Strega Nona

If you’re receiving this message, I’m already [hopefully] wheels down in Italy. I’ll be speaking on a panel at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia and then heading off on a two-week journey to see beautiful flowers and architecture, eating my weight in various meats and cheeses, and drinking all of the wine. 

Since I’ll be in Europe, I’m going to do as the Europeans do: close up shop and not work for the entire time. As a one-woman operation, that means there will be no new issues of The Handbasket from now through May 2nd. I understand that might be disappointing as a subscriber, but I hope you’ll understand that your incredible support (since 2022, and especially in the past year) have made it possible for me to feel comfortable taking a break. So thank you for this much-needed break.

As a little out of office treat, I’m offering 25% off an annual subscription to The Handbasket now through 5/2. If you’re not a paid subscriber already, now’s the time!

See you in May with more of the 100% independent, farm-to-table reporting that you love. 

And here are links to some of my favorite Handbaskets past to keep you company:

One of the first acts by the second Trump administration was the complete gutting of the US Agency for International Development, a workforce of more than 10,000 people that had administered humanitarian aid and public health support to nations around the world since 1961. Thousands of jobs were immediately slashed by Elon Musk’s para-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and political appointees took over posts previously held by career civil servants. An agency once charged with fighting poverty, curbing the spread of infectious diseases, and promoting education and democracy abroad had been effectively thrown in the woodchipper.

It was during those critical early days that Nicholas Enrich, then-USAID’s acting assistant administrator for global health (GH), witnessed firsthand the carelessness and callousness with which the Trump administration destroyed the agency, ultimately leading to him becoming a government whistleblower. As a result, he was placed on administrative leave for sharing Trump officials’ decision to deny the continuation of life-saving aid, and the lies they told to justify it. 

Enrich’s new book “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID” will be published on Tuesday, and The Handbasket is proud to share an exclusive excerpt. It shows the scary lack of public health expertise among the Trump team—which included Ken Jackson, who was part of the US Institute of Peace raid—their fundamental ignorance to USAID’s mission—”I assumed it was just, you know, abortions”—and the life or death decisions they forced people like Enrich to make in the name of supposed efficiency. This excerpt details a meeting that took place on February 5, 2025, during which Enrich and his colleagues Nida Parks and Ramona Godbole met with newly-installed Trump officials at the former USAID headquarters to explain their bureau’s critical functions. 

You can purchase the book here. Excerpt below:

On Wednesday, Nida, Ramona, and I went to the Reagan Building to finally meet with Joel Borkert and the USAID leadership team. We made our way through the eerily empty headquarters building and entered the administrator’s suite, where we were ushered into the executive conference room. I had last been there years earlier, during the first Trump administration, to brief Administrator Mark Green on our proposed restructuring of our tuberculosis strategy. I remembered nervously trying to answer pointed questions from Green and several of his top deputies, who had relentlessly pushed us to identify opportunities to make our programs more efficient, to maximize local ownership, and to propel host governments toward self- reliance, reducing the need for foreign assistance from the United States.

Today, the room felt emptier, devoid of the expertise and experience that had so often directed policy from within its walls. Besides the three of us from GH, the group consisted of Joel Borkert (USAID’s chief of staff), Adam Korzeniewski (White House liaison), Meghan Hanson (director of policy), Paul Seong (senior advisor to the administrator), and Ken Jackson (with Pete Marocco’s new designation as deputy administrator, Ken’s title was revised to acting deputy administrator for management and resources). Jason Gray (briefly the acting administrator, now back to chief information officer) joined as well. The group looked tired and bored, and I got the sense that we were not the first bureau to brief this group on our “mission- critical functions” that afternoon.

Without introductions, Joel, who was eating a frozen Indian dinner, jumped right in. “In full transparency, we’re drawing down USAID,” he said. “We’d like you to walk us through your mission-critical functions so that we can close things out smoothly. What are the key priorities that we need to keep working on in GH, and the staff needs to carry them out?”

Draw down. Close out. The words he dropped so casually rang in my head. Our global health programs didn’t concern him, he was only interested in the quickest way to shutter the agency. I knew this was my only chance to make him see why our work mattered.

“Thanks, Joel,” I began. “With the current pause on foreign aid, we’re primarily focused right now on the waiver to restart our lifesaving activities. But emergency response is only a tiny fraction of our work. So much of what we do is to strengthen sustainable health systems around the world for long-term health improvements. Let me tell you about that work as well as some of the more urgent needs.”

Joel, who had been checking his watch, shrugged and took another bite of his microwaved paneer. Just as I was about to go on, Paul Seong spoke up. “I’d say just stick to the lifesaving stuff,” he said. Aside from Jason Gray, Paul was the only career official representing the front office in this meeting. My only prior engagement with Paul was the Ebola briefing on Monday after which he had asked for the names of the meeting’s participants, who had been the only staff spared from administrative leave that day. Paul had been a relatively junior foreign service officer until recently, when he had somehow ingratiated himself with our new political leaders. Now the political appointees seemed to look to him for strategic advice on how to tear down the agency, and he appeared to relish his newfound influence, which was affirmed by his seat at the center of the conference table. Joel and the others nodded their agreement.

Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health.

When I finished, the room was silent, the political appointees looking at one another in what appeared to be disbelief. The silence was broken by Ken Jackson, who chuckled softly and shook his head. “Wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew,” he said. “This is the story that needs to get out there.”

Joel, also smiling, chimed in next, echoing Jackson’s amazement. “I had no idea you did all this,” he said. “As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. My first thought was to explain that no global health programming supports abortions. Providing or promoting abortions with foreign assistance funds is illegal, and we had robust systems in place to ensure that no U.S. funds were used to support abortions. But obviously, arguing with Joel would get me nowhere. Mostly, I was shocked to hear how unapologetically ignorant our new leaders were about USAID’s work. Just the night before, they had triumphantly announced that nearly the entire agency was being placed on administrative leave, clearly without having a clue as to what we did. I willed myself to avoid eye contact with Nida or Ramona, knowing that seeing their expressions would lay waste to my twitching attempt at a straight face.

The first question came from Adam Korzeniewski, a veteran of the first Trump administration where he served short stints with the departments of Treasury and Commerce. Adam, the White House liaison to USAID, wanted to know more about the risks associated with interruptions to TB clinical trials, which I had mentioned in my overview. He was the only participant in this meeting who appeared genuinely happy to be there, and he was wearing a USAID lapel pin on his suit jacket, in what I could only explain as an apparently ironic nod to the agency he was charged with destroying. I found it odd and vaguely offensive, like a vindictive landlord throwing a farewell party for a tenant he was in the process of evicting.

“Some of the studies are testing new treatment regimens for drug- resistant tuberculosis,” I explained, hoping I could convey the very real danger in terms that would register with this audience. “Thousands of enrolled patients are at risk now that their lifesaving treatment is stopped. But that’s not the only danger. We only have limited options to treat drug- resistant TB. We’re using our antibiotics of last resort in these trials. Interrupting treatment midstream risks the development of new, even more drug-resistant strains that could be untreatable. For an airborne infectious disease, that is a serious national security risk.”

Adam thought for a moment and then responded, noting that the political appointees at USAID were “not health people.” It would be hard, he surmised, for nonexperts to understand this issue. And so he suggested that we draft a simple, “Barney-style” set of slides to help the political leadership grasp the dangers, referring to the purple dinosaur of children’s television. He recommended that we use the term “Super TB” instead of “drug- resistant TB” to describe the mutations that can develop when treatment is interrupted, because it might be more likely to “catch their attention.”

Adam then made clear that he did not count himself among those po- litical appointees who were not health experts. Though he had no relevant training or experience, he reassured me that he understood the severity of infectious diseases, noting that he had recently read a book about smallpox. Apparently he had watched movies as well.

“One thing I thought of while you were talking,” he added, gesticulating wildly with his hands to conjure the image in his mind. “If you can make one of those maps like they have in Outbreak, where it shows the red growing over time as the disease spreads? You know, like the zombie apocalypse? That would be great, very effective.”

The thought that Adam might have the most health expertise of anyone in the agency’s leadership made me shudder.

Meghan Hanson, who had been appointed days ago as USAID’s new director of policy, focused on my warnings related to the interruption of activities needed to prevent the spread of malaria, one of the world’s leading killers of children. I had noted that the rainy season was fast approaching in many of the African countries with the highest burden of malaria, and that the annual preparations to combat the disease—indoor residual spraying, distribution of bed nets, delivery of commodities for testing and treatment—had all been stopped.

Hanson seemed to grasp the urgency. “We need to get those activities turned back on right away,” she said. “Write up the details, including the number of lives at risk, how quickly the interventions are needed, and where, and get that to us tonight!”

I told her that we would prioritize this action. But, I reminded her, all the malaria division staff—the entirety of USAID’s malaria expertise—had been shut off from USAID’s network, making it extremely difficult to pull together accurate information quickly.

At this, Joel’s exasperation with DOGE’s meddling boiled over, and he shouted at the room: “See, this is why, just because it might work at Twitter does not mean you can do it here!”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. If the political appointees in this room—tearing down USAID without any comprehension of the consequences—felt that DOGE’s tactics were reckless and destructive, we were in deeper trouble than I had realized.

Following another long silence, Joel summarized what we needed to do next. My description of our lifesaving work had been helpful, and we would need to develop “a very simple way to describe it to the secretary,” he told us. “To be clear, we’re not looking for a laundry list of everything you want to do, you’re going to have to cut things, it’s going to have to be draconian. You’re only going to get things that are priority number one, that is all we’re going to be able to do, so don’t even send up the things that are priorities number two, three, or four.”

At that point, Nida jumped in. Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed her picking nervously at her hands for most of the meeting, and I knew it was just a matter of time before my oft-impatient colleague spoke up.

“Can I just clarify one thing?” she asked, not waiting for a response. “This group seems very focused on what GH does to respond to infectious diseases, but we haven’t spoken much about our other lifesaving work. Just as one example, we support lifesaving care to mothers for emergency inter- ventions like postpartum hemorrhaging and eclampsia, two of the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths. You would also consider that kind of work to fit into our ‘priority number one,’ right?”

Another brief silence followed as Joel watched the clock, and it was Paul Seong who broke it. “I’d say that’s more of a number two,” he said dismissively, looking to Joel and Ken for affirmation.

“That sounds right,” Joel agreed, and the others nodded. Nida, shaking visibly, scribbled furiously in her notebook. And just like that, it was decided. Without even a cursory nod to data or expertise, USAID’s leadership had determined purely on a whim that lifesaving maternal health services were not a priority for this administration.

Finally, Joel told us where things now stood. “As I said, the decision has been made to draw down USAID,” he said. “My job is to make sure it goes smoothly, and I need your help with that. I need you to tell me which individuals you need to do those few core remaining activities. It’s gotta be lean, but if you need us to bring a few people back to life—turn them back on—we can do that. Everyone else is going to stay off.” He glanced at Jason Gray, who apparently was in charge of turning people on and off. Jason nodded, almost imperceptibly, without looking up.

As the meeting ended, I reminded Joel that we were still waiting on his approval of our approach to implement the waiver for lifesaving activities, and that we had also sent him several requests to initiate our increasingly delayed response to the Ebola outbreak in Uganda. Then we were ushered out to the elevator.

Ramona, Nida, and I sat in the food court in the basement of the Reagan Building, trying to process the meeting we had just left. It was simply shocking that the group currently sitting in the administrator’s suite was the team that was making decisions about USAID’s future. They were not real policymakers, but impostors, sitting in big chairs and pretending to grapple with complex issues that required teams of experts, who they had just off-loaded. Clearly, they hadn’t considered how their plans to dismantle USAID might affect lives around the world or the health and safety of Americans. Now, having heard my warnings, they were not actually interested in—or capable of—finding a solution to prevent people from dying.

Their job was to tear down the agency as quickly and quietly as possible, receive their pat on the back from Pete Marocco, and move on to whatever was next.

Ramona, Nida, and I had been dismissed from the meeting with an impossible assignment: to provide a “draconian” short list of global health activities to maintain during the “drawdown” and a rank-ordered list of the staff needed to accomplish them. We did not know where to start. Were we really supposed to just abandon all of USAID’s programs to strengthen health systems, even though they were the key to our sustainable development goals? Had they really just deprioritized our maternal and child health programs in front of our eyes? And how could we even begin to rank our staff?

Ramona summed things up: “They’re asking us to dig our own grave.”

Excerpted from Nicholas Enrich's Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID, to be published on April 14th by Summit Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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When I woke up Tuesday morning I believed there was a very real possibility that the United States might drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. And as I was going to bed Wednesday night, that possibility returned. Thursday, an eerie calm settled as we waited to see if the alleged cease fire would hold, knowing it could change at any moment. It felt like we were dangling off a cliff, hanging on with one sweaty palm.

Sometimes journalism is relaying new information; other times it’s capturing what you already know so that you don’t forget how it made you feel. I wrote this so you and I don't forget. 

Those who were sentient during the first administration will remember how it felt like we were just existing from one Trump tweet to the next. Often indecipherable posts punctuated every day like an exclamation point with a foghorn attached, cortisol constantly pulsing, mind never knowing who or what he’d go after next. While a great deal of those posts were bluster, his words had real impacts: trans people in the military, as an example, found out via tweet that Trump was claiming they were no longer allowed to serve. The space between the tweets where we lived our lives felt that much more precarious. In this second administration we’ve gone from precarity to mortal peril. 

Donald Trump started his day Tuesday by logging onto Truth Social and posting this:

I read the post while still in bed, a product of terrible sleep hygiene wherein there’s no separation between slumber and the terrors of the day. My half-warmed up brain snapped to attention as I scanned the words, each one landing with a thud. 

