Before Prairieland

I don't know if I've written about this here, but earlier this year, I was off of TNR for two months medical leave—the first time in almost 20 years into my writing work life to have had such a thing to even think about doing. And I found myself mentioning this to the people I've been interviewing about Prairieland and the Spokane 3: that I missed so much about those cases, that I was out the day Renee Good was murdered in Minneapolis, that I was out the next two months, that as soon as I got back, the Broadview 6 cases began to unravel, and the Minnesota 15 indictments dropped, and then the Prairieland sentencing came down, and shocked the world awake.

So my reporting on the Prairieland cases didn't really begin until it was, to some, over. But it's far from done, and the aftermath is where we live now.

Just after the anniversary of the July 4, 2025 noise demonstration and the raids followed, I got to speak with family members of defendants like Daniel Sanchez Estrada, also known as Des, who was sentenced to thirty years for moving a box of zines, and I spoke with members of the DFW Support Committee. And I've published two stories from this reporting so far:

Trump’s DOJ Tried to Break a Texas Activist Community. It Failed.
// August 13, 2026

Last summer, Bruno was in a Chinese class when he found out that three of his close friends—Ines Soto, Elizabeth Soto, and Savanna Battan—were among those arrested after a noise demonstration the day before, outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention camp in Alvarado, Texas. While Bruno was working to locate his friends in the jail system, federal prosecutors were telling the public that the demonstration was “a planned ambush.” When Bruno found the Sotos and Battan in a county jail database, he was able to read the charges himself: attempted murder of a federal officer. “I saw the charges and was just shocked,” he told me. “What the hell happened at the protest?” Lurid details provided by prosecutors began to spread through otherwise slight news reports: Investigators reportedly found flyers reading “Fight ICE Terror With Class War,” and seized masks, “tactical gloves,” a “cache of weapons,” and “insurrectionist material” from the home of one “suspect.” Officers were descending on the residences not just of those arrested, but those of friends and families, too. Bruno worried he could be next. “I couldn’t sleep for days,” he remembered, “and would just stay up all night, mentally preparing myself.”... [read on]

My Brother Was Sentenced to 30 Years for Moving a Box of Zines
// July 21, 2026

In June, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, a defendant in the historic Prairieland case, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, drawing international headlines and outrage. The artist and father was convicted of two federal offenses for allegedly moving a box of zines and other literature from the home he shared with another defendant, his wife, Maricela Rueda, following a July 4, 2025, noise demonstration at the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. Rueda faces 70 years in federal prison. “My feeling is that I was only arrested because I’m married to Mari Rueda,” Sanchez Estrada said last December, in his first public statement. His wife, he added, had been criminalized for “showing support to migrants who are facing deportation under deplorable conditions.” Sanchez Estrada, a green card holder, could himself be deported when he is finally released. All this is the result of the Trump administration’s relentless anti-immigrant campaign, as well as its ongoing attempts to smother any dissent or efforts to defend those it targets... [read on]

I spoke more about Prairieland and the Trump administration's criminalization of dissent with Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi (for their podcast Cancel Me, Daddy):

Noted

1. Firestorm Books has the Prairieland zines pack pictured above, and they note: “All of these zines, and others from the trial, can be found online for free at nppl.cc/prairieland. For more information on the Prairieland Case, please visit prairielanddefendants.com.”
2. The pack includes a minizine on writing to people in prison, as well as lined paper and a stamped envelope.
3. The Prairieland immigration camp is on Sunflower Lane.
4. This March, USPS released a Sunflower Forever stamp.
5. When I was sick this winter, I decided to grow some sunflowers for the first time. I let them stay seedlings too long, and their necks became spindly and stayed that way, even as they grew two or three feet tall. The sunflowers moved outside in May or June. They have bloomed multiple times.
6. Since archiving the drafts and other materials for Playing the Whore during my last move, I've been trying to be as rigorous with materials for my long-term reporting projects. Printing stories out means I can mark them the fuck up and edit in my garden, both of which help for contemplating whatever it is we call the DOJ. (Pictured above—date stamp: Shachihata/Austin Kleon; neon highlighter pencil: Caran d'Ache/Sofia Coppola)
7. Today might be the first time I've referenced Scottsboro in a published piece, which I have been immersed in for going on a decade. The rest is in the book.

(n.b.: none of these are sponsored links, just things I use)

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