“It became a Monday morning tradition—each week, as I logged in to compile all of the weekend’s awful headlines, I would have in my ears the words of whoever preached at Memorial Church the previous day.” – @olivalejandra.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/voices/sermo...

My latest for @documentedny.bsky.social : The ICE detainee locator is more "janky" under Trump than at any time since it was introduced in 2010. But because of the other changes to detention, it's never been more important that it work properly. documentedny.com/2026/04/10/t...

"I did not want to undergo the mortifying ordeal of being known in order to be loved, did not want to be changed by this love I have so carefully avoided." @olivalejandra.bsky.social pens a reflection for the third Sunday of Lent:

Do I Take the Living Water?

Up until now, the bargain of Christianity has not always felt worth it to me. My work as an immigration legal-service provider has changed that.

commonwealmagazine.org

I feel very tender and vulnerable about this being out in the world, but i'm also quite proud of it?

Commonweal@commonwealmagazine.org · 7mo ago

"I did not want to undergo the mortifying ordeal of being known in order to be loved, did not want to be changed by this love I have so carefully avoided." @olivalejandra.bsky.social pens a reflection for the third Sunday of Lent:

“A favorable immigration ruling in Chicago was overturned. The growth of our bond fund was not.” – @olivalejandra.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/voices/irrev...

Irrevocable harm and irrevocable good

A favorable immigration ruling in Chicago was overturned. The growth of our bond fund was...

christiancentury.org

“We were getting tens of thousands of dollars each day—a tidal wave of people opening their wallets because there was a chance it would help undo the harms that had been done to Chicago over the course of a brutal occupation by federal agents.” – @olivalejandra.bsky.social

Irrevocable harm and irrevocable good

A favorable immigration ruling in Chicago was overturned. The growth of our bond fund was...

christiancentury.org

Extremely back on my "wake up babe, new @olivalejandra.bsky.social just dropped"!! David Foster Wallace talks about the "this is water" of living a life made up of days. This really spoke to me about the process of making those days and ideals meet in reality. open.substack.com/pub/ojosdesa...

On Human Touch

Seven hours at the Chicago ICE Field Office

open.substack.com

“I want to live already in the future of all my beautiful things—the yarn in the crates transformed into the sweater I have planned for them, . . . books with my name on them ranged up on the shelf, my city calm and quiet.” – @olivalejandra.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/voices/pract...

Practicing patience in difficult times

I want to be able to take my days and transform them into beauty. This fall in Chicago, it has felt like time is running...

christiancentury.org

The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund:

Midwest Immigration Bond Fund

mibfc.org

You may have seen that 600+ detainees are eligible for release, which is amazing! BUT: you may not know that immigration detainees still have to pay for their freedom-- $1500 bond per person! The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund is raising money to help people get free, please donate: www.mibfc.org

Midwest Immigration Bond Fund

mibfc.org

I am personally matching donations up to $500 made to the Midwest Immigration Bond Fund by Friday at 5pm. Send me a screenshot & I'll post my match by EOD Friday. They've got a larger $20k match on the table. Courts are finally stepping in some so let's get these folks home. www.mibfc.org

Midwest Immigration Bond Fund

mibfc.org

I'll second this call. ICIRR, the main organization doing work to help the abducted immigrants in Chicago, is endorsing this organization & this link as the primary way to help pay the bonds to release those still held by ICE. Help them get home for Thanksgiving. www.instagram.com/mw_bondfund/...

A Rogue Monster@aroguemonster.bsky.social · 10mo ago

After a federal judge ruled that hundreds of people abducted by ICE in northern Illinois are eligible to be released on bond or Alternatives to Detention. We expect this number to keep growing. This bond is the only thing keeping these folks from freedom. DONATE NOW bit.ly/MidwayToFreedom

The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund launched in 2020 to provide bond assistance to people navigating the complex immigration legal system. That mission has become more difficult under the second Trump administration, the group said. blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/17/b... via @blockclubchi.bsky.social

A Midwest Bond Fund Is Helping Detained Chicago Immigrants Return To Their Families

The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund launched in 2020 to provide bond assistance to people navigating the complex immigration legal system. That mission has become more difficult under the second Trump a...

blockclubchicago.org

tinyurl.com/MidwayToFreedom

Puff the Magic Hater@mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 10mo ago

615 of the estimated 3,000+ detained immigrants who were kidnapped in Chicagoland during Midway Blitz are expected to be eligible for bond this week. The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund shows up for people in detention who need bond, but it costs, at minimum, $1,500 per person. Pls help them.

615 of the estimated 3,000+ detained immigrants who were kidnapped in Chicagoland during Midway Blitz are expected to be eligible for bond this week. The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund shows up for people in detention who need bond, but it costs, at minimum, $1,500 per person. Pls help them.