“Holy shit,” I muttered. My husband, no stranger to my random outbursts about the horrors on my phone, passively asked what was happening as he got ready for work. “I think Trump might nuke Iran?” I replied, eyes still glued on the post. 

There’s been no shortage of what-the-fuck-are-we-supposed-to-do-with-this-information moments since Trump retook office in January 2025, but instead of speeding up time in anxious anticipation, this instance made the merry-go-round pause. It was the first time in my lifetime that the idea of the United States dropping another nuclear bomb felt within the realm of possibility. And that possibility slowed time to a crawl.

The shocking post didn’t come entirely out of nowhere: On Sunday Trump posted what we thought at the time would be the worst he had this week. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he wrote. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.” In a subsequent post he added “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” as the deadline for opening the straight. It was then that the countdown really began, but it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that the countdown turned nuclear.

A whole civilization will die tonight.

After the shock of the first read, the questions flooded: Which civilization would allegedly die Tuesday night? Iran? Ours? All of human civilization? How would it die? “WHO KNOWS?” What could he have planned that would warrant the hyperbole of calling it one of the most important moments in world history? Would April 7th become one of those seismic dates to which people knowingly refer without context? Why is he blessing the people of Iran when he wants them dead? Was this a real threat or did he just want attention? Did that distinction really matter when a country of 92 million people thought they might be vaporized overnight? 

Shortly after Trump’s post lit the world on fire, Iranian officials called on young people to form human chains around power plants and across bridges that were potential targets of an American strike. Our president’s actions gave permission to other reckless leaders abroad to put their own people in the very direct line of fire. While the Iranians who showed up at these various sites were linked to one another, it was difficult not to feel as though we were linked to them, too. Because while Trump may have been pointing a weapon at them, Americans were undoubtedly in the crossfire.

I put away dishes from the dishwasher that had been sitting there for two days, carefully placing each fragile item in its designated space, and gathered a few things to toss in my backpack before heading out to see my parents on Long Island and return their car I’d borrowed. At the wheel I shouted along with Celine Dion until my vocal cords ached, the Power of Love helping carry me just a little closer to 8pm when we’d learn the fate of a civilization. I stopped for a salad, wondering why I was eating a stupid salad when the world could be about to irrevocably change, and brought some stuff I ordered online to the UPS Store to send back. Would the refund for these jeans mean much tomorrow? Impossible to say. 

By mid-afternoon, more than 50 congressional Democrats had called for Trump to be impeached, in an effort that felt like much too little, much too late. Republicans practiced their patented silence in the face of anarchy.

“So, Trump might nuke Iran tonight?” I said to my dad when I walked in the house, after telling him about the bit of traffic I hit on the way. 

As 6:30pm Eastern Time rolled around, I sat in the kitchen of my childhood home, the clock on the wall sounding louder with each tick towards the future. In that moment there was nothing to be done but sit and listen. To hope that cooler heads, if any such heads existed here, would prevail in deescalating a situation in which we should have never been in the first place. With the certainty of tomorrow gone, the fullness of the present felt suddenly rife with meaning. 

A few moments later, Trump announced—again via social media post—that a tentative cease fire agreement had been reached with Iran via mediation by Pakistan. 

“Subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” he wrote at 6:32pm. Shortly after, Iran confirmed that the terms had been agreed upon by both countries. For the people of Iran, I felt immediate relief. But for those of us who’ve lived at Trump’s whims in one way or another for the past decade, we knew the relief would be temporary. No bombs would be dropped by the US on Iran Tuesday night, but we still had all been shattered. 

And we learned Wednesday that Israel did not believe they were subject to the cease fire, continuing to ceaselessly attack Lebanon as a proxy for Iran. More than 100 targets were hit with 1,000-pound bombs in less than 10 minutes, killing mostly civilians while they were going about their days—just as I was in New York. 

“First responders in Barbour worked to find people trapped under the rubble,” The Guardian reported on Thursday. “Firefighters sprayed water on the smouldering remains of the building while forklifts lifted crumpled cars to clear the road for ambulances. An emergency worker on the scene said they had not yet found any survivors, only pieces of people.”

Only pieces of people. 

By late afternoon Wednesday, Israeli’s murderous carnage in Lebanon threatened the US-Iran cease fire, a term that felt and continues to feel ridiculous when the fire is far from ceased. There were reports Iran was charging ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, meaning we were now paying for something that just days earlier had been free. 

As I settled into bed Wednesday night I couldn’t help but check Trump’s Truth Social feed, my hypervigilant mind ever-convinced that the sooner I knew something, the less it would hurt. Sure enough, Trump had just posted again:

Trump’s all caps assurance that nuclear weapons wouldn’t be used in Iran only made the threat feel more real, and again he only prompted more questions. We were back in limbo, but had we ever really left? Where was the next conquest? And from where was America back? We’d have to tune into tomorrow’s episode to find out. 

At 5:08 on Thursday, Trump posted: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”  Then at 6:29pm he wrote: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!” The outlook for Friday didn’t look good.

While a civilization did not yet die this week, we most certainly experienced a very real loss; the loss of that last shred of hope that no matter how unhinged Trump becomes, no matter what he says in a rambling speech or an incoherent press conference, that he wouldn’t do that. That is now a menu item, even if its threat is just a means to an end. 

(Image by Rama)

In a November conversation at the Urban Consulate in Detroit, the great writer and thinker Tressie McMillan Cottom was asked by host Orlando P. Bailey, “Do you have a daring idea for us to ponder and sit with for our collective future?” McMillan Cottom replied with this: “When people try to sell you on the idea that the future is already settled, it’s because it is deeply unsettled. I think that this promise of an artificial intelligent future is really just a collective anxiety that very wealthy, powerful people have about how well they’re gonna be able to control us in the future. If they can get us to accept that the future is already settled—AI is already here, the end is already here—then we will create that for them. My most daring idea is to refuse.” 

Today, I refuse.

As a rule, I’ve tried not to concern myself with AI. As the companies behind these products continue promising us that AI has something for everyone, I still haven’t seen a practical application that makes sense for me. But I’ve been hesitant to weigh in on the use of AI in the past as it typically concerned areas beyond my expertise and in which I do not work. But now that multiple stories from major outlets in recent days have proclaimed not just the inevitability of AI in journalism, but have trumpeted how working journalists are actively including AI-produced work in their finished product, it’s become my problem. It’s exposed a gulf between those who want to have their words remembered and those who just want people to remember that they wrote. We must stem the idea being pushed by tech companies and their billionaire funders who’ve sunk too much into their products to admit defeat that the infiltration of AI into journalism is inevitable; because from my perch as an independent journalist, it simply is not.

The Wall Street Journal recently sat down with Nick Lichtenberg, a reporter at Fortune, whose website is a shell of the once-renowned magazine founded nearly a century ago. AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the latter half of 2025, an astonishing fact shared in the story. Lichtenberg proudly attached his name to most of them with the full backing of his bosses, and the story notes he’s published more than 600 stories since rejoining the publication in July.

“A story by Lichtenberg sometimes starts with a prompt entered into Perplexity or Google’s NotebookLM, asking it to write something based on a headline he comes up with,” the WSJ story explains, referring to two different AI software programs. “He moves the AI tools’ initial drafts into a content-management system and edits the stories before publishing them for Fortune’s readers.”

Even more alarming than this admission of process is the admission of how his use of AI isn’t always disclosed. “Initially, Lichtenberg would share bylines with Fortune Intelligence,” the story says. “Now, he typically takes sole bylines because he feels the work is mostly his own. [Editor in Chief and Chief Content Officer Alyson] Shontell said of Lichtenberg’s stories, ‘more than 50% is Nick.’ His stories sometimes include a disclosure explaining that generative AI was used as a research tool.”

It’s a value drilled into the brains of young journalists since time immemorial that 100% of stories published under your name should be a product of your own work. If other people worked on the story, a co-byline. Sometimes a story will note “additional reporting” or “research by” at the bottom as a necessary and deserved nod to the material support. Some outlets include the editor’s name, a practice that ought to be more widely practiced. The point is that all of the humans who helped move a concept to a finished product (and who may not all be writers!) deserve acknowledgement because they are sentient beings whose unique perspectives helped shape what the story became—not tools.

“I’ve always hated the zero-to-one process of writing a story,” independent tech journalist Alex Heath told Wired for a story called Meet the Tech Reporters Using AI to Help Write and Edit Their Stories, which was published this week. “Now, it’s actually kind of fun.” 

The “fun” part is that Heath openly admits to using AI to get his stories off the ground, going so far as to use it to create first drafts. “Going out on my own, I realized I need AI to help with the volume.” 

As a fellow independent journalist, but one who has never used AI to write a story and emphasizes quality over quantity, I take umbrage with the idea that because we have fewer resources we’re forced to plagiarize and that more is always more. It undermines the respect for which so many of us have fought for—and continue to fight for— in this industry, and creates a permission structure for cheating. And Heath admits as much: “I feel like I’m cheating in a way that feels amazing,” he said. “I never did this because I liked being a writer. I like reporting, learning new things, having an edge, and telling people things that will make them feel smart six months from now.”

It seems like Heath is saying he likes the way that good writing makes people feel, but he doesn’t like doing the toughest part of eliciting those emotions: Actually writing the thing. 

Another problem with relying on AI is that there’s no way of knowing where the program you’re using has “learned” this knowledge, nor can you know what is paraphrased versus straight-up lifted from another writer’s work. That became painfully clear this week when the New York Times had to issue this mortifying correction to a book review by freelancer Alex Preston:

Preston was promptly dropped by the Times as a freelancer and issued a statement of apology to The Guardian. “I made a serious mistake in using an AI tool on a draft review I had written, and I failed to identify and remove overlapping language from another review that the AI dropped in,” Preston wrote. “I am hugely embarrassed by what happened and truly sorry.”

It was the second time in a few days that the Times was called out for potential AI plagiarism, despite strong internal policies intended to safeguard against it. 

Some AI-loving journalists appear to believe that if they’re clear enough with the AI program they’re using, it will truly understand what they’re seeking and not just do what it’s made to do: steal shit. Jasmine Sun, a contributor at The Atlantic, also spoke to Wired about her prolific AI usage, describing how she’s attempted to train Claude, the program she uses:

Telling a machine that can’t perceive that it can’t perceive won’t make it perceive that it can’t perceive. It can’t make you be the best version of yourself because it doesn’t know what that means, nor does it know what it means to aspire. Just because some are given a human name and users are taught to address it collegially doesn’t make it real. You cannot force a machine to become human. You’re stuck, for better or worse, with your fellow humans for perceiving your aspirations. Perhaps the problem is that you don’t like how humans perceive you. 

Like Sun, the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle openly admitted to relying heavily on AI for her work. In a series of recent posts on X, McArdle admitted to using AI “to do research (i.e., find things to read, explain parts of academic papers I find ambiguous or confusing), transcribe interviews, generate pushback on my column thesis, suggest trims when I'm over my word count, sharpen podcast interview questions, and perform a final fact check on columns and editorials.” 

Becca Rothfeld, a literary critic at The New Yorker who worked at the Post until recently, pointed out how McArdle’s posts are tantamount to confessions of violating her own publication’s policies on AI.

“The policy states, ‘We are transparent about how and when we use AI,’ but McArdle has not appended notes to her columns explaining how she has used it in each, although she is apparently quite heavily reliant on it!” Rothfeld wrote on Substack. “The policy states, ‘Attribution of material from other media must be total. Plagiarism is not permitted…. Readers should be able to distinguish between what the reporter saw and what the reporter obtained from other sources such as wire services, pool reporters, email, websites, etc.’ McArdle admits here that she often asks AI to generate ideas for stories for her, yet she has not attributed anything to it in any of the resultant columns, at least that I’ve seen.”

McArdle goes on to say that journalists should think of an AI chatbot “as a combination of an intern, a first-past editor, and a fact-checker. Its job is to do grunt work and help you turn in cleaner copy, not to ‘inspire’ you.” 

For starters, a chatbot can be none of those things because it’s not a person. For another, calling those duties “grunt work” belies a fundamental misunderstanding—and frankly, disrespect—for the many steps of the writing process. Those steps are also often the work of younger, less-experienced journalists trying to forge a career in an ever-dwindling industry. If those jobs are considered “grunt work” better delegated to machines, how do you suppose they get started?

Rusty Foster, writer and publisher of Today in Tabs, talked this week about AI infiltration of journalism in terms of who will “go AI” and who will not. And he’s right to characterize it in this way; there does seem to be a predisposition for certain journalists to accept AI into their hearts, depending on their goals. For those whom volume and access to power are paramount, shortcuts and plagiarism aren’t detrimental to their final product. But for those who value foremost being seen as journalists of quality, originality, and integrity, the machines serve none of those goals. 

If your goal is simply to create content, great news: That’s an existing, different job. It might even be more lucrative, and less governed by the respectability politics of uppity journalists who believe your work should be exclusively shaped by the processing power of your own mind. This is not a knock on content creators, many of whom produce essential work and hold themselves to high ethical and moral standards, but simply to note that a less governed space may be more ideal for those looking to eschew standards. 

If you want to work with machines, get a job that requires it. There are a whole lot more of those than there are writing jobs, so free up space for people who actually want to do the work. You’re not doing the world a favor by gifting it your human/AI hybrid. Journalism will not miss you if you leave. No one is making you be a journalist; it’s not one of those jobs parents force you to choose, like a doctor or a lawyer. Journalism, while romanticized in popular culture, is generally unglamorous and poorly paid, with progressively worse job opportunities (no thanks to AI.) I’m careful not to refer to it as a calling because that seems to excuse sacrificing mental health in service of craft, but I do believe that it’s a job that can’t be forced. It’s obvious to readers when your heart isn’t in it. 

