Graham Starr
@gstarr.bsky.social
same graham but over here now. Editor and reporter covering business tech, health care, and media, mostly. DocumentedNY: TechCrunch, Adweek, Bloomberg, Business Insider, NYT, NYMag, &c. Here to share things I read! đź”— https://graham.substack.com/
ICE arrests are pushing immigrant families deeper into poverty www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
ICE Arrests Are Pushing Immigrant Families Deeper Into Poverty
When a breadwinner gets detained, relatives face legal bills, financial strain and even homelessness.
bloomberg.com
NEW from @rojeda.bsky.social @lamthuyvo.bsky.social: Multiple immigrants say they were misled by the Queens immigration nonprofit La Jornada, which some say charged them for legal help they never received. The NY Attorney General's office said it is looking into five complaints against La Jornada.
Confusion, Missed Court Hearings: What Happened When Immigrants Paid a Queens Non-Profit for Immigration Help
Immigrants told Documented they felt let down by a well-known organization that helped with asylum applications and other paperwork.
documentedny.com
SCOOP: The Trump administration in recent days deported a group of Mexican nationals who had been barred from removal to their home country after proving to an immigration court that they would likely face torture, according to two people with knowledge of the move.
“This is the third chance I gave you to submit an asylum application,” Judge Ling said. “I know it’s difficult, but without an attorney you need to submit the application in English.” She gave the child a week to file the application, a process that can take months even for experienced lawyers.
Children Face Immigration Judges Alone as Trump Admin Fast-Tracks Deportations of Minors
More children than ever before are being forced to face immigration judges by themselves without legal representation, advocates say.
documentedny.com
NEW from @grenchpan.bsky.social : More children than ever before are being forced to face immigration judges alone as the Trump administration seeks to fast-track deportations of unaccompanied minors. documentedny.com/2026/08/06/u...
Children Face Immigration Judges Alone as Trump Admin Fast-Tracks Deportations of Minors
More children than ever before are being forced to face immigration judges by themselves without legal representation, advocates say.
documentedny.com
"DHS will send goons to collect fines owed by those who self deport" feels like a spiritual successor of Project 35.5, the Cold War test to see if paper records (like, for debts) could survive nuclear blasts. (Records, yes, debt collectors, no, btw: blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2011/11/30/w...)
The Bureaucracy will Survive the Apocalypse
This week's document concerns a vexing Cold War question: if the United States was nuked by the Soviet Union, would the bureaucracy survive, or would we...
blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
Graham Starr@gstarr.bsky.social · 2w agoAstonishing reporting by @dell.bsky.social and @regret.bsky.social. DHS told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect. www.wired.com/story/dhs-is...
DHS is hiring bounty hunters to find people in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras who have been removed from the country but still owe civil penalties. w/ @dell.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/dhs-is...
DHS Is Hiring Bounty Hunters to Find and Photograph Deported People’s Homes Abroad
Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.
wired.com
Astonishing reporting by @dell.bsky.social and @regret.bsky.social. DHS told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect. www.wired.com/story/dhs-is...
DHS Is Hiring Bounty Hunters to Find and Photograph Deported People’s Homes Abroad
Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.
wired.com
“This court is granting you voluntary departure...I wish you all the best.” Inside the NYC Courtroom Where Detained Children Face Deportation Without Attorneys www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/07/31/u...
Inside the NYC Courtroom Where Detained Children Face Deportation Without Attorneys
Around 20,000 unaccompanied minors nationwide are set to lose legal services when the federal government ends a contract Friday. One NYC immigration court shows us what that will look like.
thecityreporter.nyc
Scoop from us: Some Tesla executives have been told to prepare for a separation of the company’s China business ahead of a potential merger with SpaceX, now a prolific U.S. defense contractor. Musk has denied talks have taken place: www.wsj.com/business/aut...
Exclusive | Tesla Weighs Sale of China Business to Pave Way for Potential SpaceX Merger
The U.S. automaker could sell or spin off the business in its second-largest market over geopolitical concerns.
wsj.com
This is really, really, really bad. I spoke to two mothers who lost food stamps who are eating less in order to feed their kids and still struggling to give their kids enough nutritious food www.thenation.com/article/econ...
The Trump Administration Is Making It Nearly Impossible to Get Food Stamps
New work requirements and restrictions on SNAP have kicked millions off the benefit rolls, with more reductions to come.
thenation.com
Katie Bergh@katiebergh.bsky.social · 4w ago🚨NEW: In the 9 months after last year’s reconciliation law enacted unprecedented SNAP cuts, the number of people receiving SNAP fell by more than 4.5 million. Based on available data, we estimate that at least 1.5 million fewer kids are receiving SNAP. www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
“As of July 19, 2026, the U.S. has reported 2,278 measles cases this year—already nearing the total for all of 2025 with five months still to go. At this pace, 2026 is on track to set a new 33-year record. Expect headlines soon.” yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-w...
www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/u...
Faced With Piles of New Paperwork, People Are Losing Food Stamps
Arizona’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rolls have plummeted, offering a possible preview of national trends as states try to avoid new federal penalties.
nytimes.com
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4w agoPage One. @nytimes.com
“Brouillette, 37, told his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE. She said that because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him.” apnews.com/article/ice-...
