Support Committee Urges Public Action to Help Secure Strong Legal Defense for Prairieland Defendants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 8, 2025

Support Committee Urges Public Action to Help Secure Strong Legal Defense for Prairieland Defendants

DALLAS-FORT WORTH, TX — A support committee for Texas residents charged in connection with the July 4th rally at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, is calling on the public to mobilize after a new surge of punitive retaliation against defendants. This group, calling itself the National Prairieland Defense League, is based outside of the local area and has no direct connection to the defendants, but seeks to amplify their case from afar.

Authorities transferred Savanna Batten and Maricela Rueda back to Wichita County Detention Center yesterday after five days of segregation in Johnson County Jail, where officials kept them isolated despite no disciplinary violations, cut off their access to commissary, and denied them readily available, edible, food.

On December 4, jail authorities released Prairieland defendant Benjamin Song from the Special Housing Unit at FMC Fort Worth after months in solitary confinement—a form of punishment widely recognized as psychological torture. Solitary confinement exceeding 15 days violates the UN Nelson Mandela Rule against prolonged isolation for prisoners and detainees, and is illegal in many countries. Advocates warn that such extreme confinement can cause lasting neurological and emotional harm.

Supporters mounted a call-in campaign demanding that Batten and Rueda receive adequate vegetarian meals and be removed from segregation. Their mistreatment reflects an escalating climate of repression that has left defendants and loved ones shaken. Public pressure, the Committee emphasizes, is essential as the legal process intensifies.

Batten, Rueda, and Song have pled not guilty to sweeping charges—including terrorism and engaging in organized criminal activity—stemming from a July 4 protest outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The repression faced by all of the 13+ Prairieland Defendants comes in the wake of the administration’s designation of “Antifa” as a terrorist organization and the signing of NSPM-7 (National Security Presidential Memorandum 7), a directive that expands federal powers to target advocates of left wing theories nationwide. “Antifa,” short for “antifascist,” is not an organization at all.

“This nightmare is becoming a national emergency,” says Sean Reyes, a community member familiar with some of the defendants. He continues, “it’s starting to feel like the Trump administration plans to criminalize protest itself, using the Prairieland case as an excuse to take away all of our rights one by one. It feels like people do not realize how catastrophic this prosecution is for all of our freedoms.”

Family, friends, and supporters now ask the public to donate to a fundraiser to assist the Prairieland defendants in securing strong legal defense before pre-trial motions are due on December 30th. So far, the local support committee has raised enough money to hire one highly-successful federal defense attorney for one of the defendants.

Jury trials are set to begin on January 20th.

The public can extend support by writing letters to Batten and Rueda, who are both described by friends as compassionate lovers of both nature and animals, and as caring, important members of their communities.

Support the DFW Anti-Ice Protesters here: givesendgo.com/supportDFWprotestors.

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