Colorado lawmakers have passed reforms to curb solitary confinement, but our new investigation shows those safeguards have been undermined by a strained mental health system and judges who rarely reject requests for extended isolation.

Dan Goldman versus Brad Lander. Pamela Evette versus Alan Wilson Celeste Maloy versus Phil Lyman. A host of high-profile clashes are being decided today. Keep track with our elections guide, soon to be updated with results:

Shannon Long, a sheriff candidate in North Carolina, says immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility. “I’d just rather for immigration to do what they have to do, versus us intertwining with them.”

NEW in Bolts: A Colorado law meant to curb solitary in jails, but our monthslong investigation shows how judges almost always approve requests to put people with serious mental illness in extended isolation. In partnership with the Boulder Reporting Lab:

An agreement obtained through a public records request shows that ICE paid a detention facility in Louisiana $347,000 to operate from August 2025 to July 2026, plus $21.95 per detainee per day. The center charges extra fees for food and transportation.

Renee Lorenzo is part of a group that emerged in response to ICE raids in California last year. “This past year has been a big wake up call for a lot of people,” Lorenzo says. “And the raids have escalated everything. That is fueling people to the polls.”

📣 Today is Election Day in Maryland, New York, South Carolina, and Utah. We’re watching elections across these four states. Learn about what’s at stake before polls close with our elections guide:

ICE detainees in Louisiana are sitting for YEARS, caught in endless limbo.

New USPS rules have voting experts worried. One advocate told Bolts, “There is more friction and more barriers being injected into our system in terms of registering to vote and accessing the ballot.”

Black people make up about 38 percent of Mississippi, but only four Black justices have ever been on the supreme court. That was central to a federal judge’s decision last year that the state’s judicial map is violating the VRA—but then came Callais.

After a yearslong saga, Utah courts mandated that the state use a new congressional map that restored a blue-leaning district anchored in Salt Lake City. Tomorrow, Democratic voters will decide their nominee for this new seat.

Johnnie Savory spent 30 years in prison for murder before being exonerated. He has lobbied Illinois to increase compensation to wrongfully convicted people like him who leave prison with little money and bleak job prospects. (w/ Injustice Watch)

ICE says it has apprehended more than 16,000 people in one city north of San Diego since President Trump’s second inauguration. Community volunteers have been stepping up patrols in the region to track ICE activity.

A North Carolina sheriff has justified his immigration policies by saying drug cartels operate locally, but a local official disputes that characterization. The sheriff has a reputation for using “drug busts as huge publicity stunts,” he says.

Tomorrow, Democratic primaries in both Maryland and New York feature clashes between wings of the Democratic Party. Bolts has an eye on races for both congressional and legislative districts, and you can learn more in our guide:

An attorney with the National Immigration Project says that since Trump's second inauguration, immigrants have been held in detention for increasingly long periods of time. “People are just sitting in these cages with no end in sight.”

“All smart devices are surveillance devices,” says a legal expert in our new Q&A. “The catch is that the companies also have the data and can use it for commercial reasons or, with proper legal authority, give it to the police.”

Some of Maryland’s most populous counties are hosting prosecutor races on Tuesday, with incumbents who have opposed or stalled some statewide reforms standing for reelection. It’s just two of the elections we’re watching this Tuesday.

Courts have recently held that police don’t need a warrant to obtain your search history, an expert on surveillance explains: “Police can essentially rummage through your most revealing Google search queries and find incriminating evidence against you.”

If you haven’t filled out our reader survey yet, there’s still time! Any input you have on what makes our work stand out, and on what we could be doing better, will help us plan for the future. Let us know before the survey closes next week. www.surveymonkey.com...]

Louisiana has the second-highest number of immigrant detainees in the country, after Texas. But it has far fewer federal judges to field the skyrocketing number of habeas petitions from immigrants who are being detained for increasingly lengthy periods.

🗳️ Maryland, New York, South Carolina, and Utah are deciding primaries next Tuesday. Take a moment today to learn about what you should be watching—our guide breaks down key races:

When demonstrators demanded the removal of a Confederate monument in North Carolina's Alamance County in 2020, the sheriff and his deputies countered them with violence and pepper sprayed attendees, including some children.

KYUK reports on how an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on mail voting could affect thousands of Alaskans:

State supreme court elections happen differently across the country. This year, 13 states are holding retention elections, which are simple up-or-down votes to keep a judge on the bench. Nineteen states are holding regular elections. boltsmag.org/your-st...

