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Reposted by Tanvi Misra

Jake Romm @jakeromm.bsky.social · 7d

The liberal international order is dying, the culmination of a trend that was put into overdrive by the so-called global war on terror.

What’s coming is something worse, unless we stop it

My latest for @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/worl...

Why Trump’s Venezuela Attacks Matter So Much

They signal a US empire increasingly willing to dispense with even the perfunctory legal legitimation that past presidents leaned on.

www.thenation.com

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 7d

Writing about the climate crisis can tend toward abstraction or comforting techno-optimism. “Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism” does anything but. @materialistjew.bsky.social talks with @triofrancos.bsky.social about the knotty problem of the energy transition.

Schrodinger’s Element | Ajay Singh Chaudhary

In her new book, Thea Riofrancos homes in on the extraction of lithium—and the thorny problem of an ecologically sound energy transition

thebaffler.com

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Truthout @truthout.org · 8d

Meta sent emails to 6 people informing them that ICE had served the company with a subpoena demanding extensive personal information about the users. The accounts, most notably StopIce.net, are part of a broader crowd-sourcing movement that works to publicly identify masked ICE agents.

Trump’s ICE Turns Its Target to Activists, Not Just Immigrants

ICE demanded Meta hand over personal information attached to Instagram accounts that track immigration raids.

buff.ly

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Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 7d

Student journalist Lucas Griffith faces trial today for covering a protest against the deportation of Ayman Soliman, who himself fled persecution for his journalism in Egypt.

Lucas did nothing wrong. This is a big deal and would be national news in normal times.

On trial for journalism in Kentucky.

Two months after their arrests while covering a protest, a pair of local reporters face criminal charges.

www.cjr.org

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

thanks for flagging - i'll ping the editor!

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

All summer, I’ve been speaking to a Nigerian mom of two kids who won fear-based protection in an immigration court. Under a previous admin, she would have likely been released, but ICE refused to let her out and tried to deport her to Ghana -> @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

They’ve won in court, but ICE is still detaining and trying to deport them

Inside the “psychological torture” regime targeting migrants who can't be sent home.

www.motherjones.com

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

Lawyers and advocates working with such detainees worry about the complete erosion of due process.

For many detainees, the cumulative effect of the new policies is mandatory, indefinite detention, even after they’ve won in court. This is strategic, lawyers say. “ICE uses incarceration as a litigation strategy,” says Marty Rosenbluth, a Georgia-based immigration lawyer who represents several clients who remain detained after winning relief. The agency is hoping to wear the people it imprisons down until they “just give up and want to get sent back, rather than remain in these god-awful hell holes.”

Frances Kelley of Lousiana Advocates of Immigrants in Detention said that her organization has been in contact with least 10 people in their region who remained detained after winning two kinds of relief against being deported to their home country—a withholding from removal order and protection under the anti-torture convention, both of which have higher burdens of proof than asylum. One person was detained for eight months after their ruling. This indefinite detention and uncertainty about whether detainees can even remain in the country contributes “to the psychological torture of ICE detention,” Kelley says. “You don’t know the way out.”

Shortly after taking office, his administration started deporting swathes of people to countries where they had no ties, like Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Estawini—and even, after a Supreme Court battle, to South Sudan, a country in the midst of conflict. The court’s June ruling OKing the South Sudan deportations was a “disaster,” says Norris of Immigrant Defenders—it rendered immigration court decisions providing protection from deportation “meaningless” if migrants could nonetheless be shipped “off to some far-flung, war-torn country.”

It almost happened to Adriana Quiroz Zapata, a 53-year-old former florist, who was granted protection from being sent back to Colombia after she proved it was very likely she would be tortured there. Zapata re-entered the US in 2022, fleeing rape and physical abuse inflicted by a former partner and his police officer friends. A Texas immigration judge ruled in February that these attacks took place with “the Colombian government’s willful acquiescence.” Despite the court ruling, ICE drove her to Mexico and tried to hand her off to authorities there...“Why did we bother to do a trial and win if you just were going to abandon her as an ‘illegal alien’ in another place?” says Zapata’s lawyer Lauren O’Neal.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

The effect of all this:

An independent psychologist evaluated Laura in June and found her symptoms “far exceed[ed] the threshold” for depression, anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorders, and had “worsened considerably” over her year and a half in detention. Health records show that Laura’s chronic conditions—high blood pressure and a preexisting gastric ulcer—were inadequately treated. ICE treats you like a “living ghost,” she says from detention. “They don’t care if you die.” She cries frequently, during almost every phone conversation. She worries about the future of her children, currently in the care of a family friend, and how her prolonged detention has put immense financial strain on her sister in Canada. “It just goes on and on,” she says.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

A few weeks later, they transferred her to Louisiana in the middle of the night—and despite a pending habeas petition in Pa, almost put her on a flight to Ghana. Thankfully, her lawyers got an emergency order blocking it.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

At the end of summer (and this detail didn't make it into the piece) ICE put Laura in segregation after it pepper sprayed her and other women in her unit after an argument, saying it was her fault they used force and that it was for her protection that they were segregating her.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

This is confirmed by a @politico.com story from yesterday: www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Trump’s new detention policy targets millions of immigrants. Judges keep saying it’s illegal.