I look back on these past four years as an independent journalist and it’s possible to track how I built this space brick by brick. Every conversation I had with family, friends, and trusted comrades, every story I brought to life—even the duds—led me to this moment. There was no formula, and there’s no way I could have possibly programmed it. It was the result of a series of deeply human decisions. 

I don’t write because it’s fun (though sometimes it is.) I write because it feeds my spirit. It helps me unspool my thoughts and feelings in the hopes of helping others do the same. The process is the purpose. You don’t have to always like or enjoy the process, but if you don’t respect it enough to do it yourself, there is no purpose. 

Writing is not always fun and anyone who says it’s fun all the time is lying. It can be grueling and frustrating—perhaps at times verging on something you loathe—but feeling those things ultimately means you understand your words are a representation of who you are in the world. You understand that they reflect on you, and it’s your responsibility to make them as good as they can be. If you really, truly hate writing, if the only way you can do it is by using a plagiarism machine, maybe it’s just not for you. 

Sometimes a thought you love pops into your head and you scramble to open a blank email or your notes app or even grab a piece of paper to jot it down before it flies away. These moments of inspiration aren’t just a result of fishing in your pool of existing knowledge; they include a little bit of magic. A sprinkle of the unidentifiable zest that makes your writing something that only you—not the ‘you’ processed and interpreted by a machine—could create. Your words are a product of a specific moment in time, and that’s what makes them distinct. (I originally used the word “special” and then I changed it to “unique,” ultimately landing on “distinct” because it felt right. That’s the process.)

Nowhere was the power of the process more evident than with a story I published in early February about the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract, Territorial Integrity of the United States (WEXMAC TITUS), an obscure government contracting program that has been co-opted by the Trump administration to fast-track the construction of ICE concentration camps around the country. The story was born out of conversations with Michael Wriston who I reached to after I was alerted to his exceptional work on Project Salt Box, which collects and organizes public data about ICE’s land purchases and other contracts. Wriston told me about the program and once I grasped the enormity, I set out to write an all-encompassing piece that would help make a seemingly wonky issue easily understood by a wide swath of people. Once I hit publish, that initial goal felt like it had been fulfilled.

Then on March 22nd, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about WEXMAC TITUS, linking to my story in the very first sentence. A few days later, Senator Warren along with Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) announced that they, along with 45 other lawmakers, would be investigating six of the contractors and real estate firms involved with the questionable contracting program. Though it’s far from exhaustive—as Wriston noted, the “inquiry focuses on a small cross-section of the contractors ... [and] the sellers who profited from the acquisitions, the brokers who facilitated them, and the officials whose financial disclosures overlap with both remain yet unchallenged”—seeing direct impact as the result of a story birthed from human interaction was a humbling reminder of its power.

AI may help you construct content, but it will not create memories. It will, at best, rehash ones you already made, and at worst, create false ones. It does not experience, it does not struggle, it does not feel: all essential parts of turning a pile of information into a story. 

During her November talk at the Urban Consulate in Detroit, Tressie McMillan Cottom said, “The proposal for a post-human future is one where there will be human beings, they’ll just be treated inhumanely.” To avoid that future—to refuse it—is to keep relying on other human beings, even if they sometimes disappoint you. What’s more human than that?

This story was edited by Jesse Hicks.

Quick cool thing: I’m excited to share that The Handbasket has launched an indie media bundle with journalists Katelyn Burns of Burns Notice and Kat Tenbarge of Spitfire News. Now you can get a 30-day paid trial of all three publications in your inbox for one [heavily discounted] price! Already a paid subscriber to one of us? Trustfnd, the platform we’re using for this deal, will automatically adjust the price to exclude your existing subscriptions. We really hope this is one of many paths forward for indie journalism. Check it out!

The State Department will begin moving some of its offices into the United States Institute of Peace building as early as next week, despite the fact that the building’s ownership remains under pending litigation. Staff in those offices have been told verbally and in writing to pack up their belongings in preparation for the move, which The Handbasket is first to report based on conversations with two employees whose identities are being kept anonymous to protect their jobs, and review of internal communications about the move. Adding insult to injury, the office supporting Kristi Noem’s new gig has been confirmed to be part of those making the move.

The fight over the USIP building has been a major focus of my reporting for the past year, most recently in light of the lawsuit I won against the DC Metropolitan Police Department, compelling them to release all body camera footage from their response to last year’s raid. While the former staffers continue to wait on a decision from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in United States Institute of Peace vs. Jackson to determine who will ultimately retain control of the building, the Trump administration has kept the keys since a June 2025 stay. And now the State Department plans to take up residence in the disputed property.

This past December, the State Department announced that the building at 2301 Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, DC—which the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seized in a March 2025 raid—had been renamed the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. They slapped his name in large metal letters above the USIP sign on the exterior of the building, claiming the new name was meant “to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history.” A day later, Trump used the building to hold a peace deal signing between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It remains unclear what, if any, impact the deal had on peace in the region.  

"A federal judge has already ruled that the government's armed takeover was illegal,” George Foote, counsel for former USIP leadership and staff, told NPR in December after the renaming. “That judgment is stayed while the government appeals, which is the only reason the government continues to control the building.” 

As Wired reported in January, a letter was sent to the Justice Department by representatives on behalf of the USIP’s fired board and president which references a 10-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) “under which hundreds of State Department employees will move into USIP’s building.”

Per Wired: 

The Handbasket has obtained a copy of what appears to be the MOU; State Department employees I spoke to reviewed the document and said it appeared authentic, but they were not able to vouch for its authenticity. The 15-page document is signed by Darren Beattie, a State Department official who was at some point the Acting President of the new USIP and was fired from his job during the first Trump administration for attending a white supremacist gathering. It contains the same details shared in the former USIP staffers’ letter to the Justice Department, and more. 

“DOS's use of the Premises shall be for the support of DOS's mission in a manner that will not be inconsistent with SIP's legal authorities and mission,” the purported MOU reads. But that’s already debatable, as The Handbasket has learned that one of the offices moving into the building is Shield of the Americas, Trump’s anti-drug cartel coalition helmed by former Secretary of DHS Kristi Noem. Noem is now a State Department employee, with a confirmed email address and phone number, and is listed on an organizational chart I reviewed. She reports to Deputy Secretary ⁠of State Christopher Landau in her new role. Both State staffers said it has been verbally confirmed to them that Noem’s new team will be housed in the USIP building. 

“It’s frustrating that some staff are being asked, with less than a week’s notice, to pack up and move into a building where there aren’t clear arrangements, there’s no US government IT infrastructure, and seating charts haven’t been established,” one of the staffers said.

Internal department communications reviewed by The Handbasket show the building referred to as “DJTIP,” and a staffer confirmed that the building appears on the drop-down of department buildings in the visitor access request form. In a February notice from a department official that I reviewed, it was declared that the Institute of Peace building “is now available to host Department of State and White House representational events” and is not available to any other departments.

“They're acting under the stay as though they have a license to use the building, to use money, to treat the building any way they want,” George Foote told Wired in January. “A stay is not permission for the loser of a case to hijack the property of the winning party.”

Meanwhile, former USIP staffers wait anxiously for the court’s decision as to whether they’ll have control of their privately-owned building returned to them, or if Trump is granted the power to continue grabbing anything he wants. 

The State Department did not respond to The Handbasket’s request for comment on the move.

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ICE agents at the Atlanta airport

The prevailing feeling on Monday was that at least the ICE agents at airports around the country weren’t shooting people.

At least that’s what I heard from travelers who reached out to me throughout the day to share photos and stories of what they were seeing on the ground the day after Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan announced federal agents would be fanning out while TSA remains severely-understaffed during the partial DHS shutdown. What would these agents be doing? Homan was asked. Hard to say. And after a day of witnessing them in action, the answer is no more clear.

The first dispatch I received was early Monday morning from a traveler flying out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. She’d arrived around 5:50am Eastern for a 10:10 flight after hearing ICE would be there, on top of reports of many hours-long security lines. “I saw 4 ICE agents within 5 minutes just walking around,” she told me. “One had a ‘federal agent’ patch, one had an ‘ICE’ patch, and the other two were not clearly marked.”

She explained that she entered the security line at 6am outside of the building. “Saw my next set of agents at 7am once I got inside. They’re in the mezzanine just watching us. Not doing anything that I can tell besides just having a presence.” She also said she saw around 20 local police officers deployed to help with line management. 

After three hours and 20 minutes, she made it through security. “I didn’t see ICE agents help with anything the entire time! They just stood around chatting it up with each other,” she said.”

ICE agents at Newark airport

I also received a couple of dispatches from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, where one traveler reported ICE agents were “standing in a circle in the middle of terminal A with some folk filming them and occasionally an agent is walking up and down the long lines of people. No evidence they are doing any of the work of a TSA agent at all.”

In a Sunday TV appearance, Homan made it clear ICE agents wouldn’t be tasked with actual TSA duties. “I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because [they’re] not trained in that,” he told CNN. “There are certain parts of security that TSA is doing, that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs, help move those lines.”

The Houston traveler said he spotted about 12 agents, including a few walking around baggage claim where the line for security was snaking. “Only seen them pacing and cracking jokes with each other which at least is not assault!” He said the agents he witnessed were mostly patrolling in a security capacity or just hanging out.

In a particularly cringeworthy moment shared with me via video, another Houston passenger recorded fellow travelers on the hours-long security line while Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” blared through the airport speakers. Proud to be an American, indeed.

Instagram post

New Orleans was the airport that generated the most messages on Monday. “I’m at the bag drop area, before security,” one traveler told me. “They’re literally just walking around in groups of three and four, seemingly without any true purpose.”

ICE agents in NOLA

She noted they were wearing vests identifying them as either ICE or a federal agent, layered over casual clothes. “They are carrying sidearms,” she said. “But they’re just casually walking around carrying bottles of water and Gatorade.”

One NOLA traveler sent over photos of agents leaning on the glass railing of a mezzanine area that overlooked the security area below, seemingly bored, and another shared a photo of a group of them lined up at a line nearby behind the area where you pick up trays for your stuff to pass through security. 

ICE agents in NOLA

“I'm a white, anti-Zionist naturalized citizen traveling with my Black wife,” she explained. “We both live with an undercurrent of dread, which will spike based on external circumstances.” 

She and her wife even discussed beforehand what they would do if confronted by ICE. “Had we been sent through the security line of ICE agents, we would have followed the protocols we gamed out earlier: head down, no commentary, attempt to de-escalate politely if necessary. Then we would have gone to the nearest bathroom and puked our guts out.”

ICE agent takes a big sip at Laguardia

I also received messages from travelers in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Boston, Chicago O’hare, and all three New York City-area airports. From these disparate locales, the commentary remained pretty much the same: The presence of ICE was certainly not helping anyone, it wasn’t speeding up security lines, and at worst it was making people uncomfortable.

Late Sunday night an Air Canada flight arriving at New York’s Laguardia Airport collided with a fire truck responding to an incident on another plane. The flight’s two pilots were killed and dozens of passengers were injured. There’s speculation it may have been a result of understaffed Air Traffic Control, a problem that predated this partial shutdown. With ICE arriving a few hours later, it certainly added to the feeling that everything is on fire.

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Proposed gold coin design (US Mint)

Julius Caesar started off 44 BCE feeling pretty good: In January, as the story goes, the Roman Senate renewed his appointment as dictator, and the following month, they decreed he’d serve as dictator “for life.” They also announced that Caesar’s portrait would appear on coins—the first time any living Roman had appeared on currency. By March, he was murdered. So what does this have to do with Donald Trump?

In the ultimate culmination of Trump’s interests, the US Mint may soon produce a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing his image. It’s part of the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary—otherwise known as the semiquincentennial—and, if produced, would be in addition to a proposed one dollar coin with Trump’s image that was previously announced. Now The Handbasket is first to report that, per multiple members of a government coin committee, video of their recent meeting during which they voiced strong objections to the Trump coins’ production—because “no nation on Earth has issued coins with the image of a democratically-elected leader during the time of their service”—has disappeared from the US Mint’s Youtube page. While this particular instance of federal censorship is about coins, the larger message is loud and clear: Dissent will not be tolerated.

The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC), an impartial group that advises the Treasury Department on issues of design, held their most recent meeting on February 24th. Prior to that, the Mint added an agenda item to the official meeting notice reading: “review and discussion of a Semiquincentennial Gold Coin.” However, acting CCAC chair Donald Scarinci announced at the outset of the meeting that he was using his discretion to remove the agenda item, in addition to any talk of the one dollar coin, because “Only those nations ruled by kings or dictators display the image of their sitting ruler on the coins of the realm."

The following day, Dan Barry at the New York Times published a story about the meeting. Three hours later, Scarinci told The Handbasket, the recording was gone.

In an email to Mint leadership sent on February 25th—the text of which was reviewed by The Handbasket—Scarinci asked that the video of the meeting be restored online. Mint officials replied that they would restore it and that the transcript would be published to CCAC’s website (which is controlled by the Mint), but neither of those things have happened. If the video isn’t restored before the next meeting on April 18th, Scarinci plans to ask the Mint for an explanation as to why the video was removed, and if necessary, take a vote among committee members to bring it back.

Requests for comment from multiple representatives at the Mint about the removal of the video and the status of the Trump coins received no reply as of this publishing. A copy of the video has been uploaded by one of the CCAC members, which you can view here.

I first learned about the gold coin not because of the Times story, but because someone flagged the agenda for this week’s meeting of the US Commission of Fine Arts. It states that the Mint will be presenting “2026 Semiquincentennial Coin Program (24-Karat Commemorative Coin - President Donald J. Trump). Designs for obverse and reverse. Final.” The agenda links to a PDF of a design that shows a menacing-looking Trump with balled fists resting on a desk, the word “LIBERTY” in all caps above his head like a halo, the years 1776 and 2026, and “IN GOD WE TRUST” on the bottom. It is a replica of the photo of Trump that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The flip side is an equally-menacing bald eagle atop a perch.

The Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) is an independent federal agency that, per the Federal Register, is “charged with giving expert advice to the President, Congress and the heads of departments and agencies of the Federal and District of Columbia governments on matters of design and aesthetics, as they affect the Federal interest and preserve the dignity of the nation's capital.” They’re tasked with providing advice to the Mint on the design of coins and medals, which is why they’re involved with the Semiquincentennial Coins & Medals—AKA SemiQ—project. 

The US Mint presented three different designs for the front of the one dollar coin at the CFA meeting in January. In a subsequent letter to US Mint Director Paul Hollis, CFA Secretary Thomas Luebke wrote: “The Commission members recommended obverse #3 and reverse #5—comprising a side profile of President Donald J. Trump and the heraldic eagle from the Great Seal of the United States—as a classic pairing reminiscent of early twentieth-century coins. For the obverse, they praised this alternative for its statesman-like and accurate depiction of the President.”

Proposed one dollar coin design (US Mint)

This response was despite Public Law 116-330 which states, “No head and shoulders portrait or bust of any person, living or dead, and no portrait of a living person may be included in the design on the reverse of any coin.” Megan Sullivan, acting chief of the Mint’s Office of Design Management, told the CFA at their January meeting that “the legal research has been done … and they have determined that this does not violate any laws, that this, is perfectly, legal … under the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act.” It’s unclear what exactly that research entailed.

This laudatory review of the one dollar coin design is no coincidence: Trump dismissed all the members of the CFA back in October reportedly to “appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump's America First Policies." In January, he appointed Rodney Mims Cook, Jr. as Chairman, plus six other members of the commission. Those new members include two with no discernible arts expertise: Chamberlain Harris, the current Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations at the White House who graduated college in 2019; and Pamela Hughes Patenaude, a Deputy Secretary of HUD during the first Trump administration. The commission rubber stamped Trump’s White House ballroom project after being presented with revised plans in February. 

“President Trump has an incredible eye and appreciation for the arts, and only selects the most talented people possible,” a White House spokesperson told Politico of the new commission members after the ballroom approval. Now those same “talented” eyes will gaze upon the proposed gold coin design for approval.

In a phone conversation on Tuesday, Scarinci explained how the February 24th meeting was immediately contentious, and the subsequent sharp questioning of Mint legal counsel Greg Weinman by CCAC board member Kellen Hoard added to the seriousness. 

“Over the last several months, the committee has been faced with a number of challenges unprecedented in its history,” Hoard began. “These challenges have resulted in a lack of legal, procedural, and operational clarity, which directly impacted the ability of the committee and its members to fulfill their responsibilities in the years to come.”

Hoard read aloud an email he sent to Mint officials in December letting them know he believed the selections of the American 250 quarter designs—ones that do not feature Trump’s name or face, but images of American themes—were made “in violation of the law” because they were never okayed by his committee. Hoard never received a reply to his email, and despite his salient objections, the Mint has since gone ahead with producing the quarters anyway.

The ultimate design discretion for the Trump gold coin lies with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. As opposed to commemorative coins with actual denominations that require Congressional approval, the gold coin is discretionary, meaning the secretary can authorize it on his own without CCAC review. Still though, there was something unique about this discretionary coin: Mint representatives said the idea for the gold coin came from “outside the agency.” That “has never happened before in my 20 years there,” Scarinci told me.

Commemorative gold coins are not unheard of. Right now you can purchase one with an image of Wonder Woman, part of the Mint’s Comic Art Coin & Medal Collection. The Wonder Woman coin retails for $4,110. It’s unclear if it’s produced how much the Trump gold coin will be sold for, but Scarinci explained the price will include a premium over the price of gold, which right now is $5,000 an ounce. 

As a member of the CCAC since 2005, Scarinci has been appointed by seven different Treasury Secretaries to continue his service. A lawyer based in New Jersey, he’s the owner of the largest private collection of art medals in the country, and even published a book in 2015 called Coin of the Year. (Naturally, he was the one who flagged the Caesar anecdote for me.) And it’s because of his devotion to the art form that he was so perturbed by President Trump’s desire to flout tradition and, it appears, the law, to see his own face on a coin.

“We're celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was the document that enabled a revolution against kings,” Scarinci said. “And to celebrate our declaration of independence against rule by a king with a coin that has an image of a living, serving, president of our country, that is a slap in the face to the founders, to George Washington, and a statement to the world that [Trump] is a king.”

The CFA and Treasury Department did not reply to requests for comment on the production of the Trump coins. CCAC will continue to object to being left out of this process, Scarinci said, and hopes Congress will step in to prevent production. Aside from that, the committee has little recourse.

“You know what’s particularly scary about this?” Scarinci asked. “This conversation is about a coin. They have reached into coins.” I replied that this administration can’t withstand any criticism, even about a coin. “This is valid criticism based on history, and they don’t even want to hear that,” Scarinci said. “They wanna do what they wanna do, and they don’t really care what anyone else has to say about it. That’s the message.”

This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that a video shining a bad light on the Trump administration has been taken down. Clips from depositions of former DOGE staffers Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh went viral last week, thanks to footage made available by a lawsuit brought by the Modern Language Association, American Council of Learned Societies, and American Historical Association. The brief clips, shared by 404 Media, show Elon Musk’s former lackeys’ complete inability to coherently explain the concept of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), what experience they had with approving or denying federal grants, among other moments of staggering ineptitude. 

On Friday, 404 reported that a judge ordered the full deposition videos be taken down from Youtube after the government asked the plaintiffs to do so because of “concerns that the publication of the videos could subject the witnesses and their family members to undue harassment and reputational harm.” But of course, nothing on the internet can ever truly be gone. 

The coin caper is not a particularly surprising development in the Trump canon. But sinking the country into a bloody and pointless war while his approval rating continues to crater make such an obvious symbol of monarchical aspirations and gaudy garbage as politics look all the more ridiculous. 

If there is one silver lining, Scarinci pointed out, it’s this: If the Trump coins are produced, the “No Kings” movement will have a powerful new symbol. 

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Photo by Greg Pak, gregpak.fyi

The US House of Representatives voted late last week on whether or not to pass a war powers resolution that would require President Trump to seek congressional approval for further foreign intervention after taking it upon himself to, along with Israel, bomb Iran. Passing the resolution would have provided a sorely needed check on his power at a time when his lawlessness has reached a fever pitch, and would have hopefully helped avoid killing more Iranians and US servicemembers. The vote failed, allowing him to further entrench us in war and augmenting the idea that it’s inevitable.

In light of the events of the past week or so, I’d like to share a pretty simple belief: We don’t have to be at war. We’re taught growing up about the myriad battles of the past that, in a perfect world, should serve as painful lessons to avoid—not inspiration for the future. Yet time and again, this country chooses violence, and what persists is an attitude that if past generations made it through war, then we will, too. I’m here to tell you that we don’t have to. War is a choice.

War bookends everyone’s life in one way or another. As a 38-year-old, I’ve scarcely known adult life without it. My second week of high school was 9/11. Immediately, President George W. Bush entrenched us in war in Afghanistan, and soon after, Iraq, leading to unfathomable death and destruction. According to a Brown University study, more than 940,000 people “were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023.”

We don’t need to do this again. Today’s teens don’t need to grow up in a world marred by war, where their classmates and siblings are forced to fight un-winnable fights with the fear that if things carry on, they’ll be forced to serve, too. Donald Trump does not care about regime change in Iran. Donald Trump does not care about the stability of the Middle East. Donald Trump couldn’t tell you one single fact about Iran that doesn’t line his pockets. Donald Trump cares about Donald Trump, and he’s opened up his own country and many others to yet another generational war. You do not have to fall for it.

But there’s good news: Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says we’re not at war. 

"We are four days into a very specific, clear mission, an operation," Johnson told reporters last week. This “operation,” as it were, supposedly has two objectives: to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles and to "take their Navy down." The second part there sure sounds brand-new and made-up, but came on the heels of the US torpedoing an Iranian naval ship off Sri Lanka, killing 87 people. 

Aside from literal acts of war, there are many signs pointing to the fact that we’re at war. Politico reported Wednesday that “U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September.” Members of Congress said they’re hearing a price tag of two billion dollars per day to carry on in Iran. The rain in Tehran is black after the bombing of oil depots. And the violence had spread beyond Iran’s borders: Israel, our partners in this offensive, has reportedly killed nearly 300 people in Lebanon in the past week. If this isn’t a war, then why is it shaped like one?

It’s not just Republicans who are open to supporting continued US violence abroad. A handful of Congressional Democrats have signaled a willingness to hear Trump out. “I need to know the goals and the plan. … I don’t rule anything out,” US Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan told Politico. “I mean, we’re in it.” 

Democratic Senators Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Gary Peters of Michigan, and Tim Kaine of Virginia have also said they’re open to sending the Pentagon more money. 

During the war powers resolution vote on Thursday, four Democrats sided with the Republicans to block it, in a vote that failed by two. Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio, one of the four Democrats, told C-SPAN on Thursday: “I think it’s important to say, look, this is not good policy. What’s better policy is to allow the military and our allies to finish this particular operation, which is targeted, just the missiles and the launchers and the ships. That’s it. And then be done.”

The problem is that by relinquishing control from the very start, we’ll never get to say when it’s over. What kind of message does this send to constituents—or prospective future leaders—that once you’re in a war you must fund and fight it, no matter how you got there in the first place? Or that Trump can do whatever he wants and we’ll always clean up the mess? Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth has decried the “stupid of rules of engagement” in overseas fighting, but that doesn’t mean Congress should throw out any of their pre-existing rules to accommodate anarchy.

Hegseth doesn’t want media reporting on the deaths already caused by this war because he thinks it makes the president look bad. Perhaps he should have thought about that before he killed people. Numbers make things real. Numbers aren’t opinions. They just are. Being dead is not a matter of conjecture. But that’s what this administration wants; for doubt to creep in. For Americans to say “Well, the Ayatollah was really bad, and there are people celebrating his death, so maybe the illegal ends justify the means?” 

A bad man killing a bad man does not make the first man good. 

And now we’ve learned he’ll be replaced by his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who worked hand-in-hand with his late father, and is now fueled by vengeance against the country that just killed his parents, his wife and one of his sons.  

We can distance ourselves by calling it “Trump’s War,” but the fact remains that, as the president of this country, his actions cast a filthy pall on all of us whether we support war or not. We can say it’s his “war of choice” or even refuse to use the word war at all, but do you think the little girls killed in the Iranian school bombing on Saturday cared about phrasing? When American missiles are raining down on your country, all you know is where the bombs came from. We all become complicit. 

Much like it’s taken some journalists years to admit that Donald Trump is indeed a fascist, so will others wait until we’re weeks, months or years into a war with Iran—or whichever countries he decides to target next—to say this needs to end. What would happen if, instead of waiting to see how this all plays out, we just say no, here and now. No waiting for the administration to get their story straight, no entertaining a million different justifications for why it’s actually worth all this death and destruction and money (Jesus Christ, the money!) What if those of us with a conscience and a modicum of influence just said no to war, regardless of oil prices, and before there are boots on the ground?

If you draw a moral line mere days into this war, you won’t have to do years of soul-searching to figure out what was obvious from the start. You won’t have to conduct a years-long mea culpa campaign explaining how, as a “policy wonk,” you were so sure war was the right choice at the time, but you were indeed wrong. As nice as it is to see someone like Bill Kristol pivot late in life to policies more progressive than most of Congress and vocally opposing war in Iran, he can’t takesies backsies cheerleading a war that destroyed untold lives. Hindsight is not required for 20/20 vision; we need only pay attention to history.

Many of the people in government and media who lulled the public into a compliant stupor in the early aughts remain in power today. While I was too young at the time to say I knew better, that’s no longer the case. And if you’re someone who’s old enough to remember how we ended up in Iraq, or even Vietnam, you have a duty to take what you’ve learned and apply it to the present; to recognize that you don’t have to be a military expert or a political science PhD to just say no to war. 

There is no way this war is going to end well for the United States. It’s already cost hundreds of lives in Iran, and the lives of seven American service members. The day after the initial bombing, anti-American protesters in Karachi, Pakistan breached the perimeter of the US Consulate there in an attempt to storm the building while American staffers were inside. Security personnel—which included, as Reuters has confirmed, US Marines—opened fire, killing 10 of the protesters. Non-essential consulate staff and their families have been instructed to evacuate because of the “risk of terrorist violence.” 

But perhaps as an American, the most compelling reason not to go to war abroad is that we’re already fighting one here at home. The Trump administration has unleashed the full force of the federal government on immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, poor people, non-Christians, and any combination thereof, making them afraid to go to work, to school, to celebrations, to houses of worship or to merely go put their trash bin on the curb. We’ve already been enlisted in a war we never asked for, having to put our bodies on the line to protect our neighbors—sometimes with deadly results. 

Americans don’t need to be deployed to Iran or elsewhere to experience the horrors of war because one has been domestically grown for us. Abolishing ICE (and DHS at large); preventing the opening of concentration camps; protecting our families, friends and neighbors; providing mutual aid for our communities; those should be the wartime efforts at hand.

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On Monday, the DC Metropolitan Police released the nearly six hours of body camera footage taken by their officers on March 17, 2025 when DOGE raided the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). This was as a direct result of my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the department, in which I was represented by Allyson Veile and Adam Marshall of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. 

In a DC court hearing last month, Judge Darlene Soltys ruled on the spot that the department had to make available all the footage from that day, despite their months of objecting to do so. The defense argued there were privacy concerns for the individuals featured in the video, but when Judge Soltys asked for a specific example to illustrate this concern, they couldn’t produce any. “I'm not going to just accept a generic representation that gives them a blanket disclosure for every word that they uttered,” Judge Soltys said. She also said “the withholding of this much of the footage is unjustified when the statute prohibits redacting the officers' likenesses, and the District has yet to identify any specific dangers,” per the court transcript we requested and obtained. 

