We spoke with former friends and family of the ICE officer who reportedly killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. Court records show how ICE gave a lifeline to a man who'd been accused of abuse by two ex-wives before becoming "voluntarily underemployed." www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

What ICE should have known when it hired David Brouillette

The officer who killed a young father in Maine had been accused of abuse by two ex-wives. He was also eligible to skip weeks of training in Georgia.

motherjones.com

1/ Last summer, I noticed I was calmer and happier than I'd been in years. It took me months to realize that my mood shift dovetailed with another change: getting my IUD removed. So I started digging into the research on birth control and mental health. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Did birth control make my depression worse?

What I wish I'd known about my IUD.

motherjones.com

Publishing this story in this political climate takes ridiculous levels of nerve and nuance. But @julialurie.bsky.social pulls it off. Her investigation into the psychological side effects of hormonal birth control, and the researchers working to improve it: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Did birth control make my depression worse?

What I wish I'd known about my IUD.

motherjones.com

The birth control conversation feels like two camps: defend it at all costs, or tear it down. This piece, from the great @julialurie.bsky.social, is about the quieter third camp—scientists scrutinizing contraceptives not to get rid of them, but to make them better:

Did birth control make my depression worse?

What I wish I'd known about my IUD.

bit.ly

When my brilliant colleague @julialurie.bsky.social took out her IUD, she felt happier than she had in years. In true Julia fashion, this sparked an investigation: about birth control, mental health, and the work by scientists who are scrutinizing birth control to improve it: bit.ly/3SPQsMf

Did birth control make my depression worse?

What I wish I'd known about my IUD.

bit.ly

Important piece from @julialurie.bsky.social. Discussions about birth control's effect on mental health are usually dominated by trad wives, ultra-conservative groups and dodgy fitness influencers, and I'm happy to read something deeply reported on the subject. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Did birth control make my depression worse?

What I wish I'd known about my IUD.

motherjones.com

In 2023, I reported on the foster kids stuck at North Star, a notorious Anchorage psychiatric facility. Some kids stayed months or years—enduring restraints, seclusion, and more—simply because there was nowhere else for them to go. Now, a law aims to change that. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

A Mother Jones investigation helped spur a new Alaska law protecting vulnerable kids

HB 36 will require a review of foster kids' placements in psychiatric hospitals.

motherjones.com

Imagine being a kid and learning both your parents were arrested by ICE. You’ll have to pay rent and survive on your own. I shadowed four siblings—US citizens near Mar-a-Lago—as they try to do that. I'll be thinking about their story for a long time 1/x www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

ICE took Mom and Dad. Now the Perez kids are home alone.

Four American siblings left to fend for themselves—and they're not the only ones.

motherjones.com

A little more than a year ago, @paperwords.bsky.social received a letter from the US Forest Service detailing plans for a new wildfire recovery project. But a single word caught his eye—and alerted him to a secret, Big Tobacco-style campaign with ramifications for our forests.

We are bombarding America’s forests with Roundup

Scientists are wary of glyphosate. MAHA loathes it. And our investigation shows California is spraying it everywhere.

motherjones.com

We went through more first-hand accounts from Dilley, the only immigrant family detention center. It's the little details that really stick with me—Christmas "celebrations," a girl's letter asking for help, accounts of being hidden away during congressional visits www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Punished for protesting, talking to the press, having a toothache: More Dilley horror stories

A new batch of firsthand accounts from ICE's family detention center depict vindictive treatment.

motherjones.com

NEW: The 9-year-old who begged Ms. Rachel for help getting out of ICE detention so he could attend his spelling bee has now also been released from Dilley. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

9-year-old who pleaded to go to spelling bee released from ICE detention

Deiver Henao Jimenez told children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel that he wanted to leave Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas in order to go to his state spelling bee.

nbcnews.com

1/ This story by @julialurie.bsky.social is just a catalog of horrors that kids and families sent to Dilley detention center are subjected to. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Wormy food, intimidating guards, sick kids: Inside ICE’s only family detention center

First-person accounts paint a bleak picture of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.

motherjones.com

Clara Jeffery@clarajeffery.bsky.social · 6mo ago

"We were given wormy food, and when someone spoke out about it he was taken in the middle of the night....officers told him that he would go to an adult detention center and his children would go to foster care" www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

"You can’t drink the water here. The smell is bad, and it hurts our stomachs a lot." "I have been served raw meat at Dilley. One woman became so sick from eating the food that she began vomiting blood." First-person accounts paint a bleak picture of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center.

Wormy food, intimidating guards, sick kids: Inside ICE’s only family detention center

First-person accounts paint a bleak picture of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.

motherjones.com

I spent the past couple weeks going through hundreds of pages of sworn declarations made detained by children and their parents at Dilley, ICE’s only family detention center. This is what life is like at Dilley, in their own words: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Wormy food, intimidating guards, sick kids: Inside ICE’s only family detention center

First-person accounts paint a bleak picture of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center.

motherjones.com

Last year, @julialurie.bsky.social investigated the private adoption industry in Utah, where, depending on whom you ask, the state’s laws were the most “adoption-friendly”—or the most exploitative—in the country. Now Utah legislators are trying to fix a broken system.

