On July 4, 2025, a loosely affiliated group of demonstrators gathered outside

the Prairieland immigration detention camp in solidarity of incarcerated migrants.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) would soon recast the demonstrators as an “Antifa cell.” Federal prosecutors would trump up terrorism charges against them. In some cases, the DOJ indicted people who hadn’t even been present at the demonstration. Their so-called crime? Making and moving zines.

Then Trump’s hand-picked federal judges sentenced the Prairieland defendants to a combined 450 years in prison.

How did a routine act of public protest against unjust incarceration spiral into centuries’ worth of more incarceration?

This week, journalist Melissa Gira Grant joins Katelyn and Christine to separate fact from fiction in the Prairieland cases. Melissa, Katelyn, and Christine discuss the Prairieland prosecutions’ dangerous implications for free speech and assembly.

Cancel Me, Daddy is a progressive media criticism show hosted by journalists Katelyn Burns and Christine Grimaldi. New episodes every other week.

Stream on our YouTube channel—remember to ring the bell! Listen via Apple or Spotify. Be sure to check out the merch store—Merch Me, Daddy!

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Links:

- Grab a discounted bundle subscription to Katelyn’s and Christine’s newsletters at their TrustFnd collab!

- Follow Melissa Gira Grant’s ongoing Prairieland coverage for The New Republic and on Bluesky at @melissagiragrant.com

- Melissa Gira Grant for The New Republic: The Prairieland Sentences Are a National Emergency

- Lex McMenamin for The Guardian: ‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

- Lex McMenamin reel via Instagram: “the prairieland case: how it impacts protest, trans people, and freedom of information”

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