The Trump administration now has zine distributors and jail support efforts in its sights.
January 10, 2026
Composite / Getty Images / Truthout
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I’ve been making zines since I was 14 years young. I’ve been distributing them since I was 16. I’m now 37 years old and pursuing a doctorate in art history studying communities of zine makers.
In recent years I’ve seen a notable increase in people talking about zines, making them, and attending zine fests — it’s been heartening and wild to witness! I’ve watched what felt at times like this niche and nerdy part of my life blossom into something much more expansive.
When working with my students, or hosting community zine making workshops, I often define zines as small, independently published objects that are amateurish in the best way — they’re free or cheap to get copies of, contain typed or handwritten text, and depending on what zine you find, they’re filled with collage, art, poetry, political history, personal stories, recipes, health advice, quite literally everything you can think of. Zines are an embodiment of the “do it yourself” ethos.
Now, the latest targets of President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s agenda of political repression include a diverse group of protesters, jail support volunteers, educators, and, crucially, zine distributors, and print artists. More than a dozen people face criminal charges, including riot; conspiracy to use and carry explosives; the use and carrying of explosives; attempted murder of officers and employees of the United States; discharging a firearm during, in relation to and in furtherance of a crime of violence; and corruptly concealing a document or record. And at the center of their charges is a box of zines and jail support group chats.
From a Typical Noise Demo to a Series of FBI Raids
On July 4, 2025, protesters had gathered at the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, to oppose immigration enforcement practices and show support for detainees, using fireworks and noise-making as their demonstration method — a traditional form of protest in solidarity with incarcerated people. When local police responded to ICE’s call to remove the protesters, an officer reportedly suffered a neck injury that authorities attributed to a gunshot. Prosecutors have only identified two individuals as alleged shooters despite the broad scope of arrests. Following the demonstration, federal authorities launched an extensive investigation that resulted in charges against 16 individuals known as the Prairieland Defendants, and harassment of their extended friends, families, and neighbors.
Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.
I’ve been making zines since I was 14 years young. I’ve been distributing them since I was 16. I’m now 37 years old and pursuing a doctorate in art history studying communities of zine makers.
In recent years I’ve seen a notable increase in people talking about zines, making them, and attending zine fests — it’s been heartening and wild to witness! I’ve watched what felt at times like this niche and nerdy part of my life blossom into something much more expansive.
When working with my students, or hosting community zine making workshops, I often define zines as small, independently published objects that are amateurish in the best way — they’re free or cheap to get copies of, contain typed or handwritten text, and depending on what zine you find, they’re filled with collage, art, poetry, political history, personal stories, recipes, health advice, quite literally everything you can think of. Zines are an embodiment of the “do it yourself” ethos.
Now, the latest targets of President Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s agenda of political repression include a diverse group of protesters, jail support volunteers, educators, and, crucially, zine distributors, and print artists. More than a dozen people face criminal charges, including riot; conspiracy to use and carry explosives; the use and carrying of explosives; attempted murder of officers and employees of the United States; discharging a firearm during, in relation to and in furtherance of a crime of violence; and corruptly concealing a document or record. And at the center of their charges is a box of zines and jail support group chats.
From a Typical Noise Demo to a Series of FBI Raids
On July 4, 2025, protesters had gathered at the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, to oppose immigration enforcement practices and show support for detainees, using fireworks and noise-making as their demonstration method — a traditional form of protest in solidarity with incarcerated people. When local police responded to ICE’s call to remove the protesters, an officer reportedly suffered a neck injury that authorities attributed to a gunshot. Prosecutors have only identified two individuals as alleged shooters despite the broad scope of arrests. Following the demonstration, federal authorities launched an extensive investigation that resulted in charges against 16 individuals known as the Prairieland Defendants, and harassment of their extended friends, families, and neighbors.
These Dallas Residents Are on the Front Lines of Trump’s War Against “Antifa”
If convicted, people who showed up to a protest could face “decades of prison time,” the National Lawyers Guild says. By Andrew Lee , Truthout October 25, 2025
Guidelines issued by the White House in September detail how the Trump administration will target and pursue anyone it deems to be motivated by “anti-Americanism, anti-Capitalism, and anti-Christianity” as domestic terrorists. Trump has also designated “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization. Those of us who are anti-fascist know that “antifa” simply refers to a collective sense of being anti-fascist and believing that fascism is ultimately a real and present threat to all life. It is not a unified entity or organization. Antifa is a rallying cry, a politic, a historical reference that connects one to a legacy of fighting Nazism in Germany, and fighting other fascists in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere in the 1930s.
Zines have been criminalized before our current moment, and at times their creation and circulation was made punishable by death.
