People who are victims of scattershot projectiles are often granted asylum by US immigration and justice agencies. What does it say that our immigration agencies are buying them for domestic use?: theintercept.com/2026/04/03/l...

People who are victims of scattershot projectiles are often granted asylum by US immigration and justice agencies. What does it say that our immigration agencies are buying them for domestic use?: theintercept.com/2026/04/03/l...

Emily Ryo, on of the foremost scholars on immigrant detention in the US, is speaking at the University of Arizona this Friday. She’ll be discussing research on transfers between ICE facilities. There is a Zoom conferencing option. If interested in attending via Zoom, send me a DM.

Emily Ryo, on of the foremost scholars on immigrant detention in the US, is speaking at the University of Arizona this Friday. She’ll be discussing research on transfers between ICE facilities. There is a Zoom conferencing option. If interested in attending via Zoom, send me a DM.

Roberto Velasco, subsecretario para América del Norte de la SRE, informó que 13 mexicanos han muerto durante operativos migratorios o bajo la custodia de ICE en EU. Las defunciones han ocurrido en estados como Texas, California, Arizona y Georgia.

Sam Alito and other anti-immigrant talking heads love to compare the concept of the nation state to a house. But a child can explain to you how “house” doesn’t mean “country.” These are fundamentally different things.

Okay, let me see how much I can explain before I get an aneurysm. Whether or not the facilities in Europe are nicer, there are other key differences in the US system that make this kind of analogous detention uniquely problematic.

I can think of no message that comports with ideals of human rights that Democrats like to think they are associated with that would make this photo make sense.

Remember when his Sieg Heil was just a gesture of heartfelt joy?

This facility was opened by Obama. I say that not to downplay what’s happening now but to emphasize that family detention was horrific from the moment it began.

I don't know what exactly caused Liam's asylum case to get dismissed, but this is going to be happening way more often (and it won't be in the news). Two recent BIA Decisions give Immigration Judges authority to dismiss an asylum claim before trial for especially trivial reasons. 🧵

It’s here! @unlawfulentries.bsky.social

Sinners was better.

This is easily the hottest thing I’ve read on Bsky today:

The Trump admin AGAIN claims that it's an "emergency" that they can't immediately strip 350,000 people (most who entered legally and have never undocumented) of their ability to legally remain in the United States, even though conditions in Haiti have only been getting worse.

The lesson from every community that's won: the government counts on silence. The moment a deal becomes public, it becomes vulnerable. @BaltimoreBanner @stateline_news @WashingtonPost and austinkocher.substack.com

To date, at least 9 warehouse deals have been canceled due to local community opposition in Utah, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Virginia, Mississippi, and more. Communities that spoke up early, organized fast, and pressured property owners have stopped facilities from opening.

The only reason any of this is visible? Public records sleuths. Project Salt Box was first to report DHS had purchased the Hagerstown warehouse, by reading property deeds filed in Washington County. Everything they publish comes from public documents.

In Merrimack, NH, town manager said: "Most of the information we have received on this facility has been through news leaks & government has not reached out to us yet." State's historic preservation office didn't even tell the governor, its top official resigned under pressure

In rural Berks County, PA, a commissioner called the DA, sheriff, jail warden, and emergency services after hearing ICE might be coming. No one knew anything. Days later, land records showed ICE had already bought the building for $87.4M. “There was absolutely no warning.”

In Socorro, TX a town of 40,000 outside El Paso a deed was filed showing DHS had already inked a $122.8M deal for 826,000 sq ft of warehouse space before the mayor received any communication. "Nobody from the federal government bothered to pick up the phone," the mayor said.

ICE has a playbook for buying warehouse detention centers: move fast, tell nobody, and let communities find out from property records or news leaks. It's happened in at least 20 towns across the country. A thread. 🧵

A contrived “people” without a geography to justify it wants a homeland <—- that’s as dangerous as it gets.

We need enforced disappearance legislation at state and federal levels to criminalize enforced disappearance, prevent officials from taking removal actions against an individual while they are held in incommunicado and unregistered detention, and to ensure remedies for victims and survivors.

Sigh. Transferring people and not timely updating the ICE detainee locator or telling family or lawyers where they are has long been a tactic of enforced disappearance used by DHS to hinder the filing of habeas petitions to defend rights. This is just one recent example: apple.news/AhOtuCu2FTby...

