Isabela Dias

Meet the veteran who chases ICE on a scooter Clifford “Buzz” Grambo patrols the streets of Baltimore to keep his neighbors safe—and make federal agents uncomfortable.

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:

How right-wing superstar Riley Gaines built an anti-trans empire The swimmer tied a trans woman for fifth. The MAGA industrial complex took care of the rest.

I’ve spent a lot of the last three years investigating the rise of anti-trans politics. Often, it came back to the controversy over trans women athletes.

So I teamed up with @pablo.show to look into the leading figure on the issue: Riley Gaines.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202... 1/

Then they came for the Dreamers Immigrants brought here as children were told they wouldn’t be deported. Now, they’re being targeted anyway.

Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago spent nearly two months in ICE detention—despite having protection under DACA—until a federal judge ruled that the government had no reason to keep her in custody and ordered her release.

DHS is still vowing to "explore every available option to remove" her. My latest:

Then they came for the Dreamers Immigrants brought here as children were told they wouldn’t be deported. Now, they’re being targeted anyway.

Then they came for the Dreamers.

Read @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social's heartbreaking look at the fear and chaos the Trump administration has wrought onto the lives of young people brought to the United States.

"A real betrayal."

Some background on the absolute monarchy where the Trump administration is now paying to imprison people deported by ICE

Story here: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Russ Vought is Trump’s shutdown hero. His neighbors think his work is "abhorrent." The people living near Trump's "grim reaper" of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.

Russ Vought's neighbors have strong feelings about him:

"You asked what it is like living near such a man. Frankly, I'd rather not, but this is a wonderful neighborhood and, unlike Mr. Vought himself, we do not want our neighbors (even Mr. Vought) to be traumatized. So we just live with it."

The bureaucrat who could make Trump's authoritarian dreams real Russ Vought has a plan to take presidential power to new heights.

@isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social wrote what remains the definitive profile of Russel Vought last year. He's going to try and use the shut down to further his dream of an imperial Christian presidency and "traumatizing" federal workers www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

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"Godsend" or "concentration camp"? A lucrative ICE deal divides a Colorado town. Trump has unleashed a gold rush among private prison companies taking on immigration detention. In cash-strapped cities, residents aren’t sure the money is worth it.

"It’s a blueprint for authoritarianism wrapped in barbed wire and dressed up as local revival.”

ICE has its eyes on an idle Core Civic-owned prison in Walsenburg. Local officials have welcomed the potential influx of money and jobs. But residents are pushing back. My latest for @motherjones.com:

Trump is making thousands of rule-abiding immigrants undocumented Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.

In another loss in the courts for Trump, a federal judge just blocked the administration from revoking legal status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States. Judge Chen ruled that the termination of TPS exceeded the DHS Secretary’s authority and violated the law.

Trump is making thousands of rule-abiding immigrants undocumented Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.

Today, DHS announced the termination of the 2021 TPS designation for Venezuela, adding to the largest de-legalization push in modern US history: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“They’re going to kill me here,” Neri Alvarado thought.

Alvarado was allegedly targeted by the Trump administration because of his tattoo of an autism awareness ribbon. Now, free from El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, Alvarado wants the world to know what they lived through.

2025 Online Journalism Awards

Proud to announce that we’ve been nominated for six Online Journalism Awards, including General Excellence in Journalism!

Here's a thread of some of our amazing stories that've been recognized this year. 🧵

“What they did there was torture us” Now free, the Venezuelan men the Trump administration sent to El Salvador want the world to know what they lived through.

“There’s no family here, there are no lawyers here, nobody exists here.”

For four months, Neri Alvarado, Julio Zambrano, and so many others wondered if they were ever going to leave CECOT alive. Now, they want to clear their names and justice for what they had to endure. With @nlanard.bsky.social:

Trump is making thousands of rule-abiding immigrants undocumented Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.

“You enter legally, and suddenly, because of someone else’s whim, you’re illegal. It doesn’t make sense.”

I wrote about the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan TPS holders losing legal status overnight as a result of the Trump administration's mass deportation push.

