Earlier this summer, a group of activists was sentenced to a combined 560+ years in prison for their actions following a protest last July outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center. It’s a grotesque miscarriage of justice, and The Intercept has identified major holes in the evidence presented in court. Now, with several Prairieland defendants appealing their convictions, local authorities are refusing to release public documents potentially relevant to the case, despite repeated requests from The Intercept and our legal team. Enough is enough. We’re done asking nicely. The Intercept is taking legal action under state open records laws to compel local authorities to end the cover-up and give us every page of every document we’re entitled to see. But we’ve already racked up thousands of dollars in legal expenses in this case, and we’re counting on your support to ensure that the full truth about what happened at Prairieland can finally come to light. If you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately: One of the Prairieland defendants got 30 years for moving a box of leftist zines. Others did little more than wear all-black clothing and use the Signal app to communicate. According to the Trump Justice Department, however, this is evidence of a sprawling “antifa” domestic terrorism conspiracy. These are the first prison sentences handed out under NSPM-7, Trump’s directive targeting left-wing activists as domestic terrorists, and his executive order labeling antifa as a domestic terror group. They won’t be the last. We’ve already seen similar indictments handed out against anti-ICE activists in Minneapolis, and Trump is requesting a major increase in funding for NSPM-7 enforcement. There’s no bigger reporting priority for The Intercept right now than exposing the Trump administration’s assault on free speech, and we refuse to back down until the government reveals every record relevant to the Prairieland defendants’ appeal that we’re entitled to see. Will you donate $5 to help The Intercept expose the truth about Prairieland? 
Thank you,
The Intercept team
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