Amy Shefrin

@amyshefrin.bsky.social

Working to change health care policy and other losing causes. Passionate about anti-racism in action, corporate power, wealth inequality, philanthropy, voting rights, and accountability for insurrections. Based in Brooklyn.

Insurance companies can often be aggressive with their denials because “they don’t expect people to come back,” one health care advocate said. The lesson is simple, another expert told us: “Appeal, appeal, appeal, appeal. That’s all you have.”

This Little-Known Appeal Could Force Your Insurer to Pay for Lifesaving Care. Here’s How to File It.

When a health insurer refuses to pay for your treatment, you may have the right to have the denial reviewed — and potentially overturned — by an independent provider. Here are six steps experts sugges...

propublica.org

It’s genuinely a challenge for legal journalists to cover the birthright citizenship case, because one side’s argument is “the Fourteenth’s Amendment intent and text and a century of uninterrupted Supreme Court precedent all support birthright citizenship,” and the other side’s argument is “nuh-UH”

Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.

This is absolutely insane: DHS claims the right to subpoena your emails and to send investigators to your house. In this case, because a retiree sent the mildest possible criticism to a prosecutor. No judges involved. www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon

Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has weaponized administrative subpoenas to attack free speech, according to privacy and civil rights groups.

washingtonpost.com

AOC on ICE: It’s our task to figure out how to claw back what has essentially supercharged this agency into becoming a relentless domestic paramilitary that is also a blank check to Palantir to create facial-recognition scans on U.S. citizens.

After executing Alex Pretti on Saturday, ICE has shifted to primarily targeting bus stops and elementary schools in my community this week. I cannot overstate how much of the ICE activity in my community is just targeting places where little kids are.

Matt McDermott@mattmfm.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Video from this morning shows ICE agents deploying tear gas outside a Minneapolis preschool as parents shout, “This is a preschool! There’s kids here!”

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

1. I am a resident of the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am over 18 years of age. I am a children's entertainer who specializes in face painting.
2. On Saturday, January 24, 2026, at about 8:50 am, I was getting ready to go to work when I heard whistles outside. I knew the whistles meant that ICE agents were in the area, so I decided to check it out on my way to work. I've been involved in observing in my community because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors. Connecting to your local community and knowing who your neighbors are is something I profoundly value.
3. I drove to Nicollet Ave. and 26th where I could hear the whistles coming from. I turned south onto Nicollet. There were already several ICE agents there and they'd set up a sort of vehicle convoy on Nicollet and 28th. There were also about 15 observers there, recording and observing ICE.
4. I saw ICE agents surrounding cars and punching car windows. I also saw them stopping vehicles further down Nicollet, so I backed up because I didn't feel safe continuing on.
5. I noticed a man sort of acting to help traffic move more smoothly. He helped me find a place to park. I got out with my whistle and my camera. I went over to him and said something like, "I'm going to film and use my whistle."
6. It seemed like most ICE activity was happening a little farther down the street from us, near 27th. Someone was being thrown to the ground.7. I started recording. There was an agent by a car across the street. Two observers were a few feet away from the agent, blowing their whistles. One was wearing a backpack.
8. I and the man who was observing and helping direct traffic were standing in the street. There was a phone in the man's hand recording a video.
9. An agent approached and asked us to back up, so I moved slowly back onto the sidewalk.
10. The man stayed in the street, filming as the other observers I mentioned earlier were being forced backward by another ICE agent threatening them with pepper spray. The man went closer to support them as they got threatened, just with his camera out. I didn't see him reach for or hold a gun.
11. Then the ICE agent shoved one of the other observers to the ground. Then he started pepper spraying all three of them directly in the face and all over. The man with the phone put his hands above his head and the agent sprayed him again and pushed him.
12. Then the man tried to help up the woman the ICE agent had shoved to the ground. The ICE agents just kept spraying. More agents came over and grabbed the man who was still trying to help the woman get up. All three of the observers looked to have been badly affected by the pepper spray. I could feel the pepper spray in my eyes.13. The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn't see him touch any of them-he wasn't even turned toward them. It didn't look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn't see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times.
14.1 don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.
15. The video I recorded of what happened accurately depicts the events leading up to the agents shooting him and several minutes afterwards. The video is attached as Exhibit 1.
16. I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.
17. I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me and I don't feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don't know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they're not telling the truth about what happened. I've heard that other witnesses might have been arrested and taken to the Whipple Building.
18. I am disgusted and gutted at how they are treating my neighbors and my state. I keep alternating between crying and feeling determined it is important to remember the value of documenting injustice. We show up for the people who need us to bearwitness, because it can't just be one group of people bearing the brunt of their tyranny. This is a struggle to protect our freedom and democracy, those things are on the line. He lost his life for those values.
I declare under penalty of perjury that everything I have stated in this document is true and correct.

Dated and signed on Jan 24, 2026 in Hennepin County, State of Minnesota.
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social · 8mo ago

JUST IN: Lawyers file declaration in federal court from first-hand witness to immigration agents' shooting of a US citizen onlookers today. Minneapolis Mayor Frey said details would be used to bolster case for ousting ICE from city. Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.