In a new piece in @thehill.com, @margyoh.bsky.social explains how the Trump administration is undermining the independence of immigration courts from politics. She writes: "That’s dangerous for everyone — citizens and noncitizens alike.” And she explains how Congress can help.

Our immigration courts no longer offer even the veneer of fairness

Congress must take the courts out of the Justice Department to insulate judges from political interference.

thehill.com

Data brokers pose grave threats to Americans' privacy and our national security. But the US govt continues to bankroll the industry: it's one its major patrons! It's past time to close the checkbook. Congress must prohibit govt agencies from paying brokers billions to buy Americans’ sensitive info.

Congress Must Close Data Broker Loophole by Prohibiting Government Purchases of Americans' Sensitive Data

A two-pager compiled by the Brennan Center illustrating why Congress must close the data broker loophole by prohibiting government purchases of Americans' sensitive data.

brennancenter.org

dell cameron@dell.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For nearly a decade, the Pentagon was warned—by its own contractors, analysts, and intelligence agencies—that anyone with a credit card could buy a map of where American troops sleep, work, and store nuclear weapons. Now the bill has come due in a war zone. My latest at @wired.com

DOJ's plan to strip nearly 400 citizens of their citizenship is a major escalation from the 25 denaturalization cases filed in Trump's first administration. 🧵1/6 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/u...

Justice Dept. Targets Hundreds of Citizens in New Push for Denaturalization

nytimes.com

We stand against the department’s attempts to silence nonprofits on the basis of their views and support for civil rights. 2/2

The Department of Justice shouldn’t use its power to target its ideological enemies or dismantle civil rights. Now it is targeting the Southern Poverty Law Center. 1/2

The Trump Justice Department is using the Board of Immigration Appeals to restrict immigrants’ due process and substantive rights and is compromising the board’s impartiality.

This is not how due process and the rule of law work. The administration is shamelessly targeting immigrants based on their Constitutionally-protected speech and now has fired judges who faithfully applied the law.

Steven Rich@datab.ae · 4mo ago

BREAKING: the judges who dismissed high-profile cases in immigration court against two international students who have advocated for Palestinian causes, Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, were fired yesterday, alongside four other judges. /w @haleaziz.bsky.social and @nicknehamas.bsky.social

Tomorrow the Supreme Court is hearing a major constitutional case about birthright citizenship because President Trump chose to act with striking disregard for the law. bit.ly/4bI28aP

Birthright Citizenship Shouldn’t Be Up for Debate

The text and history of the 14th Amendment are clear, yet the case is at the Supreme Court.

brennancenter.org

"Will the Supreme Court protect birthright citizenship?" A reasonable question, given <gestures broadly> all this. Keep in mind as you assess how the Court behaves at tomorrow's oral argument ⬇️

On the eve of the birthright citizenship argument in the supreme court tomorrow, Abby VanSickle and Julie Tate published a fascinating article in today's NYT detailing the citizenship origin stories of all 9 supreme court justices. 1/6

ICE arrests have increased, but arrests of immigrants with criminal convictions — especially violent offenses — have not. Brennan Center Senior Fellow @margyoh.bsky.social explains what you need to know:

Again, Noem cites false data. Approximately 60% of people in ICE custody have no criminal history whatsoever.

Margy O’Herron@margyoh.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Lyons’ claim that 60% of people in detention have a pending or final criminal charge is false. The number is exactly backwards. Approximately 60% of people in ICE custody have NO conviction or even a pending charge. And only 5% have a conviction for a violent crime.

Last week, Lyons said 200k kids were lost-today Noem says upped it to 400k. Neither is true. Kids were released to vetted sponsors, not lost. DHS wants to deport them, which Noem herself conceded, although she said they were “reuniting” kids with family outside the US.

Margy O’Herron@margyoh.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Lyons’ assertion that 200,0000 kids were lost is false. They were released to custody of family or other sponsors who were vetted. But they were not put in deportation proceedings so ICE couldn’t easily deport them.