Utah moves to rein in its runaway private adoption industry

The adoption reform legislation follows a Mother Jones investigation in 2025.

motherjones.com

Last year, we came out with investigations on @motherjones.com and @pbsnews.org about the runaway adoption industry in Utah, where agencies routinely fly in pregnant women from across the country, promising free lodging and cash. Now, lawmakers are taking action: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Utah moves to rein in its runaway private adoption industry

The adoption reform legislation follows a Mother Jones investigation in 2025.

motherjones.com

SCOOP: In a January letter to Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), DHS says 270 DACA recipients have been arrested from January to September 2025. In addition, 174 DACA applicants have been deported, according to ICE records. Those numbers differ from what was shared with Sen. Dick Durbin in February.

After a judge ordered Isabel be released from detention in MN with her belongings, ICE sent her home—but didn't return her work permit, ID, checks worth $700, or her daughter’s US passport. Isabel is one of many now missing key immigration and identity documents www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

ICE took their papers—and won’t give them back

Immigrants are being released from detention without documents proving their status.

motherjones.com

Dang, this judge wrote wrote "again" nine times and footnoted each one. This is some infuriating reporting from @julialurie.bsky.social. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

New: Immigrants in MN are being released from detention without their IDs, work permits, social security cards, and other key documents that prove their status to begin with www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

ICE took their papers—and won’t give them back

Immigrants are being released from detention without documents proving their status.

motherjones.com

Breaking: Ian has been released without conditions. He was greeted by a group of veterans and other supporters outside the courthouse. Story to come!

Julia Lurie@julialurie.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I met Ian outside the Whipple Building in Mpls last week, where he was protesting ICE. I was blown away by his vulnerability, by how deeply he—a 6-time combat vet—feels like his nation is under attack. I just learned that he was among those arrested by federal officials for protesting at the church.

I met Ian outside the Whipple Building in Mpls last week, where he was protesting ICE. I was blown away by his vulnerability, by how deeply he—a 6-time combat vet—feels like his nation is under attack. I just learned that he was among those arrested by federal officials for protesting at the church.

Mother Jones@motherjones.com · 8mo ago

Ian Austin, an Army veteran, was arrested for protesting ICE in Minneapolis. But he’s continued protesting. Senior reporter @julialurie.bsky.social spoke to him. “When they say, ‘Why would you be out here?’ How the fuck could I not be out here?” he says. “My nation is under attack."

Great @julialurie.bsky.social interview with city council member Soren Stevenson, who says, "I see this as a moment when we are deciding right here in Minneapolis—in this country—are we going to have a democracy going forward, or are we not? The stakes are no greater and no smaller than that."

He lost an eye in the George Floyd protests. Now he represents the ward where Renée Good was killed.

Meet Minneapolis city council member Soren Stevenson.

motherjones.com

A 5-year-old Minnesota child detained with his father at a Texas immigration facility appeared lethargic during a visit Jan. 28 by members of Congress, who demanded the family’s immediate release and an end to the use of family detention.

Lawmakers visit 5-year-old Minnesota boy, who appeared “depressed” in detention center

Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett demanded that preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos and his father be released.

bit.ly

If you want to know what it’s been like in Minneapolis, read this vivid dispatch from my colleague @julialurie.bsky.social, who returned to her hometown shortly before the killing of Alex Pretti www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“We’re going to still be looking out for each other when they’re gone”

On the ground with the Minnesotans standing up to ICE.

motherjones.com

Here's what ICE is up to in Northeast Minneapolis today. Absolutely heartbreaking. Warning: video is hard to watch

I grew up in Minneapolis, and returned last week to find a city that felt like it was under siege—and a city coming together in a way that was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. Here’s my story: part scene piece, part love letter to my hometown www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“We’re going to still be looking out for each other when they’re gone”

On the ground with the Minnesotans standing up to ICE.

motherjones.com

Genesis, a then-20-year-old, pregnant Amazon employee, says her manager wrote her up for sitting down and taking breaks. Shortly thereafter, she says, her higher-ups gave her an ultimatum: Do your job the way we want you to do it, without the chair or without the breaks, or go on unpaid leave.

A pregnant Amazon employee asked for a chair to sit on—and wound up homeless

"You're just a number to them."

motherjones.com

When Genesis found out she was pregnant, she asked her managers at Amazon for a chair to sit on and extra breaks. She wound up with cut hours and no paid maternity leave—and homeless. Now, she and other pregnant Amazon warehouse workers are speaking up. My latest: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

A pregnant Amazon employee asked for a chair to sit on—and wound up homeless

"You're just a number to them."

motherjones.com