f{"id":48475,"date":"2026-05-30T12:59:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=48475"},"modified":"2026-05-30T13:00:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:00:01","slug":"by-this-logic-any-protest-could-be-a-conspiracy-conviction-of-spokane-ice-protesters-raises-free-speech-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/by-this-logic-any-protest-could-be-a-conspiracy-conviction-of-spokane-ice-protesters-raises-free-speech-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018By This Logic, Any Protest Could Be a Conspiracy\u2019: Conviction of Spokane ICE Protesters Raises Free Speech Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A protestor with an American flag walks towards a police line during a protest against federal immigration arrests, on June 11, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. Protests against ICE raids have spread to cities across the nation after beginning in Los Angeles last weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Rio Giancarlo\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were guinea pigs,\u201d said the father of one of the convicted protesters. \u201cThey brought the swamp of Washington, DC, into our area to stop American citizens from exercising our rights that are guaranteed.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 29, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the conviction of three anti-ICE protesters in Spokane, Washington<\/a> on federal \u201cconspiracy\u201d charges Thursday, civil rights<\/a> advocates and legal experts fear that the Trump administration<\/a> may have just been handed a powerful tool to criminalize dissent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jac Archer, Justice Forral, and Bajun Mavalwalla II, nicknamed the \u201cSpokane 3,\u201d were indicted last year for their actions at a protest<\/a> in June 2025, where they attempted to physically obstruct ICE agents from transporting two Venezuelan immigrants to an ICE processing facility in Tacoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Both of the men reportedly entered the US legally<\/a> under a humanitarian parole program that had been terminated by the Trump administration, leading advocates to protest their detention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Spokesman-Review, a Spokane newspaper, described:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Protesters that day eventually began linking arms around vans and in front of agents\u2019 cars. The event grew chaotic. ICE agents entered a crowd of people standing outside the facility\u2019s parking lot gate and began grabbing people by the necks and arms, pushing them to the ground. Protesters also slashed tires of vans meant to transport the detainees.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But where such activity would usually lead to charges against specific protesters for discrete illegal actions like trespassing, property damage, or other public order offenses, the\u00a0Department of Justice<\/a>\u00a0(DOJ)\u2014as part of a nationwide effort to crack down on\u00a0protests<\/a>\u00a0against ICE\u2014charged nine protesters with \u201cconspiracy to impede or injure officers,\u201d even though no officers were actually injured during the protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/MCUBuff\/status\/2060394993555210736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2060394993555210736%7Ctwgr%5Edbb7948b56e3b5d8f12dfc32d04f5628bb4d9b17%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fspokane-3-convicted-conspiracy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal experts described it as a novel approach that wrapped many people involved in the protest into a single \u201cconspiracy\u201d regardless of whether they committed specific criminal acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsually if a protest gets out of hand and people are hurt or property is hurt, you see charges based on that,\u201d Mary Fan, a former federal prosecutor and a University of Washington law professor, told The New York Times<\/a> earlier this month. \u201cThey\u2019re not going after people based on specific harm done. They\u2019re stretching conspiracy charges to target protesters and people who organize protests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing pressure from the federal government to bring the case following a national memo sent from the DOJ to prioritize and publicize cases against ICE agents, then-acting US Attorney for Eastern Washington Richard Barker resigned last year rather than bring charges against the protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said at the time he was grateful he \u201cnever had to sign an indictment or file a brief that [he] didn\u2019t believe in.\u201d His successor, Stephanie Van Marter, however, did sign the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six of the defendants pleaded guilty to the charges to avoid federal prison time. But Archer, Forral, and Mavalwalla chose to fight them, believing the case was part of an unjust attempt to criminalize their right to protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a trial that lasted seven days, a jury found the three defendants guilty of conspiracy. But the defense has argued that the trial was marred by problems that rendered the verdict faulty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Guardian explained<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In February, a federal judge ordered the release of a Venezuelan migrant whose transportation<\/a> for deportation the protesters sought to block, ruling his arrest violated the constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the jury, drawn from conservative eastern Washington state, did not hear those facts at trial, thanks to rulings by Judge [Rebecca] Pennell. Pennell, a former federal public defender and appointee of the Democratic president Joe Biden<\/a>, also ruled the protesters on trial could not use the First Amendment<\/a> as a defense, though they were allowed to state their reasons for demonstrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the jury watched hours of law enforcement body camera video and heard from a parade of ICE agents… Jeremy Burlingame, an ICE agent who testified, had authored social media<\/a> posts that called Black politicians \u201clying ghetto garbage\u201d and transgender people \u201cmentally ill.