The Department of Homeland Security promptly issued its standard denial, used to excuse other, comparable killings like that of Renée Goode. It claimed that Araujo had “weaponized his vehicle” and tried to hit an ICE agent with it, “resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.”

The three other men who were in the van with Araujo—the only full witnesses to the shooting—remain in custody, reportedly under pressure to self-deport. But from behind bars they were able to reach Araujo’s family’s lawyer. They disputed the official account.

“That is a lie,” wrote Jose Trinidad Rojas in a handwritten statement to the lawyer, obtained by the Washington Post. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over … there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.”

Araujo’s family, too, were outraged by the official explanation. His sons said that their father knew exactly the consequences of resisting ICE. They’re certain, they said, that their father thought he was being carjacked during the incident—it had happened before, and the van contained expensive tools. How was he to know that his assailants, likely masked in an unmarked vehicle, were law enforcement officers?

States have reacted by passing laws to require federal agents to reveal their identity. The Trump administration has sued to have these laws overturned. Its latest target is New York.

In another incident from the same week, in the Chicago suburbs, masked agents slammed a man’s head into the ground, then menacingly jabbed a Taser towards another man who was filming them. When faces are covered, and in the absence of other identifying features, it’s unclear how victims of abuse might seek recourse.

Around the country, states have reacted by passing laws to require federal agents to clearly reveal their identity, rather than hide behind masks and unmarked vehicles. The Trump administration has sued to have these laws overturned. Its latest target in the courts is New York State, which recently passed a statute forbidding state and federal law enforcement agents from concealing their faces. 

The Trump administration sued New York on June 23. The state countersued, to defend its new law, later that day.

“By hiding their faces and refusing to wear identification, federal immigration officers endanger New Yorkers and intentionally evade accountability,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Our communities should not have to live in fear of being disappeared by unidentified masked agents. If the federal government wants to brazenly defy our laws, then we will fight tooth and nail in court to ensure transparency and keep all New Yorkers safe.”

Earlier that month, White House “Border Czar” Tom Homan had threatened Governor Kathy Hochul (D) with a surge in ICE activity. “I made her a promise: you’re going to see more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen in New York City, and it’s coming,” he said.

The federal government’s lawsuit claims New York is threatening the officers’ safety. “Law enforcement officers risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe, and they do not deserve to be doxed or harassed simply for carrying out their duties,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in an accompanying press release. “New York’s anti-law enforcement policies regulate the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents. These laws cannot stand.”

“When you look at the history, public servants had to be accountable … But hiding behind masks? This is the kind of policing that occurs in coercive, authoritarian regimes.”

The Trump administration’s apparent outrage runs counter to the fact that law enforcement officers have, until recently, been expected to reveal their identities in all but very narrow scenarios, such as undercover work. That’s been the case since the start of modern policing.

“When you look at the history, public servants had to be accountable and revealing their identity is critical to accountability,” Josh Parker, deputy director of  policy for the Policing Project at the NYU School of Law, told Filter.

Not long ago, Parker pointed out, an officer hiding their badge number during an encounter was considered scandalous. “But hiding behind masks? This is the kind of policing that occurs in coercive, authoritarian regimes: the KGB, Nazi Germany, the Stasi,” he said.

“It’s clearly just an intimidation tactic,” Parker continued. “It’s sowing fear, having someone in plain clothes, masked, aggressively approaching people.”

Law enforcement masking additionally seems to have facilitated a spike in people impersonating federal officers, for example to commit robberies. “In 2025 alone there were 31 cases of people posing as federal agents,” Parker said. “There had been five [on average] the years before.”

He also noted that no other branch of work in the criminal-legal system allows for anonymity. “Imagine if a judge or legislator remained anonymous. Public servants with so much power over people’s lives cannot hide their identity.”

“The Houston shooting, it’s predictable. This is the lack of accountability and transparency, with the masking and the intimidation.”

Lieutenant Diane Goldstein (Ret.) served with the Redondo Beach Police Department in California for 21 years, and is now the executive director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), which advocates for drug-policy and justice-system reform. She said that officers who hide their identity violate basic tenets of accountable policing.

“First and foremost, accountability and transparency, they undergird the entire legitimacy of the criminal justice system, not just policing,” Goldstein told Filter. “Policing requires accountability and transparency. Period.”

One of the reasons officers shouldn’t hide behind masks or “investigations” that conceal the truth, she continued, is that work such as preventing and investigating acts of violence is radically undermined when the public doesn’t trust authorities.

“In standard policing, even if the officer’s name isn’t obvious, there’s a badge number. That’s how you can file a complaint,” Goldstein said. “The Houston shooting, it’s predictable. This is the lack of accountability and transparency, with the masking and the intimidation. And it’s absolutely crazy they continue to say, Our officers need to be masked so they don’t get doxxed.” 

Photograph (cropped) of ICE agents in Minneapolis in January 2026 by Chad Davis via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0

Lt. Diane Goldstein serves on the board of directors of The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter. LEAP was formerly the fiscal sponsor of The Influence Foundation. Filter’s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post “Sowing Fear”—The Legal Battle Over Masked ICE Agents appeared first on Filter.

In late 2025 Mateo* completed his 14-year sentence at South Central Correctional Facility, a CoreCivic-run prison in Tennessee, and was handed over to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. In 2018, ICE agents had visited him and informed him he had a federal detainer and would be deported upon release from prison. That was the last he’d heard from the agency.

Back in 2000, Mateo and his niece—both teenagers at the time—had left their family in Mexico and made the dangerous crossing over the border into the United States. Over the next decade as Mateo lived undocumented in Texas, he worked, paid taxes, got married and had a child. Now, rather than being reunited with his wife and daughter when he was released from prison, he didn’t know whether he’d ever see them again; both are US citizens.

