I had been complaining last week about the lack of artists meeting the moment with popular protest songs. This is a lovely tribute. I hope to expect more like it.

Great news. Now, will we continue to let Border Patrol, the largest and most violent LE entity in the country go back to terrorizing asylum seekers at the border and holding them in unregistered incommunicado detention without due process?

Great news. Now, will we continue to let Border Patrol, the largest and most violent LE entity in the country go back to terrorizing asylum seekers at the border and holding them in unregistered incommunicado detention without due process?

ICE's decision to just leave cars abandoned in the roads is one of those dystopian things that makes you recoil in shock when you encounter it.

“[Liam] keeps asking about that hat and that backpack that are in the picture,” the congressman said. “I think they took that from him.” www.cnn.com/2026/01/28/u...

What Congress reining in ICE and CBP would actually look like: www.pogo.org/analyses/the...

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents border patrol officers at the National Border Patrol Council, calls on Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller to resign or be fired

This morning, I recorded a video on TikTok about why DHS’s arguments for the power to enter homes without judicial warrants in immigration cases are bunk. Nine hours later, TikTok still says my video is “under review,” and can’t be shared. Well, here’s a link: georgetown.box.com/v/Vladeck-IC...

On NPR on Friday, there was a story of a 4-year-old--an American citizen--who hasn't left her house since early December, not even to play in the yard. And her 8-year-old brother recently stopped going to school, too. Their father is undocumented, and the family doesn't want to risk him being taken.

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

If you’re not following Melissa del Bosque, make a change. She is a veteran journalist with years of experience reporting on border issues.

Say it with me, “It was Border Patrol.” BP has long been a paramilitary force, the largest LE agency in the country, that routinely lassoes, beats, and abuses people at the border. They’ve been unleashed recently in cities. Make sure you talk at least as much about BP as you do about ICE.

Was wondering if Bellingcat would be publishing anything. They are one of the, if not the, preeminent orgs that investigate human rights violations with publicly available information. I recommend following them.

Say it with me, “It was Border Patrol.” BP has long been a paramilitary force, the largest LE agency in the country, that routinely lassoes, beats, and abuses people at the border. They’ve been unleashed recently in cities. Make sure you talk at least as much about BP as you do about ICE.

I don’t expect this to break through to the masses, but I keep seeing journalists and news commentators on this platform mislabel CBP and BP as ICE, and I would like to expect better reporting, especially as a long-term border resident.

BP is the largest law enforcement agency in the country. They are notoriously violent and have long been called a paramilitary force. People in cities are not used to their terror and keep mistaking them for ICE. Don’t forget to call them out. They’ve been terrorizing the border for much longer.

Urging folks to pay attention to the actual agency of the officers involved. CBP and BP in particular have been involved in much of the most violent actions we’ve seen. It’s not just ICE. Border officials have long been paramilitary actors. It’s just that they’re now unleashed on cities.

You did not bear the shame. You resisted. You bestowed the eternally vigilant symbol of change by sacrificing your impassioned lives for freedom, justice and honour. — The German Resistance Memorial in Berlin

Yes, but the people in this post are Border Patrol. You can’t talk about ICE abuse without talking about abuses by the notoriously more violent Border Patrol. They have been u leashing terror on border communities for over a century. Don’t fail to address the largest and most violent group involved.

Last time, I nearly got hit by a train in Harlingen because all power was out, including railroad safety barriers and lights on the train. I felt the whoosh from the train rock my car as I crossed and the train barely missed me. When TX is in trouble, Cruz takes a vacay.

And CBP. Much of what is happening is the work of Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection officers. Their infusion has brought abuses we typically see at the border to cities. If folks don’t like it, make sure you’re not limiting your advocacy to only ICE funding.

This is 100% FALSE. Immigration judges do NOT play any role in issuing administrative warrants. They are generated and signed by ICE officers themselves. ICE’s own training materials say they can’t be used for a search of a home! Here’s a blank warrant form. Note who signs it.

Minnesota: "School officials say the [5-year-old] child was used as bait. They say [ICE] agents made little Liam knock on the door to ask to be let in in order to see if anyone else was home."

My point is that you can’t only talk about reforming/abolishing/[insert policy] ICE if you want these abuses to stop. It’s DHS generally, ICE and CBP specifically, and CBP especially.

This thread is a great example of why it’s important for people to realize that Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, are responsible for both a lot of the changes in tactics but also a lot of the personnel who are present. These guys look to all be with CBP, not ICE.

