Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago spent nearly two months in ICE detention—despite having protection under DACA—until a federal judge ruled that the government had no reason to keep her in custody and ordered her release. DHS is still vowing to "explore every available option to remove" her. My latest:

Then they came for the Dreamers. Read @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social's heartbreaking look at the fear and chaos the Trump administration has wrought onto the lives of young people brought to the United States. "A real betrayal."

Some background on the absolute monarchy where the Trump administration is now paying to imprison people deported by ICE Story here: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Russ Vought's neighbors have strong feelings about him: "You asked what it is like living near such a man. Frankly, I'd rather not, but this is a wonderful neighborhood and, unlike Mr. Vought himself, we do not want our neighbors (even Mr. Vought) to be traumatized. So we just live with it."

@isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social wrote what remains the definitive profile of Russel Vought last year. He's going to try and use the shut down to further his dream of an imperial Christian presidency and "traumatizing" federal workers www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

It's the last day of our September fundraiser! Please consider supporting our non-profit newsroom as we double down on fearless reporting—just as corporate media caves to Donald Trump. Your donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Thank you so much!

"It’s a blueprint for authoritarianism wrapped in barbed wire and dressed up as local revival.” ICE has its eyes on an idle Core Civic-owned prison in Walsenburg. Local officials have welcomed the potential influx of money and jobs. But residents are pushing back. My latest for @motherjones.com:

In another loss in the courts for Trump, a federal judge just blocked the administration from revoking legal status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States. Judge Chen ruled that the termination of TPS exceeded the DHS Secretary’s authority and violated the law.

Today, DHS announced the termination of the 2021 TPS designation for Venezuela, adding to the largest de-legalization push in modern US history: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“They’re going to kill me here,” Neri Alvarado thought. Alvarado was allegedly targeted by the Trump administration because of his tattoo of an autism awareness ribbon. Now, free from El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, Alvarado wants the world to know what they lived through.

Proud to announce that we’ve been nominated for six Online Journalism Awards, including General Excellence in Journalism! Here's a thread of some of our amazing stories that've been recognized this year. 🧵

“There’s no family here, there are no lawyers here, nobody exists here.” For four months, Neri Alvarado, Julio Zambrano, and so many others wondered if they were ever going to leave CECOT alive. Now, they want to clear their names and justice for what they had to endure. With @nlanard.bsky.social:

“You enter legally, and suddenly, because of someone else’s whim, you’re illegal. It doesn’t make sense.” I wrote about the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan TPS holders losing legal status overnight as a result of the Trump administration's mass deportation push.

"The female guards would count to 20 as they administered the beatings, and if the prisoners complained or cried out, they would start again...Tito Martínez, one of the inmates, recalled that a prison nurse was watching. 'Hit the piñata,' she cheered."

Late last night, Julio Zambrano's sister sent me this photo of him home with his mother in Venezuela.

Today, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate a legal representation program for detained immigrants with mental health issues who are deemed unfit to represent themselves in court. I wrote about how critical this government-appointed counsel service is here:

Maria Quevedo, the mother of Eddie Adolfo Hurtado Quevedo, told us she was feeling relieved but still scared. “Happy because God gave me the gift of seeing my son free on my birthday. Scared because my son is going to Venezuela, where he was threatened by the [paramilitary group] colectivos.”

"The bitterness is still there. The anger about what happened to him is still there.” After four months, more than 200 men sent to El Salvador have been released from CECOT and returned to Venezuela. @nlanard.bsky.social and I spoke with family members and friends waiting to be reunited with them.

NEW: Story from @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social and me based on interviews with families of the men returned to Venezuela tonight after Trump disappeared them to El Salvador in March. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Earlier today, the mother of Julio Zambrano, one of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT, was told to go to Caracas for some "good news." She's at the airport in anticipation of her son's arrival after four long months. @nlanard.bsky.social and I are in touch with other families as they wait for more news.

“It was a perfect storm.” In Milford, MA, a town where 30 percent of the population is foreign-born, the arrest of 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes da Silva set off a chain reaction unlike anything the community had seen before. My latest for @motherjones.com:

$100 billion in new ICE funding is about to get unleashed thanks to this bill. Come process that crushing figure with me.

To mark the 3-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, I published a guide on all the ways doctors, nonprofits, pilots, and ordinary people are helping people from banned states access reproductive healthcare. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Humanitarian parole is over. Now comes the fear. "This order gives ICE a green light to grab these immigrants and deport them to the hell they escaped from in a legal way.”

NEW: Frizgeralth de Jesús Cornejo Pulgar was among the 238 Venezuelans removed to El Salvador without due process in mid-March. He has no criminal history or a final order of deportation. On Friday, a US immigration judge terminated his asylum case, effectively ejecting him from the legal system.

