My latest is a love letter to Chicago. "I see you stumbling through the stubborn, awkward rhythm of showing up, again and again. I see you fighting alongside people who sometimes frustrate and confuse you, and defending neighbors you may have never met, because you know they’re all your people."

“In a time when the levers of power are so limited, the steadfast organizing in Chicago remains a beacon of hope and essential guide for activists across the country.” - @silkys13.bsky.social This beautiful piece by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social encapsulates the loving & fierce power of Chicago ❤️

NEW: ICE says it no longer has to provide Congress access to detention facilities — thanks to the shutdown. That requirement was part of the appropriations law that expired last month — and now operations are funded by Trump’s megabill. w/ @myahward.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

"One of the most important systems of control and mass separation is hidden in plain sight: the child welfare system.” @truthout.org truthout.org/articles/ice...

And if you want to continue learning about the connections between #ICE and the #FamilyPolicingSystem, listen to “Unbuild Walls” with Silky Shah on The upEND Podcast. buff.ly/ebPItcb @silkys13.bsky.social

“We have the largest jail infrastructure in the world, and it’s an easy thing for ICE to fall back on,” said @silkys13.bsky.social, the executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, to @nytimes.com. “The jail is a really central component of the deportation machine.”

Yet another person killed by ICE. 32-year-old Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, QEPD 💔 t.co/mmHdsHYJij

Mahmoud Khalil on exile, liberation and Ice detention: ‘It was a clear act of cruelty’

🚨The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers.

Just finished Unbuild Walls by Silky Shah. Appreciated the history lesson of immigration law in the US, the struggle to make progress, and the abolitionist framing for reformist reforms and unreformist reforms; those that increase the overall system of incarceration vs those that reduce it.

ICE wants more detention space and it’s faster to re-open old facilities to hold immigrants than to build new ones. Enter: ZOMBIE PRISONS www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/29/m...

Trump’s unprecedented agenda is unmistakably authoritarian. The deployment of the National Guard in Washington DC and in 20 states, including Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Texas and Louisiana, is an alarming unilateral move that is supercharging the already massive police presence in communities.

@silkys13.bsky.social: “There are so many things we’ve seen before — poor food quality, abuse by guards, not having clean clothes or underwear, not getting hygiene products. But the scale at which it’s happening feels greater, because it’s happening everywhere.” www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

The money doesn't matter. There is never any sustained backlash for spending money for death-making institutions.

"[T]he most striking feature of the skyscraper jails' design is the degree to which these buildings have been represented by their boosters as anything but facilities for large-scale human caging." "[T]he new jails would simply 'create little Rikers around the city.'" #NewYork #USA #Incarceration

Thanks to the audiobook release, I powered through the rest of @silkys13.bsky.social 's Unbuild Walls with a bitter taste in my mouth, knowing how things are unfolding. Really grateful to have this analysis of campaign successes, struggles & the need for an abolitionist uniting of struggles 📚

Journalists: Please stop using phrases like "despite having committed no crime" in articles about immigrants. As @silkys13.bsky.social says, "It continues to make the connection between immigration and public safety, which ... is a lie." Immigration is NOT a safety issue.

Some people are attempting to make their compliance with fascism into something it's certainly not. For @prismreports.org, I wrote about how the promotion of obedience, hiding, and disengagement is taking us backward, despite attempts to make it seem reasonable. prismreports.org/2025/08/21/o...

💥 An abolitionist organizing must-read is now an abolitionist organizing must-listen! 👂👂👂

The audiobook of Unbuild Walls is now available! bit.ly/unbuildwalls... Also, physical copies are 40% off if you buy at @haymarketbooks.org sale ends Friday! www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/462-su...

#UnbuildWalls is a timely intervention as anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by fear-mongering, a scarcity mindset, and racist rhetoric has reached a dangerous fever pitch in today’s political discourse. 🔗Order your audiobook today from @libro.fm at bit.ly/unbuildwallsAUDIO

NEW! 🎧 Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition is now an audiobook! Unbuild Walls, from @silkys13.bsky.social executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, dives into 40 years of US immigration policy & mass incarceration, exposing their intertwined systems of repression.

A number of people who have read "Let This Radicalize You" are unaware that we made numerous resources and tools to accompany the book. You can find all of them here including a workbook, discussion guide, zines and more. www.interruptingcriminalization.com/resources-al...

