Activists facing prosecution for protest-related charges have launched the NSPM-7 Defendants Union, a project offering legal clinics, media training and support for people targeted under the Trump administration's NSPM-7 memorandum.
The union, scheduled to launch today, aims to connect defendants and the causes they are fighting for. Early members include anti-ICE protesters arrested in Minnesota, New Jersey and Texas, protesters in solidarity with Palestine arrested in Michigan, and others from the movement against the Atlanta police training center known as Cop City.
Union Goals and Membership
One of the union's goals is to dismantle the government's notion of “antifa”, a label applied to many charged protesters even though it is not a formal organization. “Antifa's not a real thing,” said Alex, an organizer who used a pseudonym for his safety. “The only one who benefits from this is the government, because they can convince people what it is, and a fake organization can't rebut what the government says.”
The group also welcomes those who have protested other issues, including Tesla Takedowns, the construction of datacenters and solidarity with Palestine. According to its website, it welcomes anyone who publicly opposes “the Trump agenda and want[s] to support those facing repression for doing the same”.
Defendants' Experiences
Darío Sánchez, a 33-year-old Texas middle school teacher, is facing state charges related to a protest he did not attend. His indictments have changed three times, and he has been arrested and released three times, most recently for an online search about replacing an old Game Boy battery; police alleged he was seeking information on explosives.
“I've seen my case as one manifestation of all the different ways the Trump administration is going after people – regardless of if you've even been to a protest,” Sánchez said. “The reality is, as long as you disagree with the government, you're a target.”
Sánchez's charges of “tampering with physical evidence” and “hindering the prosecution of terrorism” stem from allegedly removing someone from a Discord group and a Signal chat related to a protest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility on 4 July 2025. Nine of the other 21 people arrested in the Prairieland, Texas, protest have received sentences of up to 100 years in federal prison.
Isaac Sant, a 31-year-old nursing assistant from St Paul, Minnesota, was arrested in June and charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer” as part of the community response to the city's ICE surge last winter. His arrest was highlighted in a White House press release that called him and the 14 others arrested “antifa operatives”. The federal surveillance leading up to the arrests included spying on unions, churches and libraries – what Sant called “an attack on all of Minnesota's civil society”.
Collective Strategy and Structure
Unlike a typical union, the project will not maintain membership rolls or charge dues. It is centered around taking a pledge to follow practices such as not cooperating with law enforcement, adopting collective legal strategies when there are multiple defendants in a case and, when possible, sharing information learned in discovery.
“There are things we can learn from each other,” said Sánchez. The defendants union may be the first effort of its kind in the modern history of political protest in the US, said movement historian Dan Berger, author of the upcoming book Prison: Incarceration and the History of America. “It fits in with the genealogy of people facing repression trying to find solidarity with other people facing repression,” said Berger, pointing to efforts such as the Jericho movement, formed by former Black Panther Party members and others in 1998 to support political prisoners.
By calling itself a “union”, the project shows how collective organizing can respond to the federal government's expanding surveillance, arrests and court cases aimed at protesters, said Alex. “When the police or the FBI show up at your door, it feels isolating, like it's happening only to you,” he said. “But the problems people are facing are shared; we want to help deindividualize the experience and create collective leverage – like in a union.”
Sant named other high-profile cases linked to protest: the Broadview Six in Illinois, in which six people protesting outside an ICE facility were charged with “conspiracy to impede a federal officer”, only to have the federal government drop the case amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct; and the Michigan Eight, a group of students and others who face multiple charges, including “conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate and foreign commerce”, for protesting against Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza.
Organizers expect to be met with the same repression as protesters, including hacking and other digital threats. The group delayed its launch by several weeks to troubleshoot against possible insecurities after the Intercept reported on Pentagon-related hacks of leftwing websites.
As a member of SEIU – a national union with 2 million members – Sant sees the spirit of unions as positive for the project: “The federal government would prefer prosecuting each defendant – but at the very least, we should compare notes, come together to increase leverage and create strategies in a more sophisticated way.”
“This is new and bold,” added Sant. “That's one reason I'm hopeful about it.”
Berger said that what makes the project exciting is that it centers on being a defendant. “But it's also a tragic commentary on where we're at, with a large swath of people and politics under attack right now,” he said. “We're all defendants.”