The two ICE agents who picked Mateo up from prison took him to a detention center in Mason, also run by CoreCivic. He was booked into the system, medically screened and then placed in an open living area with six bunks. There was one phone, three small tables in the middle of the room and a connected bathroom with two stalls, one urinal, one shower and two sinks. The room measured 50 steps by 40 steps; he counted as he paced back and forth, waiting to find out how long he would be there or what would come next. Everyone in the room was awaiting their interview, and no one came back afterward.

“They want to keep you wondering what’s about to happen to you,” he told Filter.

He used the phone to call his wife, holding onto the hope that he could see her and his daughter one more time before he was deported. 

“My husband was finally free, but not free,” Mateo’s wife told Filter. “I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him face to face that I loved him.”

She was prepared to come visit him from Texas. But when she finally reached a live person at the detention center after several days of calling, she was told visits wouldn’t be possible.

“I threw my phone across the room, I was so mad,” she said. “Then I ran over and picked it up, hoping I didn’t break it; I sure could not afford a new one.”

“[The agent] told me they would keep me there until I helped them find my people.”

After three days, Mateo was told to gather his belongings—sleeping mat, toothbrush, soap bar, towel, shower shoes. Two agents took him to a small conference room, much like the one he remembered being questioned in after his arrest.

“I hadn’t really slept much because I didn’t know what was coming,” he said. “I was so scared my legs were shaking. I knew these two men were about to tell me my future.”

He was told that within the next one to six weeks, as soon as a seat was available on ground transport, he’d be moved to a staging facility. Ground transport was how most people were being sent to Mexico.

A few days later, he was questioned by two ICE agents who told him the interview was being recorded. They were looking for his brother, and other relatives who had crossed the border undocumented years ago. As far as Mateo knew, no one else in his family had had any encounters with law enforcement. He didn’t give the agents any information.

“One was so mad his face was blood-red,” Mateo recalled. “He told me they would keep me there until I helped them find my people.”

The agents told him his wife and daughter would be “hounded” for information if he didn’t cooperate—that ICE could show up at their home or at work, and that employers sometimes fired workers for embarrassing them like that.

“Hearing them talk about harassing my family made me sick,” Mateo said. “I had to sit on my hands to keep from punching that asshole in the mouth.”

But his experience with law enforcement had taught him to not believe everything they were saying, so he refused to answer and hoped for the best.

After 11 days at the detention center, Mateo and four others were transported by van to a holding facility in Louisiana. There he sat for three days in a crowded room. Then he and about two dozen others were put on a bus and taken to Mexico.

Once in Mexico, he still wasn’t free. Mexican officials first needed to verify his citizenship and that he had no outstanding charges or fees. He was fingerprinted, photographed and given six pages of written questions to respond to—about his family in Mexico, his family in the US, where was he going to live, how was he going to earn a living, whether he’d been mistreated by anyone in the US while free or in prison or under ICE custody. He didn’t know what the information would be used for, so he gave generic answers to everything.

Those with no one to pick them up had to wait for a shelter to accept them before they could be released. Mateo was fortunate enough to have his uncle pick him up, with a sack of food for the hour-long trip home. Mateo took a bite and tasted his mother’s cooking, and burst into tears. Twenty-five years after he crossed the border, Mateo reunited with his parents, who are now in their 70s. None of them ever thought they’d see each other again.

“I thought my mother was going to squeeze me to death,” Mateo said. “Seeing my parents crying joyfully was a nice change from the tears shed while I was locked up in America.”

Once settled in, Mateo called his wife and daughter. They all celebrated his freedom, even though it seemed wrong not to be celebrating together. 

For an hour, ICE agents questioned her about where to find various undocumented people they believed she knew.

Around Christmas, Mateo’s wife and daughter got passports and made plans to visit him in Mexico. They’d been talking about the possibility of moving there. But when they presented their passports at the border crossing, they were stopped. Officials told them they were on a watch list for human smuggling, and could not enter Mexico. No other details were given.

In February, they were awakened at 5 am by ICE agents at both the front and back of their house. When Mateo’s wife opened the door, armed men walked in and began looking through every room without explanation. 

“I was crying and screaming for my daughter,” she told Filter. “I thought I was going to die.”

For an hour, agents questioned her about where to find various undocumented people they believed she knew. She said she didn’t know. They told her they would be back, and that they knew where she worked and might see her there, too. She packed a bag and left with her daughter to stay at her parents’ house an hour away.

In March, two ICE agents came to her parents’ house. They wanted to know if she’d been in contact with Mateo or with his brother. When she explained that she talks to Mateo every day, they asked to see her phone. She refused. At the time of this writing, she has not heard from ICE since.

“Me and my daughter are US citizens,” she said. “But every time someone knocks on the door, I’m scared to death.”

More than anything, what Mateo wants people to grasp is what this process was like for his family.

Mateo was one of many undocumented prisoners at South Central Correctional Facility, and they had been bonded by the fear of the unknown. Since being deported, he’s contacted some of his friends who are still incarcerated to describe what the process was like.

“Maybe they won’t be as scared as I was,” he said.

But more than anything, what Mateo wants people to grasp is what this process was like for his family. He and his wife didn’t want her name, or their daughter’s name, said over the phone during interviews for this story, because they know the prison phones are recorded. His wife and daughter still haven’t returned to their home, and didn’t want to reveal their location over the phone for the same reason. They are terrified that at any moment, ICE will show up again.

They pray that one day they will be together again, and have not lost hope. Mateo’s wife was given a number to call for further details about being denied entry into Mexico, but they’ve yet to reach a live person and are scared to push for fear of retribution. Mateo thought about trying to cross the border into the US again, for the chance to be with them no matter the risk. But his mom told him her heart could not take losing him again, and begged him not to go.

He got a job with a landscaping company, working on rich people’s properties; mostly Americans.

“I feel weird helping Americans’ lawns look all pretty, when they put me out of their country,” he said. “Sometimes I piss on the flowers.”

Name has been changed

Image (cropped) via Immigrations and Customs Enforcement

The post ICE Picked Him Up From Prison. Then Agents “Hounded” His Family. appeared first on Filter.

