President Donald Trump speaks in the Cabinet Room of the White House on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A Texas man has been sentenced to federal prison after posting assassination threats against President Donald Trump online, despite later claiming the messages amounted to constitutionally protected speech.
According to federal prosecutors, one of Francisco Mena’s YouTube posts repeated the words “Kill Trump” more than 20 times. In other messages, the 37-year-old wrote, “Give me a really good sniper,” while sharing emojis depicting swords, a skull and crossbones, and a coffin. Prosecutors also said he threatened federal immigration officers.
“Threats against the president and federal officers are crimes that my office takes very seriously,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said in a statement Friday.
Mena received a 33-month federal prison sentence last week after pleading guilty in June to one count of threatening a federal official. Prosecutors said he made repeated violent threats against Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from May 13 through May 25, 2025.
“The defendant repeatedly threatened to assault and murder the president, writing variations of ‘KILL TRUMP’ across multiple dates and platforms,” the Department of Justice said in a Friday press release. The DOJ said Mena also threatened federal law enforcement, warning that if ICE agents came to his home, he would “respond with a gunfight.” Prosecutors further alleged that he claimed to have previously stabbed an ICE agent and “would love to do this again.”
Prosecutors said Mena’s online threats extended beyond Trump and ICE officers to include the president’s supporters. In one YouTube post cited in the federal complaint, he wrote, “You are the prime target in the whole U.S.A.,” followed by a threat against Trump supporters that read, “Blacks, white, Mexican, Asians vs. Trump supporters …. We will murder you!!!”
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In another message, prosecutors said Mena wrote, “We out here killing them all slowly. Stabbed, shot, drugged, hung, everything! F— what you’re going through!!!!”
He allegedly followed that post by writing, “All these Trump mfs will die.”
Earlier this year, Mena’s court-appointed attorneys sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that his online statements were protected by the First Amendment.
“No reasonable juror could interpret the hyperbolic, vague, and contradictory statements alleged … ‘as a serious expression of an intent to cause a present or future harm,’” the defense motion stated. The filing argued that Mena’s “rambling and contradictory comments” lacked credibility and could not be viewed as serious by an objective reader.
Mena, a resident of North Richland Hills, was indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of threatening a federal official. He was arrested in January.
The story, “‘I will kill Trump’: Man threatened to take out president with a ‘really good sniper’ and then argued it was ‘protected speech’ — now he is headed to prison,” first appeared on Law & Crime.
