One day my children will ask why they grew up hearing me say, “The fooled man can’t be fooled again.”

Left, my story about how the right wing ex-Honduran president was given special treatment after he was pardoned for drug trafficking - and had his ICE detainer dropped. Right, a story about a man who spent 43 yrs in prison for a wrongful conviction & was deported once his convicted was overturned

As part of my reporting on children held in immigrant detention in Dilley, Texas, I’ve gotten to review some medical records from the facility. This is where ICE brought 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. One detail that has gnawed at me: The medical forms refer to the children as inmates.

NEW: Russian family who complained of mistreatment in ICE facility is released after 4 months @mikehixenbaugh.com: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Update to my story last week about a family of Russian asylum seekers who’d been held more than four months at the Dilley detention center. Five days after we reported on their case, ICE reversed course and let them go.

“Despite persistent budget and staffing shortages, prison officials paid a specialized tactical team overtime to drive Hernández from a high-security facility in West Virginia to the famed five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City”

After railing against narcoterrorists + deporting migrants w/no criminal record, President Trump pardoned the former Honduran president last year – then federal officials lifted his ICE hold & whisked him to the Waldorf Astoria My latest for @propublica.org www.propublica.org/article/trum...

JOB: NBC News' Data / Graphics team is hiring a data reporter. It's four days in the office (NYC, D.C. or L.A. – note that the job description only mentions NYC), and it's a union job. Job: smrtr.io/xfxS7 Our work: www.nbcnews.com/datagraphics

The Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Because we want reporters gathering information, these jobs are 100 percent reporting. We have an AI rewrite specialist who turns their material into drafts … By removing writing from reporters’ workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week.”

What’s it like to celebrate your 12th birthday in an immigrant detention center? No cake. No presents. No party. Kamilla’s parents told me they planned to buy their daughter a pack of M&Ms — among the only sweets available in the commissary — and pray they get out soon. Please read their story:

“I’ve never seen federal agents so out of control and acting in such a malicious manner,” a former federal prosecutor and federal judge said. “They said they were going after ‘the worst of the worst,’ then they became the problem. Read this by @jonschuppe.bsky.social & @natashakorecki.bsky.social

“Konstantin, 4, a sociable boy, is often frightened by loud noises and guards, his parents said. He once cried for hours after a small toy airplane was confiscated.”

“We left one tyranny and came to another kind of tyranny,” Nikita said in Russian. “Even in Russia, they don’t treat children like this.”

On Thanksgiving, the immigrant children held at the Dilley detention center gathered in the gym for what they thought was a holiday feast. The kids salivated over a spread of turkey, sandwiches, pastries and pies, a family told me. But the food wasn’t for detainees — it was for the staff.

I interviewed a family of Russian asylum seekers who’ve been held more than four months at the Dilley detention center in Texas. As we spoke over Zoom this week, their daughter Kamilla was one day shy of turning 12. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She replied: “To get out of here.”

Thanks to @mikehixenbaugh.com @lulumiller.bsky.social @annelamott.bsky.social @alisonbechdel.bsky.social @anthonydoerrwriter.bsky.social @joannarakoff.bsky.social Tony Danza, Betty Smith, Booth Tarkington, & Louise Fitzhugh for writing books that kept me afloat & made me a fighter. Respect ✊

Audible gasp reading this @ryanjreilly.com lead: “A Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump has been convicted of child molestation and other crimes, after he tried to use an anticipated payout from the Trump administration to silence one victim, according to a Florida prosecutor's office”

NEW: Trump DOJ tries, fails to secure indictment over Democratic lawmakers' social media video on unlawful orders. www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

My 4th grader’s class is doing a “Hall of Heros” wax museum project for Black History Month. I ask him who he picked; he smiles and points to his Cavs hoodie. “LeBron?!” I shout. “No,” he says. “James Harden.”

Love this story share from Bad Bunny backup dancer Pedro Pascal

This film is beautifully done. Many familiar faces and voices for folks who’ve followed my work over the years. I highly recommend.

The current situation in one graphic. ProPublica is tracking the volume of habeas petitions by state and court, as they overwhelm legal advocates and government attorneys. projects.propublica.org/habeas-track...

