Zines That Could Get You Arrested
Thoughts on the Prairieland case
Maybe you’ve been hearing for the last year about Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada, the fellow who was arrested after transporting two boxes of zines in his trunk in Texas. But hadn’t committed a crime.
It’s true. And it gets worse. Estrada was just sentenced to 30 years in prison. The judge said that he wanted to “make an example” of him and the other defendants, despite Estrada not doing anything illegal. The judge targeted Estrada because his wife participated in an anti-ICE demonstration in Prairieland, TX. Then she called him from prison, asking him to move her car, which he had seemingly already done. In that car were two boxes of zines.
On July 4, 2025, participants in an anti-ICE protest shot off fireworks and vandalized parked ICE vehicles. ICE called local cops. When a cop showed up, he pointed his gun at one protestor, but was shot in the neck by another before he could shoot. The remaining protesters ran. Eleven were eventually arrested, including the shooter. Five more protesters were later also arrested.
The protesters were part of a signal chat where the event was organized. The shooter continually said inadvisable things about “suppressive fire” and seemingly went out of their way to provide firearms at the protest, as well as body armor, radios, and other items that made the event seem quasi-military. However, the ideas of creating a violent confrontation were repeatedly declined and unpopular in the signal chat.
The defense fumbled a few things and the prosecution ran wild with a story that the protesters were actually organizing a “coordinated attack” by “Antifa” to take over the ICE facility and release the prisoners. The fireworks were termed “explosives.” The protesters were termed “terrorists.” The protest was termed a “riot.” Since the arrestees had participated in a signal chat with the shooter, they were charged as being “Criminally liable for offenses of another conspirator that are reasonably foreseeable.” This is a classic tactic and is similar to how Green Scare and mafia prosecutions have been charged by the state.
The attorney general claimed that the whole thing was part of Antifa’s plans and justified the widespread targeting of other protesters and arrests as part of a “terrorist organization.” This is the first time that “members” of “Antifa” have been arrested in connection with charges of terrorism.
Those arrested were sentenced to 30-100 years in prison. Including the guy with the zines who was not present. Four participants testified for the state against the rest of the protesters.
You might ask “How long were the January 6 protesters sentenced for in their actual attempt to take over the government?” And the disproportionate difference may or may not surprise you.
We do want to clear up one point of concern that’s going around: zines are not a crime. Des Estrada wasn’t on trial for possessing the zines or the printing press—those things aren’t crimes, at least not yet. He was arrested because he was accused of concealing evidence to protect his wife, who was argued to be a “terrorist.” If his groceries were in that box, they would also have been photographed into evidence.
But at the same time, the zines (as well as the transness of many of the defendants) were heavily used to make the case against them. The prosecution’s arguments did these things:
- Painted people who protest fascism as members of a nonexistent “Antifa” terrorist organization
- Profiled people for wearing black
- Escalated fear tactics against legal forms of action and expression, like zines, gender, and gardening
The founders of the United States and architects of our laws explicitly went to great lengths to say that literature—even radical literature—is protected speech. You might say that our right to do this is sort of the point of our country.
So while a guy wasn’t sentenced to 30 years for running a press and distro—as many inflammatory reports claim—there’s lots to be concerned about. The state is suppressing protest in familiar, new, and scary ways. Two transgender protesters were placed in dangerous, non-corresponding gender prisons. And yes, the zines were used as evidence to attempt to demonstrate “material support” for the “terrorist” point of view of the protesters.
And yes, our very own Learning Good Consent was among the “insurrectionary materials.” As were zines about gardening from seed, many required reading texts in schools, treatises on state repression, “a journal of materialist feminism,” poetry about cancer, “a call for the eradication of artificial intelligence from the face of the earth,” among others. The government argued that the distro and book club was further evidence of the defendants support for “terrorism.” So much of the evidence in this case feels like the state’s fundamental misunderstanding of the artistic expression and pleas of the work. Metaphor is read as literal and it’s unclear whether the state thinks they crushed a terror cell or just wants to mislead you to that impression.
If you want to print the above banner for any purpose, here’s a printable version. If you have a store, let us know if you want a printed version for your zine section.
What can you do? Support the defendants and their cases! Start your own Emma Goldman book club. Make a zine of your own and share it. Keep creating. Keep organizing. And keep living into the future you want to be part of.