At least three more immigration judges were terminated today, incl a longtime judge at headquarters who previously served as Air Force JAG for 20+ years. Meanwhile, the gov is asking retired judges to come back as “part-time and intermittent reemployed annuitants.” www.justice.gov/legal-career...

If you're an immigration attorney whose client's case was dismissed by an IJ in 2025, can you contact me? DMs are open, and you can also Signal me: tinyurl.com/mwjwj4zs

Senior reporter Maya Dukmasova's recent investigation of a UIC crime lab involved submitting more than 45 FOIA request, reviewing more than 8k pages of documents, and interviewing more than 50 people. If you've got questions or want to learn more about her process, join us on Reddit! buff.ly/BnaI0DC

I don’t like Jimmy Kimmel Live I just like a world in which that show exists and I can say that I don’t like it.

More than a dozen immigration judge were just fired. Such firings have been common on Friday evenings and often involve newer judges still on probation. But today's firings include a Sacramento IJ who's been on the bench close to 20 years. "The judge version of Jimmy Kimmel," one source told me.

People running for office — especially those unaffected by immigration enforcement — create visual opportunities to advance campaigns. It's up to the press to decide whether to shift away from the work of local community members who are personally affected in order to reward performative candidates.

DMV: Grab your tickets to a sneak peek of Gabrielle Ewing's Credible Fear next Wednesday! Discussion will include @yaelschacher.bsky.social and @sarahpierce.bsky.social:

This doesn’t refer to the individual who was sold as a woman. It refers to her as a girl.

Although I should with any luck see some $$ from this settlement, I would rather AI never existed in the first place and I doubt that $3,000 per stolen work will impede a company that is valued at almost $200 billion. (Also: is a "work" only books or articles, too?) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/t...

19 people say they were sexually assaulted under Leonard Dixon – a Chicago superintendent who draws a $280,000 yearly salary and whose public records trail, including voting records, ties him to suburban Detroit. Amazing work here by @kellygarcia.bsky.social: www.injusticewatch.org/juvenile-cou...

19 people say they were sexually assaulted under Leonard Dixon – a Chicago superintendent who draws a $280,000 yearly salary and whose public records trail, including voting records, ties him to suburban Detroit. Amazing work here by @kellygarcia.bsky.social: www.injusticewatch.org/juvenile-cou...

If you work with the Office of Refugee Resettlement in any capacity, I'd like to be in touch. I promise I will protect your identity. Please use this link to contact me securely through Signal, which you can download on your desktop of mobile device: tinyurl.com/mwjwj4zs

A war veteran attended a protest in June. He was arrested in July and now faces a federal charge for conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of 6 years and a $250,000 fine. Reporting here by @aglantz.bsky.social:

A private company confining people, including U.S citizens, in a hotel without access to communication to attorneys or family is not a tinder box. It IS a fire. Governors can speak when their constituents are being harmed, not only when it’s politically convenient.

I’ve reported in MVM for nearly a decade. The first story I investigated, which was the first time the public learned about the company, was in 2018 when MVM held children in an empty office building — no showers, no outdoor area, and no beds.

I know there’s a lot going on but in June ICE took custody of a U.S.-born citizen in Chicago, Illinois and handed him over to a private contractor, which confined him in a hotel without a phone or other form of communication for five days. The city and state aren’t ready for what’s coming next.

♥️ @nanibaa.bsky.social featured in the New York Times today, including her work at Chicago's Field Museum! ♥️

Anyway

New from @mdoukmas.bsky.social @injusticewatch.org: A Chicago forensic toxicology lab used discredited scientific methods and faulty machinery to test people’s blood and urine in DUI-cannabis cases. Illinois has no way to prevent it from happening again. www.injusticewatch.org/project/fore...

Our victory against the rezoning proposed by Industry city featured in Emergent City will be airing on PBS on Mon, Aug18th. UPROSE had an organizing, political, popular ed& comms strategy & an alternative plan. We worked hard for 7 yrs & a well informed emboldened community rose up loom.ly/B28JX-g

Valentina Galvis’s unlawful detention in a Chicago area hotel room while ICE claimed she was 700 miles away in DC is chilling. (1/2)

A Chicago woman went to immigration court. Her case was dismissed; she and her infant were taken by federal agents who turned her over to contractor MVM. They spent five days confined at the Sonesta O'Hare hotel without communication to the outside world. My first byline at @injusticewatch.org:

A Chicago woman went to immigration court. Her case was dismissed; she and her infant were taken by federal agents who turned her over to contractor MVM. They spent five days confined at the Sonesta O'Hare hotel without communication to the outside world. My first byline at @injusticewatch.org:

Local reporting uncovered Amazon was behind the water-guzzling data center slated for the desert. Residents fought against the data center. Today, the city council unanimously voted against Project Blue. If you care about local journalism that drives impact, consider donating to @azluminaria.org!