I’ve spent the last few days carefully reviewing all of the footage and taking copious notes on moments big and small, but my main takeaway is this: The people representing the Trump administration knew they were entering a privately-owned building, and the DC MPD allowed them to enter despite that fact. 

From the footage it’s clear that the team sent to take over USIP consisted of Kenneth Jackson, the Trump-installed new President; Laken Rapier, who identified herself as a USAID staffer who would be serving as Jackson’s Chief-of-Staff; DOGE workers Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox; and DOGE lawyer Justin Aimonetti. (“They’re pretty young,” one officer could be heard saying of DOGE at one point.) They were let in a side entrance by MPD, who had been called there by both the USIP staffers who believed Trump’s people were trespassing, and by Trump’s people who believed the USIP staffers were remaining in the building unlawfully.

Led by Jason Bagshaw, MPD’s commander of the Special Operations Division, the footage shows local police officers were brought into a situation of which they were given very little background, and for which they were ill-equipped to handle. 

After the DOGE group showed up but before MPD arrived, the USIP building had been placed in lockdown mode, meaning all interior doors were locked and elevators were no longer operable. So when DOGE presented MPD with an order supposedly showing Jackson now controlled the building, it was up to MPD officers to get him and his team up to the 5th floor where USIP President George Moose remained in his office. Colin O’Brien, then USIP’s Chief of Security, certainly wasn’t going to help them, despite their many requests for him to do so. At one point MPD officers openly muse about pulling the fire alarm to open all of the doors, but decide against it. That’s why a great deal of the footage shows officers attempting to break the locks on a variety of doors, from interior glass doors to heavy duty fire doors in stairwells. 

You can hear an officer ask for “the kid who picks locks” and at one point we can see an officer go to his patrol car to retrieve a set of tools. One such tool was a long and skinny white device that could snake under a door if there was any room, and successfully helped them pop open a few. Later on, officers could be seen taking tools from an extensive locksmith set and using them to work on the doors. Those tools included knives, and at at least one point in the footage, there were two knives on one lock simultaneously, creating what appeared to be a dangerous situation. Fortunately no one was hurt. (Watch a clip of them using the tools here.)

While this manual work was being done by some officers throughout the large building, then-current USIP staffers and members of the DOGE team were coming face to face in hallways and the main lobby of the building while other officers observed. An officer can be heard during one of these moments as saying to O’Brien, “I’m stuck in the middle. You keep staring at me like I did something.” Nate Cavanaugh, the 28-year-old DOGE worker tells the officer a few moments later, “Two FBI agents are gonna be here in about 10 minutes.” 

Aside from O’Brien and Moose, the USIP employees on site that day were George Foote, USIP outside counsel since 1987; Anna Dean, USIP Chief of Staff; Sophia Lin, outside counsel; Gonzalo Gallegos, USIP Director of Communications; plus two others who can be seen, and janitorial/maintenance staff who are referenced but never appear on camera.

The most tense confrontation comes when Jackson, Foote, their respective teams and the MPD all converge in one of the ground floor hallways (you can view the clip here.) Foote and Lin try to better understand how the DOGE team got into the building in the first place but are shut down by Jackson. “I’m asking the questions, not you,” Jackson tells Foote. In the same clip, Foote and Lin try to advance down the hall but an officer and Jackson physically block their way. “You’ve got guns. I don’t,” Foote says. He and Lin are told they’re not allowed to collect their personal property until the newly appointed board meets. 

In another clip (which can be viewed here), Aimonetti, the DOGE lawyer, tells Commander Bagshaw that they plan to call the private security contractor, Inter-Con, that USIP had terminated the day before to re-hire them and help them get through the building. When another officer asks if the building is owned by GSA (the General Services Administration which typically deals with the federal government’s real estate), Aimonetti and Jackson confirm it is not. “It’s a private building, and that’s why we need MPD,” Jackson says. The other officer confirms the building is “private property” to which Aimonetti responds, “That’s the oddball link in the chain for us.”

And in another clip (view here) when Rapier is asked by an MPD officer if the USIP building is a federal building, she also confirms it is not. “No, it’s privately-owned by USIP.” 

Eventually the footage shows MPD officers managed to break their way through enough doors to reach the 5th floor and escort then-President Moose out of the building (view here.) “We thought you guys were our friends,” Moose says to Bagshaw and the other officers.

The litigation over who has lawful control of the USIP building plays on, with the Trump administration remaining control of the building for now. But this footage sheds important light on their intentions when they entered the building nearly one year ago and the role MPD played in helping them achieve their goal.

You can view all of the uploaded footage here. 

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Gabriel’s mother called him crying on Thursday with some news: A new Kansas law invalidating the driver’s licenses of trans and gender nonconforming people who had previously changed the gender marker on their driver’s license was immediately in effect. “She asked if I was okay,” Gabriel, a trans man in Wichita, told The Handbasket, “and [asked] had I checked if my driver’s license was invalid yet.” At first, he admitted, he didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.

Earlier this week people began receiving unsigned letters from the Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) letting them know their licenses would be invalid as of February 26, 2025. The letter was first reported on Wednesday by independent journalist Erin Reed, and local and some national media raced to figure out the implications. After reviewing the law—which also restricts trans Kansan’s bathroom use in government buildings—and speaking with eight trans people in Kansas, in addition to exclusively obtaining two internal emails sent to state Department of Motor Vehicles employees about implementing the policy, a chaotic picture has emerged. By Friday not everyone who changed their marker in the past had received a letter, and it was unclear what the penalty would be for driving with an invalid license. What is clear is that Kansas Republicans have weaponized the government to target a tiny subset of an already small portion of the population to score political points and institutionalize cruelty.

Copy of the letter (via Erin Reed)

Being trans in Kansas was never simple, but the last few years have been particularly tumultuous as the rise in anti-trans legislation nationally became particularly pronounced locally. Kansans have been allowed to change the gender marker on their driver’s license since at least 2007, according to the Kansas Reflector. The nonprofit news outlet reported last year that from 2011 to 2022, 380 drivers in Kansas changed their gender marker.

In 2023 Kris Kobach, the state’s attorney general, used a newly-passed law to argue that KDOR should no longer allow the practice, putting the ability to change one’s marker on pause for the next two years while it wound through the courts. Finally in 2025 the state Supreme Court denied Kobach’s appeal, and in early October people were allowed to update their licenses. But that victory would prove short-lived.

“Before it was changed, I had problems buying alcohol, entering bars (important community spaces for queer people), awkward I-9 conversations for employment,” Alex, an app-based delivery driver in Kansas, told me. “Once a doctor’s office accused me of stealing my mother's driver’s license to check in because I didn't look female.”

But changing their gender marker in 2022 made all the difference. “Not having to worry about that anymore was amazing,” they said. “I felt safe and free. It felt like I could go anywhere and be a normal citizen.”

Fast forward to the beginning of the Kansas legislative session in January of this year, and trans people and their rights were once again in Republicans’ crosshairs. A bill, SB 244, was introduced in the state house that would make the terms “gender” and “sex” equivalent in state law, barring people from amending their license or birth certificate to reflect their own personal gender identity. The proposed bill’s hearing was announced just 24 hours in advance, giving opponents virtually no time to formulate a strategy. Republicans then added language that would make it illegal for someone to use a bathroom in a government building that doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth. Despite a veto by Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, the Republican supermajority overrode the veto a few weeks back, making it state law.

Trans Kansans knew this was coming at some point, but they never expected it would happen so suddenly and be put into effect so swiftly.

Alex said their first reaction was anger. “We all deserve to have IDs and it's unjust for the state to invalidate them like this for a vulnerable group,” they said. “Then, worry and fear. What are the consequences if we don't comply? What group is next? Should I move?”

A group of trans activists pose for pictures on Feb. 6, 2026, at the Kansas Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Jae Moyer, an LGBTQ+ Activist who sits on the Johnson County Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coalition, said they were at work on Wednesday when they saw a social media post from Representative Abi Boatman, the only trans member of the Kansas Legislature, sharing a copy of the KDOR letter. (Boatman delivered this remarkable speech on the bill in late January.) As someone who uses they/them pronouns, Moyer was not directly impacted—the only gender options for a Kansas driver’s license are male or female, unlike other states where X is a possible marker for trans/gender nonconforming people—but Moyer, who spoke on their own behalf and not for the coalition, immediately feared for their community. 

“What makes me very concerned is like, let's imagine a hypothetical for a second where I am a trans person in Kansas who just had their license invalidated,” Moyer told me. “And let's say I live in a rural area without a ton of resources. And I have to drive quite a ways to get to the closest DMV on my invalidated driver's license, and for whatever reason, on the way I get pulled over. Then it's not just, ‘oh, I don't have a valid license.’ It's, ‘oh, I'm driving on an invalid license and I can be charged with something for that.’”

That was a valid and widespread concern in the period of shock immediately following the implementation of the law, which was not initially made any clearer by guidance sent out to the DMV employees who would be processing the mandated license changes.

In an email sent on Wednesday and obtained exclusively by The Handbasket on Thursday, Kent Selk, Driver Services Manager for the Kansas Department of Revenue, doled out instructions for how to comply with SB244 and shared a copy of the letter sent to “individuals who need to return to our office and have their credential updated with their gender at birth.” Selk wrote that a flag will show on the record of anyone who has supposedly been sent a letter. Then he added insult to injury: “The individuals will be charged as normal for their reissuance.”

But perhaps most concerning of all was Selks instruction that DMV employees must email the government helpdesk after issuing the updated credentials with an individual’s license number, indicating the person was now in compliance with SB 244. It also indicated that a list is being compiled.

“I'm definitely not a fan of being marked as a trans person in a state database,” Zoey told me. “I worry that the presidential administration could start going after us with that information like they have for immigrants.” 

After receiving the letter, Zoey rushed to the DMV first thing on Thursday to update her license out of fear of what it would mean to have an invalid license. While there, she saw another trans woman doing the same thing, letter in hand. Zoey changed her name and gender marker to female in 2022, but when she had to renew in 2023, Kobach’s lawsuit was in full swing and she was forced to change back to male. Then in October, once changes were allowed again, she happily switched it back thinking she’d have six years until this came up again. “Thankfully I didn't cry this morning,” she said on Thursday. “I’m too numb to all this at this point.”

Jackie, on the other hand, hasn’t received a letter yet despite changing her gender marker in the past. She plans to sit tight until she does. “I am very worried about getting a random traffic stop and getting hit with a suspended license fine and not even knowing it,” she told me. “Or even worse, being prevented from voting when they run it at a polling station.”

She added that even if she does eventually get the letter, she worries about “having to participate in their little humiliation ritual” in order to comply with the law. “It’s an even bigger risk to go to jail I suppose,” Jackie said. “I guess I just don’t have the right barometer to deal with this kind of capricious hate.”

Midday Friday, I obtained a copy of another email sent out to DMV employees earlier in the day providing more guidance. 

“Currently, KDOR has not ‘invalidated’ any records for people who were sent letters due to the passing of SB244 which requires the ‘sex at birth’ to be listed on Kansas credentials,” Kent Selk of the KDOR wrote. “If this is completed, we will let you know.”

He indicated the letter had been sent to “about 300” license holders, putting into sharp perspective how much time, energy and money Kansas Republicans have spent this year in service of hurting such a tiny percentage of their population of nearly three million people. Tellingly, Selk wrote that the applicants don’t need documentation to make the update other than their current license and proof of address.

Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector

Michaela from Topeka accidentally ended up in compliance before the law took effect when she needed to update the address on her driver’s license in September in order to complete the purchase of a firearm. Though her ID at the time had a female marker, the DMV changed it back to male without asking. 

“Before I knew it, they clipped the corner of my ID off, invalidating it, and issued me a new temporary one with the M on it,” she told me. “Didn’t warn me, didn’t ask if I wanted to continue. They just took it.” When she asked about a recent court ruling, she was met with a confused look. Her birth certificate, however, still holds the female marker.

“Of course all this happened shortly after the Charlie Kirk killing when the national zeitgeist seemed to be in a frenzy to take firearms from trans people,” Michaela said. “I’m a student of history and that kind of talk sent a chill down my spine. I saw the writing on the wall.”

(In other echoes of history, many have commented that the new Kansas law is reminiscent of when the Nazis invalidated the passports of all German Jews in 1938.) 

Leaving the state has crossed the minds of most of the people I spoke to, though it’s not feasible for many. Between professional licenses tied to the state, lack of funds to move elsewhere, or the simple fact that they can’t—and shouldn’t have to—leave their families, picking up and leaving feels like a distant option. 

The Trans Continental Pipeline, a nonprofit mutual aid organization based in Colorado, is helping relieve the burden for trans people and their families who feel they must leave the state where they live. They work nationally to help people relocate from states with oppressive anti-trans laws to ones with better rights for them. 

A recent survey by The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) with NORC at the University of Chicago looked to understand the negative impacts adults in the LGBTQ+ community were experiencing under the second Trump administration. It found that nearly one in 10 trans adults had moved to a different state from November 2024 to June 2025 because of LGBTQ-related laws or politics. That’s an estimated 400,000 people.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas announced Friday they would we representing two trans Kansans challenging SB 244 in court. 

“SB 244 is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia,” Harper Seldin, a Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, was quoted as saying in a news release. “The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police. Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”

A personal note related to this story: 

The only journalism award I’ve ever received is one from the Kansas Press Association. As a born and raised New Yorker, the state of Kansas is close to my heart and has been [however improbably] a large part of my more recent journalism career. From interviewing a 50-year abortion rights activist based there about the state’s effort to add an amendment to the state constitution banning abortion (it ultimately failed), to my scoop about why the Marion County Record newspaper was raided by police which ultimately led to me visiting a year later, I’ve developed meaningful and important friendships and relationships with people who call Kansas home. 

