I study the immigration enforcement system. Geographer. Prof. in @NewhouseSU at @SyracuseU & Fellow at @Immigration_Lab/@AU_CLALS.
Baltimore, MD
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The US government collected over $1 billion in immigration fees then refused to process the applications. No denials. No refunds. Just silence. This is the largest fee fraud in the history of the American immigration system. Here's what's happening. 🧵
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“I’ve never seen anything like this in my more than 20 years in Congress.”
—George Santos
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ICE attorney Boyd resigned from ICE, saying he ultimately felt he "had to make a moral decision" to leave after watching ICE's priorities change under political pressure. "It became a contest of how many deportations could be reported to Stephen Miller.
newsweek.com/ice-employee-qu…
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“Relax it’s not like they’re going to start snatching literal US citizens off the streets and holding them without charges.”
A US-born citizen was walking near Chicago in January. ICE snatched him off the street, handcuffed him, threw into a van. His wallet, which held his ID, was confiscated. He was detained for 10 hours before being released without a record of what occurred.
immigrantjustice.org/sites/d…
![A screenshot from a court filing reads, in part:
"Julio Noriega is 54 years old, was born in Chicago, and is a U.S. citizen.
On January 31, 2025, he was walking [...] in Berwyn, Illinois, handing out his resume to local businesses.
As he walked out of a Jiffy Lube, he was approached by ICE officers who grabbed and handcuffed him and put him into a van, without an opportunity to explain his citizenship.
The officers drove Julio and others around for more than an hour before bringing him to an ICE processing center, where he remained, still handcuffed, for several more hours.
All the while, Julio had a wallet containing identification that ICE had confiscated.
The officers never showed Julio a warrant, and they did not ask him any questions to ascertain whether he was a noncitizen or a flight risk.
After about 10 hours, ICE officers reviewed the contents of Julio’s wallet, realized he was a U.S. citizen, and released him with no money and no paperwork."](/pic/orig/media%2FGmRmNDtbYAA_hoR.png)
ALT A screenshot from a court filing reads, in part: "Julio Noriega is 54 years old, was born in Chicago, and is a U.S. citizen. On January 31, 2025, he was walking [...] in Berwyn, Illinois, handing out his resume to local businesses. As he walked out of a Jiffy Lube, he was approached by ICE officers who grabbed and handcuffed him and put him into a van, without an opportunity to explain his citizenship. The officers drove Julio and others around for more than an hour before bringing him to an ICE processing center, where he remained, still handcuffed, for several more hours. All the while, Julio had a wallet containing identification that ICE had confiscated. The officers never showed Julio a warrant, and they did not ask him any questions to ascertain whether he was a noncitizen or a flight risk. After about 10 hours, ICE officers reviewed the contents of Julio’s wallet, realized he was a U.S. citizen, and released him with no money and no paperwork."
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This man is getting paid to design self-driving cars and put rockets into space, and he can’t get a single thing about immigration even close to factually correct. Undocumented people can’t vote, they don’t vote, and even if they did, many of them would be Republicans.
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Incredible. I just had a convo at a bar with someone in government who said that the Musk Memo asking people to resign was followed by an FAQ doc in MS Word with metadata intact that showed Project 2025 people actively involved in writing all of this. Incredible for stupidity.
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There may be no clearer materialization of the idea that globalization facilitates the flow of goods while limiting the flow of people than a (illegal) border wall constructed out of shipping containers.
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I feel strongly that it’s good practice to find something good in everyone, even people you dislike. So when I learned in an interview with @karaswisher that @elonmusk imposed Oxford comma use on Twitter employees, I finally found something I can honestly say he did right.
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This is literally the legal theory put forth by Nazi legal theorists to defend Hitler’s extrajudicial actions. This isn’t hyperbole or even alarmism. This is simply well-established historical fact. Like it or hate it, we have entered the domain of authoritarian politics.
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I’m impressed at how quickly all of the anti-vaccine experts became non-immigrant visa experts in the past 48 hours.
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Nothing has “begun“. The data is absolutely unequivocally clear: deportation flights have been going on for a long time, including under the last year of the Biden administration, and everyone on this deportation flight was arrested and detained by the Biden administration.
Deportation flights have begun.
President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences.
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Xenophobes: Why don't illegal immigrants just follow the law?
Me: Why don't you try explaining one single thing about immigration law and let's see if you can get literally anything remotely correct.
