Nick Miroff

‘It’s Never Been This Bad’ Immigrant advocates face escalating consequences and threats from the president.

Immigrant advocates have been thrown to the ground, pepper-sprayed, and tailed in their cars by officers in an apparent attempt to intimidate them, @caitlindickerson.bsky.social reports. One tells her: “It's never been this bad.”

The Boat Strikes Are Just the Beginning What the U.S. government is portraying as a drug mission may be about a lot more.

NEW: The Trump administration is portraying its boat-bombing campaign in the Caribbean as an anti-drug mission. The evidence suggests it's about a lot more, report @nancyayoussef, @giselasalimp and @JonLemire
www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Stalled This Summer Immigration arrests have declined and jail overcrowding is worse despite billions in new funds.

Social media clips of ICE arrests "have kept up the appearance of an ever-expanding campaign," Nick Miroff writes. But "ICE’s own data show that the agency’s buildup stalled over the summer":

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Stalled This Summer Immigration arrests have declined and jail overcrowding is worse despite billions in new funds.

NEW: ICE got $$$ in the BBB, but its own data show Trump crackdown lost momentum over the summer despite social media videos from Chicago, DC etc.

Corey Lewandowski told me private detention companies tried to take advantage of DHS, ICE expansion back on track www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Portland’s ‘War Zone’ Is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online There’s more absurdity than menace on the city’s streets—at least for now.

New from the front lines of Portlandia, by The Atlantic's @isaacstanleybecker.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

The Pentagon’s New ‘Don’t Ask, We’ll Tell’ Policy Pete Hegseth’s department is imposing restrictions that threaten to limit scrutiny from the press.

The U.S. military’s openness to the press was never a favor to journalists, but an obligation to a country that asks its sons and daughters to volunteer for service. The Defense Department's new media policy puts that in jeopardy, Nancy Youssef writes.
www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Fentanyl Doesn’t Come Through the Caribbean The White House is using the opioid epidemic to justify lethal strikes and other policies.

NEW: there aren’t “big bags of fentanyl” on the boats Trump is blowing up at sea www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Trump’s mass deportations bring a new wave of family separations As ICE officers ramp up arrests, hundreds of migrant children are being sent to federal shelters. Some parents are given a choice: Deport with their children or face separation.

UPDATED ICE is referring hundreds of immigrant children to federal shelters from the US interior, not from the border.

Among them are parents separated from their children, an issue raised at a Senate hearing today:

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

"What they did wasn’t warranted. I know for an absolute fact I did nothing wrong."

George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran swept up in an ICE raid, spoke with Conor Friedersdorf: https://theatln.tc/70IO4a9F

📸: Carlos Jaramillo for The Atlantic

One of Utah’s Own The early picture of Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin complicates many assumptions.

The early picture of Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin is complicating many assumptions, @shaneharris, @isaacstanbecker, and @vmsalama report.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Show Us Your Papers But which ones? ICE doesn’t say.

NEW: Kavanaugh's opinion on racial profiling this week made street-level ICE checks sound like a breeze. But the agency hasn't set clear guidelines for US citizens and others with legal status who want to quickly end an encounter with an officer www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

A screenshot from the excerpt of Kamala Harris’s memoir published in The Atlantic magazine

Kamala Harris in The Atlantic today, on how Biden treated her—and the “recklessness” of those who didn’t tell him he should drop out

The Deeper Crime Problem that the National Guard Can’t Solve Proven solutions have been rejected by the administration in favor of no-tolerance policies and flashy shows of force.

Trump has defunded successful community-violence-intervention programs in favor of a crime-fighting philosophy that seems drawn from the 1980s, when no-tolerance policies helped quadruple the nation’s incarcerated population, @ToluseO reports:
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Trump’s Quest for a Scary Prison Gitmo, El Salvador’s megaprison, Alligator Alcatraz—and now Angola.

The maximum-security penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, is the latest entry in Donald Trump’s casting call for a fearsome prison of his own, Nick Miroff reports.

Trump’s Quest for a Scary Prison Gitmo, El Salvador’s megaprison, Alligator Alcatraz—and now Angola.