This thread is a great example of why it’s important for people to realize that Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, are responsible for both a lot of the changes in tactics but also a lot of the personnel who are present. These guys look to all be with CBP, not ICE.

IU running ads touting scientific research by a diverse student body. Well. Isn’t that lovely.

Headline from Canada’s paper of record:

This is the kind of shit that would make you completely outside the bounds of any ancient society, the gods bestow generational curses for violating hospitality

This is like a satanic parody of the best moments of Reconstruction, which saw the DOJ using federal power to break up white supremacist conspiracies against civil rights. Here, white supremacists in the DOJ are using conspiracy law to attack civil rights.

Hi, it’s me again, reminding you that enforced disappearance is a long-established tactic of BP and, increasingly, ICE. If your loved one has been disappeared by the gov (no information about their fate or whereabouts), I urge you to report it to the UN immediately: www.ohchr.org/en/special-p...

If you, your family, tribe, NGO, or community would like a training on what is enforced disappearance and how to report it, send me a DM. I have published two articles on enforced disappearances of migrants in the US in the past year and interact regularly with the UN WGEID.

The Insurrection Act is not "martial law." It doesn't displace civilian law, it doesn't suspend habeas corpus, it doesn't alter or suspend state and local government, and it doesn't make anything newly illegal. It allows using the military to enforce existing law, it doesn't change what the law is.

Hats off to Pritzker for acknowledging CBP’s role. In my experience, most bad things that ICE does by come from practices established CBP & perpetrated against people at the border first. If we want to stop abuse by ICE, we can’t continue to permit abuse by border agents & against border communities

Hi, it’s me again, reminding you that enforced disappearance is a long-established tactic of BP and, increasingly, ICE. If your loved one has been disappeared by the gov (no information about their fate or whereabouts), I urge you to report it to the UN immediately: www.ohchr.org/en/special-p...

Always was. The Border Patrol Has Been a Cult of Brutality Since 1924 theintercept.com/2019/01/12/b...

And CBP. So much of what we’re seeing is the Border Patrol-ification of ICE. If you focus solely on ICE without addressing CBP, we’re right back to where we started. This is the perennial problem with people thinking it’s okay to strip rights at the border in hopes that it saves immigrants in cities

Congressman Ted Lieu, a former Air Force veteran, issued a stark warning to U.S. military members, that military action against Greenland without explicit congressional authorization would constitute following illegal orders. He reminded service members they swear an oath to the Constitution, not 🤡…

Need a documentary recommendation on this, stat.

It is my hope that the US public learns more about the importance of int’l law by seeing all the ways the US violates int’l law and that the public decides to elect lawmakers who will sign, ratify, and implement int’l human rights protections in the future.

We also have a compliance problem. The Us notoriously does not ratify human rights treaties, which both limits domestic remedies and also involvement of UN monitoring mechanism.

We may very well see other states taking action against the US over its many egregious violations of international law soon. This is the price the US seems to be willing to pay for their violations.

Hearing a lot of bad takes that int’l law isn’t real just b/c the US routinely violates it. In law school, my int’l professor put it this way: if a state violates int’l law, that doesn’t mean the law isn’t real; it means they are willing to pay the consequences.

There you have it; the Trump admin allows ICE lawyer James Rodden to stay on the job. His personal social media account praised Hitler, supported white nationalism, and said that America started going downhill the day that Lincoln was elected.

Hearing a lot of bad takes that int’l law isn’t real just b/c the US routinely violates it. In law school, my int’l professor put it this way: if a state violates int’l law, that doesn’t mean the law isn’t real; it means they are willing to pay the consequences.

It would take a two-word amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to subject ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers to the same liability for constitutional violations that local and state officers currently face. If Congress actually cared about what it's seeing, it could pass that overnight.

Everything is bad, but as a Hoosier, few things have brought me more joy than seeing this smile on Cignetti’s face:

We cannot keep denigrating the rights of one group, justifying worse and worse abuse for them, and expect to not pay the consequences ourselves eventually. Hurting asylum seekers at the border does not protect immigrants or citizens in cities. We have to understand the problem if we hope to fix it.

If we want to understand why this is happening, we have to reckon with the fact that stripping asylum seekers at the border of protection over and over while beefing up Border Patrol, who operates in largely remote areas, has not been a good deal for protecting immigrants in cities.