I’m still on a bit of a high for this. Bolts didn’t exist four and a half years ago, and now it’ll be in the canon of the Supreme Court — you don’t have to tell me what to think of SCOTUS, but it’s the cool feeling of how far you’ve come.

From Bolts’s latest collab with @thelensnola.Bsky.social “People are just sitting in these cages with no end in sight,” said Bridget Pranzatelli, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Project. “The number of people who are detained outside the scope of the law has increased dramatically.”

Over 2,000 people have now been in ICE detention a year or more. That's a five-fold increase since 2024. thelensnola.org/2026/06/18/l...

huge congrats to @burness.bsky.social for his Nonprofit News Award this week, for reporting on this situation in rural Alaska that deserves more attention—a community targeted and devastated by the GOP hunt for voter fraud, and an overlooked history of voter suppression rooted in colonial expansion

Aaaaaaaah, SCOTUS cited a Bolts article today... in a case that held for a defendant's rights, and to show how far prosecutors can go if left to their own devices, no less!?!?!?

The ICE wing of the Allen Parish jail has the longest average stay of any immigration detention center in Louisiana. It has faced serious allegations of mistreatment and racist abuse of detainees. Advocates say “it's where people go to disappear.” Critical reporting from @delaneynolan.bsky.social

an important local election to watch — this NC sheriff has long drawn criticism for policies and rhetoric targeting Latinos as his county got more diverse, from racial profiling stops/arrests to spewing epithets, like calling Latinos in his community “taco eaters” (also uh who *doesn’t* eat tacos??)

to all Bolts readers: We're halfway thru our reader survey. this is our first since 2024. we'd LOVE to hear from you: what we do well (our funders love to know!), what we can do better (we really want to know)! if you have time today, it'd be a huge help: www.surveymonkey.com/r/Bolts2026s...

This week the courts finally blocked Alabama from executing someone with nitrogen, a grisly new method that experts say likely causes immense suffering My colleague @laurengill.bsky.social witnessed one of the first nitrogen executions, describing here how the man gasped and thrashed for minutes

Milwaukee is one of those places where an officer used Flock cameras to stalk a romantic partner— but efforts to cut ties with Flock have hit a wall:

When it formed in 2021, many saw NC's Juvenile Sentence Review Board as a real pathway to freedom for juvenile lifers and others sentenced to long prison terms for crimes they were convicted of committing as teens. It turns out, most were denied. for @boltsmag.org boltsmag.org/north-caroli...

North Carolina's last governor started reviewing sentences of people condemned to die in prison for crimes they committed as children. But that pathway to freedom has closed as politics in the state is now once again dominated by tough-on-crime rhetoric and harsh punishment.

On Monday, a NM judge affirmed juvenile sentencing reforms passed in 2023 and ordered the release of a man sent to prison as a minor who's already served three decades behind bars @laurengill.bsky.social reported last year how officials have tried to block some people from getting a second chance

Latinos have been a majority in Whittier for decades, but they've rarely had representation in city government — until now. A groundswell of political engagement & immigrant activism sparked by ICE raids last year has ousted 3 conservatives and elected Whittier's first ever majority-Latino council

“I live in constant fear that I will be subjected to further baseless detentions just for going about my daily life." On May 2, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a Florida-born US citizen, was detained by ICE in Alabama for the third time (!) in the span of a year. And he's suing the federal government.

NEW: Last week, we asked you to send us any questions you have about Callais and what it means for the VRA. We got so many great questions. We turned to two redistricting and civil rights experts, & asked them to answer you. The result was this fascinating & at times head-turning conversation:

No justice on the Georgia Supreme Court has lost an election in more than 100 years. That is in part a product of the state election system itself, which shields judges from competition, limits voter turnout, and, today, has left this swing state with a high court dominated (8-1) by GOP appointees.

My story on Cook Co. prosecutor Eileen O'Neill Burke battling exonerated people who want declarations of their innocence. Tyrece Williams, freed after 20 years in prison, said he wants to give his certificate of innocence to his 4 kids, as an acknowledgment that what happened to them was wrong.

we're still looking for readers' questions to help our coverage around this week's catastrophic blow to the VRA also here's some helpful bg on how Black communities fighting for fair representation in the south have been bracing for this boltsmag.org/mississippi-... boltsmag.org/voting-right...

this is the latest in a powerful series by @danhinkel.bsky.social tracking how officials are weakening policies around innocence claims in the nation's wrongful conviction capital — just as yet another police abuse scandal builds around a former Chicago detective boltsmag.org/chicago-cook...

Cook Co prosecutors are trying to block nearly every exonerated person who is seeking a certificate of innocence, which can help w/ getting jobs, housing and modest state compensation More great digging by @injusticewatch.org on the changing approach to innocence claims by the new state's attny

Across the country, ICE is converting warehouses into immigrant detention centers. This story is a great look at how locals are using environmental regulations and land use restrictions to stop them. boltsmag.org/ice-warehous...

“Who would have the gall to file a lawsuit over someone’s decision like that and splash it all over the papers, except for someone who intends to further abuse?,” said Marc Hearron, senior counsel w/ @reprorights.org

I decided to write about at each & every one of the 32 states with supreme court elections this year. Why? On abortion, redistricting, death penalty, & more, these institutions & their elections remain so critical. So here's everything you need to know. NEW from me:

Virginia’s governor vetoed a bill that would’ve blocked prosecutors from forcing people to waive 4th Amend rights during plea deals @laurengill.bsky.social reports how some VA police depts turn these waivers into a sort of dragnet for warrantless searches boltsmag.org/virginia-fou...