Sigh. Transferring people and not timely updating the ICE detainee locator or telling family or lawyers where they are has long been a tactic of enforced disappearance used by DHS to hinder the filing of habeas petitions to defend rights. This is just one recent example: apple.news/AhOtuCu2FTby...

Correction. Orwell never said this. He did however, warn that: "political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” (That's Politics and the English Language, one of my favorite essays)

Exactly. What we are seeing now is what I call the Border Patrolification of ICE. Voting over the decades to send more militarization and harsher processes for asylum seekers at the border at the expense for protections for people in the interior was a Faustian gamble that hasn’t paid off.

Excited to listen later! (Still holding out for an episode on Sale v. Haitian Centers Council)

Exactly. What we are seeing now is what I call the Border Patrolification of ICE. Voting over the decades to send more militarization and harsher processes for asylum seekers at the border at the expense for protections for people in the interior was a Faustian gamble that hasn’t paid off.

We are proud to announce the launch of our universal representation pilot program to provide free, merits-blind legal representation to people in immigration detention facing deportation, regardless of their demographics or legal claims.

🇺🇸📹 El congresista demócrata Al Green fue expulsado tras mostrar un cartel que decía: “Los negros no son monos”, en referencia al video que publicó Donald Trump, donde se refería al matrimonio de Barack y Michelle Obama como “monos” dozz.es/sc72q62

I’ve spoken to too many lawyers whose clients were murdered upon deportation after they lost the will to keep fighting their case from detention. It has been this way for decades. Detention is meant to break people into giving up, even at the ultimate cost. The system works as it was designed to.

The City of Tucson is considering regulations on large-scale data centers. The first draft is bad. We need mayor and council to redirect staff to write regulations that make it impossible to build large-scale data centers in our community. Here's more info and how you can help.

It has been two days since Professor Ilan Wurman acknowledged that there is an inaccurate statement in the brief that submitted to the Supreme Court in the birthright citizenship case. To my knowledge, he has no plans to amend the brief. This is a problem to which I will continue to draw attention.

I would argue that operations at the border have always been more militaristic. Border Patrol facilities forbid visitors, there’s no registration system, and phone access is almost non-existent. USMC ships in the Caribbean are even more remote.

In the concentration camp universe, this is what's known as a filtration camp. A government preemptively takes a whole class of people to interrogate and detain extrajudicially in order to inflict duress on them while arbitrarily assessing their (supposed) culpability.

Gov refusal to disclose detainee locations would be enforced disappearance: “‘The state cannot prevent the public from knowing where they are keeping deportees who are not even citizens,’ said Mr. Fru, the lawyer supporting the deportees. ‘That goes to the whole idea of shady deals in the dark.’”

The current person in charge of ICE's procurement for detention is a GEO Group executive who ran the company's immigration detention portfolio. He was granted an "ethics waiver" from DHS allowing him to hand out contracts to GEO in his new role.

A real headline that should frighten everyone in the US: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Really proud of New Mexico! www.koat.com/article/immi...

Incredible. Share the good news far and wide.

Also gotta drop a sneak preview of a paper I’m finalizing, for a symposium as we speak covering this very subject. (Gonna try and capsule it in the alt text because there’s way too much here for bluesky’s interface, alas) Also see prior iteration here: gowder.io/decay.pdf

THIS. Every time bozos in the interior voted to give more weapons to the largest LE agency in the country terrorize people at the border and hold them in incommunicado detention in exchange for less enforcement in the interior, we only made today’s nightmare more possible.

THIS. Every time bozos in the interior voted to give more weapons to the largest LE agency in the country terrorize people at the border and hold them in incommunicado detention in exchange for less enforcement in the interior, we only made today’s nightmare more possible.

Masks, no uniform, missing license plates, delays/failure to register detention, no phone calls: these all contribute to enforced disappearance. If your loved one is taken by Gov agents, the detention isn’t registered, and they can’t contact anyone, report it to the UN: www.ohchr.org/en/special-p...

Masks, no uniform, missing license plates, delays/failure to register detention, no phone calls: these all contribute to enforced disappearance. If your loved one is taken by Gov agents, the detention isn’t registered, and they can’t contact anyone, report it to the UN: www.ohchr.org/en/special-p...

Sports are political. Deal with it.

Elizabeth is a Columbia Heights fourth-grader who loves volleyball, learning English and giggling in the halls with her friends. She's been held in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and she and her mom have both fallen ill. sahanjournal.com/education/co...