Texas resident Des Revol, in particular, is being targeted by the Trump administration under these guidelines. He did not attend the July 4 demonstration in Alvarado, Texas, but he was arrested two days afterward after he had a phone call with his wife, who was detained at the noise demonstration. FBI agents stopped him for a traffic violation in Denton, Texas, and took him into custody at gunpoint. Authorities charged him with evidence tampering constituting obstruction of justice as well as conspiracy, alleging he “transported a box that contained numerous Antifa materials” from his residence to another location. This literature — pamphlets and zines commonly found in activist spaces — became the basis for his prosecution. Despite having no connection to the original demonstration, Des faces potential federal imprisonment and additional risks from both immigration enforcement and hostile right-wing groups that have publicly identified him online.
When we spoke, Lydia Koza, the wife of Prairieland Defendant Autumn Hill, plainly stated what’s happening: “At the most abstract level, I believe the Trump administration and the state of Texas know in some collective-unconscious way that authoritarian, grasping models of power are unsustainable and require ever-greater levels of escalation; and that models predicated on care and equity are both more natural and more sustainable. Solidarity and compassion therefore become threats.”
Meanwhile, Prairieland Defendant Savanna Batten has lost more than 30 pounds since her incarceration in September of 2025, according to her sister, Amber Lowrey. When we spoke about her mounting concerns, Lowrey said:
When an individual becomes a target of state repression, it harms everyone within their orbit. Everyone who was taken from the Prairieland protest has lost, at very least, their employment. Many lost their homes or vehicles, and some owe huge repair bills as a result of violent raids that left their dwellings badly damaged and exposed to the elements. At least two minor children said goodbye to their parents as they left to go to a protest five months ago, and they never came back. Pets have had to be rehomed … State repression is violent. It is extreme. It is incredibly isolating, and that is by design. This has been, by far, the most traumatic experience of my life — and I wasn’t even the target.
Likewise, when the FBI began raiding the home of Autumn Hill and Lydia Koza, “I wondered if I was going to die or be taken to a rendition site,” Koza said. “At that moment, I had resigned myself to losing everything I cared about. Every ounce of ideological opposition to police violence, to state terror, to incarceration, suddenly became viscerally relevant.”
Are Zines a Threat?
I myself have copies of most, if not all, of the zines that Des Revol had in that box. Those zines were free or cheap to get, and are filled with history, free thought, anarchist political analysis, discussions of shared struggle, and hope. I have many such titles, and yes, I believe they are at once paper and ink and also incendiary devices. I reject the framing of innocence and crime being used to describe zines and those who make or share them.
“Zines could be called the atomic unit of free speech — the simplest possible, highest-impact pamphlet; the most entry-level way of disseminating ideas that can’t find footing in mainstream discourse,” Koza told me.
Two other Prairieland Defendants had previously established a small, independent print shop and literature distribution to support local book clubs as well as anarchist and socialist reading groups, and had only just begun tabling at book fairs and zine fests. These artists’ and writers’ arrest and subsequent incarceration has shuttered this local resource, ending access to affordable and free printing and breaking up print communities — an outcome the Trump administration is all too happy to execute.
How many of us have visited a public library’s zine rack, or attended a local print fair or zine fest? Under a fascist political regime, all oppositional discourse … is subject to attack.
Zines are often sources of great inspiration and personal conviction. If being against a regime that deports, kills, silences, poisons, and cages is criminal, then we must abandon the nonsensical concept of innocence. Political literature should make you feel, think, learn, and act. Zines have been criminalized before our current moment, and at times their creation and circulation was made punishable by death — in revolutionary France, in the post-revolutionary United States, and in Nazi Germany, just to name a few. Nothing about the Trump administration’s tactics should surprise us; we are sure to see more zines, pamphlets, leaflets, and other print culture be labeled “domestic terrorism materials” in the future.
Even still, there is solidarity everywhere. In October, I traveled to Athens, Greece, and visited La Zone, a beautiful anarchist community space and cafe, with a tremendous selection of zines, books, artwork, and free literature. At the time of writing this, I learned that La Zone hosted a “letter-writing & solidarity evening for the imprisoned Prairieland (Texas) codefendants.” Yes, zines are folded pieces of paper, but they’re also lifelines, histories, and embodiments of hope.
How many of us keep a box of zines, or leaflets, or political pamphlets around the house? Around our offices or apartment? How many of us have visited a public library’s zine rack, or attended a local print fair or zine fest? Under a fascist political regime, all oppositional discourse, literature, art, and life is subject to attack. We must recommit to solidarity, and rise to the defense of those whose lives and actions become criminal by default. The Trump administration wants us to live in ignorance and fear, so we must continue making, thinking, and learning together. Zines will continue to play vital roles in our movement organizing and political education. Keep informing yourself about the calls for support and solidarity with the Prairieland defendants. Keep reading, keep making.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
Brit “Red” Schulte
Brit “Red” Schulte is a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Texas at Austin, a community organizer, and zinester. They are a guest librarian with the Sherwood Forest Zine Library in Austin, a founding member and current organizer of Midwest Perzine Fest, and The Support Ho(s)e Collective zine distro. Their writing can be found at Truthout, The Funambulist, In These Times, Monthly Review, The Avery Review, and Kernel Magazine.
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