During her Senate testimony, Sec Noem claims that many immigrant criminals have come to the U.S., but immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than people born in the US, and communities with high concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

The SAVE Act could block millions of Americans from voting. It is not common sense. If passed, it would be the first time in history Congress passed a vote suppression law. #SOTU

The SAVE Act is an attack on the freedom to vote that would block millions of American citizens from voting. #SOTU #SOTU2026

New SAVE Act Bills Would Still Block Millions of Americans From Voting

The “show your papers” requirement is an attack on the freedom to vote.

brennancenter.org

U.S. elections are secure and accurate, but now the federal government is threatening that infrastructure. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

Timeline of the Trump Administration’s Efforts to Undermine Elections

Together, these actions form a concerted strategy to interfere with elections.

brennancenter.org

25/ Congress should also use its power to close the data broker loophole and strengthen privacy protections against AI-enabled surveillance. It should demand transparency about how the military is using AI in hostilities – a critical first step towards regulating the technology.

24/ Congress has the constitutional power and duty to regulate the military. It should reassert its authority over matters of war and peace.

23/ This appears designed to pressure Anthropic to waive its usage restrictions on Claude – restrictions that might reflect not only the company’s own policy preferences but also what U.S. and international law require.

22/ DOD has threatened to designate the company as a supply chain risk, which would not just cut it off from future military work but also chill its business with other companies that themselves have a stake in defense contracting. www.axios.com/2026/02/16/a...

Exclusive: Pentagon warns Anthropic will "pay a price" as feud escalates

The Pentagon may label Anthropic a "supply chain risk," forcing all its vendors to sever ties.

axios.com

21/ Anthropic is no doubt aware – and perhaps increasingly wary – of the legal issues created by the Pentagon’s use of Claude in military operations. But relying on Anthropic – or any company – to restrain the military is a fool’s errand.

20/ All questions Congress must demand the Pentagon answer in its investigations of military actions in Venezuela, on the high seas, and elsewhere. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...

Opinion | How to Respond, Right Now, to Trump’s Boat Strikes

nytimes.com

19/ Was Claude, Maven or any other AI used to distinguish strike targets from civilian infrastructure, assess the civilian impact of strike options, or otherwise plan the attack? For that matter, how is the military using AI in its boat strikes, and prep for possible strikes on Iran?

18/ The Venezuela attack struck several apartment buildings and killed two civilian air traffic controllers in a car leaving the Caracas international airport. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

The Overlooked Deaths of the Attack on Venezuela

To many on the ground, civilian fatalities were simply the cost of ousting Nicolás Maduro.

newyorker.com

16/ Given that Congress did not authorize the Venezuela operation, and that Venezuela did not pose an imminent threat to the US, the attack was unconstitutional on its face. This makes any use of AI to facilitate the attack unlawful. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Attack in Venezuela Was Unconstitutional

Congress must assert its control of military matters.

brennancenter.org

15/ Remember the public uproar in 2018 over Google’s involvement in Maven, the Pentagon’s AI pilot to analyze troves of drone and satellite footage? It’s now a full-fledged program the military has credited with speeding up targeting. breakingdefense.com/2025/05/ai-u...

AI 'unchained': NGA's Maven tool 'significantly' decreasing time to targeting, agency chief says - Breaking Defense

"NGA Maven is now available to all services and all combatant commands. There are 20,000 active users through more than 35 service and combat and command tools across three security domains," said NGA...

breakingdefense.com

13/ Then there’s the use of AI to “assist weapons targeting without sufficient human oversight.” All attacks – AI-assisted or not – must comply with U.S. law and the international law of war.

11/ AI enables DOD to take this data and connect the dots with other discrete datasets about US persons to recreate their movements, associations, and political views at scale – an invasion of privacy far more egregious than the type of surveillance before the Carpenter court.

10/ But law enforcement and intelligence agencies - and DOD - have bought their way around this protection, spending millions to purchase entire databases of Americans’ location information and other sensitive data from data brokers on the commercial market. int.nyt.com/data/documen...