HB 2105, known as the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, passed the Washington House and Senate in March and was signed by Gov. Ferguson on March 30. It takes effect on June 11. The bill states that it aims to “provide resources and support to employers about their rights and the rights of their workers,” plus “clarity about their rights and responsibilities when engaging with 19 federal agencies that conduct form I-9 inspections.” The new law “[requires] Washington employers to provide notice to workers in the event of a form I-9 inspection and provide additional protections and support for workers and employers.” That notice must be in writing and issued within five days of the investigation being initiated.

“Before the legislation goes into effect, when I-9 audits happen, the employees don’t get to hear about it unless there’s follow-through,” Malou Chávez, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, told Filter. “This is an opportunity for them to have the same information employers get when they receive inspection notices.”

The law creates a set of responsibilities for the state attorney general, including supplying posters, in several languages, for employers to inform workers of the new notice requirements. Workers must be told which federal agencies are inspecting them, the date the inspection began, and the specific records or documents being requested. Employers will also be advised by the AG that they don’t have to give federal agencies access to private areas of their workplace, and that accessing worker records requires a subpoena or judicial warrant.

Agencies like Homeland Security Investigations are increasingly conducting investigations to check the validity of I-9 documentation provided by employees, verifying they can legally work.

The AG “shall conduct outreach to businesses, employers, and community members to provide information and guidance” for the first year, states the bill. Employers who violate aspects of the law could be subject to legal action, and potentially fined up to $1,000 per impacted worker.

Agencies like Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a directorate within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are increasingly conducting investigations into employers to check the validity of I-9 documentation provided by employees, verifying they can legally work. These investigations are then fueling ICE enforcement raids.

One incident in Washington State in 2025, in the city of Bellingham, serves as an example of why advocates wanted new legislation. HSI was tipped off in January 2025 that a local roofing company was employing undocumented workers, as KUOW, Seattle’s NPR station, reported. The company was notified that its employees’ I-9s were being investigated, and it complied in turning over documentation for 83 individuals. Federal officials claimed to have found 56 employees who submitted false or fraudulent work documents. On the morning of April 2, ICE agents executed a raid that arrested 37 people.

Prior to the new law, workers in Washington had no way of knowing if they were under investigation—their employer had no obligation to tell them—let alone any proper chance to defend themselves or consult with a lawyer. Employers also faced risks, when informing their workers of an immigration investigation might have led to them being accused of obstruction of justice.

Notice of an investigation could make all the difference between potential wrongful detention or deportation, and no further action.

HB2105 provides clarity on both sides. And the promise of notice of an investigation is likely to help people get their documentation together in time, according to Chávez.

“Presumably if the missing information is [their document is expired], they can go to the attorney who helped with their immigration case—or to their mother’s house, where they left some documentation–to [correct that],” she said. That could make all the difference between potential wrongful detention or deportation, and no further action.

Though scrutiny now is greater than ever, immigrant workers have long contended with difficulties in trying to maintain their legal employment states.

“We do hear stories about someone whose work authorization has been automatically extended but the employer is not accepting that,” Chávez said. “We have to write letters and say ‘this allows the person to be employed’ … the DHS is [also] terminating temporary protected status, or [restricting] the validity period of work documents from five years to one year.”

What’s happening in Washington is a microcosm of the various ways that immigrants and their allies nationwide are resisting an often-lawless federal immigration crackdown that has routinely violated the constitutional rights of immigrants and citizens alike, as cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis have seen raids and mass protests. Andrea Schmitt, an attorney at Columbia Legal Services, explained that the climate created by Trump’s immigration policies can have a chilling effect on people even being willing to exercise their legal rights.

“People who are documented and undocumented alike are all feeling extraordinarily nervous and affected by the immigration tactics this administration has undertaken,” Schmitt told Filter. “That’s because the admin has shown itself repeatedly not to care what your immigration status is, and to argue successfully it has the ability to racially profile and haul people away. They’ve kept people who are documented in detention for extended periods, which can be life-ruining. There is a wide-reaching psychological effect on the immigrant community.”

“It’s so foundational to get to know your neighbors … Find out who is in need of support, and who can offer it.”

Although states and cities have little power to affect immigration policy, which is largely the domain of the federal government, advocates are working towards other legal reforms in Washington State. Senna Seniuk, policy director of the  Washington Immigrant Solidary Network (WAISN), said that immigration advocates are strengthening their relationships with labor unions and other workplace organizers, finding common cause in seeking more comprehensive rights for all workers, regardless of their citizenship status.

Advocates notched another win in March, as Senuik explained. “Some of the other legislation we’ve previously sponsored are the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which are basic workplace protections for nannies, cleaners, gardeners, who are typically left out of labor protections in other industries,” she told Filter. “Immigrant community members are working across industries across the state and country, so it’s essential we have these strong relationships with workers’ rights and labor unions to promote shared safety and wellbeing of all workers.” That bill was signed into law by Gov. Ferguson on March 9.

Seniuk emphasized that while it’s important to lobby for state and local legislation to protect rights, it’s equally vital that everyone become involved in protecting their communities on the front end from ICE and other federal enforcement actions.

“It’s so foundational to get to know your neighbors, whether they’re living or working there,” she said. “We’ve seen in Minneapolis, individual streets organizing chats to respond to enforcement. Find out who is in need of support, and who can offer it.”

Photograph via NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive

The post WA Adopts Immigrant Worker Protections, Pushing Back Against Feds appeared first on Filter.

There were 32 deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in 2025—an unconscionable number that looks very likely to be surpassed in 2026.

As of February 11, alongside ICE agents’ fatal shootings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, another six people had already died in ICE custody.

The agency’s go-to response is to lie. As Popular Information detailed, a January 9 ICE press release following Campos’s death said he had died “after experiencing medical distress” in segregation, where he’d been placed for being  “disruptive while in line for medication.” An ICE statement to the Washington Post later claimed that Campos had tried to kill himself, “violently resisted the security staff” and “stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”

The witness said they saw one of the guards choke Campos as the others held him down. And the autopsy report released on January 21 by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s office found abrasions to his chest and knees, hemorrhages on his neck and burst capillaries in his eyes. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxia.