Super Bowl viewers Sunday speculated that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos appeared in the halftime show. In fact, he has been in hiding with his family. “He can’t sleep well at night. He wakes up three or four times a night screaming, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” Liam's father Adrian Conejo Arias, said.

Update: DHS sent a statement denying that medicine was withheld from Amalia after her return to detention. But her lawyer says there’s no evidence in Dilley’s records that the girl’s prescription was ever administered, “which is consistent with her parents' accounts.”

The top two stories on Fox News this morning: Bad Bunny “divides viewers”; Kid Rock “earns praise”

When you write about a sick baby whose parents entered the country legally

9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra from Colombia was detained on her way to Disney World. She told me when I met her that what was supposed to be a 10-day dream vacation to the park’s Halloween celebration turned into a 100+ day nightmare at Dilley. 6/

Please take the time to read what the children detained in Dilley wrote me in their own words: www.propublica.org/article/ice-... 10/

Must read reporting for @propublica.org by @micarosenberg.bsky.social, who spent weeks speaking with parents and children detained at Dilley about conditions there.

Of the Dilley detention center, Gonzales says: “It is a nice facility … nicer than some elementary schools.”

This is Amalia. She spiked a fever of 104 in ICE lock up, a lawsuit says. Her oxygen levels dropped to 50% Officers stood watch during her 10-day emergency hospital stay. When she was well enough to leave, doctors said Amalia should go home. Instead, ICE put her and her mom back in detention.

“After baby Amalia had been hospitalized for 10 days, ICE thought this baby should be returned to Dilley, where she was denied access to the medicines that the hospital doctors told her she needed."

NEW: A baby held in immigration detention became so sick, she had to be rushed to a hospital in severe respiratory distress. “She was at the brink of dying,” a lawyer told me. But the girl didn’t go home after her 10-day hospital stay; instead, ICE put her and her mother back in lock up at Dilley.

‘Maria still has vision problems and headaches. The sweet girl who loved her teacher and played with Barbies is now fearful and withdrawn, talking often about her weeks in Texas and the workers who watched over her. Whenever she sees a police officer, she tenses. “It’s the bad men,” she said.’

"After years without accidents, Maria started wetting her pants and her bed. She cried through the night, asking when she and her parents would return to their apartment in New York. She begged to start breastfeeding again."

An immigration atty repping families at a detention facility said a child suffering from appendicitis collapsed in pain after being denied meaningful med attn. "The child passed out in a hallway vomiting and writhing ... only to be offered Tylenol" www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news... @mikehixenbaugh.com

“Unlike earlier iterations of family detention, many of the children now held at Dilley are U.S. residents, apprehended not at the border but at their homes, outside schools, in courthouses and during routine immigration check-ins.”

"“Liam is all the kids there." Powerful and disturbing report from @mikehixenbaugh.com

Drawing by a 5-year-old who has been held at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, for more than eight months: Stick figure children behind bars saying, "Let us go."

This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year. She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again. Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/

The federal government at work: Trump says New York and New Jersey can have money Congress already appropriated for a major rail project but only if Chuck Schumer renames Penn Station and Dulles airport after him

Medgar Evers’ killer was a Klansman, but Trump administration says stop calling him a racist mississippitoday.org/2026/02/05/m...

NEW: The Justice Department published dozens of unredacted images of nude women (and possibly teens) as part of its Epstein release. The faces of those people were also left unredacted. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/u...

New — I spoke to eight people who were present at the ICE protest on Saturday in Portland, Oregon when federal agents deployed tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of families, children, elderly and disabled people, and their pets. These are their stories:

Some important context for anyone writing about that Texas special election shocker

Smart take on the big Dem victory in Texas from @jenniferberkshire.bsky.social. educationwars.substack.com/p/lessons-fr...

In November, a trans woman was forced out of a restroom by an arcade manager at a pinball tournament in NC. The incident, and the way it was handled by the International Flipper Pinball Association, has fractured the community. 1/ For @nbcnews.com: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

The anti-trans panic has spread to the world of competitive pinball. Yes, pinball. @joyurcaba.bsky.social has the story.

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