The sentencing of 16 people to a combined 560+ years in prison following a protest last year outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center sparked outrage nationwide.

Several defendants are appealing their convictions, and The Intercept is using state open records laws to demand access to key documents that may shed new light on what happened the night of the protest.

However, we’ve already accumulated thousands of dollars in legal expenses, and donations to The Intercept haven’t kept up, straining our capacity at the worst possible moment.

We’re counting on your help to ensure we have the funding to see this fight through. Will you donate $5 to help The Intercept expose the truth about Prairieland?

The Prairieland convictions are clearly a grotesque miscarriage of justice, but the case is about even more than that.

It’s a radical new legal precedent criminalizing political dissent and threatening everyone who engages in speech critical of the current administration.

The evidence presented at the trial included claims that those who attended the July 4 protest last year wore all black and communicated using the Signal app. Some of those convicted weren’t even at the protest, with one defendant getting 30 years for simply moving a box of leftist zines.

But the Prairieland defendants haven’t given up the fight.

And we refuse to back down until the government reveals every page of every document we’re entitled to see under state open records laws.

This has already been a costly legal battle, and we rely on reader donations to power everything we do.

Will you donate $5 to help The Intercept expose the truth about Prairieland?

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