“The Trump administration is ruthlessly pursuing a multi-layered detention expansion plan … Looming large is the imminent threat of using warehouses to detain up to 80,000 people.”

Besides brutality, another reason deaths are likely to rise is the unprecedented surge in the total number of people being held by ICE under President Donald Trump’s war on immigrants. When he took office in January 2025, about 40,000 people were in ICE custody. A year later, that number had reached a record 73,000—up 75 percent.

Flush with $45 billion for detention capacity expansion under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” ICE plans to deal with this ongoing influx in part by reopening shuttered jails around the United States, including facilities particularly notorious for past abuses and dire conditions.

But all those jails still won’t be enough to realize the full extent of the administration’s sadistic plans.  

“The Trump administration is ruthlessly pursuing a multi-layered detention expansion plan, skyrocketing the number of people in detention,” Stacy Suh, program director at Detention Watch Network, told Filter. “Looming large is the imminent threat of using warehouses to detain up to 80,000 people across the country.”

As the Atlanta Journal–Constitution recently reported, ICE is looking to buy up industrial warehouses in Missouri, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas and Virginia. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people would be detained in each of these vast facilities, while smaller warehouses—another 16 all over the country—would hold 1,500 each.

“All immigration detention is inherently inhumane and rife with abuse, and yet the warehouse model currently being pursued is particularly horrifying.”  

Jails, however appalling, at least have some infrastructure like toilets, bunks, kitchens and outrageously overpriced commissaries. It’s not clear how ICE is planning the day-to-day logistics of literally warehousing people.

“All immigration detention is inherently inhumane and rife with abuse,” Suh said, “and yet the warehouse model currently being pursued is particularly horrifying.”  

Warehouses are designed to store inanimate objects that don’t need bathrooms or food. There’s little prospect that ICE will furnish them at the level required to meet even the most basic human rights standards, and the sheer size of these buildings adds to an anticipated nightmare. 

“People are not commodities to be shipped, discarded, and profited off of,” Suh said. “Subjecting people to large-scale, makeshift warehouse detention camps will exponentially increase the likelihood for abuse and death in ICE custody, as ICE cuts people off from their loved ones and support networks, and subjects them to inhumane conditions.”

As for likely outcomes at the jails ICE plans to reopen, those facilities already have track records.

A lawsuit initiated by the ACLU of Virginia and North Carolina, after their FOIA request was denied, led to the January release of documents concerning eight facilities ICE plans to take over. Two former jails among them include the Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, Virginia, where detainees were subjected to sexual assaults and guards smuggled drugs. And the Rivers Correctional Facility in Winton, North Carolina, formerly operated by the GEO Group, which lost a federal contract after evidence of violence and sexual assault. There, too, former guards were found to have engaged in smuggling contraband and bribery, according to the ACLU.

“It’s a deliberate strategy … to make it so people leave the US instead of protesting their cases.”

Detention everywhere will be in atrocious conditions. And the scale of the plans ensures that more and more people will be forced to endure it.

“The major threat of converting jails into detention facilities is ICE’s increased efficiency in terms of the deportation project,” Eunice Hyunhye Cho, senior counsel with the ACLU National Prison Project, told Filter. “These facilities will house hundreds if not thousands of people.”  

“ICE is detaining thousands of people every day, who in the past would never have been detained: with work permits, having lived in the community for many years, many medically vulnerable,” she added. “ICE is choosing to grab people and putting them in jail for a civil offense. It makes it harder for them to make bond and be released while their immigration case proceeds.”

“It’s a deliberate strategy to expand detention beds to make it so people leave the US instead of protesting their cases,” Cho concluded.

Photograph of dorm room at the ICE Farmville Detention Center via NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive

The post Already Killing People, ICE to Scale Up With Warehouse Detention appeared first on Filter.

While this step marked progress, marijuana’s federal legal status has not changed in the three years since. Cannabis remains a federally prohibited substance, and it remains unclear if President Donald Trump will follow through on the process to change its status.

What has changed is the political climate. The Trump administration is actively using the drug war to pursue an agenda that includes large-scale detention and deportation of immigrants. As lawmakers work to change federal marijuana laws, they must not abandon immigrants—who are crucial to sustaining the thriving industry across many states, yet remain some of the most vulnerable to the lingering harms of criminalization.

Since 1970, with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I drug. The CSA organized various substances under five schedules. Schedule I drugs were defined as having “the highest potential for abuse with no accepted medical use,” while Schedule V drugs included those with “the lowest potential for abuse and an accepted medical use.”

But people use cannabis for a wide variety of health issues, from chronic pain to epilepsy to cancer. And the scheduling of marijuana was a decision based on politics and stigma instead of health. The CSA was enacted as part of President Richard Nixon’s all-out War on Drugs, which focused on expanding the size and scope of federal drug control strategies and implementing harsher drug laws to target political opponents.

For immigrants, marijuana criminalization has created a direct path to deportation. This exacerbates the renewed fear among immigrant communities in today’s political climate.

When it comes to marijuana, nearly nine in 10 people in the United States support legalizing it in some form, and it has been decriminalized to some extent in nearly every state. Yet it remains illegal federally. For decades, marijuana criminalization has created a multitude of harms—from saddling people with arrest and conviction records that make it harder to find a job and access benefits, to denying patients medical benefits. Black and Brown people have been disproportionately impacted by these harms due to targeted enforcement, and these communities experience higher arrest and incarceration rates, despite similar drug usage across racial groups.

For immigrants, marijuana criminalization has created a direct path to deportation. This exacerbates the renewed fear among immigrant communities in today’s political climate—and with reason. 

Among those deported in 2025 so far, over 600 individuals are known to have had marijuana-related charges as their most serious conviction—a number that’s likely an undercount. Three-quarters of those convictions occurred at least five years ago.