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24 hours from now President Trump is set to unleash a series of aggressive executive orders targeting immigration. Here are seven things he appears set to do (or attempt to do).
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We are really doing everything we can in the Global North not to talk about the fact that rising numbers of migrants and refugees is a consequence of several lifetimes of colonialism, uneven development, and nationalist restrictionism. We have the political memories of goldfish.
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I'm seriously thinking about leaving academia. After being in a non-TT position for nearly 5 years at this level of productivity & on the job market for 2 years now, the clock is running on how much longer I'm willing to do this. I love this work more than anything, but for real.
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An ICE attorney resigned from ICE, saying he ultimately felt he "had to make a moral decision" to leave after watching ICE's priorities change under political pressure. "It became a contest of how many deportations could be reported to Stephen Miller.
newsweek.com/ice-employee-qu…
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ICE has been posting daily statistics about arrests and detainers this week. The data might prove to be accurate with independent verification, but here’s why I’m skeptical.
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Stop what you're doing and read this heartbreaking infuriating, masterfully-researched article by @TomDreisbach on the brutal reality of immigrant detention. This is one of the best-cited articles I've ever read, and based on a trove of FOIA docs. @npr
npr.org/2023/08/16/119076761…
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I’ve been asked a few times recently, so let me say this simply: Republicans move immigration policy to the right, then Democrats normalize/systemitize those changes, laying the groundwork for Republicans to move the needle further to the right. 🔄 There is no leftward movement.
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It’s absolutely mind-boggling how many people in this country think that immigrants can just fill out paperwork and either “come legally” or “become a citizen.” It’s both so wrong and also such a product of intentional misinformation.
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I'm thrilled to announce that when I reached back out to the senior fact checker to raise substantive "factual, legal, and historical inaccuracies", the response was simply: "I understand that the author's perspective is controversial." So that's the @NewYorker now.
I hate to say this, but this piece is not up to the standards of the @NewYorker's generally v. good fact checking. For example, a claim that the Biden admin "exempted" families from Title 42 is pure fiction. It never happened. In reality, MEXICO refused certain family expulsions.
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It’s absolutely mind-boggling how many people in this country think that immigrants can just fill out paperwork and either “come legally” or “become a citizen.” It’s both so wrong and also such a product of intentional misinformation.
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Get ready, they are fully prepared to tell you with a straight face that concentration camps aren't concentration camps.
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The problem with this website when it comes to immigration isn’t that people disagree, it’s that most people don’t know enough about the immigration system to even understand whether they agree or disagree, much less formulate a critique.
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ICE stopped posting daily arrest and detainer data after just 7 days. Could it be because the data started contradicting their public story? Data started declining ... then they stopped posting it. Transparency is key to democracy. #showusthedata
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Immigrants shouldn't have to be exceptional to be valued. Immigrants should have the right to be as average as the rest of us and still not be targets of hatred and violence.
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Controversial opinion: coffee shops don’t open up early enough. If you sell coffee and you don’t open until 8:00 am, you may not understand what coffee is for.
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They literally published an entire game plan a year in advance and called it Project 2025. Well now it's 2025 and they're implementing the project. It's not "I told you so", it's "they told you so."
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"Springfield OH is a success story. The arrival of so many new people has reversed population decline and helped the city start a new chapter." 🎉
--> Immigrants are making Ohio great! Let’s talk about that.✅ @immcouncil @ReichlinMelnick @mehdirhasan
immigrationimpact.com/2024/0…
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The guy ahead of me in line was really rude to all of the service staff so after he paid and walked away, I realized he didn’t finish the tip screen, so I punched in a $10 tip on a $10 order. #BeTheChange
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Just a reminder, as the Laken Riley Act approaches its likely passage, Republicans almost entirely opposed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. So let’s not pretend that this is about protecting women.
newsweek.com/full-list-172-r…
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I am thrilled to announce that I am transitioning to an exciting & unique new role at Syracuse University where I will significantly expand my immigration research and work w/ the Institute for Democracy, Journalism, & Citizenship and the Center for Global Engagement. 🎉
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After a close reading of the Laken Riley Act this morning, chasing down the USC sections, and re-reading the details of the heinous Laken Riley murder, I have to say this: the Laken Riley Act has nothing whatsoever to do with Riley and will do nothing to make women safer.
