NEW: ICE has torn up its $180M cap on a proposed immigrant-tracking program and is now guaranteeing private surveillance firms at least $7.5M each, with potential payouts reaching $281M per vendor. The change signals a shift from “pilot” to full-scale outsourcing of street-level investigative work.

“We’re broken and we’re being poached by ICE,” one official with the prison workers union told ProPublica. “It’s unbelievable. People are leaving in droves.” New story from @keribla.bsky.social www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

We at @propublica.org looked into the immigration raid that happened in Chicago's South Shore in late September. We found many of the Venezuelans detained in that raid, looked into them, and spoke to several of them.

There’s one news story that affects everyone on Earth.

Six months ago, the DOJ cancelled millions in federal grants to safety initiatives in the US. Things like school violence programs, resources for DV victims, hate crime prevention. Many groups are still reeling. Like so much, the news moves on, but the effects last. www.npr.org/2025/11/10/n...

DHS confirmed it has stopped automatically storing officials' text messages. Instead, officials are supposed to take a screenshot, send that to their work email, download it onto their work computer and run a text-recognition program on it. Every time. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...

I think this take on the sandwich guy trial is correct. our system is built assuming that prosecutors will show appropriate restraint. the sandwich guy case went on for way too long and that in and if itself should be raising alarm bells www.lawfaremedia.org/article/sand...

Incredible reporting by @meganders.bsky.social. Diversion programs like these help address the underlying issues that lead to someone's arrest, allowing people to move forward and end costly cycles of arrest and incarceration.

Getting new details on this now: As the arrest unfolded, teachers pleaded with the agents telling them the teacher had a work permit. The agents went into multiple rooms looking for teachers while children were present. One teacher hid with a child in her care while the agents stormed the facility.

I spent time recently in LA, with a public defense team dedicated to helping people with cognitive impairments like traumatic brain injuries or intellectual disabilities. It's built on the idea that prison is not always the answer for people with these conditions. www.npr.org/2025/11/01/n...

The Trump administration has claimed that it needs to send the military into American cities because of the unique danger faced by federal agents enforcing immigration laws. But a Mother Jones review shows that there is little evidence that ICE agents face such severe and widespread danger.

news from the network: npr founding mother susan stamberg has died, aged 87

BREAKING from PP We found immigration agents have held more than 170 *citizens* The govt doesn't track citizens held. So we did. We tallied: Nearly 20 kids, two w/ cancer More than 20 citizens held for day or more, incommunicado www.propublica.org/article/immi... by @nicolefoy.bsky.social

The school shooting industry is worth billions and growing fast. I took at look at what's for sale, what experts say about these products, and the psychology behind the industry. For the Indicator from @planetmoney.bsky.social @npr.org www.npr.org/2025/10/15/n...

here’s more context to the videos DHS is putting out from Chicago.

"Why I'm handing in my Pentagon press pass" by Tom Bowman of NPR. www.npr.org/2025/10/14/g... Recommended. A thing frequently forgotten or ignored is that journalism is one of the few professions people will die for. [Via @brianstelter.bsky.social ]

A Statement from NPR’s Editor in Chief on the Pentagon’s Press Policy. Read More: www.npr.org/2025/10/13/g...

Late last month, a local CBS reporter said a masked ICE agent fired a pepper ball at her car, causing her to vomit for hours. The reporter, Asal Rezaei, said there was no protest happening at the time. Police are now investigating. www.npr.org/2025/10/13/n...

Solidarity is the only way

"These are just the tip of the iceberg ... People being tackled, people getting pepper sprayed or tear gassed. We've seen people getting threatened. And we've seen at least two incidents involving gunfire." www.npr.org/2025/10/13/n...

You. Are. Allowed. To. Insult. The. Police. It’s a core First Amendment principle. This is utterly lawless behavior, for which there will be no (short-term) consequences. That he does it so casually, as they are walking away, in front of cameras. Rightly confident in his impunity.

Federal officer blasts chemical spray into vocal but nonviolent Portland protester, video shows The interaction illustrates how federal law enforcement officers do use aggressive tactics against protesters who yell and needle officers but don’t appear to present clear physical threats.

“Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth considered sending an elite U.S. Army strike force to Portland, Ore., to quell protests that President Donald Trump has characterized as ‘lawless mayhem,’ according to images of messages provided to the Minnesota Star Tribune.”

Why *almost* every door? What made the difference? Hardware, reportedly.

Tiny public radio station KUCB in Unalaska basks in love from afar. It and 13 other small public radio stations in Alaska finally catch a break. alaskapublic.org/news/politic...

