We, the undersigned organizations, would like to express our outrage to the May 28 guilty verdict against the Spokane 3 – Justice Forral, Bajun Mavalwalla II, and Jac Archer – and our support for their continuous fight to preserve the First Amendment rights for all.
On June 11, 2025, Justice, Bajun and Jac joined other ordinary Spokane residents outside of the Spokane Homeland Security Office out of the concerns of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents’ kidnapping and unlawful detainment of two young asylum seekers Joswar Rodriguez Torres and Cesar Alvarez Perez. Their spontaneous response out of compassion has been distorted by the federal prosecutor as “conspiracy.” Their instinctive actions to protect others around them when local law enforcement deployed excessive force to disperse the group of Spokane residents which had been quiet and orderly for hours prior to law enforcement arrival were similarly framed.
Richard Barker, the Acting U.S. Attorney then, refused to comply under the pressure from President Trump to indict community members protesting against ICE and resigned rather than sign the indictment against the three protesters. But, the federal prosecutors in the Spokane 3 case chose to weaponize the Civil War era law and made an unfair, unsubstantiated and outrageous leap in their interpretation of Bajun, Justice and Jac’s motives and actions. Critical information on Richard Barker’s refusal to sign the indictment and his subsequent resignation was withheld from the jury. The ruling of Joswar Rodriguez Torres’ detention as unlawful was also kept from the jury. In the end, the majority-white jury – far from being the peers of Bajun, Justice and Jac who are all people of color (Bajun and Justice are bi/multiracial of Asian descent in particular) – found them guilty of the federal conspiracy charges. In response, the National Lawyer’s Guild has called for overturning the verdict. In their statement in support of the Spokane 3, Western State Center referred to the trial outcome as “another troubling sign of federal escalation to chill free speech and dissent.” And, Inatai Foundation sums it up in their solidarity statement, “When protest is treated as conspiracy and dissent as a crime, the implications extend far beyond any single case.”
We cannot stay silent when Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) members of our communities are unjustly targeted and punished by the federal government simply for political dissent. Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AA-NH/PI) communities have seen our First Amendment rights being violated in our struggles for equal rights, labor protection, and racial justice throughout our history. From the Asian American Political Alliance’s members in the multiracial Third World Liberation Front strikes in the 1960s to Native Hawaiians in the Mauna Kea Access Protests in 2019, we have seen our exercise of First Amendment rights met with police violence and arrests. More recently, AA-NH/PIs who participated in pro-Palestine protests have been arrested and targeted for deportation under the Trump Administration.
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have had a long tradition of fighting for our collective constitutional rights in the United States through the court system. We are indebted to Justice, Bajun and Jac for their courageous decision to fight for the unjust federal charges against them through the legal process. We will stand in solidarity with Justice, Bajun and Jac as they continue their fight to protect our First Amendment rights. We will not let them shoulder all of the responsibilities in their resistance against authoritarian political repression. We will not be intimidated by the May 28 verdict. We will continue to speak up and advocate for immigrants and refugees in our communities.
Signed (List of Organizations):
Asians for Collective Action
Asians for Collective Liberation in Spokane
Asian Counseling and Referral Service
APIC Yakima
Refugee & Immigrant Services Northwest