Jonathan Blitzer
@jonathanblitzer.bsky.social
Staff writer at The New Yorker. Author of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/625425/everyone-who-is-gone-is-here-by-jonathan-blitzer/
👀 A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reveal data that will show whether it has so dramatically tipped bond hearings against ICE detainees that they're now unconstitutional. Some notable fox-henhouse metaphors here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
My Comment in this week's @newyorker.com: Trump's immigration agenda, which hinges on mass detention, has caused a humanitarian & legal crisis. Deaths in custody; abuse & neglect of detainees; detention w/o bond; judges' orders ignored. The list goes on... www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
My thoughts on the departure of Kristi Noem as DHS Secretary, @newyorker.com : www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Curtains Close on the Kristi Noem Show
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem was obsessed with cameras, and her downfall began when ICE abuses, including the killing of two American citizens, went viral.
newyorker.com
So many just stunning details in this piece by @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social. Read all the way to the end, which gets into the push now to denaturalize citizens. www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...
How Legal Immigration Became a Deportation Trap
Under Trump, the Homeland Security agency responsible for processing visas and green cards has become a site for easy arrests.
newyorker.com
US Citizenship & Immigration Services is an agency most Americans rarely hear about. It administers the *legal* immigration system. Under Trump, the agency has turned into an enforcement tool in service of the broader crackdown. My latest @newyorker.com: www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...
How Legal Immigration Became a Deportation Trap
Under Trump, the Homeland Security agency responsible for processing visas and green cards has become a site for easy arrests.
newyorker.com
"A warrant signed by a judge who is independent of the executive branch is a constitutional safeguard that separates legitimate law enforcement from arbitrary government power." Former DHS General Counsels weigh in on the ICE memo flouting 4th Amendment: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/o...
Opinion | We Were Top Homeland Security Lawyers. You Can’t Wish Away the Fourth Amendment.
nytimes.com
A reminder to journalists, and also...a reminder to MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!!
Felipe De La Hoz@felipedlh.bsky.social · 6mo agoNot big on going over how reporters phrase things with a fine-tooth comb but I do worry about speed of normalization. "Negotiations over requiring judicial warrants to enter homes" this is already a constitutional requirement. "Non-protesters have been impacted" it is not suddenly illegal to protest
DHS said that the woman CBP shot in the chest in Portland was “involved” in a gang shooting. Her ~involvement~ was that suspected gang members sexually assaulted and robbed her.
Sam Levin@samtlevin.bsky.social · 6mo agoAfter Border Patrol shot two people in Portland, DHS claimed they were "vicious gang members" tied to a past shooting. But records I obtained reveal a US prosecutor has since directly contradicted DHS, saying, "We're not suggesting he is a gang member." My dive into how DHS' claims have collapsed:
Democrats now have 2 weeks to negotiate w Congressional Republicans on a set of measures to begin to impose checks on systematically abusive conduct by ICE & CBP. Here's a valuable primer on some things that shld be on the table. Via @andreaflores.bsky.social arosaflores.substack.com/p/how-congre...
How Congress Could Start to Reform ICE and the Border Patrol
This week’s post is co-written with Deborah Fleischaker and Claire Trickler-McNulty, former DHS officials with deep experience working to reform immigration detention and enforcement.
arosaflores.substack.com
My comment in this week's @newyorker.com is about an American nightmare two decades in the making. DHS agencies that have long operated with relative impunity are becoming the personal army of an authoritarian President. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Why the D.H.S. Disaster in Minneapolis Was Predictable
For decades, ICE and Border Patrol have operated with fewer constraints than typical law-enforcement agencies.
newyorker.com
We finally know what happened to DOJ's (frivolous) misconduct complaint against Chief Judge Boasberg: It was transferred by Chief Justice Roberts from the D.C. Circuit to Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeff Sutton, and Sutton dismissed it in a ... direct ... memorandum and order just two weeks later:
opn.ca6.uscourts.gov
For those of us who covered the role of Stephen Miller in Trump 1, what's happening now w DHS head Kristi Noem is a striking reprise of the WH response to the family separation tragedy in 2018. On Monday, Noem had a 2 hour meeting w Trump where she tried to defend herself. 1/
Vital reporting from Venezuela with a devastating view into how state repression has intensified following the US intervention: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/w...
How a Water Balloon Fight in Venezuela Ended in Charges of Treason
nytimes.com
This story - about a Democratic congresswoman charged with assault after an encounter at an immigrant detention facility - really makes clear how far Trump has weaponised the justice system. And how the US government can no longer be treated as a reliable source. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
"The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything." Important piece from @radleybalko.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/o...
Opinion | I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different.
nytimes.com
One of the first & most alarming cases of the Trump Admin targeting Democrats is its prosecution of NJ Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, who faces up to 17 yrs in prison for allegedly assaulting ICE agents in her district. In this week's @newyorker.com I investigate: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees
LaMonica McIver went to tour an immigration jail in her district. Now she faces seventeen years in prison.
newyorker.com
One of the first & most alarming cases of the Trump Admin targeting Democrats is its prosecution of NJ Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, who faces up to 17 yrs in prison for allegedly assaulting ICE agents in her district. In this week's @newyorker.com I investigate: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees
LaMonica McIver went to tour an immigration jail in her district. Now she faces seventeen years in prison.
newyorker.com
"The regime only gets tougher and harder line in circumstances like this, because now they're backed into a corner." Jonathan Blitzer and Tim Miller explain how U.S. saber-rattling and covert pressure gave the Maduro regime cover to escalate repression in Venezuela.
Losing the vocabulary to capture the grotesquerie we're witnessing.
Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. What Trump Wants in Venezuela @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social explains the various interests and factions at play in the Trump Administration’s strike against Venezuela. open.spotify.com/episode/766P...
What Trump Wants in Venezuela
open.spotify.com
"Stephen Miller soon joined a growing list of senior Trump-administration political appointees—at least six by our count—living in Washington-area military housing, where they are shielded not just from potential violence but also from protest." www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
Top Trump Officials Are Moving Onto Military Bases
Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, and others have taken over homes that until recently housed senior officers.
theatlantic.com
Fascinating, excellent reporting from Sarah Kinosian & Julia Symmes Cobb @reuters.com: www.reuters.com/world/americ...
Venezuela’s Nobel Prize-winner bets big on Trump as pressure builds on Maduro
On January 6, 2025, four members of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s team piled onto a couch in a Capitol Hill office, across from Mike Waltz, who was soon to become Donald Trump’s national security adviser. Machado made a cameo via video call from her hideout in Venezuela.
reuters.com
🚨Guest hosting Today Explained this afternoon!! Digging into what's ~really behind Trump's escalation in Venezuela. First @alexhorton.bsky.social on the timeline and the WH's stated rationale…
Gift link The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law The White House has made no legal argument explaining its bald claim that the president has wartime power to summarily kill people suspected of smuggling drugs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...
The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law
nytimes.com
Hi! We made a show for you about what’s been happening at immigration court: www.thisamericanlife.org/868/the-hand...
The Hand That Rocks The Gavel - This American Life
A group of immigration judges, who almost never speak to the press, describes the dismantling of our immigration court system from the inside.
thisamericanlife.org