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The City of Springfield (OH) posted a web page where the community can get basic *factual* information about immigrants in the area. A small but loud minority of people will still try to politicize this, so please share this resource widely.
springfieldohio.gov/immigrat…
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The Trump administration broadcasted information on social media about the deportation flights to El Salvador, then wants to claim IN COURT that all information is part of state secrets. The judge is not having it.
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Imagine needing a day off so bad you have to kill your spouse just to get an excused absence.
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DACA recipients have lived in limbo for years now even though both parties agree they deserve a path towards citizenship. We need to do better for immigrants who came to this country as children and know no other life and are part of the fabric of this country. Citizenship now.
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Looking for immigration data? 📊
As I've said before, I will post immigration data every morning right here between now and the election. But today I'm doing something a little extra. 👏🏼
Here are 10 immigration data sources you may not have heard about. Let's do this! 🧵
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The container wall along the US-Mexico border in Arizona, which was built at taxpayer's expense of about $100M, is now being removed (for possibly close to another $100M) after standing for barely a few months. I was there two weeks ago and this is what it looked like.
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If this is true, it exactly mirrors how the Trump campaign has worked for years, so frankly, hats off to the Kamala Harris campaign for catching up with the times.
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Anyone interested in immigration data?
I’ll be posting a TON of new government data on immigration enforcement, deportation, asylum, and more over the next weeks that no one has ever seen before.
Please follow here so you get the latest!
Thank you for years of support.
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I have been writing about this for FOUR YEARS now and warning of the possibility that a second Trump administration would inherent the largest digital dragnet the US has ever seen, created by the Biden administration. “I told you so” doesn’t even BEGIN to convey my frustration.
New:
Hours after Trump won, ICE asked companies to submit plans for how they’d expand ICE’s system of GPS trackers + databases surveilling “noncitizens” awaiting trial or deportation.
Gov contractors said ICE’s timing was probably not a coincidence:
wired.com/story/ice-surveill…
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Hope these assassinated immigrants get as much sympathy and attention as that CEO.
NYC: Two migrants were stabbed, one KILLED, in Lower Manhattan by a group of men who first asked if the migrants spoke English, police say.
The two victims were approached by the three suspects on John Street around 7:40 p.m.Thursday night .
A 17-year-old teen, Yeremi Colino, who lived at the Roosevelt Hotel, was stabbed in the chest and was pronounced dead. An 18-year-old man, who lives at the Stewart Hotel, was stabbed in the left arm by a screw driver.
Video by Dakota Santiago @FreedomNTV Desk@freedomnews.tv to license
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It never ceases to disappoint me how much of the immigration debate is obsessed with how to prevent people from moving and so little attention on how to build a better world that doesn’t harm people and displace people at such a massive rate. Perspective matters.
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Trump issued 10 executive orders directly related to immigration yesterday. I don't know about you, but my brain works better when I can sit down and read them carefully on paper. I cleaned up the EOs so that they are more structured + provided PDFs: drive.google.com/drive/folde…
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For the last time: The illegal / legal immigrant distinction is a manufactured crisis designed to mask deeper anxieties about white supremacy and generate support for nativist policies.
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ICE's latest data now includes hearing attendance by immigrants in ICE's alternatives to detention program. Not all are tracked yet, but the results so far are indisputable: immigrants attend court. They are not "disappearing" as some have suggested.
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Don't let them try to convince you that "America is full."
The United States is one of the least densely populated countries in the Global North and we accept one of the smallest per capita numbers of refugees in the world.
We have plenty of space for immigrants. Period.
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I am once again reminding you that neither “illegal” nor “undocumented” (as nouns) are categories in U.S. immigration law and asking people to simply define what they mean by one of those terms is the easiest way to figure out who actually knows what they are talking about.
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I understand that our country is divided in many ways, but let me be absolutely clear: evaluating the quality and accuracy of data is not a job for “common sense”. It requires domain expertise, adequate tools and methods, and analysis. Stop the dumbing down of America.
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“Donald Trump is an ongoing exhausting wart on the ass of society.”
-@karaswisher @PivotPod
As if I need another reason to love Kara Swisher.
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Trump II will be squarely focused on immigration policy (esp. deportation) and if it's anything like Trump I, it will be difficult to follow if you're not already steeped in the topic.
Allow me to introduce myself & explain how I will try to help make sense of what's coming.
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If you're a non-profit organization and you produce a pdf document or resource for public distribution, I am begging you once again to put a publication year on it.
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Really interesting to see the agencies engage with Trump’s truth social account with screenshots. This is a strange sycophantic move that undermines the professionalism of these agencies.