A Midwest Bond Fund Is Helping Detained Chicago Immigrants Return To Their Families

The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund launched in 2020 to provide bond assistance to people navigating the complex immigration legal system. That mission has become more difficult under the second Trump a...

blockclubchicago.org

“The work I do in front of the stove, the daily care I take with meals—this isn’t just about sustenance or being healthy. It is an expression of my morals and concerns, reminding me that the smallest of my actions is performed in a web of mutuality and care.” – @olivalejandra.bsky.social

Cooking when the world is on fire

These days, daily tasks can feel like a...

christiancentury.org

new newsletter on the 100th anniversary of mrs. dalloway and reading it from a less-than-generous lens born of my own frustrations open.substack.com/pub/ojosdesa...

Getting the Flowers Yourself

On a Wednesday in Mid-June

open.substack.com

Appropriate, because one of the worker survivors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire was then deported as part of the first Red Scare.

All In with Chris Hayes@allinwithchris.bsky.social · last yr.

Trump defenders are trying to spin the tariffs as an attempt to bring the middle-class economy back to the heyday of the 1960s. But Trump himself keeps saying his plan will return America back to the 1890s. “Don't think GM—think Triangle Shirtwaist Factory,” says Hayes.

"It has become clear to me in the past few months that the immigration legal system has dropped even the slightest pretense of its orientation toward justice." @olivalejandra.bsky.social: 'A Way in the Wilderness' www.commonwealmagazine.org/lent-reflect...

A Way in the Wilderness

Lent is a season of reflection—but also a season to prepare for the work ahead, to sweep aside everything that has not worked and find new ways through the desert.

commonwealmagazine.org

This is an endemic problem, by the way. Geo Group and CoreCivic regularly deny folks in detention their meds. I witnessed this practiced systematically at Krome for the 5 years I used to visit and communicate with guys there

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley@pressley.house.gov · last yr.

🚨UPDATE: Rümeysa Öztürk has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in DHS custody. She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care. This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

For the Injustice Report today, my colleague @olivalejandra.bsky.social wrote a jaw-dropping, must-read post: "Yes, the El Salvador 'Deportations' Are Really Bad' open.substack.com/pub/injustic...

Yes, the El Salvador “Deportations” are Really Bad

and not just for the innocent people who got deported

open.substack.com

This post has gotten so much traction & I’d just urge everyone to check out Pitzer’s history of concentration camps: we want these things to shout out their evil, to glow red w malign intent, but they begin as seemingly pragmatic, almost ordinary answers to mass containment & transport/transfer.

Andrea Pitzer@andreapitzer.bsky.social · 2y ago

When I wrote my camps book, people sometimes had difficulty understanding how concentration-camp regimes were proud of what they were doing and wanted attention for it, even as they also hoped to keep many aspects secret and terrorize vulnerable classes. Anyway, this is what that looks like.

if you find yourself reluctant to support the guy at Columbia because you find some of the politics he espoused distasteful or even abhorrent, you should know that this is exactly the reaction that they hoped for in choosing him as a target for unlawful detention based on political speech.

Since Obama administration, at least, leftists/radicals repeatedly warned that Dems pouring cash into ICE and militarized police was not just evil in its own right, but laying the groundwork for open fascism. We were dismissed, with various degrees of vitriol, for pointing this obvious fact out.

I think the more horrifying thing to sit with is this: the every-day operations of the jail, prison, and immigration detention systems are and have been dehumanizing, and we built them, and they lend themselves seamlessly to the fascist business of stealing and caging even more people

This is why we must fight for everyone. Whether they’ve been incarcerated or have had contact with the criminal legal system or are merely undocumented. When you accept that some people are deserving of detention and deportation the scope of who is eligible is always under threat of expanding.

jamelle@jamellebouie.net · 2y ago

re the previous repost: if they can disappear permanent residents they can disappear citizens

every time i sit down to write a letter to a new pen pal in ICE detention, im struck mute. what could i possibly say to someone in such a place? here’s a reminder to myself, and an invitation to you. open.substack.com/pub/ojosdesa...

Nature writing for ICE Detainees

Figuring out what to say to a pen pal

open.substack.com

i wrote about the remnant prairie behind the artist residency where i work www.christiancentury.org/article/call...

The call of a remnant prairie

I’ve seen artists enchanted and haunted by the prairie, their work changed by spending time in the...

christiancentury.org

“The biodiversity of the prairie, its changing face across the seasons: this ecosystem is a community, living and breathing and renewing itself, older than the houses and the trees around it.” – @olivalejandra.bsky.social www.christiancentury.org/article/call...

The call of a remnant prairie

I’ve seen artists enchanted and haunted by the prairie, their work changed by spending time in the...

christiancentury.org

I wrote about the ways that the Trump admin has been purposely fucking with the visibility of ICE enforcement/the increased invisibility of undocumented people in daily life/feeling called into visibility as a neighbor www.commonwealmagazine.org/ICE-immigrat...

Visibly Invisible

The Trump administration hopes not only to deport migrants, but also to make them feel so unsafe they no longer participate actively in our communities.

commonwealmagazine.org