Incredible collaboration.

Incredible collaboration.

This photo was taken shortly after we moved to Oakland in 2018, right before Brandi and David were moving to Baltimore. Best coast to other coast to third coast through years of visits and conversations. A brilliant mind. A faithful defender. A loyal friend. Rest in peace Brandi Collins-Dexter.

This photo was taken shortly after we moved to Oakland in 2018, right before Brandi and David were moving to Baltimore. Best coast to other coast to third coast through years of visits and conversations. A brilliant mind. A faithful defender. A loyal friend. Rest in peace Brandi Collins-Dexter.

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the devastating news that our dear friend, longtime collaborator, and former staff member, Brandi Collins-Dexter, has passed away. Read our full statement, honoring Brandi's legacy in our movement and our hearts. mediajustice.org/news/honorin...

I’ve spoken with hundreds of immigrants of every age at every stage of their experience through Obama, Trump I, and Biden. Adults I’ve spoken with who were released after detention in the last few months share an anxiety I’ve never seen before. Memory lapses. Shaking. Confusion. Pure trepidation.

Cool opportunity alert: the @chjreportinghealth.bsky.social is accepting applications for its 2025 Data Fellowship! Learn how to use data analysis to beef up your reporting. (Full disclosure: I'm working with the Center this summer. But I would say this is a cool opportunity regardless!)

I started a newsletter to share my writing. Please subscribe!

50% of people in LA descend from Latin America. More than 50% speak a language other than English at home. 0% of them get to write in your favorite magazines. Despite hollow promises to diversify staff, magazines continue to drown out the voices of the very people you should be reading rn.

People of color are the majority in LA, where race deeply informs life and death. Several national publications can’t publish black or brown writers because they push out us of their newsrooms or never hire us to begin with – which is also intimately tied to what’s happening in LA and the nation.

A father screams for his child from a tiny interview room within a basement waiting room inside LA federal building. The space is not a holding area. No food. No water. No diapers. Those initially detained include a 2-year-old US citizen and a woman with high-risk pregnancy.

I have been logged out of my toothbrush.

Wild to see articles claiming Trump is filing to terminate Flores. As I explained months ago, the settlement was terminated by Biden*. If reporters were sourced beyond white immigration advocates they’d literally tell a different story. Readers suffer from this systemic ignorance.

from January 1, 2025 - April 1, 2025, the cook county sheriff's office enforced 1,528 evictions and 1,084 were in chicago we built a tool to visualize where evictions are happening in chicago

Racial inequity maps itself into Cook County: Black families who owe as little as $200 in property taxes debt see their modest generational wealth expropriated by private investors who rely on a state law ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. x @cb-312.bsky.social and Emeline Posner

“In at least five cases, renters were flagged because they had called 911 to get help or to report a crime that had been committed against them.” Not just that but *landlords* who resist evictions of their tenants face huge fines and loss of their rental licenses. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/u...

Chicago tho

I know i seem like I hate journalism but the reason I'm so critical is because I love journalism. I love what journalism could be. I'm not masochistic enough to give up over a decade of my life to something I hate

Imagine placing scare quotes on the genocide of millions of natives.

“He’s just a kid, still in the process of growing up…” Excellent reporting here by @tanvi.bsky.social:

If the Trump administration has you thinking it can defy each and every single judge, you have to remember that people who are not in administration exist. If someone is sitting in a courtroom and they’re ordered released, for example, then they may just walk out of that courtroom. Not all is lost.

I've acquired volumes of records about unaccompanied pregnant minors giving birth to US citizens born into custody. The infants are assigned Alien Numbers; the disposition of their release matches the mother. In dozens of cases across Obama, Trump, and Biden, infants were deported* with the mother.

Federal immigration policy hits incredibly hard on local communities. I’m thrilled to announce I'm joining @injusticewatch.org, where I’ll investigate the hidden machinery of the Chicago Immigration Court and examine how immigrants interact with Cook County courts.

Koika at midnight at Suehiro Cafe when it was on 1st St.

✈️👀 A flight from Guantanamo to joint base Soto Cano is scheduled now and a Venezuelan plane is scheduled to go there as well so this will be a transfer deportation to Venezuela. The US plane arrived at Guantanamo from Harlingen after stopping in Miami so most likely more people along the way

Kilmar Abrego Garcia didn’t come to the U.S. “illegally.” If he’d been apprehended, charged, and convicted it’d be accurate to write that he crossed without authorization, which is a federal misdemeanor. But children are never tried under that law, and Abrego was 16 when he crossed.