This is all to say: If you come for my trans friends in Kansas, you come for me. Trans rights are human rights. Full stop.

Image from small amount of footage already shared

I’m not used to writing you with good news, but here goes: 

This morning I went to the District of Columbia Superior Court along with my lawyers Allyson Veile and Adam Marshall of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for a hearing about my lawsuit seeking all body camera footage from the DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace (USIP) last March. Now, 11 months after I filed my original Freedom of Information (FOIA) request to the DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), we finally have a resolution: We won. 

Associate Judge Darlene Soltys has ordered MPD to produce all un-redacted body camera footage from the officers who responded to calls from both USIP employees and representatives of the Trump administration at the USIP building on March 17, 2025. The order was made live during the course of the hearing, and must be fulfilled within 14 calendar days. 

Phones and recording devices weren’t allowed inside the courtroom, so I’m relying on notes taken by my lawyers and me to give you a sense of what transpired at the hearing. Nothing below is an exact quote. While the judge won’t be issuing a written order, we’re requesting the transcript so that I can share her reasoning in her own words—but that will take a week or so.

MPD’s case relied, in part, on the claim that releasing all of the body camera footage would constitute an invasion of privacy for the DOGE employees present that day. (Prior to Wednesday, they had shared approximately 32 minutes of footage out of five hours and 50 minutes total—some with significant visual or audio redactions.) At the start of the hearing, the judge asked the defense if they could provide any specific examples of exchanges or words uttered in the footage that would support that claim. Lead counsel replied that she could not. The judge then asked if there was any current criminal investigation into what happened at the USIP building, and the answer was no. 

For the most part, Judge Soltys read her ruling from the bench, explaining that MPD had not provided substantial evidence to support their claims. She said that in ordering the USIP employees to vacate the building, MPD had chosen a side in what was a federal dispute. Judge Soltys also underlined the fact that when you are a government employee whose salary is paid for by the taxpayers, there is less expectation of privacy.

As I shared in November, our team was able to get six sworn affidavits from USIP staff who were present the day of the raid. Numerous times throughout her ruling, Judge Soltys referenced the affidavit of Colin O’Brien, the former chief security officer at USIP. MPD had argued that releasing the body cam footage would present a security risk to the current occupants of the building, but O’Brien said that the footage was taken in public spaces, including the lobby where there are often large events with no photo restrictions. 

“We’re proud to have represented Marisa in this case,” RCFP lawyer Allyson Veile said in a statement. “This is an important win not just for The Handbasket but for the promise of transparency in the District of Columbia. The court’s ruling vindicates the public’s right of access to body camera footage, and ensures that the public will get a full and accurate accounting of the episode of the U.S. Institute of Peace last year.”

This outcome is an important reminder that no matter how strong the forces against us may seem, it’s always worth putting up a fight. I look forward to seeing all of the body camera footage, including the “high-fives and fist bumps” O’Brien said were exchanged between MPD officers. I will share clips and insights with you as soon as I can.

Allow me to close by saying: Hell yea.

If you believe in the First Amendment and the value of journalism, consider supporting the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press so they can continue their essential work. 

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Image of warehouse purchased by ICE (Tremont, PA)

(Updated below 2/20/26 to include response from Cart.com and share their understanding of what it means to be a WEXMAC TITUS vendor.)

Border Czar Tom Homan announced late last week that Operation Metro Surge, the ICE and CBP campaign terrorizing Minnesota for more than a month, was supposedly winding down. What that means functionally on the ground remains to be seen, but logistically, though, this timing makes sense: DHS, with the help of the Department of War (née Department of Defense), are laser-focused on outfitting industrial warehouses into prisons for the people they round up. They call them detention centers, but we can call them what there are—concentration camps.

DHS is using a repurposed Navy logistics program to fund the buildings and materials necessary to create these concentration camps quickly, as first reported by CNN in October. The Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract (WEXMAC) program was created by the Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) so that it could call on contractors quickly in the wake of international natural disasters, pandemics and the like, bypassing the traditionally lengthy bidding process. It served 26 designated regions—until last year when the United States itself was added as number 27. That region is called TITUS: Territorial Integrity of the United States. And now, thanks to this relatively new designation, domestic vendors are being fast-tracked by DoW and DHS to expeditiously furnish and run concentration camps around the country.

The first 96 WEXMAC TITUS awards were given in early September 2025, with an additional seven granted later that month. At the start of the year, WEXMAC TITUS added eight new awardees, and just this past Friday, an additional 24 were brought on board. The total contract value was originally $10 billion, but a request for proposals in early January showed a $45 billion increase to the ceiling—as first reported by Migrant Insider—bringing the total value to $55 billion. In their initial reporting, CNN called the program “a joint effort between DHS and the Defense Department and leans on the Navy’s Supply Systems Command as a contracting arm to hire companies for construction and maintenance of the detention facilities.”

By the estimation of Project Salt Box, a Baltimore-based group collecting and organizing public data about ICE’s land purchases and other contracts, the agency has so far purchased 11 warehouses for a sum of $697.4 million in funds from the billions they received in Trump’s funding bill last summer (that total excludes the sale prices that have not yet been made public.) That’s a net gain of 34k beds. Those confirmed sales are in Surprise, Arizona; El Paso and San Antonio, Texas; Social Circle and Oakwood, Georgia; Hagerstown, Maryland; Hamburg and Tremont, Pennsylvania; Romulus, Michigan; Chester, NY; and Lebanon, Tennessee. Another eight warehouses are listed on Project Salt Box’s DHS Contracts Visualizer that ICE intends to buy based on credible news reports and documents. The situation is so fluid that by the time you’re reading this, the numbers above may very well have changed. 

In order to fulfill the Trump administration’s goal of holding more 80,000 people in ICE detention, per a Washington Post scoop from December, as ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons said last year, make deportations “like Prime, but with human beings,” they must outfit the warehouses expeditiously. That means attempting to turn industrial spaces into ones semi-habitable for humans, with appropriate ventilating, plumbing, showers, food, laundry, and medical care. 

“WEXMAC TITUS allows ICE to treat immigration enforcement like a national security operation rather than a standard civil immigration one,” Michael Wriston, a 20-year veteran military analyst who is now a researcher and reporter with Project Salt Box and has been studying these contracts closely, told The Handbasket. “This gives the agency access to a much faster contracting process with less oversight and public visibility.” 

Wriston explained how WEXMAC allowing ICE to quickly issue orders to contractors without going through normal competitive bidding means ICE can expand detention facilities and transportation services in days instead of months. “Essentially, it creates a system where contractors are pre-approved and infrastructure is ready to go, allowing ICE to rapidly scale up operations with far less red tape than typical federal contracting requires.”

The WEXMAC TITUS award solicitation form—which is public on SAM.gov—clearly states this part of the program’s intentions. In a section on page 74 titled “TEMPORARY STAGING FACILITIES” it reads: “The vendor may be required to provide infrastructure, staffing, services, and/or supplies necessary to provide safe and secure confinement for aliens in the administrative custody of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”

In that same section, the contract solicitation states the contractor “shall furnish all personnel, management, equipment, supplies, training, certification, accreditation, and services necessary for performance of all aspects of the contract.”

Perhaps most tellingly, the solicitation states: “The contractor does not have a right of refusal and shall take all referrals from ICE as applicable.” In other words, being a WEXMAC TITUS contractor doesn’t automatically mean you’re working for ICE, but it does mean you’ve agreed that if asked, you will.

“So if there was a US citizen—a baby, or someone sick that clearly shouldn’t be there—the contractor can’t say they don’t want to take them,” a federal employee familiar with similar government contracts in a different agency told me after reviewing the TITUS solicitation. “That’s super sketchy.”

The federal employee pointed out a few troubling sections, including clause H.2.1.2 which essentially allows DHS to choose whichever vendor they’d like for a job. They were also surprised by the minimum guarantee clause, which states that every WEXMAC TITUS contractor is guaranteed $500 per reward. They said they’d never seen anything like that in other federal contracts. (And just for fun they pointed to clause 2.9.1 which states: “Contractor shall provide one (1) large BBQ Grill with the supporting supplies and equipment included,” plus related supplies.)

Despite the horrifying nature of what the TITUS money is being used for, the federal worker said it all appears legitimate. “It's just corrupt.” In Wriston’s opinion, the fact that it’s a Navy program puts it within Congress’ power to rein it in—particularly because this is the first time ICE specifically has had access to the program. 

When WEXMAC was founded in 2021 under the Biden administration, the NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center in Yokosuka, Japan served as the procuring contracting office. A Navy press release for the original program announcement quoted a contracting officer as saying, “Our team enjoyed rising to the challenge and being part of the positive impact the WEXMAC program will have on the warfighter in the years to come.” In the case of TITUS, however, it appears the war fighters are the federal government and the opponent is the people.

Perhaps the most astonishing awardee in the latest WEXMAC TITUS announcement is GEO Group, the massive private prison company that runs many of the existing facilities used to cage and torture immigrants. “Now, when ICE needs to staff, supply or operate a detention facility, it can call GEO directly and issue a work order within weeks,” Project Salt Box wrote on Saturday. 

Independent journalist Jack Poulson provided more context in his newsletter on Sunday:

Poulson also reported that Cart.com, an e-commerce platform backed by PayPal Ventures, was one of the 24 new vendors added on Friday. In response Cart.com told Poulson that “WEXMAC is a multi-award Department of War contract vehicle and is not specific to ICE or any single program,” adding that, “Cart.com has not been awarded or announced any related WEXMAC task orders.”

(Update 2/20: Cart.com VP Jack Ulrich reached out to The Handbasket after publication to dispute the characterization that they’ve agree to perform work for ICE, and explained the company’s understanding of what it means to be a WEXMAC TITUS awardee. “If a company chooses not to submit an offer, there is nothing for NAVSUP to award to that company. So, our understanding is that we will only be awarded work that we actively bid on and, as I mentioned, Cart.com is not engaged in any detention facility work, nor do we intend to use WEXMAC to pursue or participate in such work.”)

It can often feel like we’ve reached this point because of ignorance of history. Prior to 1933, Dachau was a suburb of Munich; now, decades after the Holocaust ended, for many it remains synonymous with the genocide of the Jewish people. Similarly, while many of the plantations of the southern United States have been whitewashed and turned into wedding venues, for the millions of descendants of enslaved people, those properties will always hearken the ghosts of their ancestors.

There does, however, seem to be some sense on the part of Americans that they don’t want their cities and towns directly linked to human and civil rights abuses. As the Project Salt Box tracker points out, rumors or even seemingly confirmed stories of pending ICE purchases are not a foregone conclusion. 

There have been nine potential sales canceled since news of the planned camps broke. On February 6th, we learned a warehouse sale in Mississippi was canceled thanks in part to the opposition of Senator Roger Wicker, a hardcore MAGA Republican. As I was writing this piece, the fate of multiple prospective warehouses changed, like one in Kansas City, Missouri: The owner of the property slated to be sold to the federal government announced the sale wasn’t happening. This came after the city’s port authority voted unanimously to cut ties with the real estate company. While their announcement didn’t mention this aspect of the situation, the timing was notable. (The day after the deal fell through, someone set fire to the warehouse. If you know anything about the person who did this—no, you don’t.) 

An effort to turn a former Virginia state prison into a concentration camp met a similarly unfortunate end, with the Augusta County Board of Supervisors announcing last week that the conversion would not go forward. This was thanks, at least in part, to a change in policy by Governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who in January took over for Republican Glenn Youngkin. But according to documents that were given to the ACLU via a FOIA request and were combed through by Project Salt Box, a handful of existing facilities stand as potential options for additional camps. There were eight, as of this writing.

The truth is that the ICE detention centers that already exist are rife with human rights abuses, especially as the Trump administration fills them far beyond their capacity to serve their accelerationist anti-immigrant agenda. 

At Dilley Detention Center near San Antonio, Texas, families are held in squalor, sometimes for months. Rep. Joaquin Castro confirmed Tuesday that a two-month old named Juan Nicolás remains caged at Dilley with bronchitis, and that he was unresponsive at some point in the last several hours. 

“Juan’s mom went in front of an immigration judge this morning,” Castro posted on social media Tuesday afternoon. “She was told she will be deported, but was not told when or where. Both Juan and his mom are back at Dilley and their future remains uncertain.”

Recently ProPublica published letters from children trapped inside Dilley, sharing their heartbreaking stories of hunger, illness, and homesickness. A 12-year-old named Ender wrote that when you finally get medical attention at Dilley “the only thing they tell you is to drink more water and the worst thing is that it seems the water is what makes people sick here.”

I’ve continued wondering while writing this why WEXMAC TITUS hasn’t gained greater mainstream traction. Is an obscure Navy contract program simply too dry to convey the danger it poses? Perhaps. Does the fact that it isn’t flagrantly illegal—unlike other actions of the adminstration—lend it some legitimacy? It’s possible. 

Here’s the bottom line: DHS is buying warehouses across the country to build out concentration camps for caging and deporting immigrants, and WEXMAC TITUS is allowing them to be operational in a matter of weeks.

Maybe it’s not as pithy as “Fuck ICE,” and you’re unlikely to see a protest sign that says “End WEXMAC TITUS now!” but not only is it worth understanding this pivotal program, it’s important for the Trump administration to know that we know. While they’re trying to pull a fast one, they should know we see what they’re doing—taking spaces built for storing goods, using them to torment human beings, and pulling in accomplices to do it quickly. 

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Congresswoman Delia Ramirez does not mince words. The Democrat from Illinois and I first met back in August when I did a keynote interview with her on the main stage at the Netroots Nation conference, an annual gathering of progressive Democrats. Though the widespread anti-immigrant violence by federal agents was just ramping up, Rep. Ramirez was clear: ICE is a terrorist organization that needs to be defunded and abolished. Another six months later, though it’s cold comfort, some of her colleagues and millions of Americans are finally repeating her refrain. 