AP Exclusive: ICE officer in Maine shooting has history of violent behavior, family and records say
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood, according to c...
apnews.com
“I’ve never met James Dolan... But, like, there does seem to be a bit of a pattern here,” @evangreer.bsky.social tells me, citing WIRED’s reporting on MSG’s minute-by-minute surveillance of a trans woman. “They just seem overly interested in queer and trans people in their venue.”
Katie Drummond@katie-drummond.bsky.social · last mo.More blockbuster reporting on Madison Square Garden’s surveillance apparatus from @wired.com An MSG database tracked and categorized hundreds of celebs, including labeling those identified as “LGBTQIA.” …! By @noahshachtman.bsky.social and @regret.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/madiso...
“Art is, strictly speaking, wasteful. It shares this with trash. Hampton wasn’t wealthy as we would define wealth, but his Millennium Throne is a byproduct of wealth, only possible in an empire with surplus. His work, then, is a product of Empire.”
JP@jpbrammer.bsky.social · 2mo agoAhead of its 250th birthday, I make the case that the greatest work of American art ever produced is made of garbage and was assembled at the behest of God by a Black man working the night shift as a janitor in DC johnpaulbrammer.substack.com/p/americas-g...
NPR publishes, then immediately retracts, article saying that Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito is retiring www.npr.org/2026/06/30/n...
For my latest, I reported from Florida, where more death-row prisoners have been executed since 2025 than all other states combined. I looked at how this accelerated pace is affecting people on the ground, beginning with a priest who ministers to men on death row. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/m...
Capital Punishment Is on the Decline. Except in Ron DeSantis’s Florida.
nytimes.com
"How should bodies like the MSPB or NLRB, which are mostly adjudicatory but may also possess some other functions, be treated?...More questions, which have long been at rest under Humphrey’s, are sure to follow" Sotomayor writes in dissent www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
supremecourt.gov
Josh Eidelson@josheidelson.bsky.social · 2mo ago"A divided US Supreme Court expanded the president’s power to fire top government officials in a blockbuster decision that puts the White House firmly in control of potentially dozens of agencies that have long operated independently" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Scoop for @wsj.com in response to our Polymarket investigation, w/@klong.bsky.social and @neilmhta.bsky.social www.wsj.com/finance/regu...
Exclusive | Lawmakers Call for Federal Probe of Polymarket Over Deceptive Advertising
Two senators asked regulators to probe Polymarket’s promotion of fake bets following the Journal’s reporting.
wsj.com
NEW from me: the US is about to deport a retired pastor, Edward Nalwamba, back to Uganda. Not only is Uganda in the midst of an Ebola outbreak, but Nalwamba says he was the target of the country's security forces before coming to the US. @wired.com www.wired.com/story/the-us...
The US Is About to Deport an Immigrant to the Center of the Ebola Crisis
Edward Nalwamba is a 78-year-old retired pastor whose health has rapidly declined while in detention, his attorney says.
wired.com
A letter penned from the UN cites NYC home care workers' 24-hour shifts as violations of human rights that amounts to a form of forced labor. Read the latest from @amirkhafagy.bsky.social here: documentedny.com/2026/06/25/h...
United Nations Intervenes in Home Care Workers' 24-Hour Shift Ban
A letter penned from the UN cites the home care workers' 24-hour shifts as violations of human rights that amounts to a form of forced labor.
documentedny.com
In the name of journalism, I bought the Palantir chore coat. It is *so* much weirder than you think www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
My New Life With the Palantir Chore Coat
I bought the most confusing jacket in America.
theatlantic.com
this is a great illustration of one of the fundamental insights of democracy — that there is no such thing as "the people" and that majorities are elusive and ever shifting. no election, no decision, is final and treating an election as a final decision is profoundly undemocratic.
Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · 2mo agoA fifth of Leave voters have died.
A thoughtful conversation between @adamserwer.bsky.social and @adamhsays.com ahead of the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling, and what it would mean to end more than a century of precedent. www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
What Will Happen to Birthright Citizenship?
The Supreme Court considers the Fourteenth Amendment.
theatlantic.com
It appears Trump may have gotten special access to an obesity drug. Bonkers story. Incredible reporting from STAT. www.statnews.com/2026/06/23/e...
Eli Lilly gave extraordinary obesity drug access to a 79-year-old patient. Who was it?
Exclusive: STAT has learned that Eli Lilly and the FDA allowed a 79-year-old to gain extraordinary access to an experimental obesity drug through the agency’s “compassionate use” program.
statnews.com
In a new privacy policy, Anthropic says Claude will soon require you to upload your driver's license or passport for a variety of reasons. The ID checker is Persona, a firm funded by Trump ally Peter Thiel. As a U.S. company, Persona is also subject to gov't demands for people's verification data. đź‘€
Anthropic says Claude may want to see your ID | TechCrunch
Claude's chatbot may ask to verify your age and identity "in certain circumstances," such as with a passport or driver's license, according to a privacy policy change.
techcrunch.com
NEW: A college student filmed the exciting moment he won $100,000 – except the bet wasn’t real. A flood of videos showing fake trades and fake wins, is fueling Polymarket’s hype machine, our @wsj.com investigation found. It's part of a secret campaign for Americans’ attention on social media.
