New Hampshire Public Radio says it 'erred' by sponsoring an anarchist book fair that declared solidarity with the defendants in the violent attack on a Texas ICE detention center.
New Hampshire Public Radio is apologizing after it agreed to sponsor and staff a table at a self-described anarchist book fair whose promotional materials declared solidarity with the defendants prosecuted for a violent ambush on a Texas ICE detention center that left a police officer shot in the neck.
The station, known as NHPR, said it "erred" by accepting an invitation to sponsor and host a table at the Live Free Anarchist Book Fair in Hanover, New Hampshire, on Saturday. The event, promoted as a celebration of radical ideas and grassroots organizing, was built around backing the so-called Prairieland Defendants -- the men and women charged in the July 4, 2025, attack on the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
The admission came only after the sponsorship drew public backlash, and it stands as a fresh reminder of how far the anti-ICE movement's sympathizers reach into institutions that depend on public trust and taxpayer support.
The Prairieland assault was not a protest that got out of hand. Federal prosecutors described it as a planned strike carried out by a North Texas Antifa cell. According to the Justice Department, participants set off fireworks and vandalized the facility to pull corrections and police officers outside, while armed members staged nearby and opened fire.
An Alvarado police officer who responded to the scene was shot in the neck.
The legal fallout has been severe. Nine defendants were convicted of federal offenses tied to the ambush, and seven others pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists. It ranks among the largest domestic terrorism prosecutions to arise from the wave of anti-ICE violence, and the case has produced some of the harshest sentences of that era, including eight Antifa defendants sentenced to decades in prison for the assault.
NHPR acknowledged the misstep in a statement provided by its president and CEO, Jim Schachter. "NHPR erred in accepting an invitation to sponsor and host a table at the Anarchist Book Festival in Hanover on Saturday," the station said. "Our code of ethics makes clear that we should not compromise the integrity of our journalism by involvement in anything that can be viewed as political."
The station added that "no one from NHPR's newsroom was aware of or involved in the decision to participate in this event," and said it is evaluating internal processes to keep it from happening again.
Critics were not persuaded. The Carroll County Republicans rejected the framing of an innocent mistake, writing that "NHPR didn't 'err,' they got caught," and warning that no taxpayer money should flow to what they called a domestic-terrorist-allied corporation. State Rep. Kristin Noble said the sponsorship fit a larger pattern, while state Rep. Keith Ammon mocked the station's explanation that its journalists simply had no idea what the event was about.
NHPR is a nonprofit newsroom that presents itself as independent and relies on listener support, corporate underwriting and, historically, public funding. That model makes its judgment calls more than a private matter. When a station that asks the public to trust its reporting sponsors an event built around championing people convicted of shooting a police officer during an assault on a federal immigration facility, the credibility question answers itself.
The episode also exposes a boundary problem inside public broadcasting. NPR and its affiliates have faced sustained scrutiny over their political posture, even as affiliates keep wide latitude over local sponsorship decisions. That latitude cut against NHPR here, turning a community event into a national example of the anti-ICE movement finding quiet allies in mainstream institutions.
It did not happen in a vacuum. Since the Prairieland attack, the Trump administration has moved aggressively against Antifa-linked networks, treating the ideology behind the violence as a national security matter rather than a fringe curiosity. The book fair's choice to rally around the defendants shows how entrenched that sympathy remains -- and how reluctant some publicly supported outlets have been to see it for what it is.
The immediate question is whether an apology closes the matter or whether New Hampshire lawmakers and donors press further, especially over any public money that touches the station. The broader question is whether the movement that produced the Prairieland ambush keeps finding institutional cover.
For now, NHPR has taken its table down after the fact. The defendants the fair chose to celebrate are still serving the consequences of an attack on federal law enforcement -- and the station is still explaining how it ended up on the guest list.
New Hampshire Public Radio says it 'erred' by sponsoring an anarchist book fair that declared solidarity with the defendants in the violent attack on a Texas ICE detention center.
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