A month before our first chat, Congress passed Trump’s funding bill that appropriated $165 million to the Department of Homeland Security, including billions of dollars to hire thousands of new ICE and CBP agents and build new immigrant concentration camps. “I think that for the first time in Congress, I have colleagues of mine who are beginning to ask the question, well, ‘does ICE have way too much authority?’” Rep. Ramirez told me last summer. Now that recent events in Minnesota and all over the country have provided a concrete answer to that question, what comes next?

In a high-profile hearing this week with the heads of ICE, CBP and US Citizen and Immigration Services held by the House Homeland Security Committee—of which Rep. Ramirez is a member—the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants had the opportunity to do what so many of us dream of: to “look evil in the eye and fight it back.” She called for accountability for these leaders and their agents for all the harms they’ve committed and continue to commit, and called them “the inheritors of the Klan hood and the slave patrol.” 

I reached out to Rep. Ramirez to ask how it feels to be vindicated in the worst possible way, talk about the likely impending DHS shutdown, and what future accountability looks like. This is our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Rep. Ramirez during our Zoom interview on Friday

MARISA KABAS, THE HANDBASKET: When we last spoke in August, you called ICE “unconstitutional and unaccountable,” and said that it's “criminal and we must dismantle it.” And I remember a smattering of applause and support for it, but I feel like if you said that today, there would be a 10-minute standing ovation. How does it feel to see public sentiment towards ICE shift so drastically to where you've been all along?

CONGRESSWOMAN DELIA C. RAMIREZ: I'm glad you asked that question, because I was just talking to someone yesterday morning about the moment that we're living in now. Whether it's talking about abolishing ICE, impeaching Kristi Noem, or blocking bombs to Israel, when some of us initially said this—whether it was a year ago, three years ago, or even in 2018 specifically around ICE—people said, like, ‘you are so radical and not reflective of where people are,’ or ‘you don't really understand the nuances of what you're saying.’ And so I do think in some way I feel validated by watching so many of my colleagues really arrive to a moment that so many of us knew was real: That ICE is an organization of terror. And when I said that, you can imagine, I have had colleagues on the Republican side who said ‘she needs to be denounced, removed, deported.’ Also xenophobic and racist and terrible fascist things. 

But it is encouraging to see colleagues of mine who are very much to the center begin saying literally the same words [as I did]. And so the joke that I often have with my team is—it would just be nice once in a while to get a little credit for the fact that I said this first and I said it often. You kind of cringed a little, and now you're saying it! Listen, we do this to women and women of color all the time.

But also, people on the ground are recognizing that when so many of us said, ‘Listen, you may not be undocumented, you may have family who's been here for five generations, and you may not think that what ICE is doing is going to impact you, but fascism always needs a public enemy. And while today it’s immigrants, while today it’s trans children or black women, we know that it's a matter of time before they're coming after all of us.’ I think people on the ground could not really understand when I said that, I meant them too. Watching Minnesota and watching what's happened in Oregon and all over the country has helped them understand, ‘Oh, my God, I am a US citizen, and I've never had to live in this kind of fear. And now I think I might need my US passport in order to exercise freedom of speech and protest for others.’

People feel it in their guts, on the streets. Abolish them, because otherwise they will execute us. 

KABAS: There's something frustrating about having to see it happen first to have it be taken seriously. 

REP. RAMIREZ: It's super frustrating. I've said to a couple of my colleagues, like, man, what would it have looked like in 2024 when we're in the thick of the campaigns, if we stopped being so defensive on immigration and we went on the offensive; had we all collectively rang the alarm when we saw it start. Had we done that, Silverio [Villegas González], Alex [Pretti], Renee [Good], would be alive, as well as so many people who we don't say their names, who have died in detention. And I think that's the part that really frustrates me, because the work that we do has real consequences, and the work that we don't do has even bigger consequences.

KABAS: What do you see as the work we're not doing?

REP. RAMIREZ: I do want to acknowledge that more and more Democrats are waking up in the morning and realizing, ‘Oh my god, ICE is a problem.’ But on January 20, 2025 when Donald Trump was sworn in as the president, I woke up with that feeling, recognizing that everything I cared about—my constituents, this country, humanity—was under attack, and that we were going to have to live the next few years attempting to survive and attempting to bring people together to have courage and moral clarity. So look, I will give kudos to my colleagues who are holding the line, who in the Senate right now have decided not to give an easy way out to DHS and fund them. They didn't have the votes yesterday in part because Democrats, for the most part, stuck together, right? I do appreciate that they are doing more in recognizing ‘Minneapolis could be my district. Minneapolis could be my constituents.’

What I would say that they could be doing more of is the willingness to call this organization what it is, and therefore dismantling the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security was created intentionally after 9/11 to violate people's rights under the guise of protecting the homeland. We know that it was created so that they can call people like me, Muslim people, immigrant people, and anyone that would challenge fascism, a domestic terrorist. As long as they make us a domestic terrorist, they can attempt to get away with doing anything to us and violate our rights without due process. So to me, this moment requires members of Congress to ask themselves, how will we never be here again? How will we actually really hear our constituents when they're saying they need us to fight for them? And how far am I willing to go to, at times, ignore my DC consultants in order to fully represent and fight for my constituents?

KABAS: I think so many are guided by, like you said, the consultants and the polling and public sentiment, when this moment really seems to require doing what's right. And it seems like that's what's always guided you, so I can imagine that it's frustrating to watch others struggle to do that. 

Yeah, and frankly, this moment and every moment requires us to do what is right. If we would have been doing what is right, this moment would not have come. If Democrats would have organized for comprehensive immigration reform to not just preserve our democracy but expand it to actually pass the most comprehensive voting rights in this country; to get big money out of politics; to eliminate Super PACs; to get pharma the hell off of Congress so that we have Medicare for All; to actually have prioritized housing; to stop funding wars at the expense of their people and then say it's called diplomacy; had we been doing that, we wouldn't be here.

I think we need to stop leading from a place of fear, or let me wait until what the poll tells me, but from a place of moral clarity, courage, conscience and an understanding of what's happening to our constituents and our responsibility.

There are people—Democrats, and maybe a few Republicans—who are beginning to call out ICE, because in every single poll ICE’s favorabilities are under 30% and people dying, people living in fear, self-deporting, committing suicide in detention, should not be the reason you finally recognize, ‘wait a minute, how do they get away with this again and again?’ and ‘what can we do to stop them?’

I also want to say to you that I do find hope in this moment. Not because of people in leadership, but because I am finding people on the ground that are saying enough is enough. I'm not just going to be a spectator and think that politics is not going to affect me. I know politics affect me. I'm not going to let politics keep doing to me, right? I'm going to influence politics. I think that you're seeing people that despite of the fear of surveillance, despite of the fear of targeting or being executed, are still showing up in Minneapolis and Chicago and California. And I think that you're also seeing people who would never have thought they'd run for office say, ‘Here I am'.’

(I asked Rep. Ramirez if she would be endorsing a candidate in the hotly contested primary in her neighboring district, IL-09. She said “I'm probably going to stay out because there's so many progressives and amazing people running there. But I am telling you bluntly that I don't want to see Laura Fine go to Congress, and we need to take on AIPAC. And I believe that Illinois is primed to show AIPAC that no longer can they continue to be a foreign lobby harming people and using their power, using their MAGA Republican money, to continue to bomb children and literally keep these politicians on a chokehold and under control, and that the community is not going to let them continue to elect these people.”)

KABAS: So many comparisons have made between the current state of US immigration terror and Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and I've seen some say that kind of seeks to absolve this country of its own history of racial terror and genocide. In the hearings this week with ICE and CBP and USCIS, you said you have “no respect for inheritors of the Klan hood and the slave patrol.” How did it feel to publicly and explicitly draw that connection? 

REP. RAMIREZ: I knew that I was going to make them very uncomfortable. I'm not talking about just the DHS directors there—I meant my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. And I say this often, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s the willingness to act despite the fear.’ I'm a little scared [in that moment], because if I'm being blunt with you, every time I speak there's a death threat. And yet I thought it was so important, as a daughter of immigrants, as a proud representative of Illinois-3, as someone who has been calling out what they do, to be able to look evil in the eye and call them what they are.

KABAS: Even after you spoke, Republican Chairman Andrew Garbarino made a comment about, like, “maintaining decorum.” 

REP. RAMIREZ: And the thing is that my remarks also were drafted in a way that he could not strike my words from the record. Because if they could have, they would have.

KABAS: So you were very intentional about how you approached this. 

REP. RAMIREZ: Oh, yeah—and the team. It was like, I didn't say ‘you are the epitome of evil.’ I said ‘I got to stare at evil in the eye.’

KABAS: You also said in the hearing that one day these people will ‘be held accountable for their role in this dark moment in America.’ Just looking ahead, what does accountability for these leaders look like? 

REP. RAMIREZ: I think that it's really important for us to understand that them quitting their jobs—that's just not enough. That doesn't bring back Silverio, the children who are orphans are not gonna have their parents back. That doesn't recover Marimar [Martinez] from the shooting and the permanent scars that she now has. So to me, when we're talking about what justice looks like, it's ultimately getting to a place where every single fascist agent and the leaders that directed them to do what they did are held accountable to the highest degree of the law. And that means prosecution. There has to be oversight. The masks have to come off. We ultimately have to make sure that these criminals, and especially this administration, are brought to justice. And that means I want to see them behind bars. They have to be, for the sake of who we are as a nation.

I think it was important for me to say that pretty bluntly to them, because there's this idea for them that they're going to be in power indefinitely. And I wanted it to be on the record: You will not be in power forever, and the day of accountability will come, and I will assure that that happens. 

When veteran journalist Christopher Mathias set out to write a book about fascism, it was the center of his professional world; but now in 2026, it’s the center of all of our worlds, making To Catch a Fascist both a history lesson and an urgent warning.

Below is an excerpt from the book which just hit shelves this week, along with a brief intro from Mathias himself. It’s an excellent read and you should buy it (and I’m not just saying that because there’s a blurb from me on the back.) And if you’re in NYC, we’ll be discussing it together live tonight at the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Heights branch. Details here.

According to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, the heroes of my book are “domestic terrorists.” To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose The Radical Right, after all, follows activists in antifa as they surveil, infiltrate, confront, and ultimately destroy multiple fascist groups in the Trump era. 

Trump’s executive order, signed in September, claimed to officially designate antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.” It was absurd as it was alarming. There is no federal law by which to make such a designation. Moreover, antifa is not even an organization. It is a militant tradition or style of politics dedicated to destroying the far right “by any means necessary.” There is no headquarters for this underground network of radical leftists—most identifying as anarchists, socialists, and communists. There are no leaders. No billionaire benefactors. 

As my book details, the ranks of antifa are made up of everyday Americans who lost faith in the ability of their institutions to protect them from the rising tide of fascism in America. They came to intimately understand the axiom of “we protect us” and took matters into their own hands. Although best known for punching Nazis, the bulk of the work antifa did over the last ten years was to spy and expose a new generation of far right groups, ultimately unmasking thousands of people—among them police officers, politicians, pastors, teachers, lawyers, and soldiers—as secret neo-Nazis. 

One of those antifa activists is a man we’ll call Vincent, who went undercover into a group called Patriot Front. Below is a scene from Vincent’s remarkable infiltration of the secretive group, which eventually contributed to the unmasking of some 80 fascists. 

Thanks so much for reading. I truly think you’ll love my book and I’d love it if you bought it or checked it out from your local library. ~ Christopher Mathias

The next three months were a blur of activity. Vincent said yes to everything—every banner drop, every propaganda mission, every gathering—so that he could earn everyone’s absolute trust, so that they’d be more liable to slip up and reveal clues to their identities, and so that he’d be wise to every detail of the December 4 march. Which is how he found himself one day in an apartment in the Interbay neighborhood of Seattle, watching Tyler show off his recently manufactured “ghost gun.”

“This is a P80 frame,” Tyler explained, sitting beneath a Nazi battle flag hanging from the wall, cocking his new black pistol.e “It’s been good . . . I like the P80 frames more than a Glock, the way they feel in your hand, more of a 1911 angle . . . Plus, it’s not on paper.”

Vincent knew enough about guns to know what “not on paper” meant: Tyler’s pistol didn’t have a serial number, meaning it couldn’t be traced to a record of sale. If there came a day when cops were trying to find the owner of this gun in Tyler’s hand, they’d have a hard time doing so. These “ghost guns,” like Tyler’s P80, were sometimes made from kits bought online, with gun components that could be assembled at home into a workable firearm. It was, to gun control advocates’ dismay, largely legal to do this. (It has since been outlawed in Washington state.) Other ghost guns are made with 3D printers, like the 3D printer in Tyler’s apartment, which Vincent suspected he was using to manufacture other guns. Just the month before, the US Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team had issued a six-page report warning about the rise in “violent extremists” seeking “ways to acquire firearms through the production of privately made firearms.” The report pointed to a series of alarming incidents. In July 2021, a twenty-one-year-old national guardsman was indicted in North Carolina for allegedly supplying ghost guns to an Idaho-based cell of neo-Nazis made up of other US servicemen.In 2020, the FBI found an AR-15 ghost gun in the Delaware apartment belonging to three members of The Base, an accelerationist neo-Nazi group, who had allegedly plotted to open fire at a gun rights rally in Virginia as a way of kicking off the “boogaloo,” white supremacist parlance at the time for “race war.” In 2019, authorities revealed that a South Carolina white man, while attempting to hire a hit man to lynch his Black neighbor and erect a burning cross in his yard, had also tried to obtain a ghost gun. That same year, Seattle police seized ghost gun parts from the home of a leader in the Atomwaffen Division, the murderous neo-Nazi group. And in 2018, a nineteen-year-old college student in Chicago—known around campus for wearing a Patriot Front T-shirt—was sentenced to probation after cops found a small arsenal of illegal ghost guns in his home.

