Sara Smith

all time photo editor performance

Page 1 of a child’s handwritten letter, written in pencil in Spanish. Colorful doodles of a rainbow and hearts are found throughout the page. Translation: “I am Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya and I have been 113 days in detention I miss my friends and I feel they are going to forget me. I am bored here. I already miss my country and my house, I came on vacation for 10 Days and they took me into an ice office an officer interrogated me 2 hours without my mom, I was traveling with flight attendant because my mom lives in new york, they only wanted to arrest my mom, because my mom didn’t have documents to live in U.S.A., I always traveled with my tourist visa but ice used me to catch my mom and now I am in a jail and I am sad and I have fainted 2 times here inside. When I arrived every night I cried and now I don’t sleep well, I felt that being here was my fault and I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family.”

Page 2 of a child’s handwritten letter, written in pencil in Spanish. Translation: “They don’t give me my diet I am vegetarian, I don’t eat well, there is no good education and I miss my best friend julieta and my grandmother and my school I already want to get to my house. Me in dilei [Dilley] am not happy please get me out of here to colombia.” Below the text is a drawing of the girl and her mother in the government-issued gray sweatsuits of the detention center.

6/ “When I arrived every night I cried and now I don’t sleep well, I felt that being here was my fault and I only wanted to be on vacation like a normal family.”

9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya, detained on her way to Disney World, spent 113+ days at Dilley.

A child’s illustration, made in what appears to be crayon, of more than a dozen figures standing together. It’s titled “Mi Familia” and credited to “Luisanney Toloza, 5 años.”

4/ “Mi Familia,” by 5-year-old Luisanney Toloza from Venezuela, who had recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border

The first page of a child’s handwritten letter, written in different colors of pencil. Transcript: “Hello, my name is Susej F and I’am 9 years old. I’am from Venezuela. I have been 50 days in Dilley Immigration Processing Center. And I want to go to my Country. But I miss my school and my friends I feel bad since when I came here to this Place, because I have been here too long. I have been 2 years and 6 months in united states, and I was happy with my friends in The school but now I need to leave. I miss my family in my country so now I want To go to Venezuela. But my mom do not want to leave because she wants a better future for me.”

The second page of a child’s handwritten letter, written in pencil on notebook paper. Transcript: “Seen how people like me, immigrants are been treated changes my perspective about the U.S. My mom and I came to The U.S looking for a good and safe place to live, and my mom was looking for a Good job.”

2/ “I miss my school and my friends I feel bad since when I came here to this Place, because I have been here too long.”

From 9-year-old Susej F, detained for 50+ days

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

With commentaries by Madiha Tahir at Yale, Lisa Bhungalia at UW Madison, Craig Jones at Newcastle University, and @geogsara.bsky.social from UNC Chapel Hill. Author Rhys Machold at the University of Glasgow provides a thought-provoking response

So happy to be part of this forum on a really insightful book!

Fabricating Homeland Security: Police Entanglements across India and Palestine/Israel Published in The AAG Review of Books (Ahead of Print, 2026)

A powerful forum on Rhys Machold’s book Fabricating Homeland Security: Police Entanglements across India and Palestine/Israel is now available. Mark Griffiths writes that the book “addresses crucial questions on the workings of right-wing populism, authoritarianism, and weapons capitalism.”

Border Patrol in Minneapolis are being sent home. If true, it means that broad-based local response to heavy immigration enforcement has real effects.

Morale plummeting among ICE agents over long hours, quotas and public hatred: reports While immigration officers support the Trump administration’s goal of deporting undocumented migrants, many of them have grown ‘disillusioned’ with leadership’s tactics, according to reports

Good.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

ICE agents detain Navajo man in Arizona, ignoring US, tribal IDs by @abecenti.bsky.social www.azcentral.com/story/news/p...