Under @POTUS ’s direction, CBP is taking decisive measures in response to Colombia:
- Enhanced inspections of flights, private aircraft, & cargo to/from Colombia
- Denying boarding to flagged visa holders
- Enforcing the travel ban on Colombian officials w/ DOS coordination
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In a case involving the Alien Enemies Act, ICE tells a federal judge that out of literally millions of immigrants the agency is aware of on its various docket, there are a total of 258 Tren de Aragua “terrorists”, and ice hasn’t even bothered to arrest over half of them. Self own
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Unless it’s at the US Capitol, in which case you get a pardon and a podcast.
Let this be clear: Anyone who assaults or impedes a federal law enforcement officer or agent in the performance of their duties will be arrested and swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Attack a cop, and life long consequences will follow!
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ICE is cramming immigrants into Krome leading to conditions that could approach significant human rights violations.
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
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We are seeing an escalation of rhetoric that describes immigrants as "military-aged males" and describes immigration as an "invasion."
This discourse, let's call it the "geopolitical threat narrative," is not entirely new but is being mobilized in new & dangerous ways.
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Good news! I am joining the Immigration Lab at American University as a Research Fellow. Although there are no changes to my role at TRAC, the Research Fellow position enables exciting new research possibilities for TRAC and the Immigration Lab at AU.
austinkocher.substack.com/p/…
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I worked for YEARS as a sign language interpreter. This is deeply offensive and ableist and embarrassingly ignorant. ASL interpreters are not hurting you, let them be.
I'm sorry, but we have to stop with the ridiculous sign language interpreters, who turn serious press conferences into a farce. There are closed captions on all broadcast channels and streaming services. No wild human gesticulators necessary.
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One of the greatest misconceptions about immigration is that there is some straightforward distinction between legal and illegal immigrants, which there is not, or that the category of “illegal immigrant“ even exists, which it absolutely legally does not.
The idea that we should treat illegal migrants same as our legal immigrants and citizens is absolutely unacceptable. If we cannot distinguish between Americans and illegal migrants we simply do not have a country.
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I’ve had it with academic bullshit. Normalize responding to the constant barrage of requests for free labor like this.
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Matt Gaetz is Trump’s pick for Attorney General. For context, the AG is in charge of the immigration courts & immigration judges, neither of which have judicial independence. This means he will have the power to shape the outcomes of over 3M pending deportation & asylum cases.
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56,397 People Now Detained by ICE, Possibly Highest in History
Largest growth comes from people with no criminal histories, who now make up a third of ICE detention amid dangerous overcrowding and lucrative contracts for private contractors.
austinkocher.substack.com/p/…
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Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda will face significant hurdles that will make it difficult to carry out as promised, which is why the main & immediate effect of these threats, according to research, is to compel people of color and immigrants to limit their social visibility.
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Immigration attorneys are typically a (or *the*) primary resource for immigrants facing deportation. A major difference between Trump II and Trump I is that the immigration legal community is absolutely overwhelmed. Not just exhaustion, but just quantitatively. The math is rough.
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Trump's EOs are a laughable stream-of-consciousness mess of wildly untrue assertions rooted in questionable legal basis and supported by the faintest glimmers of association to well-established legal and historical precedent. The Trump Team learned nothing in the past 4 years.
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New article out: “Why Has Migration Research So Little Impact? Examining Knowledge Practices in Migration Policy Making and Migration Studies” in @IMRjournal
Thoughts?
journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful…
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Migration is a natural part of what it means to live on a planet together as human beings.
If you think migration is a problem, you're the problem.
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The @uscensusbureau released incredible new data about Hispanic/Latino population growth in the US:
- 71% of US pop growth is from Hisp. pop.
- growth is due to natural increase (deaths<births)
- Hisp. now one-fifth of US pop (65M out of 336M)
Read more: census.gov/newsroom/press-re…
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ICE just released its latest detention data and guess what? ICE's detained population actually *DECLINED* between January 11 and January 26, with only a modest and predictable increase in detentions from ICE.
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Folks, I realize that the world would make so much more convenient sense from an unhinged MAGA worldview if it were true that massive voter fraud was an issue.
The fact is: massive voter fraud is not a thing. I'm very sorry that reality doesn't align with your hopes and dreams.
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The idea that immigrants are a coherent and distinct population is barely true in theory and is, in reality, a social fiction. Immigrants are part of our families, our communities, our faith circles, our businesses, our schools. Immigrants are already us, they are not an other.
