Sofya Aptekar

I had the dubious pleasure of attending the AI workshop at the AFT Leader meeting this weekend and I thought I might have a stroke. Hoping to find time to write it up.

Ig post from freeleqaakordia About her hospitalization

www.instagram.com/p/DUeabmyDUT...

Free Leqaa Kordia now!!!

The Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, has over 260,000 employees. The Department of Defense, which houses the military, is the largest employer in the world. Carceral industries are some of the most unionized.

Abolition is a labor issue. We need a new economy with different work.

Meanwhile 1,500 soldiers in an Army unit based in Alaska and specializing in arctic conditions is readying for deployment to Minnesota. www.military.com/daily-news/2...

Recruiter told students that enlisting can lead to Green Cards for parents The Parole in Place program is not available until after service members enlist, and it often requires a lawyer.

Never mind that no, undocumented parents who entered without inspection will not be able to get a green card if their kid enlists in the military. Even the temporary relief from deportation for military families - Parole in Place - is costly and harder to get now. taskandpurpose.com/news/militar...

Recruiter told students that enlisting can lead to Green Cards for parents The Parole in Place program is not available until after service members enlist, and it often requires a lawyer.

Imagine you are a teen in Minnesota, fearing that your immigrant parents will be abducted by ICE. You get an email from a military recruiter, who is also an immigrant, telling you that you can enlist and get a green card for your parents. 1/2 taskandpurpose.com/news/militar...

Hudson River Park Lets ICE Park Vans at Pier 40 A contract with the Trump administration has been a windfall for the park—plus more stories for your Wednesday.

The public trust that runs Hudson River Park is making money renting space to ICE to park its kidnapping vans on Pier 40.

hellgatenyc.com/hudson-river...

😞 Unfortunately the limited provisions protecting family members of the military are even more limited now.

New piece on how veterans can find themselves in debt to the VA, including the involvement of predatory third parties. Something I wrote about in my essay for the South Atlantic Quarterly a few months ago. www.military.com/feature/2025...

Absolutely stunning that OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft were able to buy off an entire teachers’ union for just $23 million.

TWO anti-trans bills are up for a vote this week:
❌ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's bill that would criminalize providers of gender-affirming care
❌ Rep. Dan Crenshaw's bill that would block Medicaid funds from covering transition-related care (1/2)

Join this Wednesday's webinar WHY PALESTINE IS A UNION ISSUE (12/3) at 5:30—7:30pm ET, hosted by our comrades at Coalition for Action in Higher Ed!

Registration: zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Screenshot of a military.com daily brief for Dec. 1. Photo of a bold, bearded veterans with a backpack and a US flag. Lawmakers to VA: Use AI to help prevent veteran suicide.

Wait, I thought AI and suicide was in the news for something else recently 🤔

Bane of our existence as a smaller union (PSC). See also how the Municipal Labor Committee decides our health insurance.

ICE garage blockaded in lower Manhattan with dozens of agents stuck inside as more and more New Yorkers gather.

NYPD observed staging on Canal & Broadway, expected come over for crowd control.

Wonder how it affects Northwestern's credit rating 🤔

We're gonna need a truth and reconciliation commission and Nuremberg style trials to reckon with all of this evil, and any Dem candidate for office who shies away from a full reckoning in the name of "moving forward as a nation" can get well and truly fucked

And likely our pension money and our union reserves are invested in it.

How Universities Used Counterterror Intelligence-Sharing Hubs to Surveil Pro-Palestine Students Internal university communications reveal how a network established for post-9/11 intelligence sharing was turned on students protesting genocide.

Well this is very bad.

Donate to Help a Traumatized Family Find Safety and Stability, organized by Katherine Gomez A family in our community is living through every parent’s worst n… Katherine Gomez needs your support for Help a Traumatized Family Find Safety and Stability

VERIFIED: Fundraiser for the Queens family that had their door busted down & a gun pointed in their face by ICE.

The children are all traumatized, unable to sleep.

Fundraiser seeks to secure them emergency housing and get therapy for the kids. www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-...

*Nov 19 — The migrant worker Joe Hill was executed — Around the world, wherever working people struggle, he lives on beside them. #1u

*Nov 20 — Trans Day of Remembrance, for those lost around the world — as we cherish and champion all of our neighbors. 🏳️‍⚧️

An injury to one, is an injury to all.

people “embracing” AI in their classroom…you are ushering in the thing that is supposed to replace you not just as instructor but as source of knowledge, after it fed off your blood and guts

“embracing the bubonic plague-infested rats in the classroom"

Dang, you are a real one @rtfanning.bsky.social "it gets clearer and clearer that “Veterans Day” is nothing more than an attempt to bury the oppressive and deadly agenda of the U.S. ruling class by celebrating our “heroes.” 🔥

This would be transformative. To invest in publicly developed and owned learning management systems at CUNY instead of extractive and shitty Brightspace, Blackboard etc.

Every time one of these mass murderers dies without having faced any consequence for the massacres they ordered, the lives they destroyed, the societies they razed to the ground… I realize how far we are from a world with justice. Rest in hell Dick Cheney. Your legacy is death.

Nov. 14: BU Law Review Symposium on The University and Democracy.
I'll be in PLENARY #2: The Political Economy of the Modern University, speaking about debt financing of public higher ed, credit ratings, and Wall Street governing our universities, building on Lend & Rule www.bu.edu/law/engageme...

