Federal prosecutors have secured convictions and prison sentences against more than a dozen people who attacked law enforcement officers during anti-ICE protests in California, Texas, Oregon, and Washington, with one ringleader drawing a 100-year term.
The sentencings, handed down between June and early August, mark the most significant wave of federal accountability yet for the violence that erupted at immigration enforcement facilities last year. The cases span five jurisdictions and involve crimes ranging from simple assault to attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. In every case, federal prosecutors treated the violence not as protest but as criminal conduct deserving of prison time.
The defendants threw cinderblocks at Border Patrol agents, poured lighter fluid on a burning police vehicle, hurled rocks at officers pinned beneath a freeway overpass, bashed in the front door of an ICE building with a stop sign, and conspired to block federal officers from doing their jobs. The courts responded with sentences totaling hundreds of years behind bars.
The heaviest punishment fell on Benjamin Hanil Song, whom the Justice Department described as the leader of a group that attacked the Prairieland Detention Center in North Texas. Song was convicted of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and sentenced on June 23 to 100 years in federal prison. Seven co-defendants received sentences that, combined with Song's, totaled 450 years.
The New York Times, as cited by the Washington Free Beacon, reported that those sentences were "significantly longer than the lengthiest sentence handed down to any of the more than 1,500 rioters who were prosecuted, and then given clemency, for joining in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021."
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche did not hold back when the sentences came down:
"The sentences handed down today make clear that Antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice... Their violent extremism has no place in our country, and the Department of Justice will continue to aggressively investigate, disrupt, and prosecute those who threaten law enforcement officers or undermine the rule of law."
The DOJ's own press release on the case referred to Song's group as an "Antifa cell." Federal judges Mark T. Pittman and Reed O'Connor presided over the sentencings.
Three separate defendants in the Los Angeles area received federal prison terms for attacks on law enforcement during anti-immigration enforcement riots.
Jacob Daniel Terrazas, 31, of Paramount, California, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of simple assault on a federal officer after throwing chunks of cinderblock at Border Patrol agents and injuring one of them. A federal judge sentenced him on July 22 to ten months in federal prison. The New York Post reported that Terrazas concealed his identity with a mask, used a makeshift shield, and hid behind trees for cover while repeatedly rushing toward agents to throw cinderblock fragments during a riot that lasted more than three hours. The concrete struck a Border Patrol agent in the shin, leaving a bloody gash.
The original indictment had carried a potential sentence of up to 20 years. Breitbart reported at the time of the indictment that more than two dozen suspects had been charged with assaulting federal agents in California and Oregon alone, putting the Terrazas case in the context of a broader federal crackdown on protest violence.
Yachua Mauricio Flores drew a far stiffer sentence. Flores, a 23-year-old Mexican illegal immigrant living in Los Angeles, was sentenced on August 3 to 37 months in federal prison for pouring two bottles of lighter fluid onto a burning California Highway Patrol vehicle and throwing an electric scooter over a freeway overpass near officers during an anti-immigration law enforcement riot in downtown Los Angeles.
Federal prosecutor Bill Essayli announced the Flores sentence earlier this month:
"Violent attacks on law enforcement will result in federal prison time... Today's sentence reflects our commitment to protecting the men and women sworn to keep our communities safe."
Ismael Vega, 42, also of Los Angeles, received an identical 37-month sentence on July 27. Vega pleaded guilty to one count of obstructing, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder. His crime: throwing rocks and ignited debris at CHP officers who were trapped underneath a downtown Los Angeles freeway overpass during a violent protest.
Officers pinned under a freeway overpass while rioters rain down rocks and lit debris on them, that is not civil disobedience. That is an assault, and the federal courts treated it as one.
Robert Jacob Hoopes, 25, of Portland, Oregon, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on a federal employee with a dangerous weapon. On June 11, a federal judge sentenced him to 30 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.
Hoopes struck an ICE officer in the head with a large rock at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in South Portland. Later that same day, he and two other individuals used an upended stop sign as a makeshift battering ram, causing significant damage to the main entry door of the ICE building.
U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford made the government's position plain:
"Today's message is clear, violence is not a protest. When you cross the line and assault a federal officer, you will be prosecuted."
FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt Torres in Portland echoed that stance:
"The FBI will not stand idly by and allow federal officers to be assaulted by rioters... We will investigate any perpetrator using violence to express their views and hold them accountable."
In May, a jury in eastern Washington convicted three defendants, Jac Archer, Justice Forral, and Bajun Mavalwalla II, of violating federal law by conspiring to impede law enforcement officers or injure property used in the execution of their duties.
The charges arose from a June 2025 event at an ICE facility in Spokane. That day, the defendants and others physically prevented law enforcement officers from transporting individuals from a detention facility in Spokane to a detention facility and the immigration court near Tacoma. Sentencing dates for the three have not yet been announced.
Even as federal courts impose serious prison time, some media outlets have pushed back against the prosecutions. The Wall Street Journal published an investigation framing the government's response to anti-immigration protests as "an aggressive government campaign to detain and demonize dissenters." That framing treats people who threw cinderblocks at federal agents, poured accelerant on police cars, and attempted to murder a law enforcement officer as mere "dissenters."
The facts in these cases leave little room for that characterization. Terrazas hid behind a mask and a shield while throwing concrete for three hours. Flores doused a burning patrol car with lighter fluid. Vega hurled lit debris at officers who could not escape. Song's group earned a combined 450 years for an attack on a detention center that included attempted murder. Hoopes cracked an officer's skull with a rock and then went back for more with a stop sign.
These were not sit-ins. They were not marches. They were violent assaults on the men and women tasked with enforcing the law, and federal courts across four states treated them accordingly.
When the government treats violence as violence, regardless of the political cause behind it, the rule of law means something. When it doesn't, everyone pays the price except the people who threw the rocks.