Mayor Jacob Frey: “To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

Texas A&M Bans Plato - Daily Nous Drop the race and gender material from your course and the Plato readings, or teach a different course. You have a day to decide. That's a paraphrase of what Martin Peterson, professor of philosophy a...

"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato."

surreal times

dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight

SHARE OF GLOBAL POPULATION BY INCOME VS SHARE OF CONSUMPTION-BASED CO2 EMISSIONS, 2023 TOP 10% (TOP 1% WITHIN) The richest 10% are responsible for 48% of emissions MIDDLE 40% The middle 40% are responsible for 44% of emissions 50% BOTTOM (10% WITHIN) The poorest 50% are responsible for 8% of emissions Source: Oxfam

“a person from the richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in a day than the poorest 50% emit all year”
A stark visual from ‘Climate Plunder: How a powerful few are locking the world into disaster’ by @oxfaminternational.bsky.social

policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...

new article! how might the emergence of the 'new' carbon economy be disrupted, shifted in favor of communities rather than serving as another round of capitalist accumulation?

thanks to @landpolicy.bsky.social for supporting this work!

here's a link: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Production of Everyday Carcerality in State‐Led Redevelopment of Informal Settlement in Delhi, India This paper focuses on the everyday experiences of carcerality of a community, known as Kathputli Colony, that has been waiting to be rehoused by the state for over a decade in Delhi, India. We draw o....

‼️ New article ‼️

I and Raajorshi conceptualise "everyday carcerality" to articulate how life is lived at the intersection of State-Capital-Land-Housing nexus in Delhi's urban margins. Open access link 👇

@urbanstudiesfoundation.org

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Come out to @scrapexchange.bsky.social today for a Handcrafts for Palestine fundraiser 12-5pm ♥️🇵🇸

Hey geographers #geosky:
What is your favorite political ecology piece (academic article or other) to teach undergrads these days? Looking for syllabus recommendations that resonate really well, generate good discussion, and are clear and accessible. #politicalecology #geography

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Intriguing new article by Danielle Purifoy, James Bryan, & Sara Smith examining the Landback Abolition Project at UNC & asks ‘how do faculty, students, staff, & community of a 234-year-old colonial institution create the conditions for a structural shift in our relations toward land & education?’

Cover of the journal "GeoHumanities" with description of a call for abstracts.

Call for Abstracts: The inaugural Special Issue of “GeoHumanities” invites emerging geographic scholarship situated at the crossroads of Solidarities, #Humanitarianism, and #Scholarship-Activism.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by October 6, 2025: buff.ly/zt8LYcF

Greetings from Burque!

Deadline Approaching: The Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conference (REP) takes place November 5-8 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, sponsored by the University of New Mexico and the AAG. Register and submit your paper, panel, or poster before August 31.

Learn more about how to get involved: buff.ly/AOPikkl

Intro to Environmental Justice let’s goooooo ♥️🔥

Deadline Extension!! Call for Proposals! Are you a librarian, archivist, historian, or memory worker preserving LGBTQ history? Join us for the 2026 Queer History South Conference! Submit a proposal by visiting invisiblehistory.org/qhs2026.

Deadline Extension!! Call for Proposals! Are you a librarian, archivist, historian, or memory worker preserving LGBTQ history? Join us for the 2026 Queer History South Conference!

Submit a proposal by visiting invisiblehistory.org/qhs2026.

this Transactions piece had been in the slow cooker for many years I'm so glad that it's out!

We feed you.
They hunt us.

leftists: that thing you teach us in school to be terrified of is happening

historians: that thing is definitely happening

star wars: here is a beat-for-beat breakdown of how the thing happens, but with pew pew lasers. we know you watched it

news outlets: these protesters are out of control

Wayne County community rally amid ICE raid at restaurant Newswatch 16's Emily Kress spoke with people in the Honesdale community who are shaken after watching three restaurant employees get detained.

"It's really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25 years is a gangster and a terrorist, and the person who shows up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armor comes to take him away is somehow the good guy” www.wnep.com/article/news...