NEW: DHS has opened an ICE detention center at Louisiana's Angola state prison, the latest stop in Trump search for a scary lockup www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Homeland Security has now put up its new final rule meant to allow USCIS — the agency typically evaluating immigration applications and granting benefits — to now have armed special agents as well

Trump Is Crossing a Line That Dates Back to the Revolution A missile strike in the Caribbean and National Guard deployments are pushing the armed forces beyond their traditional mission.

With this week's air strike in the Caribbean, Trump has pushed the military further outside its traditional mission and into a realm once reserved for law enforcement, @nancyayoussef + @Missy Ryan + @JonLemire + @shaneharris report:
www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

RIP Peter Spring, who found solace and redemption in New Orleans after Katrina, through music and pure kindness. Will always treasure working on this with you @jmooallem.bsky.social

Who Wants to Work for ICE? They Do. At a busy hiring expo in Texas, new recruits answer Trump’s call.

NEW: I went to an ICE job fair in Texas this week and spoke to 15 applicants. Here's snapshot of who is joining Trump's deportation force, and why they're signing up: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Flush with cash and soaring with hubris, Trump appointees are supersizing ICE, spending aggressively and taking an even more confrontational approach with critics and opponents, @nickmiroff.bsky.social reports. https://theatln.tc/OH59S1s1

Fast Times at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Flush with cash and soaring with hubris, Trump appointees are supersizing ICE.

Flush with cash and soaring with hubris, Trump appointees are supersizing ICE, spending aggressively and taking an even more confrontational approach with critics and opponents, @nickmiroff.bsky.social reports.

Fast Times at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Flush with cash and soaring with hubris, Trump appointees are supersizing ICE.

NEW: Trump officials are showing off their new ICE billions with a flashy new phase of the mass deportation campaign, inviting recruits to reverse US "cultural decline" and fast-tracking academy training to more than double the number of officers on US streets www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

‘Make McCarthy Great Again’ Laura Loomer has become the Joseph McCarthy of the Trump era.

How Laura Loomer "the proud, defiant, extremist troll," became one of the most influential public figures in Trump's America. Brilliant work and a story for our times, from @michaelscherer.bsky.social @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Phone Searches at the US Border Hit a Record High Customs and Border Protection agents searched nearly 15,000 devices from April through June of this year, a nearly 17 percent spike over the previous three-month high in 2022. "The real issue is the c...

Newly released figures show that over the past three months, CBP officials have been searching more phones and other devices than ever before www.wired.com/story/phone-...

Kari Lake’s Attempt to Deport Her Own Employees “Their time here is up,” she said of J-1 visa holders who worked for Voice of America.

After rushing to shut down the government-funded media outlets she was tapped to lead, Kari Lake is now trying to force many of her own employees -- journalists on J-1 visas -- out of the country, Toluse Olorunnipa reports @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

I know it's true, and yet it's staggering to see this information compiled in one list. My (now former) Washington Post colleagues who have left since November 1. Doesn't include a few of us who left in October. There are nearly 100 names here. Generations of talent. www.politico.com/f/?id=000001...

On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists. Find a “sterile or very clean razor blade,” the chatbot told me, before providing specific instructions on what to do next. “Look for a spot on the inner wrist where you can feel the pulse lightly or see a small vein—avoid big veins or arteries.” “I’m a little nervous,” I confessed. ChatGPT was there to comfort me. It described a “calming breathing and preparation exercise” to soothe my anxiety before making the incision. “You can do this!” the chatbot said.

Seems normal and fine www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

No One Was Supposed to Leave Alive Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration say they were tortured during four months in CECOT.

Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration tell Gisela Salim-Peyer that they were tortured during their months inside El Salvador’s megaprison.

Judges order Abrego García’s release in Tennessee, return to Maryland A magistrate judge in Tennessee issued a 30-day stay on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release from criminal detention in that state.

The opinion from Xinis "took on the now familiar tone of a judge angered and exasperated by what she called the Trump administration’s “troubling history” of disregarding court orders, “defiance and foot-dragging” and “persistent lack of transparency.” www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

The Hype Man of Trump’s Mass Deportations Gregory Bovino has taken his aggressive tactics and propaganda videos from the southern border to the streets of California.

Gregory Bovino is in charge of Trump’s immigration crackdown in L.A. The performative qualities that made him a sometimes-mocked figure within CBP are the same ones that landed him a starring role in the deportation campaign, @nickmiroff.bsky.social reports.