NEW: We obtained DHS data that shows the US knew only 32 of the 238 Venezuelans deported to a prison in El Salvador in March were convicted of US crimes, only 6 of those violent. Trump called them “savages,” “monsters” and "the worst of the worst.” www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Asked about the ethics of Donald Trump Jr and other family members using the Trump presidency to enrich themselves, a DJT Jr. adviser said: "We don’t actually give a fuck.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“This is not about sending this man or a group of men to another country because of their criminal backgrounds...This is about the executive branch violating fundamental due process and constitutionally protected rights and breaking the law.”

Sarah Ortiz has spent years trying to prove that her ex used her personal information to rack up $45,926 of debt in her name without her knowledge. Unfortunately, Sarah's story isn't new. Scores of women across the country are victims of coerced debt—and it's ridiculously hard to crack down on.

Ahead of SCOTUS hearing on Trump's executive order attacking birthright citizenship, here are a few articles I've written that help understand how we got here—and where we could be headed. The conservative effort to undermine birthright citizenship has been a long time in the making:

I wrote about the rise and fall of Steward Health Care—fueled by a private equity firm, a real estate trust, & multimillionaire executives. The saga is a stunning indictment of what happens when financiers try to squeeze huge returns from the places that save people's lives. /1 shorturl.at/TcvV7

"No trial can be fair that leaves a person with mental illness alone before a court." A counsel-appointed program for detained immigrants with mental health needs and cognitive disabilities has been gutted. Providers say people will languish in detention and be deported without a fighting chance.

NEW: A DOJ notice encouraging immigrants to "self-deport' is being posted in immigration courts across the country and sent to lawyers, including when their clients have won asylum. Attorneys say the notice is misleading and a "scare tactic" that could lead to people skipping proceedings.

The unitary executive theory is animating all of Trump's legal moves, becoming a catch-all defense for the idea that Trump is basically a king. Fittingly, the idea of an unaccountable president started with Nixon. But unlike in 1974, the Supreme Court is on board. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“I can’t remember a situation that was this urgent or extraordinary," ACLU's Lee Gelernt told @nlanard.bsky.social and I, "where we were worried that every minute we delayed filing something could mean that our clients would end up permanently in a brutal foreign prison for the rest of their lives.”

I was able to talk about the danger to one of our clients at @unlvimmigration.bsky.social (co-counsel with @aclunv.bsky.social), and the absurdity of giving someone just 24 hour warning that he might be sent to a foreign prison, never to return. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

a big new story from @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social + @nlanard.bsky.social: A Mother Jones investigation based on firsthand accounts from ICE detainees reveals how Venezuelans were nearly removed from the country under the Alien Enemies Act without due process www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“I felt this kind of fear, like something was telling me we weren’t going to Venezuela at all. Because the cops, when they had us here, they kept laughing a lot." @nlanard.bsky.social and I interviewed six Venezuelans who were nearly removed from Bluebonnet—presumably to El Salvador—on April 18.

Latest with @nlanard.bsky.social: We spoke with relatives of Omar Cárdenas, one of the Venezuelans at the Bluebonnet detention center in Texas who could be removed under the Alien Enemies Act any day now. "He is not a criminal, as he is being portrayed. He is completely and utterly innocent.”

It's official: The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case deciding whether or not Trump can end birthright citizenship in the US. @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social has covered the president's plan to rip apart the 14th amendment at length in the link below:

Honored to receive this month's Sidney Award with @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social. As we continue to report on this, please reach out via email or Signal (link in story below) if there are things you think we should be covering.

"In some instances, these individuals suffered a fate I would have thought impossible in the twenty-first-century United States: they were left to be fed on by insects and rodents." Another astonishing feat of reporting by Sarah Stillman. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Expulsions based on tattoos, and students targeted for supporting Gaza: Trump’s immigration actions are raising eyebrows and constitutional questions. On this week's Reveal, we dive into Trump's deportation black hole.

1/ Julio Zambrano Perez, an asylum seeker, is one of the Venezuelans the Trump administration sent to El Salvador. His wife Luz says their older daughter asks about him every day. She wonders if her father doesn't love her anymore. For now, Luz tells her he’s at work but that he’ll come back.

Fellowship applications are OPEN!! Come work with me on our incredible fact-checking ressearch team 😎 motherjones.com/careers/fellowships/

"The designation of tattoos as a gang identifier presumably stems from the practice of Central American gangs to indicate membership with tattoos, but our research suggests that Tren de Aragua, and Venezuelan gangs more generally, do not have a history of doing so." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/o...

This week's Nieman Storyboard newsletter, featuring stories from @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social, @nlanard.bsky.social, @mckenziefunk.com, @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social, @silviafosterfrau.bsky.social, and more. niemanstoryboard.org/2025/04/04/v... #longreads #reporting

A friend of Neri Alvarado, the young Venezuelan man with an autism awareness tattoo sent to El Salvador, shared this video from members of the swim club where he worked with neurodiverse children. More about Neri from @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social and I here: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Grateful for the opportunity last night to talk about this reporting by me and @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social If you have information about Venezuelans sent to El Salvador, or at risk of being sent there, our info on Signal is linked here: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...