A coalition of left-wing district attorneys largely funded by billionaire George Soros launched an initiative to prosecute federal immigration agents in their jurisdictions, setting the stage for a potential showdown with the Trump administration. Many of those same prosecutors oppose mandatory minimum prison sentences for violent crimes and have released murderers back on the streets.
The Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach (FAFO), led by Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner and Minneapolis district attorney Mary Moriarty and launched on Wednesday, calls itself "an effort to hold federal officials accountable when they exceed their lawful authority." The nine-member coalition plans to convene next month "to share strategies for pushing back against the lawless actions of federal forces in states and cities around the country." Under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal agents are generally immune from state prosecution for acts carried out within the scope of their official duties.
Nearly all of the coalition members have received significant campaign donations from Soros as part of the 95-year-old megadonor's support for the criminal justice reform movement, according to a Washington Free Beacon review.
Soros, through his Justice & Public Safety PAC, contributed $1.7 million to Krasner's inaugural campaign in 2017, according to reports. The PAC contributed $627,000 to elect Fairfax, Va., prosecutor Steve Descano, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report, and more than $200,000 on behalf of Arlington, Va., prosecutor Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, according to campaign filings.
Soros's group contributed $173,000 in June 2025 to the campaign of Norfolk, Va., commonwealth's attorney Ramin Fatehi, according to campaign disclosures, and $400,000 in 2022 to Dallas's John Creuzot, according to news reports. The PAC contributed $652,000 to elect Austin-area district attorney José Garza in 2020 and more than $100,000 to elect Stephanie Morales in Portsmouth, Va., in 2017, according to reports.
Many of the coalition members have faced allegations of being "soft-on-crime" for deferring prosecution for crimes like shoplifting and ending the cash bail system. And most have refused to cooperate in the past with federal immigration agencies in the apprehension of illegal aliens, even those with major violent crime charges.
Descano last year dropped malicious assault charges against Marvin Morales-Ortez, an alleged MS-13 member from El Salvador. Descano's office also refused to comply with an ICE detainer request for Morales-Ortez, who allegedly murdered a man in Reston, Va., a day after his release, according to the House Judiciary Committee.
Others have declined to prosecute individuals who committed crimes against Trump administration officials and allies.
In September, Dehghani-Tafti, elected in 2019, persuaded a judge to limit a search warrant against a woman who threatened White House official Stephen Miller. The court order prohibited prosecutors from sharing evidence with the FBI.
Moriarty, elected in 2022, declined last April to charge a state employee who allegedly vandalized Tesla dealerships in protest of Elon Musk, then the leader of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency. Moriarty has battled with the administration on other fronts. The Department of Justice in May opened a civil rights investigation into Moriarty over her policy requiring prosecutors to consider "racial identity" when negotiating plea agreements with defendants.
The coalition launches in the wake of the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis. Border Patrol agents fatally shot Pretti during an altercation on Saturday. An ICE agent fatally shot Good on January 7 after she struck the agent with her vehicle during an anti-ICE protest.
FAFO, an acronym that also means "Fuck Around and Find Out," is receiving organizational support from Defiance.org, an anti-Trump group cofounded by Miles Taylor, a Trump administration Department of Homeland Security official who penned the infamous "Anonymous" op-ed in the New York Times in which he declared himself "part of the Resistance" inside the administration. Taylor on Tuesday claimed he "helped build" DHS but now wishes to "detonate" it.
The idea for FAFO hatched last week after Krasner "flagged that there wasn't anyone coordinating DAs across the country to compare notes on what to do about federal overreach and violations of state law," a spokesman said.
"A group of prosecutors came together organically to get a project off the ground to do exactly that," FAFO spokesman Scott Goodstein told the Free Beacon. Goodstein said the coalition has only received funding so far from small-dollar donors.
The day before the coalition was announced, Krasner pledged to "hunt" down ICE agents who break the law. "If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you," Krasner said.
Krasner has perhaps been the face of the Soros-backed criminal justice reform movement. Krasner coasted to victory in 2017, riding a wave of anti-police sentiment stemming from the police shooting of Michael Brown and others.
In 2021, he vacated the life sentence for Jahmir Harris, claiming that Harris's constitutional rights were violated during his 2012 arrest for murder. Harris murdered another man months after his release.
The coalition's strategy to prosecute federal agents is sure to put it in conflict with the Trump administration, which has said federal immigration agents have "absolute" immunity from prosecution at both the federal and state levels. Some legal experts say that while federal agents have immunity from some state laws, it is not "absolute."
Soros funds some of the groups stoking unrest in Minneapolis. Soros's Open Society Foundations have contributed $2 million since 2019 to the Sunrise Movement. Sunrise has encouraged activists to harass ICE agents in the Twin Cities and has released lists of hotels where federal agents are believed to be staying. Rioters smashed windows of one hotel on the hit list this weekend, the Free Beacon reported.
Soros's PAC did not respond to requests for comment.