Unfortunately, while the scale of the threat may be growing, this is nothing new. Immigrants have long faced harsh punishment due to federal marijuana prohibition, even when complying with state laws. Prior marijuana-related convictions—even low-level—have for years had lasting immigration consequences.

Under President Barack Obama, for instance, a woman who grew four small cannabis plants and used them to make a tincture for arthritis pain was nearly deported for a cultivation charge dating back more than a decade.

Noncitizens have been denied citizenship for working in marijuana dispensaries, because such employment is considered evidence of lacking “good moral character.”

Such cases continue today under President Trump. This summer, a Texas researcher made headlines when he was detained at an airport for an old misdemeanor marijuana possession case. Some state officials have been making efforts to protect noncitizens, but even a full pardon by a state governor does not necessarily shield people from deportation or prevent the denial of immigration benefits.

For years, noncitizens have also been denied citizenship for working in marijuana dispensaries—even in states where cannabis is legal—because such employment is considered evidence of lacking “good moral character” under federal immigration standards.

Yet immigrants form an indispensable part of the industry’s workforce. From farm laborers cultivating cannabis to workers packaging the product, they often occupy the most physically demanding roles while holding the least protected jobs across the supply chain.

These systemic vulnerabilities became glaringly evident on July 10, when ICE agents and the National Guard raided two sites at Glass House Farms, one of California’s largest legal cannabis cultivators, resulting in the death of a 57-year-old father and farmworker, Jaime Alanis, and the arrest of over 360 people, including US citizens. 

Right now, marijuana is being weaponized at an even greater scale than before. From the troop deployments in cities like DC and Chicago, to immigration raids across the US, marijuana convictions are being used more and more to arrest, jail, and deport people. Families are being separated, losing jobs and homes—again, even in states where marijuana is legal.

Fully descheduling marijuana, and removing it entirely from the CSA, is essential.

Although there have been recent calls to move marijuana to Schedule III under the CSA, such a change would not resolve the protection gap created by existing federal laws. And it would not honor the wishes of the majority of people who support legalization in some form.

While rescheduling would acknowledge marijuana’s medical value, it would still be classified as a federally prohibited substance—continuing to leave people vulnerable to marijuana criminalization and noncitizens susceptible to immigration penalties. Any involvement with marijuana could still trigger ICE arrests, deportation, or denial of a green card or citizenship.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to build a stable life—with access to jobs, housing and care—without being held back by the lifelong barriers created by criminalization. Fully descheduling marijuana, and removing it entirely from the CSA, is essential to achieving that. This action would finally end federal marijuana criminalization for good, ensuring that citizens and noncitizens are no longer punished for activities that are legal in their states.

In Congress, a bill to deschedule marijuana was recently reintroduced in the House: the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act (HR 5068). This bill decriminalizes marijuana, expunges marijuana convictions, resentences people in federal prison for marijuana convictions, restores federal public benefits, and reinvests tax dollars into communities most harmed by drug war. The MORE Act would also protect noncitizens from facing immigration penalties for certain cannabis activity post enactment.

However, while the MORE Act provides a good start, it should be improved by ensuring that people are not punished through the immigration system for any past marijuana activity. It should also be improved by ensuring immigrants are not subjected to immigration penalties in states that continue to criminalize marijuana, as this would lead to an unfair double punishment.

For more than 50 years, marijuana criminalization has harmed people by depriving them of job opportunities, federal aid, medical benefits, immigration relief and much more. As federal marijuana reform moves forward, lawmakers must center health and repairing people’s lives over political agendas, stigma and punishment. 

Photograph via Picryl/Public Domain

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, previously received a restricted grant from the Drug Policy Alliance, where the author interns. Filter‘s Editorial Independence Policy applies.

The post Federal Marijuana Reform Must Include Immigrant Justice appeared first on Filter.

“​​Make America Fentanyl Free is more than just a slogan,” the website states. “It’s a call to action. We aim to empower individuals with the knowledge and tools necessary to understand the dangers of fentanyl. By clicking on our resources page, you will unlock important information that can help you and your community tackle this issue head-on.” 

The resources page consists of the free hotlines for four national rehab organizations, plus the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, although MAFF has listed their suicide hotline instead of the one for drug use. (The number for American Addiction Centers is not the one that’s typically advertised, but a representative said the calls all route to the same place.) 

MAFF very clearly exists to stoke the public’s appetite for border control, plus ancillary policies like mandatory minimums and civil commitment. But what really drives this home is that there is no call to action. There’s actually almost no way to engage with the campaign at all. It doesn’t ask for donations. There are no upcoming events. There’s a “Join the Fight” portal where you can submit your email address, but it doesn’t email you anything.

“It takes control of your body,” claims the narrator of one video, while in the background someone who presumably just used fentanyl howls like they’re turning into a werewolf. “Labored breathing, foaming at the mouth, painful itching, skin turns blue. The ‘fentanyl fold’ takes you.”

Fentanyl can make people itchy, yes. But just in the sense that opioids as a broad category make lots of people itchy, regardless of potency or whether they’re pharmaceutical versus street supply. You could also say the same of various antibiotics, or aspirin.

The acceptable term to use in place of “fentanyl fold” is “nodding out,” if you need to describe someone who’s standing but bent forward at the waist due to the sedative effects of drugs they’ve recently used, typically opioids but not necessarily. Nodding out isn’t the same thing as overdosing; generally speaking, someone still conscious and on their feet is not overdosing. In most parts of daily life there is no reason to touch a stranger without their consent, but, if you pass someone on the street who’s nodding out extra hard, a gentle nudge—gentle—and a “Hey, remember to breathe” is acceptable. Mostly because it works.

Skin, teeth, hair and overall youthfulness have always been strategic choices when trying to paint drug users as unhealthy. The common denominator is not drugs.

“I was immediately addicted to fentanyl, exactly like the drug dealers wanted. My skin turned blue. I aged rapidly. My organs painfully deteriorated. Then I died, alone.” 

