It was a miserably ideological week. The Supreme Court dropped big decisions, one of which grants the Executive Branch even more power over immigration law and upholds the rescission of Temporary Protective Status for Haitians and Syrians. Even more alarming this week were the first sentencings under the president’s executive order that names Antifa a terrorist organization. Thanks to a jury in North Texas, there are antifascist activists sentenced to prison for decades for their opposition to immigration enforcement tactics. But before we get to that underreported case, let’s start with the low-hanging fruit that has many Americans – particularly those of color – justifiably upset.

No one in the Department of Homeland Security bothered to check conditions on the ground in Haiti or Syria before rescinding protective status to migrants from both countries who are here in the States. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority did not find that problematic. The six justices didn’t even consider the revocation of temporary protective status reviewable by a court at all.

Luckily, a claim for asylum must come before a judge for determination. Such claims are indisputably reviewable. So all is not lost, though it can regularly feel that way with this administration. May the asylum claims begin – and may they come before judges who account for conditions on the ground in the countries of origin.

Even more eye-opening and disturbing this week was the sentencing of anti-ICE protesters under the September 2025 Executive Order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Nine people in North Texas were convicted several months ago for an attack on an ICE facility that included rioting with firearms, vandalism and the shooting of an officer who responded to the facility’s 911 calls for help. Eight were sentenced to a combined 450 years in prison for that attack. One will be sentenced next month.

Benjamin Hanil Song, the purported leader of the group, was convicted of attempted murder for the officer shooting. He alone was sentenced to 100 years in prison. Five of the others involved in the attack were sentenced to 50 years. The remaining two found guilty under the indictment were sentenced to 70 and 30 years, respectively.

Now, there is no defense to an armed assault on a government facility. Still, several decades in prison seems an egregiously disproportionate sentence for left-of-center opposition to the government compared to right-of-center opposition, as with the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Both contained violence; both included perpetrators that rioted, damaged government property, and threatened the lives of law enforcement officers. But the pro-authoritarians got pardoned, while the antifascists look to spend their whole lives behind bars. Even Enrique Tarrio, the head of The Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol, was only sentenced to 22 years.

No judge is required to throw the book at those found guilty of terrorism statutes. The judges in the Texas cases seem to be doing so because they want to, and the Justice Department considers it a message well sent. Leftist activists everywhere: are you listening?

In a week that included a politically-motivated, false police report that could have separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his children for an indefinite period of time, it is clear that nothing is too low. No wound is too deep to inflict in fighting for one’s ideology.

The attack on the Prairieland ICE Detention Center was a clear instance of life-threatening violence in a deep red area of a mostly-red state. Nevertheless it can still be argued that the punishment exceeds the crime for likely ideological reasons. Barring a procedural mistake or miscalculation of sentencing guidelines, the only challenge to the sentences can be on Eighth Amendment grounds of cruel and unusual punishment. And we all know to which court that would fall for review.