The Trump administration is charging these Minneapolis protesters with conspiracy. Organizers won’t back down

Minneapolis protesters hold signs as they march against the ICE surge and the fatal shooting of Renee Good in January. Photograph: Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty View image in fullscreen Minneapolis protesters hold signs as they march against the ICE surge and the fatal shooting of Renee Good in January. Photograph: Octavio Jones/AFP/Getty The Trump administration is charging these Minneapolis protesters with conspiracy. Organizers won’t back down ‘Minnesota 15’ indicted after opposing ICE crackdown – just the latest attempt by Trump DoJ to criminalize resistance D ays after pleading not guilty to conspiracy charges, Emmett Doyle took the stage at a dive bar in Minneapolis , and performed an Irish protest ballad. “And you dare to call me a terrorist, while you look down your gun,” he sang during his set. The tune has particular resonance now that Doyle, a musician and carpenter who the US government claims is an “antifa” domestic terrorist, awaits trial for protesting. “That song has been a source of inspiration for me, in finding courage to face this ordeal,” he said. Doyle is one of 15 Minneapolis protesters the federal government recently charged with conspiracy for resisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations earlier this year. The group known as the “Minnesota 15” is primarily linked through Direct Action MN, a loose group of Twin Cities residents that provided community defense during the ICE surge. According to the 94-page indictment, the defendants’ charges stem not from one specific incident, but from coordinating with rapid response groups to alert people to ICE agents and organizing blockades at the city’s ICE headquarters. Prosecutors have characterized the group as affiliated with “antifa”, a decentralized group of people against fascism, which the Trump administration named a domestic terror organization last fall. Direct Action Minnesota forms a blockade in March. Photograph: DoJ “These are teachers and nurses and electricians,” said Kelly Peterson, a Minneapolis organizer. “They just have to keep going to work, knowing that they did what 100,000 other people did, and that they got charged for it.” The case is the latest attempt by Trump’s Department of Justice to criminalize resistance. Protesters in Chicago and Spokane , Washington, faced the same charges as the Minnesota 15, with mixed results; the Chicago case was tossed for prosecutorial misconduct, while the Spokane protesters, accused of forming a human wall to block an ICE bus, were convicted and face a maximum of six years in prison. Last month, protesters in Prairieland, Texas, dubbed part of a “north Texas antifa cell” by prosecutors, received sentences ranging from 30 to 100 years – one for simply moving a box of zines . “This is naked political repression, part of a nationwide trend,” Isaac Sant, the lead defendant in the Minneapolis case, told the Guardian. Legal experts say the Minneapolis case is akin to Prairieland in its use of conspiracy law to target