Dependence can sometimes develop quickly. But this is no more true of fentanyl than it is of any other potentially addictive substance, or potentially addictive behavior like gambling or sex.

By the same token, people who sell drugs are generally motivated to have a product that buyers will come back for, but this is the basic business practice for selling any consumable product, not just drugs. It’s why transnational drug-trafficking organizations are not terrorist groups—commercial motives are very different than ideological ones. And why, even if you don’t know anything about the drug war, it’s easy to see that the premise of people who knowingly sell fentanyl being murderers is not sound. No one makes a living by killing off their customers.

References to skin turning blue come up a few different times. It’s a distortion of one of the more commonly taught signs of opioid overdose, which is the victim’s lips and/or fingernails turning bluish-purple because there isn’t enough oxygen in their blood. Notably, this indicator skews toward white people, and sets up people with darker skin tones to be overlooked if their discoloration is more grayish.

There are other common substances that damage your liver or kidneys way more directly—alcohol, for example—but even in media or pop culture’s least-generous portrayals of people who use them, we don’t put the actors in zombie makeup. The final line about dying alone is one in a long list of obvious openings to talk about naloxone, or anything remotely related to overdose reversal or prevention, but that’s not the kind of thing MAFF is here to do.

Make America Fentanyl Free @FoxNews: “Fentanyl victims’ families celebrate Trump’s action against drug epidemic: ‘Milestone for saving lives'” pic.twitter.com/uQTSSgSbQK

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 25, 2025

“First my teeth started to rot. Then my skin turned blue. I started to age very rapidly. I lost my hair. My dignity. And every friend. And I will only be remembered as that drug user.”

Can fentanyl use wear down your tooth enamel? Sure. Opioids can cause dry mouth, a common side effect of all kinds of regulated and unregulated substances. Smoking drugs—fentanyl, meth, tobacco —can damage your teeth as well, we just tend to blame the drugs rather than the method of consumption. Or the social determinants of health that often play a larger role in dental hygiene, such as publicly subsidized food being mostly sugar and starch, or not being able to see a dentist for the past 20 years.

Skin, teeth, hair and overall youthfulness have always been strategic choices when trying to paint drug users—or anyone, really—as unhealthy, and therefore undeserving of social services that are better than what they currently have. The common denominator is money, not drugs.

MAFF might as well have skipped the limited attempts at factual information, because no one would have missed them.

“Every prescription drug sold legally in America requires a warning detailing all serious side effects. Here are the warnings that would come with street fentanyl made by the Mexican drug cartels,” states the narrator in one of the videos. “Extreme nausea; vomiting; liver, heart and organ damage; dizziness; urinary retention; pupillary constriction; confusion; and respiratory depression. It can also cause horribly itchy skin that can lead to pulling your skin off. The inability to stand straight. Rapid aging. And your lips, tongue and skin turning blue. And there’s one more serious side effect street-bought fentanyl can cause: immediate death.”

Y’know which legal prescription drug carries a warning that actually includes all of these? Vivitrol, if you accept a couple of modest swaps like “urinary tract infection” instead of “urinary retention,” and “debridement of necrotic tissue [resulting] in significant scarring” instead of “pulling your skin off.”

There are some cursory attempts at fentanyl-related education, but only a few, including a bunch of references to the debunked myth that fentanyl is “laced” into marijuana. MAFF might as well have skipped the limited attempts at factual information, because no one would have missed them. Its wheelhouse is the tried-and-true propaganda tactic: Single out some behavior or characteristic exhibited by lots of different people, and link it to one specific group of people as proof that they’re all the same. 

Image via Make America Fentanyl Free/Twitter

The post Just a Reminder That Drug Users Aren’t Zombies appeared first on Filter.

A partnership with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS) will allow ICE to use the Work Ethic Camp in McCook, a men’s work-release facility near the state’s southern border. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is funding 280 ICE detention beds in Nebraska, including those at the McCook facility, which has a 200-bed capacity that’s now slated to be raised to 300. The state prisoners currently assigned to the facility will be transferred.

The same NDCS staff currently working there are expected to be retained, but provided with some sort of higher-level training. The facility itself may also be outfitted with additional unspecified security measures. 

At an August 19 press conference, Governor Jim Pillen (R) told reporters that he’d learned about the plan four days earlier.

“These are things that came about very, very, very quickly. We actually reached out and asked our federal partners to take a breath, slow-play it a little bit,” Pillen said. “We did not know this could become a reality—a significant reality—until Friday afternoon.”

He later said that his office and NDCS had in fact been exploring the idea with DHS for a long time, but had never mentioned it because it wouldn’t have been appropriate to talk about it prematurely. Apparently that changed the afternoon of August 15, when a DHS field agent came down to McCook and said (presumably to NDCS Director Rob Jeffreys) that the site was fantastic and “this is going to work.”

After briefly referencing that they haven’t even had a chance to sign the contracts yet, Pillen told reporters that he expects to enter a 365-day agreement that will ultimately remain in effect as long as President Donald Trump is in office.

“I’m not into speculation,” he said. “So to be able to tell you what the future of the [detention center] is, you know, I’m not in a position to—we have not put a lot of energy into that.”

In the wake of the announcement, multiple other Nebraska officials indicated that this was the first they were hearing of it.

Rep. Mike Flood (R) said that the “proposed facility appears to support” Trump’s border agenda and that he “anticipate[s] that more details will emerge.” Senator Deb Fischer (R) expressed similar support “as we await further details about the proposed detention facility.” 

“I’m learning about this the way that everybody else is, which is really on the fly,” Senator George Dungan III (D) told KETV. “My first thought is that I’m incredibly concerned. These kind of decisions being made quickly and seemingly without any consultation with the legislature … at this point I don’t think a lot of people know exactly what this is going to look like.”

Senator Pete Ricketts (R) stated that he’s familiar with the site from his time as governor and that it’s a “great fit for ICE’s needs,” and that the development will bring economic investment to McCook.

