There's great news and concerning news about those ICE warehouse concentration camps. Like Minneapolis, public protest created a vibe where these things might not ever open. ICE detention is down by 10,000! But was this all a massive $1 billion grift? My new column www.inquirer.com/columnists/a...

This morning at Hancock High, seniors headed to the floor of the gym to receive their caps and gowns, each from a teacher they had chosen. Stacy Campbell waited there, holding her student Israel Makoka's cap and gown. But he wouldn't come. He and his brother, Max, 15, had been taken by ICE.

I have spent so much of my career telling stories of families who have lost loved ones who have migrated or died in protests. I built a network through Central America to tell these stories, which still help today. But it all started with what I learned from my friend Sarah Blaskey in 2017.

I learned over the weekend that my reporting about the death of Francisco Gaspar Cristóbal Andrés and the deportation of his wife, Lucia Pedro a Juan, won an award for best feature writing from the Texas Managing Editors. I am honored.

El Paso residents marched in front of Camp East Montana yesterday against the Trump administration's plans to expand ICE detention centers. They were joined by U.S. Army Sgt. José Serrano Arosio, who's wife Daisy Rivera Ortega, was detained during a routine immigration check-in. My story:

Trump Has Already Spent at Least $4.7 Billion Attacking Latin America @costsofwar.bsky.social report reveals that it's not cheap to attack Venezuela and capture its president or conduct dozens of strikes on civilian boats. theintercept.com/2026/04/23/c...

Paraguay receives 16 third country migrants deported from US reut.rs/4d0AWEG

The immigrant wife of a U.S. soldier currently stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso was detained by ICE last week after attending a routine immigration check-in. These detentions are increasingly happening in the Borderland. Here is my story:

And measles outbreaks have spread outside of the U.S., including to Mexico and Guatemala (the Guatemalan cases emerged in a town on Lake Atitlan, a popular tourist destination). As far as I know there have been no cases of migrants deported to Guatemala with measles, according to sources.

Attorneys and a U.S. Congresssional Rep. are raising concern for an Indigenous Mayan Q'anjab'al woman from Guatemala who is currently being held in El Paso. She has an ovarian cyst and needs surgery. ICE says she can receive treatment if deported. Here is my story:

Guatemala's current Attorney General, María Consuelo Porras is no longer in the running for re-election as the head of the public prosecutors office. She was accused and sanctioned during her tenure of acts of corruption, attempting a coup, and seeing the unraveling of the country's judicial system.

A great dispatch from the Texas border, where Texas Republicans, led by AG Ken Paxton, have targeted a key nemesis of the far right and Christian nationalists: Catholic Charities.

Trump continues to crater. New NBC poll has his approval down to 37-63, which is 26 points underwater. Crucially, 50% disapprove *strongly.* Has any other president had half the country strongly disapproving? www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

ANOTHER death in ICE detention.

Camp East Montana is officially under new management as of today, acting ICE director Todd Lyons told the House Appropriations Committee yesterday. Amentum services is now managing the massive detention center in El Paso. This confirms what a source told me last week. Here is my story:

If IOM is doing assisted voluntary return paid for by the U.S. (a state dept grant to IOM explicitly to include this), you gotta wonder why — if it is so voluntary— IOM didn’t do it from the U.S. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

This is happening to tens of thousands of people. It is a disgrace. It is a parody of due process; after more than a decade, the government suddenly orders you to return to a court hearing in just days, thousands of miles from where you live. And it's tearing lives apart.

Texas' only licensed Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu legal interpreter is now languishing in a Raymondville detention center. She’s lived in America for 35 years: www.texasobserver.org/immigration-...

As someone who is in an immigration process to bring my Guatemalan wife to be with me, this is so discouraging. This is another form of family separation that causes deep pain and frustration. One day I will be able to write about all of this...

Guatemala is preparing to select a new Attorney General. President Bernardo Arévalo has stated that is not a chance that current AG Consuelo Porras could be re-elected. Porras has sought to find favor with Trump in the US as she has attempted to undermine democracy in the Central American country.

ICE Reports 16th Detained Death of 2026 at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, a 49-year-old man from Mexico, died on April 11 at a private prison in rural Louisiana. The pace of one death every 6 days continues to hold. austinkocher.substack.com/p/ice-report...

Jim Wright ran for the Railroad Commission of Texas six years ago as a reformer. But his reforms drew the ire of powerful oil tycoons who are now trying to unseat him. @insideclimatenews.org (1) insideclimatenews.org/news/1304202...

