Analysis of: DoJ cases against protesters keep collapsing as officers’ lies are exposed in court
The Guardian | February 21, 2026
TL;DR
Federal prosecutions of protesters and immigrants are collapsing as court evidence exposes systematic police fabrication—revealing the state's repressive apparatus depends on lies. This isn't dysfunction; it's the contradictions of political repression meeting judicial legitimacy requirements.
Analytical Focus:Class Analysis Contradictions Historical Context
The systematic collapse of federal assault cases against protesters and immigrants reveals a fundamental tension within the capitalist state apparatus: the repressive functions of policing increasingly conflict with the legitimacy requirements of the judicial system. When Department of Homeland Security officers fabricate testimony to criminalize dissent and immigration enforcement resistance, they expose how state violence depends on manufactured narratives rather than facts. The class dynamics are stark. Working-class immigrants and protesters face the full weight of federal prosecution—mugshots broadcast nationally, months in jail, reputational destruction—while the officers who demonstrably lied under oath face only 'investigations.' The DoJ spokesperson's framing of dismissed cases as the work of 'activist liberal judges' rather than the result of proven perjury demonstrates how ideology functions to protect state actors from accountability while delegitimizing any institutional check on their power. This pattern reflects a deeper historical trajectory: the expansion of federal prosecutorial power during periods of intensified class conflict and immigration enforcement. The unprecedented losing streak—acquittals in a system with a 90% conviction rate—suggests that the state's attempt to use judicial mechanisms for political repression has overreached, creating contradictions it cannot easily resolve. Defense attorneys note resources being diverted from 'traditional' federal crimes, revealing how political prosecution crowds out even the state's own stated priorities. The terrorizing effect on free speech persists regardless of outcomes, achieving the disciplinary function even when convictions fail.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Federal prosecutors (state apparatus), DHS/ICE officers (enforcement arm), Immigrant workers (Venezuelan men), Protesters and government critics, Federal judges, Criminal defense attorneys, Working-class defendants
Beneficiaries: Immigration enforcement apparatus (expanded powers despite failures), Political administration (achieves chilling effect regardless of verdicts), DHS officers (face investigations not prosecutions for perjury)
Harmed Parties: Immigrant workers (months in jail, permanent reputational harm), Protesters (criminalized for First Amendment activity), Working-class communities (resources diverted from actual public safety), Defendants' families and communities (international stigmatization)
The state exercises asymmetric power through prosecution regardless of merit—defendants bear enormous costs even when exonerated. Officers who commit perjury face only internal investigation while civilians who allegedly lie to federal agents face criminal charges. Judges represent a contested terrain where legitimacy requirements occasionally check executive overreach, prompting attacks on judicial independence ('activist liberal judges'). Defense attorneys, particularly federal public defenders, serve as the primary check on prosecutorial abuse, winning cases through evidence that contradicts official narratives.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Cost of defense (forcing plea deals regardless of innocence), Jail time as economic punishment (lost wages, job loss), Court system resource allocation (diversion from complex fraud/drug cases), Immigration enforcement as labor market discipline
Immigration enforcement fundamentally serves to discipline the labor market—creating a class of workers without legal protections who can be super-exploited. The criminalization of resistance to deportation reinforces this precarity. The labeling of Venezuelan workers as 'violent criminal illegal aliens' functions ideologically to justify both their exploitation and their removal from the labor force.
Resources at Stake: Control over immigrant labor supply, State legitimacy and monopoly on violence, Judicial system credibility, First Amendment protections as contested terrain
Historical Context
Precedents: Palmer Raids (1919-1920) targeting immigrant workers and leftists, COINTELPRO criminalization of civil rights activists, Post-9/11 expansion of DHS powers, 1994 Crime Bill expansion of federal prosecution, Operation Wetback (1954) mass deportation with fabricated justifications
This represents a familiar pattern in American history: periods of intensified class conflict and immigration enforcement produce expanded state repression that eventually encounters contradictions within its own legal apparatus. The neoliberal period has seen steady erosion of defendant rights and expansion of prosecutorial power, making the current losing streak historically anomalous—suggesting the state has overreached even by its own standards. The specific targeting of immigrant workers reflects how racialized enforcement has always served class discipline, from fugitive slave laws through Operation Wetback to current ICE operations.
Contradictions
Primary: The state requires both effective repression (to discipline labor and suppress dissent) and judicial legitimacy (to maintain ideological consent). When repression depends on systematic perjury, these functions come into direct conflict—judges must either expose state lies or sacrifice the court's legitimacy as an institution.
Secondary: Resource contradiction: political prosecutions divert from cases that serve prosecutorial legitimacy ('public safety'), Evidentiary contradiction: ubiquitous video recording makes fabrication increasingly difficult to sustain, Legitimacy contradiction: DoJ attacks on judges as 'activist liberals' undermines the judicial system it depends on, Immigration policy contradiction: need for exploitable labor conflicts with deportation theater
The state may attempt resolution through: (1) limiting judicial independence (court-packing, jurisdiction stripping); (2) suppressing video evidence and journalism; (3) pressuring plea deals before evidence review; or (4) accepting higher dismissal rates as acceptable cost of chilling effect. The contradictions are structural and will likely intensify rather than resolve within current arrangements. Continued exposure of perjury could delegitimize enforcement broadly, while successful suppression of accountability would accelerate authoritarian consolidation.
Global Interconnections
This pattern connects to global dynamics of authoritarian governance confronting liberal-democratic legitimacy requirements. The tension between repressive enforcement and judicial procedure appears across contexts—from Hungary's treatment of asylum seekers to Brazil's prosecution of indigenous activists. The U.S. case is significant because it occurs within an advanced capitalist state with extensive judicial formalism, demonstrating that even robust procedural protections cannot prevent state violence but can create friction that occasionally exposes its operations. The specific targeting of Venezuelan immigrants also reflects imperialist dynamics: U.S. sanctions have devastated Venezuela's economy, driving migration, which then becomes the pretext for expanded domestic repression. Workers displaced by imperialist economic warfare become criminalized as 'violent illegal aliens' upon seeking refuge, completing a circuit that transforms victims of U.S. policy into threats justifying expanded state power. The international circulation of these fabricated narratives ('It traveled all the way to Venezuela') demonstrates how domestic repression and imperial ideology reinforce each other across borders.
Conclusion
These case collapses represent neither system failure nor self-correction but rather the friction generated when political repression encounters institutional requirements it cannot entirely override. For workers, immigrants, and organizers, the lesson is contradictory: legal defense can expose state lies and win individual cases, but the material costs of prosecution achieve disciplinary effects regardless of verdicts. The strategic implication is that legal defense must be paired with political organizing that names systematic perjury as policy rather than individual misconduct, building broader consciousness about the class function of criminalization. The state's attack on 'activist liberal judges' signals its awareness that judicial legitimacy represents contested terrain—terrain worth defending while recognizing that courts alone cannot protect against organized state violence.
Suggested Reading
- The State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of the state as an instrument of class rule illuminates why 'justice' systematically fails—the state apparatus serves class interests, and its repressive and ideological functions are in permanent tension.
- Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti (1997) Parenti's examination of how liberal states contain and deploy fascist methods while maintaining democratic legitimacy directly addresses the contradictions visible in this prosecutorial pattern.
- The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961) Fanon's analysis of colonial violence and the criminalization of the colonized illuminates how immigrant workers are constructed as 'violent' threats to justify state violence against them.