“I think that there will be a capitalistic opportunity,” Pillen said.

While Nebraska probably won’t be the last state to partner with ICE in this capacity, not every state is going to be opening its own equivalent facility. The McCook prison will likely serve as a hub for half a dozen or so surrounding states. Pillen said that he expects most of the people detained will be coming “from a state to the West of us,” rather than from within Nebraska.

He confirmed that he had briefly spoken with the mayor regarding use of the small city-owned airport located about four-and-a-half miles from the prison. The Ben Nelson Regional Airport has just two runways and one airline, which would be ideal for facilitating deportations without disrupting commercial air travel.

“I think that there will be a capitalistic opportunity,” Pillen said. “There will be a capitalistic opportunity for fuel … it’s too early to tell you how many [will be flown] in and out, but certainly the attractiveness was the facility and, obviously, being a couple miles from the airport.”

He explained that detainees wouldn’t be brought to the facility by plane, but that ICE would use the airport for those who’d been seen by an immigration judge and were being “exported.”

“Hardcore reality, we have 13- and 14-year-old kids creating some extraordinary criminal activity … so I’m not sure what the age limits would be.”

“[Fentanyl] is in all 93 counties,” Pillen said. “We have risked our kids, it’s incredibly important that we go after the cartels. It is a gigantic piece of the equation. We’re simply doing our part to get these people off of our streets, get them out of our communities, and get them the heck out of here.”

Pillen spoke at length about the threat of transnational drug-trafficking organizations. But the McCook facility is minimum-security, and will not be used to hold detainees with known affiliations to any of those groups. It appears that it will be used to hold anyone picked up by ICE who entered the US within the past four years.

Pushed by a reporter about whether his characterization of all detainees as “criminals” is based solely on their being in the country without documentation, Pillen said that the people housed at McCook will be “not murderers,” but all linked to criminalized activity of some kind.

“Lots of it has to do with drugs,” he said eventually. “Lots of it has to do with drugs and sex trafficking.”

In response to the same reporter’s question about whether ICE planned to use the facility for people of a particular age or gender, Pillen said he didn’t know.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not a politician so I’ve not thought about that, I’ve not asked that question,” he said. “Hardcore reality, we have 13- and 14-year-old kids creating some extraordinary criminal activity, even in the extraordinary state of Nebraska. So I’m not sure what the age limits would be.”

He heavily praised NDCS Director Jeffreys‘ leadership, and said that whenever he visits the prisons he gets letters thanking him and praising the department’s culture and programming.

“And the folks that want to yell about overcrowding and all that, they don’t know what’s going on,” Pillen said. “Simple as that.”

Earlier in 2025, Jeffreys confirmed to the Nebraska legislature that the NDCS prison population is at more than 140 percent capacity. Multiple people have died as a direct result of the department’s housing practices.

Image of Work Ethic Camp via Nebraska Department of Correctional Services

The post “Cornhusker Clink”: Nebraska Prisons to Open ICE Detention Center appeared first on Filter.

The list of 18 cities, four counties, 12 states and the District of Columbia skews heavily to the left. It includes every jurisdiction that’s drawn attention for progressive drug policies that have not yet gained wider traction, such as overdose prevention centers, drug decriminalization and psychedelic therapy.

In May, President Donald Trump’s administration published its first such list, which caused widespread criticism and confusion. It included more than 600 jurisdictions, many of them misspelled or mislabeled, selected for unclear reasons. Many had supported Trump and already taken anti-immigrant stances; Huntington Beach, California, made the list despite having passed a formal resolution declaring itself a non-sanctuary city.

By way of explanation for its revised list, on August 5 the DOJ also published an accompanying list of nine “sanctuary jurisdiction characteristics” that it implied were used to guide the selection process. They mainly revolve around noncooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers, which is not a violation of federal law. The DOJ did not specify which characteristics corresponded to which jurisdictions.

Louisville, KY, announced in July that it would begin honoring 48-hour ICE detainer requests.

At the bottom of the list the DOJ noted that it had recently filed several lawsuits, listing only New York City as an example. It also noted it had pressured Louisville, Kentucky, into revoking the policies in question. Louisville had appeared on the May list, and in July the city announced it would begin honoring 48-hour ICE detainer requests. Louisville Metro Department of Corrections reportedly began implementing the new policy August 6, the day after the new list was published. Louisville is no longer on the list.

“It’s meant to intimidate,” Bill Ong Hing, founding director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law, told Filter. “They will not bring a lawsuit—they’ve lost every lawsuit they’ve been involved in with this issue. They will try to withhold federal funds for some jurisdictions, then those jurisdictions will themselves bring lawsuits [against Trump].”

In 2018, during Trump’s first administration, California jurisdictions sued and ultimately caused a federal appeals court to determine that it was unconstitutional to withhold federal funds due to “sanctuary” policies.

“Sanctuary ordinances do not say ICE can’t come into the jurisdiction and do its work,” Ong Hing said. “It doesn’t mean if ICE asks questions of a police or sheriff’s office, that no response will be given—they’re obligated to respond under federal statutes. All it says is they won’t affirmatively cooperate. Many ordinances simply say don’t ask questions of people you encounter at the department of health or education … there’s no requirement under federal law that police departments ask us what our immigration status is.”

One consequence of these federal threats is that many people lose access to public benefits.

Across the country, an increasing number of “287(g)” agreements allow ICE to delegate immigration enforcement to state and local law enforcement agencies that are willing to assist. Every state without at least one active 287(g) agreement in place appears on the DOJ’s new list. (As of August 8, the ICE online application process for entering into a 287(g) agreement is “offline for revisions.”)

“It turns anyone participating into ICE agents roaming the streets, doing federal immigration stops,” Danny Woodward, a Julius Glickman legal fellow with the Beyond Borders Program, told Filter. “It leads to racial profiling. In 2012 the federal government got rid of this model—because of highly publicized racial profiling.”