The outgoing executive of Baltimore County signed a deal to partner with ICE, but the county will soon have a new leader that could revisit that decision. Tuesday’s Democratic primary will go a long way toward deciding who that is.

ICE has been shuffling immigrants detained in New Jersey to facilities across the country, NJ dot com reports: www.nj.com/essex/202...

Orolua Eluonyechie has been held in immigration detention for more than two years. He filed a habeas petition to be released, but it sat for nine months without ever being reviewed. “It is a black hole. Nobody is paying attention to him,” his lawyer says.

Federal investigators found a decade ago that Latino drivers were four to 10 times more likely to be pulled over in Alamance County, North Carolina. The sheriff remains in office today, and is seeking a seventh term.

State Senator Jessica Ramos angered New York progressives last year when she endorsed Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani. Now she faces a challenge from Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, in one of the key primaries we are watching on Tuesday:

Cook County prosecutors have argued that exonerated people seek certificates of innocence to gain an unfair advantage in civil lawsuits against police. But a court last month ruled to expand access to them. Our story with Injustice Watch:

“More people will vote because now they have better access and more people will be inclined to vote,” an advocate said about a new law expanding mail voting in Connecticut.

There are ways to beat back unpopular federal building plans outside of courtrooms, says Rick Su, an expert on the intersection of local government and immigration. “When local communities have prevailed, it hasn’t necessarily been on legal grounds.”

Several congressmembers face challengers from the left in Tuesday's Democratic primaries in New York. Two races feature candidates who ran for mayor last year—Brad Lander, who is challenging Dan Goldman, and Michael Blake, who is challenging Richie Torres.

When North Carolina created a new clemency process, 191 incarcerated people who were convicted as children petitioned to the review board. The board led to clemency to only 14 people, and then it disbanded.

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson says transparency around surveillance technology is essential: “We should not be asking police what technologies are in use, we should know and have approved of them before our tax dollars were used to buy them.”

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports on a class-action lawsuit to end solitary confinement in the state:

David Trone, the founder of a major wine retailer, is once again breaking self-funding records as he spends his personal fortune to regain a seat in the U.S. House. His primary in Maryland is one of the key races we're watching on Tuesday.

In Louisiana, which has more ICE lockups than almost any state, a crisis of prolonged detention is accelerating. Data suggests that the number of immigrants in ICE custody for more than a year has spiked five-fold since 2024. Our story with The Lens Nola: boltsmag.org/louisia...

A sheriff candidate in Alamance County says the sitting sheriff’s policies have left Latino residents fearful. “I’m having to talk to people through the crack of their doors in certain communities because they’re afraid of law enforcement.”

An “anti-universal suffrage” conservative influencer is now an election clerk in Utah, KSL dot com reports:

In Utah, two Republican congressmembers face challengers to their right in Tuesday’s GOP primaries. One of the challengers was convicted for riding an ATV on protected federal land but then pardoned by Trump. Learn more in our election guide.

Many immigrants who have been detained for months or years in Louisiana are filing habeas petitions, which in turn has swamped federal judges’ dockets and made it nearly impossible for judges to act quickly on these emergency pleas for release.

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.”

A pastor running for sheriff in Alamance County, North Carolina, says immigration enforcement should primarily be a federal responsibility. “We’re going to do our job, and our job is not to do what they’re doing, which is, right now, racial profiling.”

SCOTUS ruled today that a defendant agreeing to waive their right to an appeal is not enforceable in some cases. Justice Gorsuch cited this Bolts story on the practice in Virginia of prosecutors asking defendants to waive their Fourth Amendment rights.

The number of people who've been in ICE detention a year+ has grown **5-fold** since 2024. Orolua, in Allen Parish, has been detained 2+ years. Now, federal courts in Louisiana are flooded with habeas petitions asking judges for help. co-published @boltsmag.org thelensnola.org/2026/06/18/l...

Prosecutors in Cook County, Illinois, have often objected to issuing certificates of innocence, and compensation, to wrongfully convicted people. But a court just ordered these certificates to be granted automatically in some cases. (w/ Injustice Watch)

Bill Ferguson, the Democratic president of the Maryland Senate, angered some in his party this year by opposing a push to draw a new congressional map. His challenger in Tuesday’s primary has campaigned on the issue. Our June elections guide has more: