skgriffin.bsky.social
@skgriffin.bsky.social
Reposted
Damned if you do; damned if you don't. The government spent months turning immigration court into a deportation trap.
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 1d
More immigrants are not showing up for their mandatory immigration court hearings compared to prior years, an NPR analysis shows, allowing the government to order their immediate deportation. n.pr/4saLnem
NPR analysis shows skyrocketing number of 'no-shows' in immigration court
More immigrants are not showing up for their mandatory immigration court hearings compared to prior years, an NPR analysis shows, allowing the government to order their immediate deportation.
n.pr
December 22, 2025 at 11:39 AM
Reposted
This has been made available, so for purposes of commenting on Bari Weiss's decision to spike the story, here's a live-post of that segment.

It begins with a "you may recall" summary of the deportation to el Salvador. Describes the admin's claim that it could deport the men without due process
December 22, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted
BREAKING: Judge James Boasberg rules for those deported under the Alien Enemies Act on March 15 — certifying a class, finding the U.S. maintained constructive custody over them at CECOT, finding they were not given due process, and ordering return or that such process be given by Jan. 5, 2026.
December 22, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted
!! Here’s a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via @jasonparis.bsky.social:

is.gd/paU8Ko

(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
December 22, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Reposted
jesus
The New York Times investigated 346 people who donated at least $250,000 to Trump and found that more than half of them (197) have received pardons, jobs, government contracts, special treatment, or favors.
Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office
Well into his second term, the president and his allies have continued aggressively raising money. Many donors have interests before his administration, The Times found.
www.nytimes.com
December 22, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted
look at that lil smirk
Spent the day exploring Lake Sandoval in the Peruvian rain forest. I was thrilled when we spotted four Hoatzin along the water's edge. Called the strangest bird in the Amazon, it has no close avian relatives! I think it's fabulous. #Hoatzin #Peru #Sandoval
December 22, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted
Trump admin. has dropped its plan to deport heroic Chinese dissident Guan Heng - likely because of massive public outcry. We must similarly press for reversal of Trump's many other cruel efforts to deport dissidents and victims of persecution back to their oppressors: reason.com/volokh/2025/...
Trump Administration Drops Effort to Deport Chinese Dissident Guan Heng to Uganda
I recently wrote about the Trump Administration's reprehensible effort to deport courageous Chinese dissident Guan Heng to Uganda, which country…
reason.com
December 20, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted
Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.
Surviving CECOT (full documentary) | Deported to a Maximum-Security Prison | FRONTLINE + ProPublica
YouTube video by FRONTLINE PBS | Official
m.youtube.com
December 21, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Reposted
Yes, it’s entirely true that many of the migrants who came under the Biden admin did not have housing arranged for them when they arrived and so ended up in homeless shelters at first, at times for months, while they got on their feet. This is 100% true, not an anti-immigrant gotcha, just the facts.
The faction of the the left that lives for harassment is just slamming Matt for this, but he’s correct and this has been considered for years a major cause of the recent homelessness spike. Watching people maliciously misread his very short tweet and call him a “Nazi” is something else.
Homelessness increased primarily because of immigration (lots of people came to the US without setting up housing).
December 21, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted
The term "heritage American" being bandied about is irritating b/c of its imprecision. Is it based on length of time in the US of your ancestors, being from England, whiteness, legal citizenship, or some other unspoken category? Because the migration trends in the colonial period & early republic 1/
December 21, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted
Those of us who believe in American exceptionalism do so because it is a creedal nation. Those who tie greatness to ethnic heritage are little more than undisguised bigots, whose accomplishments in their own lives are so small that they need to look to forbearers for anything of which to be proud.
Many of the people who talk up "Heritage Americanism" today are descendants of people -- Jews, Irishmen, Italians -- who were abominated by the "Heritage Americans" of an earlier time. The Know Nothings and their kin decried the new arrivals as unfit for American life. On it goes.
December 20, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted
The problem with this piece, like all the other pieces, is that the missing hed, dek, & lede is that all of this was wildly illegal, unconstitutional, & criminal. This is how you normalize lawless authoritarianism - treat like just another story in our politics. “Transformation” is lazy euphemism.
This WaPo piece weaves together an incredibly powerful story about the way Trump has devastated government and the dedicated people who wake up every day to serve the public. wapo.st/4b14KAy
The year Trump broke the federal government
How DOGE and the White House carried out a once-unthinkable transformation of the nation’s sprawling bureaucracy.
wapo.st
December 21, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Reposted
Nothing to see here, just a right wing hyper-nationalist government going to their party’s youth event sponsored by a group with a martyred leader they’ve pledged to avenge, recruiting people to join their masked police force devoted to removing auslanders from ze homeland.
December 21, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted
2/ It wld be more viable in practical terms if once a prize court rules in the favor of the privateer the privateer could sell the cocaine into the Miami or Gulf Coast market. So Lee's bill shld package the Letters with a pardon for the drug trafficking similar to the deal the Honduran prez got.
December 21, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted
How in the world does the President get to sell citizenship by executive order?
Every Democratic candidate for president should pledge to revoke whatever benefits people got by paying $1 million for Trump Gold Cards by executive order on day 1 with no refunds.
December 21, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Reposted
With One World Trade Center in the background, Astoria the Wild Turkey strolls The Battery in the early evening. 🦃 ❤️
December 20, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted
No this makes sense because how the internet works is that when you request a document a small internet person has to walk to the server to get it. And if someone else is using it you have to wait until they’re done.
December 19, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted
The Epstein Files, everybody!
December 19, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted
It may well be worse now than in the past, but this is extremely typical. I’ve had clients detained by ICE, and it’s like they fall into a black hole. Getting in touch with people in state or federal prison, or even county jail, is easier by an order of magnitude.
They are disappearing people. Listen to this. Nightmare. (And the longer they stay the more money core civic makes)
December 19, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted
A close look at an American Tree Sparrow, a rarity for Central Park seen Tuesday beneath the bird feeders in the Ramble. Note the red cap, bicolored bill, and dark breast spot. ❤️
December 19, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted
15 years after the ACA became law and Republicans STILL can’t come up with more than a “concept” of a plan.
Dr Oz on the GOP healthcare plan: "We have some ideas out there. Congress is working through some concepts"
December 19, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted
Things are going great over at X, The Everything App
December 18, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted
I was focused on this Red-bellied Woodpecker when, all of a sudden, it got strafed by a Blue Jay! The woodpecker was undisturbed and continued noodling for insects! ❤️🖤🤍 #Woodpecker #CentralPark #birding
December 18, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted
There will come a time when people of good faith are empowered to uphold the law.

When that time comes, Illinois will have the testimony and records needed to pursue justice to its fullest extent.

The truth of what Trump and his masked agents are doing in Chicago will be told.
"They had done nothing wrong. They were not protesting. They were not chasing ICE vehicles. They were simply shopping."

Matt DeMateo recounts how three U.S. citizens, including a toddler, were tear gassed in Cicero by federal agents.
December 18, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Reposted
Yep. Diversion of resources matters in the aggregate (even if it way too early to know whether it had any specific impact in this case). Drug trafficking and gun prosecutions are measurably down, for example.
Anyway, no worries, Kash Patel is on the job, and half of FBI agents are working immigration enforcement donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...
December 18, 2025 at 11:54 PM