BIG news from @bloomberg.com, which confirms that ICE has gone ahead and *purchased* multiple commercial warehouses with the aim of converting them into mass detention camps. This is likely to be the big detention story of 2026 — literal warehousing of people. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

In 2023 NYT laid out Trump’s mass deportation plan: detain immense numbers of people in such miserable conditions that they’re compelled to stop fighting their cases & agree to leave. They’re still getting to “immense numbers.” But the core concept is working for them. mailchi.mp/43a225b48ded...

SCOOP: 404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for ELITE, a tool Palantir made for ICE which brings up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address. The full user guide here:

From the compa @jherrerx.bsky.social for @texasmonthly.bsky.social: "In the year since Trump has taken back the White House, border crossings have not stopped. What’s changed are the types of border crossings the Border Patrol is seeing."

Trump is dispatching Border Czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to "manage operations on the ground." In case you missed it, here's our investigation into Homan and his relationships with government contractors/consultants cashing in on the deportation business:

The people building the houses should be able to buy the houses. After hearing about @gallego.senate.gov new housing plan to build 8 million new units, @chuckrocha.bsky.social & @mikemadrid.bsky.social discuss could why housing is THE fight for Latino Voters Full episode here: youtu.be/KoPgbC3KJQI

I do wonder if this was the administration's logic in getting Bovino so much air-time, making him so prominent—they get a less-than-consequential fall-guy for when BP and ICE take things too far

It’s always funny when palantir employees discover that they work at palantir

Wrote about the observers. The people standing by and filming and the risk they are taking to let the world see what is happening. It's crucial and its the only way to combat the lies and blatant propaganda. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti. "Please get the truth out about our son."

Oh damn, oh shoot, others are doing unto me as I hath done unto others

Liam is one of four Columbia Heights, MN school district students who have been taken by ICE in the last two weeks, the school district said. Liam's teacher: “He is so kind and loving, and his classmates miss him. He ... just brightens the room. All I want is for him to be back here and safe.”

1. ICE has STOPPED PAYING for medical treatment for its 73,000 detainees ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care 🧵

I'll point out that @mprnews.org has covered the fraud ad nauseum. We all know about it (thanks to public radio). No one is pro-fraud. It's bad. State and federal prosecutors have been prosecuting it. Both the governor and the AG have been investing heavily in fraud detection. There's no cover up.

A treaty between the U.S. and Mexico aims to manage resources that flow between nations. What happens when the water dries up?

“These are just bandaids. They’re just buying time—for what, I don’t know,” I cannot emphasize enough how serious the water supply issue is in the North American west, and it just keeps getting worse.

I've traveled through the Rio Grande watershed, from up on the continental divide in Colorado down through the basin in Mexico, where rivers flow north, providing the water for millions of Texans. The US wants more water from MX. But at the end of the day, we're both fucked. 1/3

NOW— Mass ICE arrests happened/are happening at the Manhattan immigration court at 290 Broadway on the 20th floor. I was just outside the building and an observer came out crying, confirmed they witnessed people getting detained outside courtrooms while families watched and wept.

A Texas county found a way to make money on migrants traveling north: cops arrested them on trespassing charges, and kept them in jail until they paid bail. When they paid, the jail handed them over to ICE. They got deported. The county kept their bail: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

Don’t miss this excellent @jherrerx.bsky.social piece on how a Texas county, under Operation Lonestar, is taking (and not returning) the bail money of migrants who have been deported. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

Step 1: Attest migrants for "trespassing." Step 2: Release on bail. Step 3: deport before hearing, forfeiting bail.

Kinney County, TX, is swindling immigrants out of their bond money by arresting them, immediately handing them over to ICE, who quickly deports them, and then keeping the money. $1.6M so far. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

me contribution to this story was taking a spreadsheet that had been printed out, roughly hand-redacted and then scanned but skewed into, well, an actual spreadsheet so we could calculate forfeited bail for these migrants.

a small Texas county found a way to make money off migrants: arrest them for trespassing, make them post bail to get out of jail, turn them over to ICE, collect forfeited bail money. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

I spent over a year fighting the county for records, including these budget docs

When Texas began arresting migrants for trespassing in '21, many paid hefty bails to get out of jail. The problem? Instead of releasing them, TX handed them over to ICE. I spent a year investigating how one county made up to $1.7 million by taking bail from deported migrants. Via @nytimes.com:

Trump has offshored his migrant detention regime. Journalists have struggled to cover the "exportations." By @jherrerx.bsky.social. www.cjr.org/feature-2/fo...

Damn! "Over the past four years, [Kinney] county has refused to return $1.7 million in bail from migrant trespass cases..." This amount would "pay for the entire sheriff’s department for a year, or the county judge and county attorney’s office combined for over three years." @jherrerx.bsky.social

"Perhaps it is because they have hit a wall deporting so-called criminals, so now they are going after children and their families in an effort to bump up their deportation statistics” Original reporting today from @jherrerx.bsky.social www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

More detentions lead to more deaths. @jherrerx.bsky.social asks whether we will find out - and from there whether the American public will respond w/ enough care and outrage to change policy www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

"For better or for worse, the meat-packing industry relies on immigrants; changing that would likely require fundamentally changing how America feeds itself." Great story by @jherrerx.bsky.social revisiting the site of a 2006 mass deportation in Cactus, Tx. www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

A 2006 immigration raid at a beef-packing plant upended Cactus, Texas. Ten percent of the Panhandle town's residents disappeared. @jherrerx.bsky.social writes about the aftermath and what it means for President Trump’s mass deportation plans. @texasmonthly.bsky.social

What happens after an ICE raid? @jherrerx.bsky.social joins us on Your Call 10am PT to discuss. Then: RFK Jr. confirmation, CFPB closure, & mass federal layoffs. What's the latest? Chris Lehmann @thenation.com discusses. Stream live @kalwradio.bsky.social 10am PT: www.kalw.org/show/your-ca...

Last one for now. Welcome to #BlueCielo! @juliancastrotx.bsky.social @delia.bsky.social @jherrerx.bsky.social @julito77.bsky.social @latnewsletter.bsky.social @alexpadilla4ca.bsky.social @miblogestublog.bsky.social @nikkimcr.bsky.social @anacabrera.bsky.social go.bsky.app/Em6CQBg

Talked with @NYMag.flipboard.com.ap.brid.gy about how to understand Latino voting in 2024. Was the huge shift right evidence of true political realignment, or a simply a sign that this election was a referendum on inflation? The answer is “Yes.” nymag.com/intelligence...

When it comes to masculinity and Latino voting, I think we can't fully disentangle the gender split from class. More Latinas (35%) are going to college than Latinos (28%). Meanwhile traditionally masculine jobs—construction, trucking, etc—have gone decades without any real wage growth.

Her bedroom was more than 100°f inside when we arrived, her a/c was out, her dog was sent to live next door: Karen Shute didn't know how much longer she could take it. New work in the LA Times. My first team up with long time friend @jherrerx.bsky.social.

Reporting this week from our climate future: Phoenix, going into its 18th day in a row with heat over 110 Fahrenheit, with no end in sight. Last time the heat was this high, for this long, was 1974. Even a city as adapted for heat as Phoenix is struggling.

We gotta decide which platform is new Twitter, I can’t keep checking 5 apps a day

Im here for the same reason as everyone else. Excited to connect with fellow fans and celebrate our love for our number one guy Jeremy Renner!

Was gonna make a joke about Bluesky feeling like a life raft after the titanic crash, but somehow that feels too soon

Huh this app kind of reminds me of Twitter

Damn too late to the party?