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FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE

Legal experts say the charges against Afghanistan war veteran Bajun Mavalwalla II mark an escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on first amendment rights

Bajun Mavalwalla II – a former army sergeant who survived a roadside bomb blast on a special operations missionin Afghanistan – was charged in July with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Spokane, Washington. Legal experts say the conspiracy charges against Mavalwalla underscore the lengths the Trump administration will go to quash protests against Ice, giving the immigration agency a free hand as it steps up raids, adds agents and seeks to achieve the president’s goal of 3,000 deportations per day. Mavalwalla was one of hundreds of people to respond to a 11 June social media post from the former president of the Spokane city council that encouraged protesters to block an Ice transport they believed would carry two Venezuelan immigrants who were in the country legally, petitioning for asylum when they were detained.

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