Spent the day on Capitol Hill, which always leaves me with a brackish mix of hope over what we can be and despair over how far we are from our potential. Remember that we plant seeds today for trees whose shade we will not enjoy.

IMMIGRANT WORKERS LAUNCH LARGEST US MEATPACKING STRIKE IN 40 YEARS Workers are fighting to be able to afford the same food that they produce for the rest of the country. - @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social @therealnews.com therealnews.com/immigrant-wo...

Between 1941 and 1946, over 50,000 Panamanians —most of them Black— were stripped of their birthright citizenship. It was the first constitutionally sanctioned denationalization in the Americas. Yet, almost no one talks about it. 🧵👇 thefunambulist.net/magazine/fol...

Something remarkable happened this week: a Substack post helped expose and remove the first-ever ICE 287(g) enforcement agreement with a K-12 school district in the United States. Here's what we know. 🧵

As immigration became one of the defining focuses of Trump’s second administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken center stage. The (DHS), received significant funding and hired new agents under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. www.wired.com/story/confes...

Average immigration detention deaths per month from FY 2010 to FY 2024: 0.69 Average immigration detention deaths per month in FY 2025: 1.75 Average immigration detention deaths per month so far in FY 2026: 4.6 www.npr.org/2026/03/10/g...

ICE's controversial 287(g) program gives local cops the power to do immigration enforcement. The program has a long history of sowing distrust and exacerbating radicalized policing. So why did a K-12 school district sign up for it? 🧵

Crucial thread to read asap ⬇️⬇️⬇️

New research from UW exposes what it's really like to be under ICE's compulsory surveillance app, BI SmartLINK. The findings are alarming and the researchers conclude the app simply should not be used. 🧵

I’m grateful to have joined Kara Swisher on On With Kara Swisher to examine the expansion of ICE detention nationwide, alongside Ximena Bustillo and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

A WIRED analysis shows that ICE and CBP have collectively spent at least $515 million on products from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Palantir in the last few years alone. www.wired.com/story/how-bi...

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. 🧵

Ximena Bustillo, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, and I talked about immigrant detention with Kara Swisher. Listen to the latest episode of the On With Kara Swisher podcast today to hear what we said. austinkocher.substack.com/p/the-ice-de...

ICYMI: @austinkocher.com and I caught up on the school system's brief appearance on ICE's list of 287(g) partners last Wednesday: austinkocher.substack.com/p/does-ice-h...

When a spouse is deported, a family’s financial foundation disappears overnight. The economic toll of immigration enforcement is real and U.S. citizens are among those most affected. www.wsj.com/articles/tru...

Check out this great conversation about all the awful things going on with ICE detention, featuring me, @austinkocher.com and @ximenabustillo.bsky.social on Kara Swisher's podcast!

🚨 The latest episode of On with @karaswisher.bsky.social features NPR’s @ximenabustillo.bsky.social, AIC’s @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social, and myself talking about the boom in ICE detention. Listen below. Follow @onwithkaraswisher.bsky.social. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

Register today for an in-depth discussion of new report on ICE's family separation of deported parents and what it will take to build an international family reunification system. Registration Link: buff.ly/f5aRSvo

Event Update! My conversation with Zain Lakhani from the Women's Refugee Commission about their new report on family separation is rescheduled for the same time (4:30 PM) *NEXT* Monday, same registration link below. More time to get it on your calendar! us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

And this conversation with @austinkocher.com, where we chat about messy government data and what it means for public transparency: open.substack.com/pub/austinko...

The national debt just reached a record high of $39T. Trump is bad for the economy & he is trying to distract Americans by scapegoating immigrants & starting a Middle East war. Trump wants your kids to be worse off while his nepo babies live in grifted luxury. fortune.com/2026/03/18/h...

Event Announcement: Zain Lakhani from the Women's Refugee Commission Explains Why ICE Is Deporting Parents Without Their Children. Monday March 23 at 4:30 PM Eastern. Registration required. austinkocher.substack.com/p/event-anno...

The U.S. asylum system isn't broken by accident. A new AILA policy brief documents how the Trump administration has systematically dismantled nearly every pathway to protection. Here's what's happening and what a real fix looks like. 🧵

“Death in detention is no longer a shocking rarity that drew genuine concern from the agency,” @austinkocher.com writes. “Death in detention becoming a predictable and normalized part of ICE operations while Congress and most of the American public appears unaware or indifferent.” #AbuseofPowerWatch

Event Announcement: Zain Lakhani from the Women's Refugee Commission Explains Why ICE Is Deporting Parents Without Their Children austinkocher.substack.com/p/event-anno...

