@ehellerstein
Global human rights journalist | IWMF Ukraine fellow | Senior immigration & labor reporter @eltimpano.bsky.social | Tech, labor, memory, migration | Born & bred in the Bay Prev @codastory.bsky.social & many more past lives. www.ericahellerstein.com
In our latest Weekly Dispatch, @ehellerstein.bsky.social unpacks a newly proposed federal housing policy that takes direct aim at mixed status families, threatening housing stability for thousands of Californians. www.eltimpano.org/newsletter/t...
These are Kenyan contractors based out of Nairobi who for years have been speaking out against their horrific working conditions & its toll on their mental health. Most of them are young & vulnerable. If you want to learn more abt them, read my 2023 investigation:
www.codastory.com/authoritaria...
Since Nov, 4 ppl have died, 40 have been hospitalized, & 3 have gotten liver transplants after eating toxic mushrooms in CA. The majority appear to be immigrants & Spanish speakers. I talked to the wife-a Mam speaker from Guatemala-of one of the transplant patients: www.eltimpano.org/english/heal...
Border Patrol released Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56 yo man, nearly blind with serious medical conditions, at "an old address & his family had since moved" in Buffalo, NY in the winter. "His family was not initially notified." He was found dead. @news4buffalo.bsky.social
www.wivb.com/news/local-n...
In today's Weekly Dispatch by @ehellerstein.bsky.social: Why a delegation of Bay Area immigrants’ rights groups traveled to the Twin Cities to offer support and music to a city facing an immigration crackdown.
www.eltimpano.org/english/immi...
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
Hope you get to live there at some point ! (if you don't already)...
I'm just smiling bc 1) Benito made a show for people who know history, and 2) so many people in town for the Super Bowl are shocked to realize the Bay Area is one of the most beautiful places on earth & that they fell for the organized right wing propaganda campaign
Photo shows a young girl with her cat
This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year.
She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again.
Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/
While it’s unclear if the Trump admin will deploy ICE agents to the Super Bowl as it has promised, local rapid response networks are working 24/7 to ensure immigrants feel safe as thousands flock to the Bay.
Latest Weekly Dispatch by @ehellerstein.bsky.social:
www.eltimpano.org/newsletter/b...
DHS Secretary says filming ICE is illegal and amounts to doxxing.
They’re absolutely wrong.
Recording law enforcement in public spaces is protected by the First Amendment — and courts have affirmed that right time and again.
Watch @freedom.press’s @trevortimm.bsky.social explain.
Just talked to an organizer in the Bay a few minutes ago who told me Minneapolis has led to an explosion of interest in hyperlocal foot patrols and neighborhood pods locally. This has been happening since LA. Networks sharing lessons across state lines & replicating successful strategies.
And tbh, the people who have the most interesting perspectives + whose voices are most valuable rn will probably be shut out. People whose parents pay their rent and who have rich techie partners who foot the bills will be able to publish a few fancy mag pieces a yr and call it a day.
Journalism!
🔴 Three things you should know about the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort (hint: this never ends well for the government).
1. They were just doing their job.
2. The government keeps losing these cases.
3. We must call out attacks on journalists of color.
Watch @adamrose.bsky.social explain:
Friday's demonstration in Fruitvale was part of a nationwide strike held in solidarity with immigrants and residents of Minneapolis.
El Tímpano's @ehellerstein.bsky.social and @kat-nagasawa.bsky.social spoke with participants about what motivated them to show up.
www.eltimpano.org/english/immi...
Precisely why I've been losing sleep over what could happen in Oakland
A statement from Sahan Journal, Minnesota Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio, Minnesota Reformer, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, Center for Broadcast Journalism and Minnesota Newspaper Association:
Georgia Fort's is chilling, and it's being overshadowed by the equally chilling arrest of Don Lemon.
A GoFundMe is being set up for Fort. In the meantime, you can support her work directly – without paying massive fundraising platform fees – through her website:
www.georgiafort.com/support
It's not just Don Lemon! Journalist and BLCK Press Founder Georgia Fort was arrested for reporting on a Minneapolis church protest.
Don Lemon has been taken into custody after anti-ICE confrontation in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. https://cnn.it/4roAO6t
Indigenous Central Americans are erased in the immigration debate. They get lumped in with Latino stories, face language barriers here, and if deported, return to Guatemala to be stigmatized and discriminated against. Their invisibility isn’t accidental.
"A French documentary filmmaker was searching through a flea market when she found a photo album that chronicled Nazi-occupied Paris from 1940 to 1942. A note in the front read, 'If you find this album, take care of it and have the courage to look at it.'”
www.poynter.org/commentary/2...
BREAKING: Immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, a memo obtained by AP says.
Last Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2026–27 California state budget.
In today’s Weekly Dispatch by @ehellerstein.bsky.social, we take a closer look at the proposal and what his budget might mean for immigrant communities across the state.
www.eltimpano.org/newsletter/n...
SCOOP from Douglas Macmillan
Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE custody was homicide, recording says
www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
The Department of Homeland Security is refusing to release information on 3 detained Oglala Lakota tribal members who are being held at Fort Snelling, a former concentration camp for Native people, unless the tribe enters into an immigration agreement with ICE.
In our first Weekly Dispatch of 2026, @ehellerstein.bsky.social brings you the story of an Indigenous Maya family deported last year to Guatemala—a story that's been erased by deportation data.
www.eltimpano.org/newsletter/e...
In @eltimpano.bsky.social's first Weekly Dispatch of 2026, we bring you the story of an Indigenous Maya family deported last year to Guatemala. Their story has been erased by deportation data.
And, reflections on Venezuela + Renee Nicole Good.
www.eltimpano.org/newsletter/e...
Names aren't classified, publishing a government higher-up's name is not "doxxing," and journalists are entitled to publish news, even if it is classified, as long as they don't break the law to get it.
It's not the press's job to keep the government's secrets.
The response to Kent State
www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/202...
