Jack Herrera

NOW— Mass ICE arrests happened/are happening at the Manhattan immigration court at 290 Broadway on the 20th floor.

I was just outside the building and an observer came out crying, confirmed they witnessed people getting detained outside courtrooms while families watched and wept.

elite in its own way!

Some of those nice Andino buses are the most luxurious form of travel I have experienced

For One Texas County, Arresting Migrants Made Big Money Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

A Texas county found a way to make money on migrants traveling north: cops arrested them on trespassing charges, and kept them in jail until they paid bail. When they paid, the jail handed them over to ICE. They got deported. The county kept their bail: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

🙏

How One Texas County Has Profited Off of Migrant Deportations Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

Don’t miss this excellent @jherrerx.bsky.social piece on how a Texas county, under Operation Lonestar, is taking
(and not returning) the bail money of migrants who have been deported. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

How One Texas County Has Profited Off of Migrant Deportations Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

Step 1: Attest migrants for "trespassing."
Step 2: Release on bail.
Step 3: deport before hearing, forfeiting bail.

How One Texas County Has Profited Off of Migrant Deportations Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

Kinney County, TX, is swindling immigrants out of their bond money by arresting them, immediately handing them over to ICE, who quickly deports them, and then keeping the money. $1.6M so far. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

I'm here! Thanks Bob

me contribution to this story was taking a spreadsheet that had been printed out, roughly hand-redacted and then scanned but skewed into, well, an actual spreadsheet so we could calculate forfeited bail for these migrants.

Over the past four years, the county has refused to return $1.7 million in bail from migrant trespass cases, according to a Times analysis of county budget records obtained through a public records request. The forfeitures are the equivalent of what it would take to pay for the entire sheriff's department for a year, or the county judge and county attorney's office combined for over three years.

a small Texas county found a way to make money off migrants: arrest them for trespassing, make them post bail to get out of jail, turn them over to ICE, collect forfeited bail money. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

I spent over a year fighting the county for records, including these budget docs

Appreciate it Jonah! Likewise

Thank you Ann

How One Texas County Has Profited Off of Migrant Deportations Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

When Texas began arresting migrants for trespassing in '21, many paid hefty bails to get out of jail.

The problem? Instead of releasing them, TX handed them over to ICE.

I spent a year investigating how one county made up to $1.7 million by taking bail from deported migrants.

Via @nytimes.com:

Following the ‘Exportations’ In order to remove migrants as quickly as possible, Trump has offshored his detention regime. Journalists have struggled to cover their stories—and that is dangerous.

Trump has offshored his migrant detention regime. Journalists have struggled to cover the "exportations." By @jherrerx.bsky.social.
www.cjr.org/feature-2/fo...

How One Texas County Has Profited Off of Migrant Deportations Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

Damn! "Over the past four years, [Kinney] county has refused to return $1.7 million in bail from migrant trespass cases..." This amount would "pay for the entire sheriff’s department for a year, or the county judge and county attorney’s office combined for over three years." @jherrerx.bsky.social

How One Texas County Has Profited Off of Migrant Deportations Kinney County, along Texas’ border with Mexico, collected some $1.7 million in bail from migrants who were deported before they could make their court appearances. The money was never returned.

Great piece by @jherrerx.bsky.social on how Kinney County is stealing money from people by requiring cash bail and then taking it when people are deported or go into ICE custody.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

The Immigrant Families Jailed in Texas Children have long been put in migrant detention if they were apprehended at the border. Today, lawyers have found, families are being removed from stable lives in the United States.

"Perhaps it is because they have hit a wall deporting so-called criminals, so now they are going after children and their families in an effort to bump up their deportation statistics”

Original reporting today from @jherrerx.bsky.social

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

How Many Immigrants Will Die in U.S. Custody? More detentions will lead to more deaths, but the Trump Administration has options to conceal the losses.

More detentions lead to more deaths. @jherrerx.bsky.social asks whether we will find out - and from there whether the American public will respond w/ enough care and outrage to change policy

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

How Many Immigrants Will Die in U.S. Custody? More detentions will lead to more deaths, but the Trump Administration has options to conceal the losses.

"[I]f families of dead migrants mourn publicly, if undeterred journalists get the story, will Americans care?"

"The death of children can—sometimes, in the right conditions—provoke outrage. Few will ever care when adult men die in the deportation machine."
@jherrerx.bsky.social #uspol #usa

"For better or for worse, the meat-packing industry relies on immigrants; changing that would likely require fundamentally changing how America feeds itself." Great story by @jherrerx.bsky.social revisiting the site of a 2006 mass deportation in Cactus, Tx.
www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

ICE Came for This Town’s Workforce. It Was Never the Same. One of the largest ICE raids in American history upended the town of Cactus in 2006. The recovery offers warnings about Trump’s mass deportations.

A 2006 immigration raid at a beef-packing plant upended Cactus, Texas. Ten percent of the Panhandle town's residents disappeared. @jherrerx.bsky.social writes about the aftermath and what it means for President Trump’s mass deportation plans. @texasmonthly.bsky.social

What happens after the ICE raids & mass firings of federal workers One of the largest workplace ICE raid in the US history upended the town of Cactus in 2006. The recovery offers warnings about Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations.

What happens after an ICE raid? @jherrerx.bsky.social joins us on Your Call 10am PT to discuss.

Then: RFK Jr. confirmation, CFPB closure, & mass federal layoffs. What's the latest? Chris Lehmann @thenation.com discusses.

Stream live @kalwradio.bsky.social 10am PT:
www.kalw.org/show/your-ca...

Last one for now. Welcome to #BlueCielo!

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The Latinos Who Found Their Inner MAGA Reporter Jack Herrera says that Trump won over many Latino voters — but Democrats lost them first.

Talked with @NYMag.flipboard.com.ap.brid.gy about how to understand Latino voting in 2024. Was the huge shift right evidence of true political realignment, or a simply a sign that this election was a referendum on inflation? The answer is “Yes.”

nymag.com/intelligence...

When it comes to masculinity and Latino voting, I think we can't fully disentangle the gender split from class. More Latinas (35%) are going to college than Latinos (28%). Meanwhile traditionally masculine jobs—construction, trucking, etc—have gone decades without any real wage growth.

Her bedroom was 100 degrees during Phoenix heat wave — and her AC was out No U.S. city is more dependent on air conditioning than Phoenix. It's less a matter of comfort than survival.

Her bedroom was more than 100°f inside when we arrived, her a/c was out, her dog was sent to live next door: Karen Shute didn't know how much longer she could take it.

New work in the LA Times. My first team up with long time friend @jherrerx.bsky.social.

Reporting this week from our climate future:
Phoenix, going into its 18th day in a row with heat over 110 Fahrenheit, with no end in sight. Last time the heat was this high, for this long, was 1974. Even a city as adapted for heat as Phoenix is struggling.

We gotta decide which platform is new Twitter, I can’t keep checking 5 apps a day