Chuck Norris has spinning roundhouse kicked the bucket.

A peer-reviewed research published in International Migration Review provides the most comprehensive data on unaccompanied minors in U.S. immigration court in nearly a decade. The findings are deeply troubling. 🧵

A terribly heartbreaking thread. Is this who we want to be? Billions wasted on trump’s Epstein Fury when with a fraction of that we could simply be decent, caring humans.

Devastating thread about what they are doing to deported families. Don't ignore this. 🧵

reading this as a mother is heart-wrenching and disturbing.

A new report from the Women's Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights traveled to Honduras to document what U.S. deportation policy looks like from the other side. What they found is alarming. 🧵

Yep. There are definitely remaining unanswered questions here about ICE's handling of it and all of it, really

Great work by @gregsargent.bsky.social helping to sort this out, see response from Okla. superintendent below. BUT.. I'm not totally satisfied with this answer. The idea that ICE pulled the name of a school district in rural OK out of thin air and added it to the official 287g... dunno, vibe's off.

Here's the background on this via some good sleuthing by @austinkocher.com: austinkocher.substack.com/p/does-ice-h...

The 287 here is a reference to the 287(g) agreements that ICE has been entering into with local entities. This school district is not entering into such an agreement, thankfully.

There's been some alarming discussion of K-12 schools in Oklahoma entering into an agreement with ICE. Thankfully, it's not happening. It appears ICE mistakenly posted online that it was. Oops. Steven Cantrell, the superintendent for the Caney Valley school district in Oklahoma, emails me this:

I thought it was one death per week in an ICE facility. One death every 4 days! Will no one in Congress stop this monstrousness? What if, once a week, ICE were to tie a prisoner to a stake in Times Square and order a firing squad to shoot? When it's that predictable, what's the difference?

Excited to have recorded this alongside two other great voices on immigration!

Just wrapped an interview with Kara Swisher for On with Kara Swisher incl @ximenabustillo.bsky.social and @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social. Watch for the episode next week and huge shout out to The Real News Network for letting me use their studio today! @therealnews.com @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social

Did ICE just sign an immigration enforcement agreement with an elementary school? That's the question Andrew Thrasher and I are investigating after a startling discovery in ICE's 287(g) program data. Here's what we know so far. 🧵

Awful. A teenager, dead by suicide in an ICE detention center. There is now a crisis of suicide inside the detention system; I have never seen anything like it. Suicide has happened before, but they were very rare. This is the third or fourth this year.

Royer Perez-Jimenez was 19 years old. He died by suicide at 3am on March 16 at Glades County Detention Center in Florida. He is the 2nd person to die in ICE custody this week, the 13th this year, and the 42nd under Trump. 🧵

The U.S. runs the largest immigration detention system in the world. But what law actually protects people inside it? A Harvard Law Review article by @Das_Alina provides an alarming answer. 🧵

As Predicted, ICE Reports Another Detention Death While Congress Does Nothing: 2nd This Week, 13th This Year, 42nd Under Trump austinkocher.substack.com/p/as-predict...

Who do Americans want deported and does it matter if an immigrant is LGBTQ+? A new peer-reviewed study has surprising answers that complicate what politicians on both sides assume

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall opposes ICE’s proposed detention facility, warning it could strain water systems, emergency services, and local infrastructure while costing over $1M annually in tax revenue. www.deseret.com/utah/2026/03...

Does ICE Have a 287(g) Agreement with an Elementary School? We Need Answers. ICE just added the first K-12 school district to its 287(g) enforcement program—then removed it days later. What happened? Oklahomans, we need your help investigating. austinkocher.substack.com/p/does-ice-h...

Immigration detention is associated with PTSD, depression, and developmental regression in children. Medical consensus is clear: there are no safe conditions for detaining minors. www.thecut.com/article/immi...

Did we just see the first elementary school in the country sign onto a 287(g) agreement? Get the latest data and evidence in my conversation with Andrew Thrasher at 3 PM Eastern today. open.substack.com/live-stream/...

Economic and social class doesn't disappear when you cross a border, but it does change. A new special issue in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies puts class back at the center of how we understand migration. Here's why that matters.