Like every Mother's Day today I am asking that you consider a donation to @nationalbailout.bsky.social to help free mamas who are separated from their families by the injustices of pretrial detention systems. secure.actblue.com/donate/freeb...

Lynx held a moment of silence for Alex Pretti and Renee Good ahead of the season opener at Target Center:

NEW: The Trump administration blitz that flooded Minnesota with immigration agents hobbled federal efforts to pursue serious crimes. By April, prosecutors had brought charged just eight people with drug or gun crimes, the fewest in more than two decades. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

great reporting as always from @tatiwm.bsky.social prismreports.org/2026/05/05/v...

My latest for @truthout.org examines the impact of free prison calls on families: truthout.org/articles/fre...

On today's GEO Group earnings call, Zoley says, "ICE is considering the purchase of approximately 10 privately owned turn-key ICE processing centers...I can respectfully acknowledge that we have been in discussions with ICE regarding the potential sale of multiple facilities."

new: since she took office in december 2025, cook county state’s attorney eileen o’neill burke has made a concerted effort to keep more people behind bars while awaiting trial. advocates accuse her of deliberately trying to undermine the pretrial fairness act. via @djbyrnes1.bsky.social

Wow. "If we built it, we can tear it down." Mary Hill

Good coverage of important study by @daniel-semenza.bsky.social

Giant whistles made their way down Bloomington Avenue in the Mayday parade today in Powderhorn Park

Happy May Day! I fucking love it here

This May Day, we're thinking of the incarcerated workers who are exploited every single day. For people behind bars, labor is usually mandatory and often unpaid:

This is actually the perfect distillation of the right wing worldview. A predatory industry treats consumers unfairly so it must be immigrants' fault.

🚨NEW: Prisons across the U.S. are stripping away physical mail in what they claim to be an effort to combat drug smuggling. Here's the truth: Mail scanning does not stop drug use behind bars — but it does hurt incarcerated people & their loved ones 🧵

The 13th Amendment banned slavery, but it included a carveout sanctioning it as a punishment for people convicted of crimes. Many state constitutions include the same loophole; seven states don’t pay anything for most prison jobs.

Read that again. This Louisiana bill forces homeless people to choose between jail and "treatment"—and if they can't pay for the latter, they will be forced to perform unpaid labor. The historical precedents are clear: convict leasing, Black Codes, debtor's prison.

Which, importantly, moves enforcement back into the hands of ppl who can be sued in fed court for § 1983 violations, who do not have supremacy clause immunity, who are under the jurisdiction of local DAs who may not like them, subject to local anti-mask laws. NOT PERFECT. But it IS an improvement.

Surcharges are popping up everywhere as companies try to recoup rising costs while blaming outside pressures.

New article theorizing the relational mechanisms that reproduce criminal legal inequalities. Come for the theory; stay for the review of cutting-edge research showing how social closure, exploitation, and claims-making drive inequality under the law compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

It has come to my attention that not all of you are aware that this exists. So, here it is. It exists. Dozens of channels of randomized music videos and bumpers. Choose your era and return to your childhood. Bookmark it for when you need to escape back. wantmymtv.vercel.app/player.html

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

The Alex Pretti Nursing Scholarship will be endowed after a fundraising campaign with a goal of reaching $50,000. "Minnesota Physician Moms" has contributed $10,000.

Courthouse funneling: how organizational mechanisms teach tenants to bargain in eviction court N. Hardaway and @mathuclair.bsky.social cup.org/4bNfrXy

I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.

There it is -- "The ICE data show, however, that less than one-quarter of those arrested during the operation had been convicted of a “crime” — the agency’s definition of a crime includes misdemeanors, such as unauthorized entry into the country or traffic violations." Appalling.

Thanks to a FOIA lawsuit from @deportationdata.org, Minnesota is getting its first credible numbers on arrests during the federal government's surge here this winter. About 3,800 Minnesota residents were arrested. Most from Latin America (only 106 from Somalia). (1)

At Liberalism dot org, @radleybalko.bsky.social argues that when localities pursue cost savings by moving to flat-fee contracting for public defender services, the incentives come out wrong, and the quality of defense (and of justice) suffers.

gosh, this does make us sound pretty cool, doesn’t it

BREAKING: The PA Supreme Court holds that mandatory life without parole sentences for all "felony murder" convictions -- a sentence more than 1,000 people in PA are serving -- violates the state constitution's "cruel" punishment ban. This is GROUNDBREAKING: www.pacourts.us/assets/opini...

Just the President of the United States again saying insanely, unapologetically, shamelessly racist shit, and the extremely powerful people around him nodding in agreement. How far back in time would you have to go to find another U.S. president saying something this bigoted in public?

OH MY HEART...the Oberlin Luddites Reject "The Year of AI Exploration"! 💚

Is it any wonder people feel the system is rigged?

Between 2025 and 2026, the number of people detained by ICE on any given day grew by nearly 60%. Thanks to Trump's deportation agenda, expanded immigration detention accounts for almost all of the growth in mass incarceration since last year.

I spent the past couple weeks going through hundreds of pages of sworn declarations made detained by children and their parents at Dilley, ICE’s only family detention center. This is what life is like at Dilley, in their own words: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social See this? Self-care, collective care, solidarity, political organizing, and cardio all at once. bsky.app/profile/iwil...

The US government collected over $1 billion in immigration fees then refused to process the applications. No denials. No refunds. Just silence. This is the largest fee fraud in the history of the American immigration system. Here's what's happening. 🧵

Legal plunder at its finest!

🚨NEW: Last year, the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. increased again. The driving factor? President Trump’s deportation agenda. Our annual report, The Whole Pie, gives the big picture of mass incarceration. Here are some key takeaways 🧵

I’ve been photographing anti-ICE and related yard/window/tree/street signs around Minneapolis. The variety of commercial and especially handmade signs is amazing, as is the urge for people to let their neighbors know they care and are furious in ways big and small. Batch #5

To date, at least 9 warehouse deals have been canceled due to local community opposition in Utah, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Virginia, Mississippi, and more. Communities that spoke up early, organized fast, and pressured property owners have stopped facilities from opening.

While we're all talking about wages, a reminder that: Nearly 40% of incarcerated workers are paid *nothing* for their work. And the rest are paid at abysmally low wages.

Throughout the Twin Cities, residents are carrying on the state’s long-standing tradition of solidarity. You can read my latest piece on mutual aid and 'Minnesota nice' in The Conversation. theconversation.com/minneapolis-...

BREAKING: #SCOTUS unanimously deals setback to private prison contractor GEO Group. High court rejects company's pretrial immunity claim in immigration detainees' forced-labor suit www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Did an interview for this and I really appreciate NPR for continuing to cover the surreal situation facing observers and commuters here in Minneapolis, even as the attention of the world moves on.

The current person in charge of ICE's procurement for detention is a GEO Group executive who ran the company's immigration detention portfolio. He was granted an "ethics waiver" from DHS allowing him to hand out contracts to GEO in his new role.

Are you in #Minneapolis or the southern suburbs and want to get involved in some ongoing mutual aid efforts? Hit me up! Our group knows we're in this for the long haul, as food and diaper insecurity will continue if/when the feds ever GT the FO. And you can help!

Iowa courts charge people $73 to $83 per hour for court-appointed lawyers. The law specifically allows for such charges when a defendant is found guilty or is acquitted, but not for dismissed cases—something prosecutors want to change.

Wow.