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

"The female guards would count to 20 as they administered the beatings, and if the prisoners complained or cried out, they would start again...Tito Martínez, one of the inmates, recalled that a prison nurse was watching. 'Hit the piñata,' she cheered."

"We were kidnapped" On Friday, more than 200 Venezuelans disappeared to a megaprison in El Salvador returned home. The horror stories are already emerging.

He's one of the many Venezuelan men whose stories @nlanard.bsky.social and I have followed since mid-March when the Trump administration sent them to CECOT. Zambrano had been detained by ICE during a routine check-in back in January, just days before his wife gave birth to their second daughter.

Late last night, Julio Zambrano's sister sent me this photo of him home with his mother in Venezuela.

Trump's DOJ stripped lifeline legal services from the most vulnerable detained immigrants "Without a lawyer, people don't have a prayer. They don't have a chance in hell."

Today, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate a legal representation program for detained immigrants with mental health issues who are deemed unfit to represent themselves in court.

I wrote about how critical this government-appointed counsel service is here:

Maria Quevedo, the mother of Eddie Adolfo Hurtado Quevedo, told us she was feeling relieved but still scared.

“Happy because God gave me the gift of seeing my son free on my birthday. Scared because my son is going to Venezuela, where he was threatened by the [paramilitary group] colectivos.”

"We were kidnapped" On Friday, more than 200 Venezuelans disappeared to a megaprison in El Salvador returned home. The horror stories are already emerging.

"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.

"We were kidnapped" On Friday, more than 200 Venezuelans disappeared to a megaprison in El Salvador returned home. The horror stories are already emerging.

NEW: Story from @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social and me based on interviews with families of the men returned to Venezuela tonight after Trump disappeared them to El Salvador in March.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Her husband is trapped in a Salvadoran prison. She has no idea how to get him back. Ripped apart by Trump, one Venezuelan family endures another hell: silence.

Earlier today, the mother of Julio Zambrano, one of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT, was told to go to Caracas for some "good news." She's at the airport in anticipation of her son's arrival after four long months. @nlanard.bsky.social and I are in touch with other families as they wait for more news.

How ICE’s arrest of a high school student activated a Massachusetts town “We’re trying to find ways the community can defend itself.”

“It was a perfect storm.”

In Milford, MA, a town where 30 percent of the population is foreign-born, the arrest of 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes da Silva set off a chain reaction unlike anything the community had seen before. My latest for @motherjones.com:

What $100 billion in new ICE funding looks like The staggering increase is difficult to process. These numbers will help.

$100 billion in new ICE funding is about to get unleashed thanks to this bill. Come process that crushing figure with me.

Funder, pilot, survivor, physician: Inside the network assisting abortion journeys And some women who took them.

To mark the 3-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, I published a guide on all the ways doctors, nonprofits, pilots, and ordinary people are helping people from banned states access reproductive healthcare. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Humanitarian parole is over. Now comes the fear. Communities in Florida already were suffering after all the other anti-immigrant threats by Trump.

Humanitarian parole is over. Now comes the fear.

"This order gives ICE a green light to grab these immigrants and deport them to the hell they escaped from in a legal way.”

Trump disappeared them to El Salvador. Now, they're being erased by immigration courts. At least 14 cases of Venezuelans sent to a Salvadoran mega prison have been dismissed by US immigration judges.

NEW: Frizgeralth de Jesús Cornejo Pulgar was among the 238 Venezuelans removed to El Salvador without due process in mid-March. He has no criminal history or a final order of deportation.

On Friday, a US immigration judge terminated his asylum case, effectively ejecting him from the legal system.

Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws.

NEW: We obtained DHS data that shows the US knew only 32 of the 238 Venezuelans deported to a prison in El Salvador in March were convicted of US crimes, only 6 of those violent. Trump called them “savages,” “monsters” and "the worst of the worst.” www.propublica.org/article/trum...

10 ways to enrich the Trumps and the MAGA movement “We don’t actually give a fuck.”

Asked about the ethics of Donald Trump Jr and other family members using the Trump presidency to enrich themselves, a DJT Jr. adviser said: "We don’t actually give a fuck.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...