Pepper

ICE Gains Fast-Track Access to Private Prison Giant as It Plans to Nearly Double Detention Capacity Navy contract allows immigration agency to bypass normal bidding and hire one of its largest detention operators directly as it plans to add 92,000 beds by November

🚨ICE just got access to one of its biggest private detention center operators last night, thanks to a Navy contract.

The move lets ICE bypass normal contracting processes to tap GEO Group to operate its detention centers as they race to buy detention sites to house 92,000 detainees nationwide.

For those looking for new ways to use federal buying data for good, we've updated our 2026 DHS Contract Visualizer with the most recent data. Visit the tracker here:

tinyurl.com/DHSContracts...

Zoom in to see contracts bought by DHS law enforcement agencies in your area, and more.

Submit Written Testimony to Support House Bill 630 Submit Written Testimony to Support House Bill 630! (if you’re a Maryland resident) The House Bill is part of the Judiciary Committee, you can see the bill tracker here: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/m...

To testify for HB 630 TOMORROW:

⚫️ Register at mgaleg.maryland.gov

🟡 Sign in Feb 16 & go to "Witness Signup."

🔴 Choose "Judiciary" & HB 630.

⚪️ Select "Favorable," upload your PDF statement, & click SAVE.

Full guide: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Yes! Good catch…

But if you are planning on submitting testimony, please focus on the ⚫️🟡Feb. 16th date!🔴⚪️

If you miss tomorrow, your testimony will not be considered on the 18th. Confusing for sure.

An open letter from the team at Project Salt Box in support of MD House Bill 630 The testimony we will be submitting tomorrow in support of this emergency measure

This is the testimony our team will be submitting tomorrow in support of HB 630. We are providing this to other Marylanders to use for inspiration, or to model their own submissions on.

ICE is using a Navy war-fighting contract (WEXMAC TITUS) to turn warehouses into detention sites in the US.

They're using mil procurement to skip transparency & local safety laws.

Call your Reps and demand:

1. Why is ICE using WEXMAC TITUS?
2. Where is the oversight?
3. What are you going to do?

The Best Way to Support Our Mission? Don't Give Us Your Money Nearly $20,000 pledged to Project Salt Box could do more immediate good at Asylee Women Enterprise.

Thank you to @maddow.bsky.social for giving me the time of day last night. Thank you also to the THOUSANDS of folks interested in using our data for good. There's one other way you can help us, and it's by not giving us your money.

Homeland Security Demands Social Media Sites Reveal Names Behind Anti-ICE Posts The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.

Homeland Security's demand for social media giants like Google and Meta to expose identities behind anti-ICE posts strikes at the heart of free expression. This authoritarian move threatens dissent, stifling voices challenging oppressive systems.

A 60-year-old woman who never grew up!!!

“I Have Been Here Too Long”: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility Hundreds of children are currently being held with their parents at an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas. In letters and drawings, eight kids convey the pain of feeling trapped with no end...

ProPublica received eight handwritten letters from children who have been held at the detention center that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was recently released from.

We'll let their words speak for themselves.

Ofelia Torres, teen who fought to have her father released from ICE custody, dies from rare cancer Ofelia Torres, 16, died on Friday from Stage 4 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, her father's lawyer confirmed.

A child dying of cancer spent her final days fighting to free her wrongfully detained father from ICE custody.
 
This comes just weeks after a mother from Maryland was denied the right to be at her son’s side as he died from cancer.
 
Not one dime for this cruelty.

www.cbsnews.com/amp/chicago/...

ICE affiliated with alleged sex trafficker—among other monsters Police in Minnesota announced Tuesday that a background checker for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement has been arrested as part of an sex trafficking sting. The ...

www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...

👀 👀

The Obamas are the epitome of sophistication, class, intelligence, grace, decency and love. I’m so desperately missing presence like this in the White House.

Obama: "The rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous ... the sort of behavior that we've seen in authoritarian countries and we've seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America."

Will it be national news? Will it cause performative outrage? Will he be censured?

Nope. Forgotten by tomorrow.

Can confirm.

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

EXCLUSIVE: Susan Collins Backs SAVE AMERICA ACT -- But Won't Break Filibuster U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is throwing her weight behind the House-passed SAVE America Act, saying the revised bill strikes the right balance between election security and voter access — while ...

Collins is a lying POS. She's also an extremist right-wing Republican. Collins is dripping with MAGA. Replace Susan Collins.

www.themainewire.com/2026/02/excl...

🎯🎯

Rep. Angie Craig: "The attacks on Black and brown people in Minnesota have been egregious. At the end of the day, what they wanted out of Minnesota was for us to riot. I think this will go down in American history as one of the greatest examples of peaceful resistance from an entire community."

EPA reverses long-standing climate change finding, stripping its own ability to regulate emissions The agency announced it is repealing its 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases warm the Earth and endanger human health and well-being.

There are so many fucked up things with the current administration that it's hard to focus on one but this recent move is basically a death sentence for the planet. I've been involved with more boots on the ground actions over the years than I can count and this really bums me out.

Swalwell: ICE agents shot Alex Pretti and Renee Good. And the only person in the world who has been held accountable by DHS is the pilot who somehow forgot to move Kristi Noem’s blankie.

We’re going to barrels of paint to cover the ketchup stains in the WHITE HOUSE….

We made this "what to do if the police are at the door" poster for two reasons:
1. So you can remember what to say (don't talk to the cops!)
2. So people you live with know who to call (local legal support)

Download (and tell your friends): activistchecklist.org/police

And of course, we have the song version of this poster from Bread and Puppet.

⚠️ Warning: It will be stuck in your head for days.

(Credit: planetslushy on tiktok)