Honoring Our Own. Veterans Day Event Program. November 13, 2025. 12:30-2:30. Baruch College NVC, Multi-purpose Room 107. 12:30-2:30 deported veterans photo exhibit by Dr. Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana. 1pm-1:30pm Bring Them Home (2022) film screening 1:30-2:15 hybrid panel with Juan Garcia (deported veteran), Rob Young (Excuse My Accent), Dr. Sofya Aptekar (CUNY), Margaret Cargioli (Immigrant Defenders Law Center), and James Smith (Black Deported Veterans of America), Background of the flyer is a photograph of the border wall painted with names of deported veterans and crosses.

Nov 13: honored to be invited by the talented and committed @lizbethdsantana.bsky.social to participate in a panel on deported veterans at Baruch College, drawing on my research for Green Card Soldier.

Speaker Series: Technologies of the State. Green Card Soldier: Betwen Model Immigrant and Security Threat. Professor Sofya Aptekar. CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies. November 3, 2025. 3:30-5:00pm ZSK Room 404. In the corner, there is a photograph of the speaker, white woman with long gray-brown hair against a black background and image of the book cover in a circle, black outline of the United States against a camo background

How are we already entering November... Amidst it all, it feels a bit weird to do normal things like talks, but here I go:
11/3: Wake Forest sociology department visit
11/13: Baruch College panel on deported vets
11/14: Boston University Law Review Symposium
More details in thread

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_ BREAKING: Per four senior DHS & Trump admin sources, a mass removal of ICE leadership around the country is underway, with up to 12 ICE field office chiefs being removed & reassigned in an effort to increase deportation numbers. I'm told the move is spearheaded by Corey Lewandowski, and a handful of the ICE Chiefs will likely be replaced by Border Patrol & CBP officials, some of whom will be hand-picked by aggressive & controversial Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino. I'm told some of the ICE leadership removed from their positions include the ICE Field Office Directors in: - Los Angeles - Phoenix - Philadelphia - Denver - El Paso - San Diego - Seattle/Portland - New Orleans Border Patrol officials taking over ICE leadership positions would be extremely significant, as Border Patrol and ICE do different things, and I've done numerous ride-alongs/embeds with both.

Generally speaking, ICE typically conducts very targeted operations, largely going after criminal illegal aliens or those with deportation orders, but almost always knowing who they are targeting for arrest, often conducting surveillance to learn their schedules before and waiting hours before arresting them if needed. Border Patrol, under Trump 2.0, while sometimes doing their own targeted operations, has been extremely aggressive and has been at the forefront of some of the most controversial immigration enforcement operations we've seen so far, carrying out roving patrols in Los Angeles, Chicago, etc, often at Home Depot, car washes, flea markets etc, leading to a handful of federal judges around the country issuing injunctions against them. A majority of the viral videos you see online are Border Patrol agents, including the use of a Trojan horse style Penske moving truck at a Los Angeles Home Depot, an operation organized by Bovino. ICE often gets blamed for what Border Patrol does, as the media and activists often cannot tell the difference between federal agents, and everyone is called "ICE". I'm told there are growing concerns about the political and PR fallout associated with some of the roving patrols Border Patrol is conducting as lawsuits continue to stack up and mid-terms approach next year.

I'm told there is significant friction within different wings of DHS and the administration, with Border Czar Tom Homan & ICE Director Todd Lyons preferring to prioritize targeting criminal aliens & the "worst of the worst" or those with deportation orders, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, and BP Commander Bovino prefer to use aggressive tactics to arrest anyone in the US illegally, including but not limited to criminals, to ramp up deportation numbers and achieve President Trump's promises of mass deportations. I am hearing from both sides of this friction. One senior DHS official tells me: "ICE started with the worst of the worst, knowing every target they are hitting, but since Border Patrol started in LA in June, we've (DHS) lost our focus, going too hard, too fast, with limited prioritization. It's getting numbers, but at what cost?". Border Patrol agents I've talked to defend their tactics, with one telling me: "What did everyone think mass deportations meant? Only the worst? Tom Homan has said it himself, anyone in the US illegally is on the table."

It's quite a situation, as both sides of this are on the same team, with the same end goals, but different perspectives on how to get there. Another DHS official confirmed the personnel changes to me on deep background, adding that the moves are based on performance and doing what is needed to achieve the best results. Official statement to @FoxNews via @TriciaOhio : "While we have no personnel changes to announce at this time, the Trump Administration remains laser focused on delivering results and removing violent criminal illegal aliens from this country." 7:57 PM · Oct 27, 2025 · 29.6K Views

🚨BIG changes happening -- ICE leadership is being purged tonight. The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Gregory Bovino's "Midway Blitz" style.

Think things are bad now? It'll get worse.

Bibliotecas públicas: un tercer lugar donde ensayar la utopía Las bibliotecas han sido históricamente objetivo de ataques que no siempre han tomado la forma de incendio o metralla: el desinterés o la censura también son una amenaza para su supervivencia.

Cool article about public libraries that has some quotes from me. Love to see my work in Spanish (and an unexpected promotion to antropóloga) www.elsaltodiario.com/institucione...