\u201d He boosted a post showing ICE arresting a pregnant woman at gunpoint that called her a \u201cpregnant invader.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal prosecutors deemed the posts troubling enough to recall Burlingame to impeach him, despite the fact that he was their witness…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Burlingame\u2019s online posts, the lack of injury to ICE officers, and the absence of evidence showing communication between the three defendants prior to the protest were not enough to sway the jury.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The defendants now face potential sentences of up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. However, they are expected to appeal the verdict and have filed a rarely used motion allowing their attorneys to argue that no rational juror could find their clients guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI question whether justice truly was served by today\u2019s verdict,\u201d Barker told the Spokesman-Review<\/a>. \u201cThis was the first conspiracy prosecution in Eastern Washington history under… a Civil War-era law dusted off to punish members of the Spokane community who stood up for two young men who were unlawfully detained by ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KxDZ1COUEyk?rel=0Video by KREM 2 News\/Youtube<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking beyond the details of the trial itself, many observers questioned<\/a> the very premise of the DOJ\u2019s prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said from the start of the trial she believed it was \u201cpolitically motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was meant to make an example out of people who disagreed with federal immigration<\/a> policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City council member Sarah Dixit, who said she took part in the protest, said: \u201cBased on the evidence that was shown, I personally didn\u2019t see evidence of what they were accused of. Conspiracy is a charge that feels complicated to prove, and I don\u2019t believe that the government made a strong case for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others expressed fear for the precedent that had been set. La Rond Baker, the legal director of the Washington ACLU, said<\/a> the Trump administration \u201chas a demonstrable history of using the Department of Justice to silence and punish its critics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The administration has pursued similar sweeping conspiracy charges against other groups of anti-ICE protesters around the country\u2014including in Los Angeles,<\/a> Broadview, Illinois<\/a>, and North Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe verdict was painfully disappointing,\u201d said Archer\u2019s attorney, Carl Oreskovich. \u201cI think it was an extraordinarily aggressive approach to prosecution of protests. And it certainly is going to chill people who want to utilize their First Amendment right to dissent against government actions that they don\u2019t agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a comment to The Guardian<\/a>, Robert Chang, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and executive director of its Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, said the verdict was \u201cfrightening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy this logic, any protest could be a conspiracy,\u201d he said. \u201cThe goal posts keep moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bajun Mavalwalla Sr., a retired US Army intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, said his son\u2014also a veteran of the same war\u2014and the other two defendants were standing for \u201cthe freedoms that separate this country from the dictatorships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople in Spokane and people in Eastern Washington need to understand that we were guinea pigs. That they brought the swamp of Washington, DC, into our area to stop American citizens from exercising our rights that are guaranteed,\u201d the elder Mavalwalla said after his son was convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the whole point of the Constitution, the right to protest, the right to dissent, the right to assemble, all of those things are now in question because of this case,\u201d he said. \u201cMy son has taken the brunt of the entire weight of the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0government onto their shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A protestor with an American flag walks towards a police line during a protest against federal immigration arrests, on June 11, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. Protests against ICE raids have spread to cities across the nation after beginning in Los Angeles last weekend. \u00a0(Photo by Rio Giancarlo\/Getty Images) \u201cWe were… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1879],"tags":[1956],"class_list":["post-48475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-politics","tag-spokane-ice-protestors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}