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This is a great example of why "polling" people about factual questions is stupid af. Undocumented/illegal immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than US citizens. Maybe we should poll the public about what color the sky is or what elements make up water. Sheesh.
NATIONAL POLL: 32% say illegal immigrants are more likely than other Americans to commit a violent crime, up from 21% in 2019 and 17% in 2015.
MORE LIKELY by PARTY
REP – 65% (29% in 2015)
IND – 26% (15%)
DEM – 12% (10%)
monmouth.edu/polling-institu…
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If you make less than $100,000 a year, you have more in common with an immigrant picking lettuce or bussing your table than Elon Musk or some millionaire or billionaire. Immigrants are not your enemy, your economic interests are aligned. Period.
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The Asylum Denial Machine: In April, immigration judges set two alarming records by closing over 11,000 asylum cases and denying 80% of them in a single month. An avalanche of asylum denials is just beginning.
austinkocher.substack.com/p/…
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You can’t make this up: Harvard is offering a postdoc position in “Political Economy of Law, Technology & Labor” but the fellow will be an independent contractor not even an employee & there are zero benefits. Research should address collective class struggle. Help me understand.
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Trump’s Ugly, Hateful Rants in Michigan Should Be Covered as a Scandal | The New Republic @gregtsargent
newrepublic.com/article/1804…
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DHS: “Choose the better option and enter legally.”
Also DHS, to immigrants that entered legally: “WE WILL FIND YOU AND DEPORT YOU ANYWAY. MAGAAAA 4EVER.”
Entering into the U.S. illegally is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. You will be apprehended, removed, and prosecuted.
Choose the better option and enter legally.
Learn more about the legal entry options here ➡️ go.dhs.gov/ZvS
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The reply guys below the scum line of this post are having strokes tonight. You hate to see it. LOL.
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Yall need to ask around about this, guarantee someone will leak if it hasn’t happened already
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I'm still floored by this response. I have never written a news outlet (one that reached out to me first, btw) to raise concerns about "journalistic perspective". I have, on maybe 3-4 occasions, written to fix gross errors. By comparison, Breitbart fixed an error and apologized.
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To be crystal clear: the act of treating certain populations as *outside* the jurisdiction of the law so that killing them is no longer a crime is straight up Nazi jurisprudence. That's not a slur, that's an historical fact.
It will be very interesting to see how federal prosecutors seek the death penalty against undocumented immigrants when undocumented immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
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The OpenAI board wants Sam Altman back already, putting him in perhaps the best bargaining position of anyone ever. @karaswisher called this one on Pivot yesterday.
theverge.com/2023/11/18/2396…
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With Trump months away from taking office, immigrant rights advocates are urgently calling on Biden to protect DACA recipients, extend TPS, release non-priority immigrants from detention, and rescind lingering rules from Trump I. @immcouncil
Read more: immigrationimpact.com/2024/1…
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When a government deports immigrants to a country it considers too dangerous for its own citizens, it’s a reminder that not all lives are valued equally — and that fact alone is a powerful ethical indictment of deportation, borders, and the territorial state.
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It is crucial to understand that immigrants are falsely framed as threats and invaders not because this corresponds to any known reality but because it can be used to justify extra-legal state violence against them as if we are at war. It is not an accident, it is a strategy.
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If you're trying to make sense of Trump's executive orders on immigration, relying on the White House links or their online formatting is a pain. I turned the EOs into editable documents + PDFs for you to download here. Please share and download.
drive.google.com/drive/folde…
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Somewhere between “all immigrants are perfect human beings” and “all immigrants are criminals” is a basic sociological reality that immigrants (like all social groups) commit certain crimes at certain rates, and as far as we can tell, it’s definitely below natural born citizens.
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After community backlash, Camden, Delaware police backed out of a new ICE partnership just one week after signing on. The 287(g) agreement would’ve deputized local officers to enforce immigration law—part of Trump’s expanding crackdown.
spotlightdelaware.org/2025/0…
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The question is no longer whether Trump is authoritarian, it’s simply whether you support authoritarianism. If you support Trump, just admit that you support a version of presidential authority that conforms to a unitary sovereign and not to tripartite government. Be honest.
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Re-reading “White Flight” by @KevinMKruse, an important book to me in grad school, I am reminded of this important legacy: “The ultimate success of white flight was the way in which it led whites away from the responsibility for the problems they had done much to create.“
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