If convicted, people who showed up to a protest could face “decades of prison time,” the National Lawyers Guild says.
by Andrew Lee
On the night of July 4, 2025, Meagan Morris and Autumn Hill departed the Dallas home they shared with several others to go to an immigrant solidarity protest. This was no small thing for either of the two housemates. A 41-year-old transgender woman, Meagan had been out of work since her collapsed neck vertebrae forced her to leave her job at UPS. Autumn had little political experience save for volunteering for a local nonprofit and once marching in a Pride parade. But with the Trump administration conducting violent immigration raids across the country in service of Trump’s mass deportation agenda, both Morris and Autumn Hill wanted to head to Alvarado for a “noise demo” outside the 700-bed Prairieland Detention Center.
Noise demonstrations, or noise demos, are loud, raucous protests held outside jails, prisons, or detention centers. Participants try to make enough noise to let those inside know they aren’t forgotten, using anything from loudspeakers to fireworks. They’re an attempt to disrupt the isolating, carceral logic of the state. They do not, however, typically lead to terrorism charges — until now.
