The Trump regime has launched a slew of repressive attacks on activists this summer. On June 10, the FBI raided the homes of and detained eight Palestine solidarity activists for protesting the University of Michigan’s ties to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. These activists, now known as the Michigan 8, are facing potential decades in prison.
Six days after charging the Michigan 8, the Department of Homeland Security indicted fifteen anti-ICE activists—the Minnesota 15—for their role in fighting ICE’s violent occupation of Minneapolis. Later in June, a federal court in Texas sentenced nine members of the Prairieland 16 to incredibly draconian prison sentences ranging from 30 to 100 years. These attacks are all part of a repressive crackdown by the Trump regime on left-wing activists, the causes they defend, and the right to protest. We can’t back down—we need to fight back with the broadest and most militant possible movement.
Pro-Palestine Crackdown
Across the country, and particularly in response to the explosion of the Palestine solidarity movement in 2023-2024, higher education institutions like University of Michigan (U-M) have worked hand-in-hand with the Biden and Trump regimes to crush political dissent on campus under the disingenuous guise of “fighting antisemitism.” In reality, these witch hunts against student activists have nothing to do with fighting actual antisemitism and everything to do with painting all pro-Palestine activism as a terrorist conspiracy. Of course, any criticism of the US-backed genocide in Gaza is a threat to the interests of US imperialism.
Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, is the political framework being used to justify attacks on anti-ICE and Palestine solidarity protesters by labeling anybody holding “anti-Christian, anti-American, or anti-capitalist views” as a potential domestic terrorist. This essentially allows the far-right, authoritarian Trump regime to redefine “criminal activity” in any way that suits its needs, allowing it to inflict severe punishment on anyone standing in its way.
The Michigan 8 are being prosecuted in connection with a series of direct actions in support of an on-campus campaign to force U-M to divest from companies that do business with Israel, by targeting university regents and executives. Some of this included peaceful but disruptive actions like occupations and die-ins, though also a number of acts of vandalism. The Trump administration is purposefully coming after the Michigan 8 so that they can equate property damage with violent terrorism and extend that characterization to the entire Palestine solidarity movement. Divestment efforts are legitimate campaigns that we must defend the right to build, but the ruling class will label them as antisemitic in an effort to undermine them. The working class can have no tolerance for antisemitism, which is dangerous and poisonous to the united struggles we need to build, but it is in no way equivalent to the movement’s justified opposition to the genocidal Israeli state.
As Marxists, we do not agree with the methods that the Michigan 8 are accused of using. Vandalism and other individual disruptive acts point away from the kind of large-scale collective action and united working-class movement necessary to win demands like divestment and halting the shipment of arms to Israel. Use of Hamas-linked symbols or slogans should absolutely not mean jail time, but our movement must also be clear that Hamas is a right-wing organization whose leadership has been a disaster for the cause of Palestinian liberation. Its politics and tactics are a dead end.
Most importantly though, while the Michigan 8 are accused of damage to property of wealthy regents and corporations, these actions physically harmed no one. The real violence came from the U-M police who in 2024 pepper sprayed, beat, and hospitalized students during its crackdown on the Palestine solidarity encampment and harassed and intimidated students at their own homes, and of course from the genocide itself, which U-M refuses to cut ties with.
We urgently need to defend the Michigan 8, because this crackdown is intended to go far beyond sentencing these eight activists. The crackdown also aims to sweep up organized labor in its dragnet. This is why the federal government is also going after GEO Local 3550, the U-M graduate worker union, which was issued a subpoena by the exact same prosecutors connected to the Michigan 8 case, and on the same day that GEO Local 3550 defeated completely baseless, politically motivated felony charges against its pro-Palestinian president.
In reality, this was an excuse to go after a labor leader at the head of a militant union standing in unapologetic solidarity with Palestine activists. In 2022 GEO 3550 waged a 5-month-long successful strike after years of putting pressure on the university, which U-M fiercely opposed then, and is still seeking revenge for now.
Fight Back Against Repression
To defend the Michigan 8 we need a mass public defense campaign, which means actively building a broad base of support coast to coast, with protests, rallies, and demonstrations demanding to drop the charges on the Michigan 8, the Minnesota 15, and all targets of political repression. Unions need to get involved, starting with GEO locals everywhere passing solidarity resolutions for the Michigan 8 and escalating to nationwide days of solidarity action. Ultimately, unions need to do what they did in Minneapolis to defeat an ICE operation—use the strike weapon to completely shut down business as usual.
Workers everywhere must make it clear that we won’t take attacks on workers anywhere lying down. ICE deportations, crackdowns on Palestine solidarity activism, and attacks on unions are all products of the same system of capitalism, and building a united fightback against all acts of state repression is the best way to arm ourselves to take down this whole rotten system.