Free Daniel Sanchez Estrada — A 30-Year Sentence for Moving a Box of Books

Demand the immediate release of Daniel "Des" Sanchez Estrada, a green card holder and artist sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for moving a box of zines. He was not present at the protest that triggered this case. He did not know it was happening. A judge in the Northern District of Texas convicted him anyway, under a charge of "corruptly concealing a document" — because prosecutors decided that the content of political pamphlets constituted evidence of terrorism. His public defender argued the prosecution "relied entirely on stacked inferences and speculation." The court didn't care. Judge Reed O'Connor stated openly that he was handing down maximum sentences to "send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology." That is not justice. That is a court announcing its political agenda from the bench. Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation put it plainly: "being guilty of possessing literature is a concept fundamentally incompatible with a free society." Sanchez Estrada's wife received 70 years. Their teenage daughter is now being raised by relatives. This is what the criminalization of dissent looks like in practice. The First Amendment does not have a carve-out for ideologies the government dislikes. Prosecuting someone for the political content of pamphlets they moved in a box is a hallmark of authoritarian governance, not American law. Use every tool available — oversight, legislation, public pressure — to secure Sanchez Estrada's release and investigate how this prosecution was allowed to proceed.