Anna Oakes

Haitians Stuck in Mexico Find Some Comfort Despite Broken Asylum Systems

Haitians Stuck in Mexico Find Some Comfort Despite Broken Asylum Systems passblue.com/2026/03/08/h...

Newark’s school meal contractor also feeds an ICE detention facility. Advocates want that to end. There are multiple contracts between Newark Public Schools and Driscoll Foods authorizing the district to spend up to $12 million with the vendor, which also supplies the nearby Delaney Hall ICE facility.

There are multiple contracts between Newark Public Schools and Driscoll Foods authorizing the district to spend up to $12 million with the vendor, which also supplies the nearby Delaney Hall ICE facility.

Newark’s school meal contractor also feeds an ICE detention facility. Advocates want that to end. There are multiple contracts between Newark Public Schools and Driscoll Foods authorizing the district to spend up to $12 million with the vendor, which also supplies the nearby Delaney Hall ICE facil...

Newark public schools have a $12 million contract with Driscoll Foods, which supplies food to Delaney Hall, the controversial ICE facility nearby.

Advocates want the BOE to cut ties when their contract expires in June. Latest for @chalkbeat.org:

www.chalkbeat.org/newark/2026/...

ICE to begin detaining immigrants inside Social Circle warehouse in April Homeland Security plans to build warehouse detention facilities in other cities being met with opposition.

ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps.

If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

Visitors to Delaney Hall Wait for Hours in an Unheated Tent to See Their Loved Ones - Documented The tent, purchased by county officials, was installed after complaints about the lack of protection against cold temperatures.

At Delaney Hall, the privately-run ICE detention facility in Newark, visitors are forced to wait for hours in life-threatening cold to see their loved ones. But those conditions, advocates say, are arbitrarily imposed.

Latest for @documentedny.bsky.social:

documentedny.com/2026/02/09/v...

How AI Surveillance Tech is Creeping From the Southern Border Into the Rest of the Country Surveillance technology has long been part of policing the border. ICE’s growing raids are bringing it to many other areas.

The technology deployed on the border includes everything from hyper-visible tethered aerostats to stealthy devices like unattended ground sensors to detect footsteps, and license plate scanners disguised as traffic cones.

And border tech isn't staying at the border.

ICE Detained a 4-Year-Old U.S. Citizen and her Honduran Family in Hotels for Weeks The mother and her two young children, one of them born in the United States, were not able to contact the outside world for nearly three weeks while being held in hotel rooms in Queens and Louisiana.

A mother and her 2 young kids, including her US citizen 4-year-old daughter, were trapped in a hotel room for weeks without contact from the outside world as the Trump administration sought to deport them.

"We were experiencing a nightmare," she told @thecity.nyc.

www.thecity.nyc/2026/01/28/i...

Trump Has Already Spent $500 Million Deploying Troops to U.S. Cities A report from the Congressional Budget Office reveals the immense expenses of the Trump administration’s military occupations.

Trump Has Already Spent $500 Million Deploying Troops to U.S. Cities

A report from the Congressional Budget Office reveals the immense expenses of the Trump administration’s military occupations.

theintercept.com/2026/01/29/t...

As the U.S. Moves to End Haiti’s TPS, Families Brace for the Unthinkable - Documented The decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Haiti has left thousands of families facing the prospect of returning to a country engulfed by violence and political collapse.

“I just want my children to grow [up] safely,” she said. “Is that too much to ask?” 

“‘The extreme show of force here — seven armed agents in facemasks — was to intimidate staff so they could arrest our client in contravention of city law,’ Molly Lauterback, an immigration attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services, said in a statement.”

Bicycles and Blessings: Delivery Workers Honor Our Lady of Guadalupe in Annual Procession - Documented Now in its fifth year, this caravan of deliveristas marked the feast day by pedaling to 14 immigrant businesses across Washington Heights, East Harlem, and the South Bronx.

Amidst bike thefts and ICE raids, delivery workers have been organizing their own self defense networks.

I followed one of these groups, El Diario de los Deliveryboys, on their Virgen de Guadalupe procession for @documentedny.bsky.social.

documentedny.com/2025/12/16/b...

ICE Prison’s 911 Calls Overwhelm a Rural Georgia Emergency System The 911 operator couldn’t send an ambulance because it was already responding to another call from ICE’s Stewart Detention Center.

Emergency calls were made to 911 at least 15 times a month from Stewart Detention Center for six months in a row as of November 1.

With @nickpinto.bsky.social at Cuomo headquarters for @hellgatenyc.com

Tune into the liveliest livestream in the city, starting now!

www.youtube.com/live/fKA4Vpk...

'This is Lawless Terror': Chinatown Reacts to ICE's Street Vendor Raid on Canal Street - Documented Confusion, fear and outrage grip NYC after ICE arrests and detains street vendors, some of whom had legal status or U.S. citizenship.