Hasan Shafiqullah, immigration supervising attorney of the Law Reform Unit of the Legal Aid Society in New York, explained to Filter that one immediate, tangible consequence of these federal threats is that many people afraid they’ll be targeted for deportation lose access to public benefits, because they won’t show up to the recertification process.

“Let’s say I’m undocumented, I don’t qualify for any benefits, but I have US citizen children entitled under the law to get Medicaid or food stamps,” he said. “If I’m afraid to show up and recertify, what happens to the benefit? My children will [experience] food insecurity or hunger, and not get their wellness checks. It’s damaging because you’re having health and hunger outcomes that are entirely avoidable, only happening because of the chilling effect of people afraid to show up at agencies or even leave their homes.”

Image (cropped) via Immigration and Customs Enforcement

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ICE rolled out the policy change July 8. The agency is drastically reinterpreting the Immigration and Nationality Act, which only mandates pre-trial detention for undocumented detainees who have certain criminal records and are being considered for expedited deportation. Now, everyone undocumented will be processed this way, regardless of their background or how long they’ve lived in the United States. Only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can issue exemptions.

Counsel for Bautista, et al v. Noem includes attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The case was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of California on behalf of four people alleging wrongful detention in an ICE facility in California. On July 28, the district court ruled those plaintiffs must be granted a bond hearing within seven days. The class action lawsuit filed the same day amends the existing challenge, expanding representation to “others similarly situated.”

If a judge grants class certification, anyone in the US who is subject to the new removal process would retain the right to a bond hearing.

“It doesn’t mean everyone will be released,” Matt Adams, legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and one of the attorneys on the lawsuit, told Filter. “This seeks to have the opportunity to at least have your facts considered by DHS and an immigration judge.”

Lawyers are pushing to expedite the case, with the hope of getting at least an initial ruling from the district court within two to four months.

The four plaintiffs who brought the initial case are all longtime undocumented residents currently being detained in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Southern California.

“Normally what happens [is] DHS first looks at the individual’s record,” Adams said. “Sees if they have a criminal record, if they have ties to this country and how long they have been living here … they decide if that person is a flight risk or danger. If they’re not, that person is released and can go through the removal proceedings while still at home with their families and maintaining their job.”

Prior to the new policy, detainees remanded to custody still had the right to go before an immigration judge and ask to be released on bond.

Adams described conditions in ICE detention centers as “abhorrent,” noting that there is insufficient food and medical care. Detainees are caged inside 24/7, with no access to fresh air. He said that he and his colleagues will push to expedite the case, with the hope of getting at least an initial ruling from the district court within two to four months. They expect resistance from President Donald Trump, as ICE—now the top-funded federal agency—extends its reach and detention compounds like “Alligator Alcatraz” are constructed across the country.

“The administration is trying to create an immigration process that is so hostile it serves as a deterrent to individuals living here standing up and asserting their rights,” Adams said. “Even these individuals who have valid claims often give up when they’re forced to spend six, 10, 12 months in these detention facilities [and] don’t even know how long these proceedings are going to take … it’s very common our clients reach a point where they say, ‘I can’t take this anymore, go ahead and deport me, I can’t be here another day.’”

Image (cropped) via Office of Inspector General

The post Legal Battle Emerges as ICE Denies Bail to All Undocumented Immigrants appeared first on Filter.

The report was published by UC Merced Community and Labor Center on July 15. It appears to be the first analysis of the economic fallout of the immigration crackdowns and protests that followed.

Between May 11 and June 8, California lost 3.1 percent of its private-sector jobs, compared to 3.3 percent between December 2007 and December 2008. The researchers used data from the Current Population Survey, which is administered about once a month by the BLS and the Census Bureau.

During the week of June 8, when Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies carried out anti-immigrant actions across the state, the number of undocumented workers reporting employment dropped by 193,428 (7.2 percent). For United States citizens, it dropped 271,541 (2.2 percent). Women, Latino and white workers bore the brunt of the decline.

“[T]he federal administration’s escalating immigration enforcement actions seem to have had profoundly negative consequences for California’s economy,” the researchers wrote. “[E]fforts to protect or enhance immigrant workers’ rights may require policy innovation on behalf of states, municipalities and employers.”

When the pandemic began, the unemployment rate jumped from 6.3 percent in March 2020 to 15.7 percent in April 2020. That and the Great Recession are the only events with comparable impact on California’s economy.

“In the cases of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 8 pandemic, lawmakers invested massive amounts of public resources for one-time stimulus or disaster relief spending,” the researchers wrote. “Similarly, policymakers might examine how to simultaneously protect those workers who must shelter in place during heightened immigration enforcement while infusing massive amounts of cash into the economy.”

In early June, federal immigration agents began raiding California workplaces as well as public parks. Protests were organized in response, and Trump ordered 2,000 California National Guard troops to deploy to the Los Angeles area, over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom (D). Days later, the Trump administration deployed an additional 2,000 CalGuard and 700 Marine troops, prompting a lawsuit from the state. Newsom stressed that sending CalGuard troops to LA had left state firefighting crews at 40-percent capacity during peak fire season.

Initially this was planned to be a 60-day operation, but the Pentagon announced an early end on July 15.

“The recent workplace raids in California reveal how the state currently lacks an adequate economic safety net system for undocumented immigrant workers, and the downstream effects of escalated immigration enforcement on citizens’ employment,” the UC Merced researchers wrote. “Given the historic magnitude of the effects of recent federal actions on California’s private sector employment, state lawmakers should begin planning and developing a major economic stimulus and disaster package—for all workers.”

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” allocated a historic $160 billion to immigration enforcement. ICE is now the nation’s top-funded agency, and people facing deportation are threatened with harrowing new detention compounds like ”Alligator Alcatraz.” The researchers noted that we can expect immigration enforcement to continue to escalate, in California and around the country.

Top image via WikiMedia Commons/Public Domain. Inset graphic via University of California, Merced.

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