Protesters are being arrested by President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, a new report from National Public Radio detailed.
Treasure Thoreson, a Minneapolis special education teacher, along with 14 others, has been charged with “conspiracy to impede federal agents” because they were using “blockades” outside of the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE is headquartered.
“The charges against Thoreson are part of an escalating trend,” the report said, after reviewing court records from the last five years. The analysis compared how the federal government is using one specific charge against protesters: “conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, which can carry a sentence of up to six years in federal prison,” the report said.
NPR claimed that the statute was established during the Civil War and it isn’t used often. Since Trump took over, however, more than three dozen people in fewer than 10 cases have been prosecuted using the law. All of them are for protesters of federal immigration enforcement. There have also been nearly 50 people indicted on conspiracy charges using different statutes.
But it was also a law used after the Jan. 6 attackers, particularly against the militia members. All of them were pardoned.
NPR noted that the sudden increase in conspiracy charges is sounding some alarms for legal experts who think it’s being stretched to fit the administration’s targeting of political activists.
“These cases are part of a broader trend that’s worth watching,” Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told NPR.
He explained that the cases all appear to be different and the administration is getting around the First Amendment by alleging destruction of property or violence, like what was seen on Jan. 6.
“The government can legitimately prosecute people for that. But some defendants aren’t accused of personally engaging in that conduct,” Terr says. “The concern there is that the government may be casting too wide a net. It may be lumping in innocent people or people who committed minor misdemeanors, based on their political beliefs.”
Civil disobedience and non-violent protests can still break some laws, but the charges are typically minor. Conspiracy is another matter.
“For a conspiracy to occur, Terr says there has to be an agreement among people to commit a crime and, according to the statute involving impeding or injuring an officer, that crime has to prevent the officer from doing their duties through force, intimidation or threat,” the report explained.
Terr said that someone showing up to a protest and deciding in the moment to block an ICE van should not be enough to constitute a criminal conspiracy.
NPR said that many of the cases have been dismissed, but there have been some successes. About 30 people outside of Spokane, Wash. were arrested after they linked arms to block the transport of two people detained by ICE. The following day, an internal email seen by Reuters from the Justice Department demanded that U.S. attorneys prioritize charges against protesters who “destroyed property or assaulted law enforcement.”
The memo from former Attorney General Pam Bondi said that she wanted the protesters charged “with the highest provable offense available under the law.”
Washington and Minnesota are just a few of the examples. Other protesters have been arrested in Chicago and Texas.
Katie Schwartzmann, legal counsel with the organization Protect Democracy told NPR, “It’s important to see these indictments and the use of this law for what it is, which is an attempt to scare Americans. But also, Americans should not be afraid to organize peaceful resistance in this moment. Those acts of ordinary people organizing and working together have been the most important force for justice in the history of our country.”