Documented went down and spoke with vendors who said federal agents stormed Canal Street without warning — leaving dozens detained and the community in shock and confusion. 📝 @KEXU3 and @Anna_Oakes1

🔗 documentedny.com/2025/10/23/ice-raid-chinatown-vendors-arrested

As masked federal agents target street vendors on Canal Street, THE CITY watched one street vendor being detained.

As the operation carried on, agents were confronted with a spontaneous crowd of protesters.

MORE HERE: www.thecity.nyc/2025/10/21/i...

Mayor Adams Closed NYC’s Migrant ‘Welcome Center.’ More Arrive Every Day. Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the Roosevelt Hotel’s closure and the city’s handling of the migrant crisis. A mother who spent a year there offered her own mixed assessment.

Dina and her husband spent their life savings to flee Venezuela. This week her husband was detained by ICE, in front of their children, during a mandatory asylum hearing.

In July, she told me how her family longed for safety and stability after years of precarity.

tinyurl.com/3uknzf5y @thecity.nyc

These high-profile cases are already having a chilling effect on immigrants' speech across the country.

https://documentedny.com/2025/10/10/mahdawi-ozturk-new-york-legal-battle-first-amendment-constitution/

A. Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, says he has been placed under surveillance by ICE without explanation, and is facing years of uncertainty while his asylum case is resolved.

Federal authorities are using immigration law to limit the First Amendment rights of noncitizens. Legal experts warn that this extension of executive power can be used to censor citizens’ speech, too.

My latest for @documentedny.bsky.social:
t.co/ySnyXiLrpl

EFF Statement on ICE Use of Paragon Solutions Malware This statement can be attributed to EFF Senior Staff Technologist Cooper QuintinIt was recently reported by Jack Poulson on Substack that ICE has reactivated its 2 million dollar contract with Paragon...

ICE reactivated its contract with spyware manufacturer Paragon Solutions. You can read more about it here, but what does that mean for using encrypted chat apps like Signal? 🧵(1/8)

Being a NYC government official and trying to bribe Katie Honan is like being an affiliate of a Gotham crime syndicate and trying to bribe Batman. This is comically dumb as hell

Visa Whiplash Threatens Foreign Doctors Who Keep This Brooklyn Hospital Running Residents at Brookdale Hospital mostly come from overseas, working in jobs American medical students overlook.

“If we didn’t have international graduates ... we could not stay open — because what do you do if you miss 80 to 90% of your doctors? You’re done.” @annaoakes.bsky.social spent time at a struggling Brooklyn hospital, and documented how the closing of America is rattling its workforce.

What a way to end my work day: arranging for law enforcement to pick up a potato chip bag stuffed with cash.

Visa Whiplash Threatens Foreign Doctors Who Keep This Brooklyn Hospital Running Residents at Brookdale Hospital mostly come from overseas, working in jobs American medical students overlook.

"For months, the international medical residents who make up a significant number of the Brookdale physician staff, have been caught up in a whirlwind of restrictions and regulations regarding their visa and travel status." — @annaoakes.bsky.social reports
www.thecity.nyc/2025/08/14/b...

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all:

“If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.”

Israel just killed him.

How Columbia’s Leadership Refashioned the University in Trump’s Image Columbia University President Claire Shipman said the school retained full independence, but it gave in to virtually all of Trump's demands.

@columbiauniversity.bsky.social’s President Claire Shipman said the school retained full independence, “but it gave in to virtually all of Trump's demands.”

@meghnadbose.bsky.social and @annaoakes.bsky.social write for the @theintercept.com about how Columbia “refashioned [itself] in Trump’s image”

How Columbia’s Leadership Refashioned the University in Trump’s Image Columbia University President Claire Shipman said the school retained full independence, but it gave in to virtually all of Trump's demands.

Much of what the Trump administration has demanded, Columbia has conceded – though they insist otherwise.

@meghnadbose.bsky.social and I tracked months of government demands and secretive Columbia rule changes, for @theintercept.com.

theintercept.com/2025/08/07/c...

🚨DHS asks the Supreme Court to halt an injunction restricting the ability of ICE and Border Patrol to stop and question people based on factors such as speaking Spanish, being Latino, doing day labor, or being in certain areas.

Hard not to read this as a request for a license to racially profile.

Summer Jobs Program Heist Likely Had Hacker Help, Say ATM Experts A scheme that gave young people earning minimum wage cash for their government-issued debit cards extracted $17 million in repeat withdrawals still under investigation by the NYPD.

just wild that there was basically a $17 million heist last month using the city’s youth job program — and it barely registered

Summer Jobs Program Heist Likely Had Hacker Help, Say ATM Experts A scheme that gave young people earning minimum wage cash for their government-issued debit cards extracted $17 million in repeat withdrawals still under investigation by the NYPD.

The NYPD and summer youth program agency are not saying much about the heist that pulled $17 million from payment debit cards through repeat withdrawals. But reports abounded of schemes to pay kids for cards, and ATM industry insiders told @annaoakes.bsky.social they see signs of a network hack.