attempted murder of a police officer,” according to NOTUS.However, that changed after Trump’s designation of antifa as a terror group in September and the release of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs federal law enforcement to target left-leaning groups and activities. The next month, the government’s case expanded to include terrorism charges.“This wouldn’t be a terrorism case if it weren’t for that memo,” one defense lawyer told NOTUS on background.The prosecution argued that the fact that the protesters wore black clothes to the protest was enough to convict them of material support for terrorism.“Providing your body as camouflage for others to do the enumerated acts is providing support,” Assistant US Attorney Shawn Smith said during closing arguments, as The Intercept reported on Thursday. “It’s impossible to tell who is doing what. That’s the point.”The defense, meanwhile, warned the jury about the free speech implications of the charge.“The government is asking you to put protesters in prison as terrorists. You are the only people who can stop that,” Blake Burns, an attorney for defendant Elizabeth Soto, said, according to The Guardian.“When the villain is a made-up boogeyman, then the target becomes ‘anyone who disagrees with Trump’—and this is the result.”Ultimately, the jury decided to convict eight defendants of material support for terrorism as well as riot, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive. However, they dismissed attempts by the state to argue that the protest constituted a pre-planned ambush and charged four people who had not shot at the police officer with attempted murder and discharging a firearm during a crime. Only Benjamin Song, the alleged shooter, was charged with one count of attempted murder and three counts of discharging a firearm.The jury also convicted a ninth defendant, Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada, of conspiracy to conceal documents.