SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
It's been one year since President Trump issued a presidential memorandum aimed at fighting domestic terrorism and political violence - something many Americans would consider a worthy goal. But critics say the terms used to define domestic terrorism are vague, sweeping and aimed at left-leaning activities and organizations.
FAIZA PATEL: It identifies views as being under the umbrella of anti-fascism, which are anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, extremism on race, migration and gender, anti-Christianity and a whole bunch of other very broad ideologies that are probably shared in one way or another by very many people in this country.
PFEIFFER: That's Faiza Patel, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center. It's a nonprofit group that works to strengthen American democracy. I asked her how this memo, called National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, differs from past administrations' attempts to criminalize certain political action or ideology.
PATEL: If you look at what the administration is trying to do with NSPM-7, I think the closest parallel really is the McCarthy era, where there was this concerted effort to go after people who were called communists, regardless of whether or not they were communist, and to really turn all the mechanisms and tools that the federal government has available against this set of people.
PFEIFFER: I want to give a specific example. This was the Prairieland case. This was in North Texas. There was an ICE detention facility where there was a protest happening outside. A police officer was shot at, I believe, by a protester. Many people who attended that protest ended up being swept up. And some got 30-year, I think, sometimes the range was 30-, 50-, 70-year sentences, sometimes for simply largely having been there. How do you think that this memorandum played out in a skewed way, in your view, at this ICE protest in Texas?
PATEL: So the Prairieland case actually started in the summer of 2025, and it was charged as a normal criminal case because somebody was shot. But what was interesting was that, you know, shortly after NSPM-7 was released, those charges were modified to include charges of material support for terrorism, and they called them the North Texas Antifa Cell. By bringing material support of terrorism into the picture, what the government is able to do was to take what I would think of as low-level crimes - right? - like vandalism, which would normally be charged as a misdemeanor, and turn them not only into a felony but one of the most serious felonies we have in the books, which is material support for terrorism. You know, they damaged a van, set off fireworks. Those were the kinds of things for which you were landing up with 30-year sentences.
PFEIFFER: If there is overreach, as you believe there is, is there any accountability oversight mechanism, any way to check that power?
PATEL: Well, I think, you know, the main way is the appeals which are being filed and whether or not those convictions and those sentences are sustained on appeal. So that's one way. The other way, and we've seen this a lot, is that oftentimes grand juries don't indict. The other thing that we've seen is that the government's cases collapse or they withdraw them because they are consistently overcharging people for conduct during protests.
PFEIFFER: You know, as you just said, sometimes these prosecutions are being thrown out, which is telling us that this memorandum is problematic. So, in a sense, is the system self-correcting?
PATEL: I think the system is, to an extent, self-correcting, vis-à-vis, the individual defendants, right? But I think there's a broader impact over here, which is the chilling effect that these prosecutions have on people who want to exercise their First Amendment rights and attend a protest. You know, the right to protest is enshrined in our Constitution. And so when we're policing protesters, we have to be careful, and we have to be proportionate. So if somebody is breaking the law at a protest, then they may be arrested, and they may be prosecuted. What is not appropriate is to target people precisely because of their ideology rather than because of the crimes that they have committed or may have committed.
PFEIFFER: That is Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center. Thank you for your time.
PATEL: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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