The administration says the sweeping detentions are a key prong of Trump’s deportation strategy.

www.politico.com

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

Several sources told me this is a result of a July nationwide detention directive:

Past ICE directives, most recently reiterated in 2021, say that the agency should “favor release” of people who have won asylum or other protections “absent exceptional concerns,” even if the government appeals that ruling. Today, ICE appears to either be ignoring these policies, or to have overridden them with new ones that keep them detained. Per a June 24 memo the agency shared in court, agency officials instructed that “field offices no longer have the option to discretionarily release aliens.” Multiple sources in communication with ICE employees say they’ve been informed that all releases of ICE detainees who have won some relief in court must be personally approved by Todd Lyons, the agency’s acting director; deportation officers have been told not to release such detainees and to make at least three attempts to send them to a third country.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

She was in detention for almost a year when a judge granted her withholding of removal this Jan, but ICE refused to let her go. I’ve tallied around 35 cases of people nationwide who’ve won asylum, withholding, or protection under convention against torture who remain detained.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

She was working to make ends meet for her kids when she was arrested after she was present at an altercation between a friend and another person. She was never convicted but ICE detained her.

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

Laura came from Nigeria on a tourist visa and brought her kids because she was fleeing domestic abuse and bc her relatives threatened to subject her daughter to FGM, just as she had been subject to as a child. Her kids brought her kids.

She applied for asylum after her visa expired.

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Margaret Cargioli @cargiolim.bsky.social · 17d

“ICE treats you like a “living ghost,” she says from detention. “They don’t care if you die.” She cries frequently, during almost every phone conversation.” #immigration #detention #familiesbelongtogether

Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

All summer, I’ve been speaking to a Nigerian mom of two kids who won fear-based protection in an immigration court. Under a previous admin, she would have likely been released, but ICE refused to let her out and tried to deport her to Ghana -> @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

They’ve won in court, but ICE is still detaining and trying to deport them

Inside the “psychological torture” regime targeting migrants who can't be sent home.

www.motherjones.com

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Reposted by Tanvi Misra

Dara Lind @daralind.bsky.social · 17d

So glad people are paying attention to the grant-and-deport regime

Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

All summer, I’ve been speaking to a Nigerian mom of two kids who won fear-based protection in an immigration court. Under a previous admin, she would have likely been released, but ICE refused to let her out and tried to deport her to Ghana -> @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

They’ve won in court, but ICE is still detaining and trying to deport them

Inside the “psychological torture” regime targeting migrants who can't be sent home.

www.motherjones.com

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 17d

All summer, I’ve been speaking to a Nigerian mom of two kids who won fear-based protection in an immigration court. Under a previous admin, she would have likely been released, but ICE refused to let her out and tried to deport her to Ghana -> @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

They’ve won in court, but ICE is still detaining and trying to deport them

Inside the “psychological torture” regime targeting migrants who can't be sent home.

www.motherjones.com

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 20d

I have a lot of questions about how this is happening...

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Tanvi Misra @tanvi.bsky.social · 20d

Some context: The Board of Immigration Appeals, which is the appeals body of immigration court, falls under the DOJ and has always been susceptible to political whims. Deportation of a journalist because they were arrested during a protest, despite release orders, is next level though.

ACLU @aclu.org · 20d

BREAKING: The Board of Immigration Appeals is trying to deport our client Mario Guevara, a journalist from El Salvador, despite his clear legal path to residency and an immigration judge's order to grant his release on bond.

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Ashley DeAzevedo @afuashley.bsky.social · 22d

Hi, Bluesky! My name is Ashley DeAzevedo & I'm the Director of American Families United.

This is my first post 🎉 and I’m excited to connect with everyone here.

I'm from New Jersey. I'm a mom, wife, proud Catholic, small business owner, and I haven't given up hope in the promise of America.

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max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 22d

The union representing the musicians from Jimmy Kimmel’s band releases a statement calling the FCC’s pressure on Disney “state censorship.”

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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · Sep 8

ICE reactivated its contract with spyware manufacturer Paragon Solutions. You can read more about it here, but what does that mean for using encrypted chat apps like Signal? 🧵(1/8)

EFF Statement on ICE Use of Paragon Solutions Malware

This statement can be attributed to EFF Senior Staff Technologist Cooper QuintinIt was recently reported by Jack Poulson on Substack that ICE has reactivated its 2 million dollar contract with Paragon...

www.eff.org

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Mallory Harris, PhD @malar0ne.bsky.social · Aug 28

@drdemetre.bsky.social has resigned as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. His letter is a must-read.

Screenshot of post by drdemetre.

My resignation letter from CDC.

Dear Dr. Houry,

I am writing to formally resign from my position as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), effective August 28, 2025, close of business. I am happy to stay on for two weeks to provide transition, if requested.

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Alex Koma @alexkoma.bsky.social · Aug 15

And because the story wouldn't be complete without photos of the offending dildo...

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