Check out my article mapping ICE detention & resistance in the Midwest for @truthout.org @silkys13.bsky.social #AbolishICE BD truthout.org/articles/a-f...

"It is no surprise that ICE is expanding in the Midwest." "The Midwest has long been a critical site of resistance against ICE's attacks on immigrant communities, and this time around is no different." #Indiana #Kansas #Michigan #USA #Incarceration #Deportation #EthnicCleansing

“But communities across the country are demanding to shut down detention centers and halt detention expansion. The Midwest has long been a critical site of resistance against ICE’s attacks on immigrant communities, and this time around is no different.”

As ICE expands its presence across the Midwest, communities are organizing against the reopening of private prisons to jail migrants.

ICE is shifting people around to county jails until prisons in Michigan and Kansas get up to speed, which are often hidden out of sight. Local residents may not even know their towns are holding people for ICE.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, colleges in both blue & red states have signed contracts with ICE & CBP, ‪@julialuz.bsky.social‬ reports. Universities have become yet another set of tools in the government’s mass deportation arsenal. prismreports.org/2025/07/31/h...

My latest must-reads list and some thoughts on why everything feels harder right now. “We're dealing with a series of horrors that are vicious, and they're spiritually exhausting and difficult to combat in law," says @sarahkendzior.bsky.social. "Authoritarianism is here ... and it's sadistic.”

Florida's cooperation with the Dept. of Homeland Security is already resulting in more arrests of noncitizens I talked to @camiloreports.bsky.social about our @migrationpolicy.bsky.social research showing that DHS is expanding cooperation with state & local law enforcement

ICE just dropped updated detention statistics through July 27. ICE reports detaining a total of 56,945 on that date. www.ice.gov/detain/deten...

This appendix caught my eye. The table shows per diem rates paid to detention facilities. The US Marshals part of the table is new. Again, really incredible from @jkangbrown.bsky.social and @prisonpolicy.org ‬ www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/jail...

This is an exceptionally good report.

ICE has capitalized on local detention of immigrants to make more arrests: Since January, 45% of all ICE arrests were transfers from local jails.

So many important takeaways in this new report about jails and mass deportation from @prisonpolicy.org @jkangbrown.bsky.social 1) the scope of immigrants incarcerated *for immigration* is much higher than what is reported by ICE www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/jail...

this just arrived & looks incredible::

🚨NEW: Local jails & police departments are playing a key role in Trump’s mass arrest & deportation agenda The actual scope of this collaboration – and the true scale of immigrant arrests and detentions – has not been publicly available, until now 🧵

Looking forward to this virtual @cellardoorbooks.bsky.social event tonight with ACLU SoCal and Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice. Registration details below!

If you've been following the story of the #LetcherCounty 2022 flood & the Federal prison proposal for that county, the fact that FEMA is going to spend $608M on new detention centers is really over the f*cking top.

This week Inquest launched a new series on abolitionist organizing and carceral geography from Ruth Wilson Gilmore, @craiggilmore.bsky.social‬ , Judah Schept, & @lydiajean.bsky.social‬ . Get the full recap: mailchi.mp/inquest.o...

I look forward to listening to any interview with @silkys13.bsky.social but, now more than ever, we need to fight for prison abolition. If you're paying attention, they're criminalizing everyone with the goal of filling those prisons and filling their pockets.

Always worth listening to @silkys13.bsky.social talk about "Unbuild Walls." Here's a new one from the @haymarketbooks.org podcast! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

Lots of good work on this from @detentionwatchnetwork.org, who point out that ICE detention is profitable not just for private companies, but for local governments: www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/issues/finan...

It might be helpful here to look at reports on ICE detention documenting conditions before this Trump term, like this one from the end of Biden's term:

One of the hardest-to-hear kinds of responses to my new story are premised on ICE detention being motivated by profit—and in part, it is—or on cheap or free forced labor—again, some is. But these detention centers also cost millions and now billions to run. Profit is not a top motive here.

New episode! We're six months into Trump 2.0. We sat down with @silkys13.bsky.social, @jesspish.bsky.social, @vickyacab.bsky.social and @kristianwilliams.com.web.brid.gy about mass deportations, counter-insurgency + the weaponization of fascist spectacle. thebeautifulidea.show/big-beautifu...