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Last month, two Americans were killed in a foreign state’s counterterrorism operation. If Lyle Prijoles, 40, and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, 26, had been part of a group of jihadi terrorists in the Middle East, their deaths would likely have generated national headlines. But they were in the Philippines, fighting for the New People’s Army (NPA), a decades-old Maoist insurgent group that serves as the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
The two appear to have died fighting: many Western reports of the incident explicitly note that Prijoles’s and Sorem’s deaths occurred in a “firefight,” implying an exchange of fire between both sides. Nor were they fighting on the side of good: both the CPP and NPA are designated foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department.
How did two Americans die in a gun battle on behalf of Filipino Communist terrorists? The incident shows how Americans can become mixed up with terrorist organizations. Such entanglements begin not just overseas but also within political organizing environments in the United States, including college campuses and diaspora advocacy networks. Both the U.S. government and higher education institutions should scrutinize these networks more closely — before more American lives are lost.
Prijoles and Sorem’s radicalization began with two left-wing activist groups: Anakbayan-USA and Bayan-USA. Both operate within segments of the Filipino-American community in the U.S.
The Philippine government has long argued that such groups are fronts for the CPP. Through these groups, Filipino Communist influence has extended into segments of the American anti-imperialist and abolitionist organizing space. The party and its aligned networks have also been visible in the anti-Israel protest movement, according to a report by the Center for Security Policy.
Prijoles appears to have been radicalized at San Francisco State University sometime around 2004, eventually serving as chair of SFSU’s chapter of the League of Filipino Students. After his death, his wife told a local news outlet that “his passion for the community grew while he was a student at SF State.” Prijoles made several trips to the Philippines after 2006, and was a leader in the U.S. chapter of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.
This activity made him a natural fit for Anakbayan. In 2012, Anakbayan-USA held its Founding Congress; Prijoles was elected “Solidarity Officer.” After that, his organizing work took on an increasingly international character, and he grew more and more active on the ground in the Philippines.
Sorem’s radicalization pathway appears to have been shaped by a broader search for political and personal identity, particularly through Filipino diaspora organizing. He served as a legislative page for the Democratic Party in Washington State. Like Prijoles, Sorem’s activism was motivated by his Filipino identity. His sibling, PJ Sorem, said that this led him to become politically active and organize in the Philippines.
Sorem’s political involvement took a more radical turn in 2020, when he was a student at Central Washington University. According to an Anakbayan memorial, Sorem “witnessed state violence and repression through the killing of George Floyd and saw parallels in [Philippines President Rodrigo] Duterte’s war on drugs and the poor.” This apparently inspired Sorem, who identified as a trans woman, to see “a future for her people in the National Democratic movement.” Soon after, Sorem launched Anakbayan South Seattle.
Over time, Sorem delved into anti-imperialist politics, including attendance at “international leftist summits” and expanded organizing work. Sorem traveled to the Philippines in 2025 as part of a U.S. exposure trip and, by 2026, was living in the Philippines and organizing full-time.
Sorem was a significant figure in the Seattle-Tacoma Filipino activist community. The Tacoma chapter of the Malaya Movement praised Sorem’s community role and called for justice after his death. The Seattle chapter of GABRIELA USA, an organization “fighting for the rights of Filipina women and LGBTQGNC [gender non-conforming] people,” also praised Sorem’s local involvement. Sorem’s sibling PJ is a member of this organization’s Seattle branch.
Prijoles and Sorem were not outlier cases but part of a nation- and globe-spanning network of Filipino groups. While they present to the world as focused on mundane ethnic affinity, many of these groups encourage their members into radicalization.
A central ideological principle within these groups is advocacy of “National Democracy.” That refers to a Marxist-Leninist conception of a people’s democracy led by a Communist vanguard. Though these organizations primarily focus on issues in the Philippines, they also participate in broader international coordination through umbrella formations such as the International League of Peoples’ Struggles.
The ILPS was founded in 2001 by Jose Maria Sison, founder of the CPP, and several allied international activists. It is widely characterized as part of the broader Maoist-oriented National Democratic movement associated with the CPP. Despite the CPP’s and NPA’s designations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, the ILPS umbrella group has continued to operate in the United States with little scrutiny. It has more than 350 organizations worldwide folded into its network, including Anakbayan and Bayan.
Before his death in 2022, Sison maintained regular virtual contact with groups like Anakbayan, Bayan, and ILPS. He frequently appeared at conferences and delivered digital messages — including to Anakbayan’s Founding Congress. In turn, these groups have continued to invoke, commemorate, and align themselves with his legacy.
Many of these groups have deep tendrils in American universities; some college professors even display these affiliations on their official faculty pages. At San Francisco State University, where Prijoles was radicalized, Irene Faye Duller’s faculty profile references her role as Bayan-USA’s Northern California Regional Coordinator and her work with ILPS. Joy Sales of California State University, Los Angeles describes her work as “community-engaged scholar” and references involvement with Anakbayan, among other groups. CVs for University of Washington faculty member Rick Bonus and Alden Sajor Marte-Wood, now at Vassar, advertise roles as advisers or faculty sponsors for Anakbayan student chapters.
Nor is campus activism restricted to professors. The Georgia chapter of the Revolutionary Student Union, a “socialist mass organization of revolutionary students in the United States,” held a May Day rally in which participants waved an NPA flag and burned an American flag. Commenting on the incident, Center for Security Policy analyst Kyle Shideler observed, “Obviously if they were to display public support for ISIS or Al Qaeda the response would be swift.”
Prijoles and Sorem’s deaths were the tragic results of two Americans going down the radicalization rabbit hole. What started as innocent interest in their national origins ended in their deaths amid a hail of bullets.
Yet almost no one is taking the networks that radicalized them seriously, Shideler warns. Their deaths should be the trigger for U.S. intelligence, law enforcement, and higher education officials to investigate the influence of a designated foreign terror organization on America’s campuses and elsewhere — before more lives are lost.
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This is republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The original can be found here.
Stu Smith is an investigative analyst with City Journal. Follow him on X @TheStuStuStudio.
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