Trans erasure is also voter suppression. New in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/kansas-trans...

I want to look back on this piece tonight as a hysterical overreaction. Because that will mean the peoples and the cultures of Iran will have survived.

My latest for @boltsmag.org PA Supreme Court Reins in Life Sentences for Felony Murder boltsmag.org/pennsylvania...

Trump has surged large federal deployments to LA and Chicago, the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in the nation, but, while there have been arrests and operations here, not to its largest and most heavily immigrant, NYC. For @boltsmag.org, I took stock of local leaders' thinking around how to prepare

As the number of people in detention climb, so have the deaths: The 33 fatalities in 2025 were the most in a single year on record since the Department of Homeland Security started operating in March 2003. Reporting w/ Allison McCann and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/u...

Yesterday New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a trio of bills protecting the state's immigrants. New Jersey is now the 10th state (and 4th in the past year) to pass legislation outlawing local law enforcement partnerships with ICE via the 287(g) program. boltsmag.org/new-jersey-i...

NEW: Virginia lawmakers just passed a bill that'd forbid sheriffs and local police from contracting with ICE, if ICE doesn't say it'll follow state laws and agree to let its agents be prosecuted. Everyone seems to agree that'd spell the end of ICE contracts in Virginia: boltsmag.org/virginia-bil...

Miliama Suli, matriarch of the American Samoan community of Whittier, Alaska, died this weekend. Through her last moments, even as she was sick and clearly soon to die, the state prosecuted Mili for alleged voting crimes. It’s a wild case and worth a few minutes of your time if you’re unfamiliar:

Houston’s mayor first said that city police don't cooperate with ICE. Then local reporting showed that they very much do. Now, he’s basically making it HPD policy to prolong detention and traffic stops when ICE requests it www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

Remember, as Jared Polis argues that Tina Peters was punished too harshly, that this is how his Department of Corrections has treated everyday, non-famous prisoners: required labor for almost zero pay, and possible solitary confinement if you decline to work. Read this by @brycecovert.bsky.social:

A Texas woman spent 22 years of her life behind bars for a terrible crime she didn’t commit, finally was released & exonerated, but b/c the wrongful conviction destroyed her legal status, she’s now set to be deported. www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic... @texasmonthly.bsky.social

I can’t stop thinking about Gustavo’s truck. He was pulled over on a road in Minneapolis, shackled by federal agents, and almost shipped more than 1,300 miles away — to El Paso. My hometown now echoes in every city seeing harsher immigration enforcement.

This story, from @natezuke.bsky.social, is absolutely wild. A trans woman who never changed her gender marker was issued a letter invalidating her license. At the DMV they cut up her license, which had an "M" marker. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

Another reporter arrested by ICE. Estefany Rodríguez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias and Univision 42 Nashville, faced death threats in Colombia, came to the U.S. legally and had applied for asylum. Now she is being sent back. Nashville Banner got the story nashvillebanner.com/2026/03/05/j...

our whole staff at Bolts worked together to tackle reader questions about local and state responses to the federal immigration dragnet. lots of info here: boltsmag.org/how-state-an...

one stunning down-ballot result in TX last night that folks might’ve missed was the ouster of Dallas’ two-term DA, John Creuzot, by Amber Givens, an embattled former judge who previously clashed w/ the DA in her court 

www.keranews.org/elections-20...

Chris's conviction was overturned & he's been out of Angola since November, but the state is *still* trying to reinstate his guilty verdict & death sentence. The family of the girl he was accused of killing now believes deeply in his innocence & has filed a remarkable amicus brief:

The Massachusetts Department of Correction has been fighting me for months, trying to withhold data about its collaboration with ICE. Yesterday, I won that fight, and obtained records showing that the state has transferred more than 2,000 people into ICE custody since 2009. A quick thread:

new: highlands reit, a small chicago-based real estate firm, is renting an empty prison it owns in colorado to ice and private prison giant geo group. highlands is part of a network of private contractors hoping to get a cut of the $45 billion allocated to warehouse immigrants through 2029.

Before Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders announced a megaprison a mile from his house, Colt Shelby hadn’t voted in 15 years. Now he says he won't miss another election. Ahead of Tuesday's special election, I took a look at how incarceration has become the race's biggest issue in a deeply red district.

NEW: Black voters in Mississippi are on the brink of a major victory — a federal judge ordered the state to redraw its state supreme court districts to ensure greater Black representation. But GOP lawmakers are dragging their feet for now, looking toward SCOTUS & its Callais order to "save" them:

survivors of domestic violence who are in prison for fighting back against an abuser have inspired and helped pass resentencing reforms in red and blue states in recent years. @pamelacolloff.bsky.social reports how opposition from prosecutors is still keeping them behind bars

Sarah Huckabee Sanders' plan to build a huge mega-prison in rural Arkansas has drawn major opposition, with some residents saying it's made them think differently about incarceration in the face of organizing. Now that's bleeding into a local election, as candidates vow to fight the governor. NEW:

Hidden in traffic cones & highway signs: CBP & DEA have built a covert license plate reader network across Arizona, some 130+ miles from the border, scanning every car on Tohono O'odham land. Read full story🔗🦂:

A majority of the 16 U.S. states under total Democratic control now ban 287(g) partnerships with ICE. Maryland and New Mexico just joined that list, following Maine in January. I wrote about this landscape and these new reforms in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/maryland-new...