When the SCOTUS justices hear oral arguments over Trump’s effort to rewrite the Constitution and limit birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara tomorrow, they'll be considering arguments pushed by a handful of controversial legal scholars. @pemalevy.bsky.social and I unpacked their theories here:
"What the government’s really trying to do here is muddy the waters enough so that we won’t notice that it is rewriting the clear text of the Constitution itself."
I talked to Cody Wofsy, ACLU lawyer in the SCOTUS birthright citizenship case, about Trump's push to upend the 14th Amendment.
“It’s not at all surprising that this is happening with these ICE [removal] officers being sent out to basically treat people terribly,” a one-time deputy chief counsel with the agency told me, anticipating more escalation of violence. My latest for @motherjones.com:
Biased-take, but @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social is among the absolute best immigration journalists of 2025, no question.
In a time when we *especially* need to record history as it is, not how the government tries to sell it, principled, professional journalism like Isabela’s is paramount.
This year felt like a decade. I wanted to highlight some of the immigration reporting I've done over the past 12 months:
In January, I wrote about the big money fueling the right's plot to end birthright citizenship.
Much of the current immigration policymaking—if this rampant clampdown and unleashing of brutalizing force can be called that—seems to be now distilled to a simple modus operandi: we do it because we can. My reflection on a year of hell for immigrants and the Trump administration's casual cruelty:
The hepatitis B vaccine had been recommended for all newborns since 1991.
From 1990-2019, acute hepatitis B infections reported among children and teens fell 99 percent. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/w...
After 20 years in the Navy, Buzz Grambo thought he'd spend his retirement playing video games and watching baseball. Instead, he patrols the streets of Baltimore to protect his neighbors from ICE. He even upgraded his scooter to a Segway that reaches 26 mph to keep up with the agents. My latest:
“I want their morale as low as possible because a team with low morale is ineffective.”
Meet the veteran who chases ICE on a scooter
The Department of War's seal hangs on a wall. The kerning appears to be off.
we need a department of kerning
Beatings. Sexual assault. Psychological abuse.
These are some of the horrors endured by the more than 250 men the US sent to El Salvador on flimsy evidence of gang membership, according to a new comprehensive report.
"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.
"When you look at rural communities, it is not uncommon that if that AmeriCorps member wasn’t there, the service that they are taking on wouldn’t be happening at all."
washingtonmonthly.com/2025/07/07/h...
Every employee considering returning to government (no judgement, it's important work regardless of administration), should demand a public apology and 3x salary. Make them remember what happens when you fuck with the good people who keep the country afloat.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
More than 32,000 low-paid AmeriCorps service workers were terminated in a sweeping budget cut last month that gutted the national service program.
The April 25 move was one of the biggest government cutbacks since the Trump administration took office, but went largely unnoticed.
Here’s why:
"Investing in AmeriCorps is an investment in America’s future, empowering communities, strengthening families and revitalizing economies."
hechingerreport.org/opinion-canc...
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:
If I’m ever president, I will outlaw any iteration of “Make America _____ Again.”
How about some new messaging ideas you hacky losers. You know who you are.
I don't agree with Congressman Bacon on everything (probably most things), but he's spot on.
I served in AmeriCorps NCCC in Nebraska and it was among the best experiences of my life. It makes civic, financial, and moral sense to support and defend AmeriCorps.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/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.
“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.”
In a powerful piece, our mentor Brett Davidson and late Executive Director Lola Adedokun share why communications must be at the heart of leadership.
aspenglobalinnovators.org/stories/comm...
✨ Support the award in Lola’s honor: as.pn/award
@aspeninstitute.bsky.social @dorisdukefdn.bsky.social
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.”
On Friday night, the federal government sent Harvard a five-page fusillade of new demands that would reshape the school’s operations, admissions, hiring, faculty and student life.
It took less than 72 hours for Harvard to say no.
"If you don’t see all of this as one of the darkest days in American history, in which the President is openly embracing disappearing people without due process in the name of 'liberty,' you are a part of the problem."
bloomberg: ~90% of deported migrants to el salvador had no criminal record
this is Mohsen Mahdawi, the green card holder who was just arrested by ICE for rendition at his citizenship interview
If the U.S. government is going to take the position that, once removed from the United States, folks can’t be brought back, then it sure seems to me that federal courts should be reflexively and categorically barring *all* removals until they’re 100 percent certain that the removals are lawful.
As an American, if even an ounce of you cares about human rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution, every cell in your body should be screaming at this.
If you're not enraged, you never cared about "freedom," you only cared about winning.
