My thoughts on the departure of Kristi Noem as DHS Secretary, @newyorker.com : www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
@jonathanblitzer
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/
My thoughts on the departure of Kristi Noem as DHS Secretary, @newyorker.com : www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
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-...
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-...
"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...
A reminder to journalists, and also...a reminder to MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!!
DHS said that the woman CBP shot in the chest in Portland was βinvolvedβ in a gang shooting.
Her ~involvement~ was that suspected gang members sexually assaulted and robbed her.
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...
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...
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:
*Calling 2 Americans murdered by DHS agents "terrorists."
βI have no idea how Miller managed to escape this one,β a top DHS official at the time told me. βHe knows just how and when to disappear.β www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Then DHS Sec'ty Kirstjen Nielsen was pressured to give the press conference. She tried to deny that the govt was separating families. In so doing, she became the face of the policy. 48 hrs later, Trump ended policy, blaming Nielsen. 4/
Cut to June 18, 2018. The country was outraged by the Admin's family separation policy. Miller didn't want to reverse course & claimed that the public wld support the policy if only the Admin pursued it further. WH was finally forced to call press conference to explain itself. 3/
According to @nytimes & others, Noem insisted that she was just doing what Trump & (more revealingly) Miller had told her to do in MN and beyond. Her rhetoric (calling 2 Americans murdered by DHS agents) mirrored Miller's almost exactly. Miller was not present for the meeting. 2/
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...
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 arenβt those you deploy as part of a cover-up. Theyβre 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...
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...
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 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.
Todayβs 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 Administrationβs strike against Venezuela.
open.spotify.com/episode/766P...
"free speech warriors"
"Stephen Miller soon joined a growing list of senior Trump-administration political appointeesβat least six by our countβliving in Washington-area military housing, where they are shielded not just from potential violence but also from protest."
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
Fascinating, excellent reporting from Sarah Kinosian & Julia Symmes Cobb @reuters.com: www.reuters.com/world/americ...