@archive.org preserved the original study, which you can find here. web.archive.org/web/20250911...

The Department of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States. 🔗 www.404media.co/doj-deletes-...

Honestly, this is the best and most succinct explanation so far of what we know (and don't!) about the motives of the Kirk shooter.

"Could I anticipate all what-ifs? Can I consider the worst case scenarios to get it to the level of my company protecting a sitting United States president? Absolutely ... But who would bear the cost?" www.npr.org/2025/09/11/n...

This story published yesterday. I wrote that the shooting in Minneapolis two weeks ago was the latest school shooting. It is no longer the latest, after a shooting today in Colorado. www.npr.org/2025/09/08/n...

“‘I think it preys on people's worst fears,’ she says. ‘How do you say no to something if you're telling me it might save my kid's life? Of course I want that thing." She said trying to buy safety feels very American, just like school shootings.” 🧪🛟 @meganders.bsky.social

The effort to keep schools safe from mass shooters has ballooned into a multibillion dollar industry. Companies are selling school districts assurance with high-tech products.

School shootings are awful. School shootings are also VANISHINGLY rare. When I did the math back in 2018, we were averaging 3-5 deaths PER YEAR, in a school pop of ~55M. That’s ~0.005 per 100K.* Think of how we could be better spend those billions of dollars.

The school security industry is worth as much as $4 billion and projected to get bigger. www.npr.org/2025/09/08/n...

She was brought to the US as an 8yo, worked hard, studied, earned a scholarship, planned to become a nurse. ICE kidnapped her. Held her for 6 MONTHS in a detention facility with conditions so miserable that she finally agreed to voluntarily move to Honduras, which her family left at gunpoint.

“residents said radios here were constantly tuned to KUCB, which brings them local news and emergency alerts as well as City Council meetings, high school basketball games and public health programs on topics ranging from the seasonal flu to suicide prevention.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

this picture of a mom shoes off sprinting to the Mpls school: www.startribune.com/minneapolis-... By Richard Tsong-Taatarii for @startribune.com, which should be a go-to source for anyone following

Kristen Painter, business editor for the Minnesota Star Tribune, has a second-grade daughter and a preschool son who attend the school. “It sounds so cliché, but it’s your worst nightmare,” she said.

Huge law enforcement presence outside Annunciation. Some students in green shirts being led out by parents, all looking a little shell shocked, some on the verge of tears.

Great Code Switch episode on the situation in DC, criminalizing homelessness, and what it means to make police the response to our big social problems (hint: it's not super effective). www.npr.org/2025/08/20/n...

Former National Guard Vice Chief Major General Randy E. Manner says deploying the Guard to D.C. will ruin how the average American views the military.

I reported on this in the BOP in 2022. Vulnerable people, many of whom were elderly and could have been released safely, were kept in prison even though they were at risk of dying. Really important work from @themarshallproject.org showing just how many people died. www.npr.org/2022/03/07/1...

People in prison died at 3.4 times the rate of the free population, with the oldest hit hardest, at the peak of the pandemic in 2020. Data holds lessons for preventing future deaths. Read our analysis ⬇️

We asked people who experienced "sweeps" of homeless encampments to write about it in their own words. In Portland, Teresa Stratton told us about how her husband’s ashes were taken in a removal:

This could end up very badly given what we know of Rules on Use of Force (RUF) for Guard in DC. And very different training regimens compared to local police. Wall Street Journal reporting: "National Guard troops deployed to Washington, D.C. are preparing to carry weapons in the coming days."

ICE says that it currently detains 57,000 people – but the truth is that there are at least 26,000 MORE people detained for immigration reasons hidden off the agency's books:

"It's hard not to feel intimidated. And it also made me think a lot about what real safety means and whether it comes from trust or from force and fear." The words of a 16-year-old boy I spoke to in Southeast DC on his reaction to the federal police takeover. www.npr.org/2025/08/16/n...

What happened before Judge Reyes in DC's lawsuit against the Trump administration? tl;dr: DOJ's Roth — a senior Civil Division political appointee — essentially agreed Bondi went too far with Thursday's order, both by putting DEA's Cole in charge and by purporting to rescind & suspend MPD policies.

Residents across Washington have different takes on crime in their communities. Overwhelmingly, however, people opposed President Trump's takeover of the city with federal agents and National Guard troops.

When Trump announced his law enforcement actions in D.C., he also singled out a slew of other Democratic cities. The mayors of Baltimore, LA, Oakland, Chicago and New York say crime is down.