As a Christian, the news that called my sense of justice into action this morning was hearing that we'd summarily executed some more fisherman in Latin America. www.npr.org/2026/04/13/g...

Guatemalans living abroad sent home $2.441 billion in March 2026, a historic amount. This money means families there can survive admits rising prices/costs. Migrants have sent home more in 3 months than in all of 2015. Remittances has grown from $6.2 billion to $6.29 billion.

El Paso County is filing a lawsuit against the federal government over the failure to respond to a request for information about the planned immigration detention center in Socorro, Texas. My story:

Bukele’s own government figures show more than one-third of all people arrested under El Salvador’s State of Exception are not gang members. Other independent analysts have estimated the proportion of false arrests to be as high as 70%.

In 2015, I was crossing the border from Mexico to Guatemala. The president, Otto Pérez Molina, had resigned a few days prior because of proven connection to high levels of corruption. Immigration into Guate always had a photo of the president, but this day a coat hung over OPM's photo. P.1

Even ICE oversight inspectors are finding violations at Camp East Montana in El Paso, according to a report published yesterday. Inspectors found 49 violations during a visit in February. My story for the El Paso Times:

The Colibrí Center's DNA database, built to identify migrants who died crossing the border and reunite families, has gone dark since fall 2024. A board member says it may be destroyed. Hundreds of families are left without answers. In collaboration with @highcountrynews.org 🔗🦂

the new data on operation metro surge, with charts by @alyssachen.bsky.social

Some v quick charts Red line is FOIA data from Deportation Data Project Green line is Interval ADP from DetentionReports.com Blue line is Reported ADP from ICE detention stats Camp East Montana Opened last summer. Population peaked around mid-Jan. at ~3,800 detainees. Then, the measles outbreak.

It's Semana Santa in the Borderland, which means the annual Good Friday walk up Mt Cristo Rey. But this year the mountain looks different: federal contractors are blasting it for the border wall. I reported for @insideclimatenews.org w/ Puente News Collaborative insideclimatenews.org/news/3003202...

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)

La presidenta de México anuncia que llevará a la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) la situación de los mexicanos en los centros de detención del ICE tras la muerte de otro ciudadano en EE.UU.

ANOTHER death in ICE custody. That makes 14 in 2026, and we’re not even done with March yet. This is on track to be the deadliest year for immigration detention in the U.S. ever. Period.

“For Haitian immigrants, a proposed remittances ban sparks fear of deadly consequences. The Trump administration's proposal to end remittances sent from the U.S. to Haiti could cut of a vital financial lifeline for those in the unstable nation.” documentedny.com/2026/03/25/t...

Among the priorities for the 2027 Texas House: Studying whether parts of New Mexico can secede and join Texas.

The King County Council voted on Tuesday to ban civil immigration operations from staging and processing on certain county property.

Last night the El Paso Diocese held a vigil and march against mass detention and deportations. Nearly 1,000 people turned out to show their support for immigrant rights and against the policies of the Trump administration that have made El Paso the "detention capital" of the U.S. My story:

2 break-ins over 4 days at Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matías de Córdova, the humanitarian legal aid center in Tapachula, near Mexico's southern border. Case documentation stolen. No comment from authorities. If unanswered, a big risk of more serious attacks on migrants' rights defenders.

El Faro obtained documents confirming Guatemala’s current AG signed papers in at least eight irregular adoptions in the early 1980s. This year, a record of the position in which she signed off on them is absent from her reelection portfolio. beta.elfaro.net/en/central-a...

Camp East Montana in El Paso is allowing visitations and receiving detainees again after the detention center was placed under a quarantine due to cases of measles. The site was opened again on Friday, but briefly went back into quarantine again on Sunday. My story:

The attacks, and threat of attack, may contribute to global price increases on critical sectors like energy and food, to the detriment of people’s rights.

Camp East Montana in El Paso is allowing visitations and receiving detainees again after the detention center was placed under a quarantine due to cases of measles. The site was opened again on Friday, but briefly went back into quarantine again on Sunday. My story:

Full analysis: www.cato.org/blog/banned-... More at austinkocher.substack.com

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. 🧵

Lovers of books! What are the strangest things you’ve found in used books? I found a receipt from 1962 from Mexico City in a book once owned by Mario Payeras, a Guatemalan revolutionary who was among the founders of the Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres.

Here's your moment of zen: A "holy" cat named Coco stands at the entrance of a church in Mexico, seemingly blessing everyone who walks in 🐱