Tyler cocked his pistol again and placed it on his workstation, next to the 3D printer. He also used the printer to create Patriot Front stencils. He was one of only a few members in the whole organization responsible for manufacturing the stencils, the thin sheets of metal with slogans cut into them—Not Stolen, Conquered, and Defend American Labor and Reclaim America—that were used to spray-paint messages on top of “opposition” or “adversarial” murals, which was Patriot Front lingo for public art featuring Black and queer people. Taken altogether, one could say Tyler was running a little hate crime factory out of his apartment.

Tyler had invited Vincent, Charles, and Clark over to work on the stencils. Charles was the quarter-Filipino kid Vincent had met at the diner, the one who was maybe too young and not white enough to be in Patriot Front. Clark had been at the hike up Mount Rainier, but Vincent hadn’t talked to him much. Tall and skinny with a buzz cut, he looked to be in his mid-twenties and seemed well-to-do, like he’d grown up comfortably.

Tyler and Vincent started to talk about how many stencils they had, taking a quick inventory. As Tyler listed all the different stencils, Vincent took out his phone, pretending to write down everything Tyler was saying in his Notes app, but instead flicked over to his camera and snapped a photo: Tyler, leaning back in an office chair, next to the ghost gun on the workstation, and beneath his flag, which had an Odal rune in the corner, a symbol used in the divisional insignia of Waffen SS divisions during World War II, and a sonnenrad symbol in the center, the “black sun” also used by the Nazis, most infamously on the tiled floor of the remodeled German castle that belonged to Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Holocaust.

Tyler seemed to trust Vincent enough to let him mosey around the apartment unaccompanied, allowing Vincent to poke around for clues about Tyler’s real name and his place of employment. He searched his bathroom cabinets, studied the magnets on the fridge, and snapped a photo of Tyler’s key chain, which included a membership card for LA Fitness. It was clearly a bachelor pad. Tyler’s girlfriend, Rachel, who Vincent had talked to on the climb up the volcano, lived in another neighborhood. Eventually, Vincent found himself looking at the books on Tyler’s shelf. Charles started to do the same, removing a large book and flipping through the pages. He read the title aloud: “Unintended Consequences.”

“Have you read that?” Tyler asked him. “Not a lot of it,” Charles replied.

“I’ve only met one other person who’s read that whole book.” “It’s huge.”

“If you want a book that’s total war on the ATF, it’s a good one,” Tyler explained, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (then federal agency that had reported recovering ghost guns like Tyler’s at the scenes of nearly seven hundred homicides and attempted homicides in the previous five years). “If you like guns and want a fantasy of waging war on the ATF, borrow it.”

Written in 1996 by a Second Amendment enthusiast named John Ross, Unintended Consequences is a blood-soaked fantasy imagining a white south-ern man who rebels against gun control laws he views as oppressive, killing ten ATF agents, then butchering their bodies and feeding them to hogs.27 The act inspires a mass armed revolt, organized by “leaderless resistance,” in which a decentralized network of militias carry out attacks, eventually leading to the downfall of the US government. Ross claimed the book was a smash hit, selling over sixty thousand copies, largely from purchases at gun shows.28 By 2013, The New York Times noted Unintended Consequences was among the “100 most sought-after titles currently out of print.”

“Unintended Consequences,” Charles said. “I imagine it’s a more flushed-out version of The Turner Diaries.”

Charles wasn’t the first person to note the similarities between the two books. The Turner Diaries is a 1978 novel written by William Pierce, leader of the neo-Nazi group National Alliance. His book also imagines a bloody revolution, albeit with much more explicit white supremacist themes, includ-ing the “day of the rope,” in which “race traitors”—namely certain journalists, professors, lawyers, clergy, and other leftists—are lynched en masse. The Turner Diaries has inspired multiple acts of white supremacist terrorism, including the 1993 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 163 people. “If people say The Turner Diaries was my bible, Unintended Consequences would be my New Testament,” Tim-othy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, said after reading Unintended Consequences while in jail awaiting trial. “I think Unintended Consequences is a better book. It might have changed my whole plan of operation if I’d read that one first.”

Charles put the book back on the shelf.

The four of them started to add the finishing touches to Tyler’s 3D-printed stencils, cutting out the letters and then practicing spray-painting over them on pieces of cardboard. Tyler realized he needed a tool he’d left in his work van outside, he said. He’d be right back. Vincent walked over to the window, looking down onto the street below, and observed Tyler approach a white van with two ladders tied to the top, and with black lettering on the side. Key Mechanical, it said. Tyler opened the back doors of the van and started rummaging inside. Vincent looked around to make sure Charles and Clark weren’t looking. He held his phone up to the window and snapped a photo.

Copyright © 2026 by Christopher Mathias. From the book TO CATCH A FASCIST by Christopher Mathias, published by Atria, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission.

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Armed federal agents in full tactical gear with their faces covered crouched on the roof of the ICE building in Portland around 4:30pm local time on Saturday and started attacking protesters with chemical and physical munitions. Canisters of tear gas and rubber bullets rained over the crowd of people passing by with signs of protest against the tyrannical organization. People of all ages tried to flee as fast as they could, while sickened and half-blind from the vicious chemicals clouding the air. Residents of a low-income housing complex across the street watched in horror. Nearby, a six-year-old wondered if the unicorn she saw marching earlier was ok. 

Just moments before, a procession of thousands flowed through the streets of Portland’s South Waterfront neighborhood. It was an event organized by a coalition of labor unions that began with speeches at Elizabeth Caruthers Park and culminated in a march just down the street past the local ICE building. The plan was to keep the procession moving, but when some marchers crossed a no trespassing line in front of the building, federal officers reacted with immediate violence. The response revealed ICE and other related agency’s feelings: that they are at war, and the people are the enemy.

I spoke to eight people who were present about what they saw. All names have been changed to protect their privacy. 

“The first indication of anything was the explosion,” Ty told me. “It was unusual.” Ty was towards the back of the crowd, he explained, and was a bit removed from the deployment of flashbangs and tear gas. He and others around him put on n95 masks to try and protect themselves from the burning chemicals filling the air, seeing as most hadn’t come with the requisite supplies for what this event became.  

Instagram post

Zoe was marching with a group of friends who were about a block away from the ICE building chanting “shame” when the melee began. “We saw a few agents come onto the roof but I figured they were just observing,” she said. “Then I saw the gas get fired. There were at least five shots.”

About a minute after the gas release, Zoe said she started hearing people coughing and dry heaving. It started to hit her, too. “When I was walking away and struggling to breathe, a street medic in a British accent physically got in front of me and checked on me and helped me rinse my eyes out,” Zoe recalled. “She saw I wasn’t okay and helped me tremendously, even as my contacts were holding the gas behind my eyes.”

Like Ty and many others, Zoe hadn’t come prepared for war. “I didn’t know it would be that kind of March so I didn’t bring my gas mask or PPE,” she said.

In the immediate aftermath, Ty noticed a man squatting next to a bike trying to rinse out his child’s eyes. “The kid’s eyes were red and they were blubbering, not screaming, crying out or talking. The parent was flushing the kid’s eyes out and wiping their face, people were offering them water. Multiple medics were checking in on them.”

He added, “It’s just weird to see a toddler in a pink onesie getting their eyes washed out from tear gas, you know?” I told him of course, though in the back of my mind I hoped I’d never have to see it for myself.

The purpose of the march was decidedly dire, but by all accounts from people on the ground, it was a family atmosphere where locals turned out with children, elders, pets and signs in hand to show their opposition to ICE’s lawlessness. To use current parlance, it was a “No Kings”-type crowd. People were handing out whistles. On one corner, a young adult played the keytar, and the sun was still out. It made the abrupt change in mood and safety that much more jarring. Although the organizers made great efforts to keep the most vulnerable from going too close to the ICE building, the mass deployment of munitions made it impossible to shield them all.

“I was there with my two kids and many other families from our school and teachers,” Eric, another protester, said. “It was definitely the sunny Saturday afternoon peaceful protest. Then all of a sudden a series of explosions, flash bangs, tear gas and a growing cloud of smoke up ahead.”

He recalled some of the kids around them crying from the smoke and noise. His daughter was the one worried about the unicorn.

“We were all coughing and gasping for air,” Julie, a protester who was closer to the ICE building, recalled. “Kids were screaming. Everyone stayed calm enough so there wasn't a stampede or any trampling, which I was very afraid of because people were so desperate for air. It was horrible.”

That same day there had been a mass cyclist ride in the city to honor Alex Pretti, the VA nurse and avid cyclist killed by CBP agents the week before in Minneapolis. The mood was resolute but calm—that is until federal agents decided to create a mess that, thankfully, did not result in casualties.

Local Portland police were “utterly useless,” John, another attendee, told me. “They at least weren't helping ICE, but they also didn't care that tear gas was being indiscriminately flung all over the streets,” adding that the ICE building borders a residential neighborhood. “One cop we talked to—he appeared to be a lieutenant or commander—about babies being gassed said in response ‘that's too bad.’”

John said he, too, was astonished by the escalation of tactics, especially against an overwhelmingly white and middle class crowd. “Maybe a couple dozen black bloc folks were there up in front, crossing the property line,” he said. “I figured ICE would come out in force and try to seize them, maybe throw a canister or two of gas, to force black bloc back. And it was so much more vicious than that.”

“We saw the worst of the feds [Saturday] but we also saw the best of Portland,” Zoe said. “No crowd crush, no panic, no deaths. Just Portlanders helping Portlanders.” 

One witness I spoke to posited that the layout of that particular area of Portland, with its many alleys and egress routes, made it possible for the alarm not to escalate into full-on mayhem. Attendees took note of the remarkable care offered to the people suffering the most from the government’s unexpected and terrifying violence. 

“I’m so grateful for all the street medics and folks directing traffic out there yesterday, especially for the pets and kids and elders who were caught in the gas, and those of us who were retching and blinded,” Zoe said.

Ty believes that providing aid at protests is no longer something limited to a small segment of people. “I think what was once specialized knowledge has become well-shared and mainstream here; there are many people who are involved in this type of work at protests to either keep people safe like blocking off traffic or to help people if they’re hurt,” he said. 

I wondered if the sudden violence might keep people away from protests in the future. Most I spoke to said no way. One said less experienced protesters may choose to stay home as a result—but in this environment anything’s possible. “People can surprise you in all kinds of ways,” he said. “The outrage might outweigh the anxiety that comes from being in harm's way.”

It would be comforting to say this event was an aberration, but by Sunday evening federal forces were already replicating their tactics. Independent journalist Alisa Azar reported from outside the Portland ICE building that federal authorities began intensely gassing a group of a few hundred people who had just been chanting. She posted on Bluesky that she witnessed a little girl getting out of a car. “She's saying ‘oww’ and coughing, an older woman with her rushed her inside.” Azar wrote that “People were choking on gas over 6 blocks away.”

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson was already demanding ICE to leave his city before they struck again on Sunday. In a statement released Saturday evening he wrote: “To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children. Ask yourselves why you continue to work for an agency responsible for murders on American streets. No one is forcing you to lie to yourself, even as your bosses continue to lie to the American people.”

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Memorial for Alex Pretti where he was killed. (Shared with The Handbasket by source who wishes to remain anonymous.)

Since Renée Good was murdered on January 7th, the national mood had been funereal. We watched a mother, a wife, a poet, a friend be executed, our insides hollowed out as we watched her be chased by bullets while she tried to drive away. It was hard to imagine anything more gutting. Then I saw Wael and Maher Tarabishi’s story. 

Wael was also killed by the state, in a different but no less cruel way. ICE took Maher, his father and primary caregiver, back in October and allowed Wael, a 30-year old with Pompe disease, to die slowly from lack of proper care—or maybe from a broken heart. He entered the hospital in late December and never left alive. Meanwhile his father, his closest companion, remained locked away, helpless without the ability to be physically present for his son. His family is now trying to get him humanitarian release for Wael’s funeral, but ICE isn’t known for its humanitarianism. It’s the kind of story that makes you believe there is no God. 

I sobbed and sobbed after reading Wael and Maher’s story, hoping the tears could somehow flush out the unbearable sadness from my body; ease the joints that had gone stiff from tensing, and restore even a modicum of hope that there was still good somewhere. Alex Pretti’s mortal sacrifice was, in a way, that hope. 

When video began circulating Saturday morning of federal agents brutalizing and shooting a man in Minneapolis, it felt shocking but also inevitable. After Renee Good’s murder two and a half weeks earlier, the federal government did everything it possibly could to excuse it, using the thinnest justifications that feeling people saw right through and to which hardened hearts clung. She was, after all, a “fucking bitch” as the agent who shot her muttered moments later. She was an expendable woman in the eyes of people who, when you really get down to it, see all women as expendable. Perhaps there was a part Alex Pretti—a cisgender, heterosexual white man—that knew in the eyes of the state, his life meant more. And so he stepped forward to help a woman under attack by CBP agents, knowing very well he could be killed for it.

It wasn’t the first time Alex Pretti had put himself in harm’s way. CNN reported Tuesday “that about a week before his death, he suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals.” Despite his injury, he came back. 

The people of Minnesota, the rest of the country has learned these past few weeks, just keep coming back. Their relentlessness offers a blueprint for how to react when ICE inevitably arrives somewhere new to stir up trouble where there was none; how to look violence dead in the eye and say not in my town; how to provide aid laterally when you know those at the top won’t be passing any down. 

Headlines call it a “crackdown” on immigration and a “clash” between the government and “protesters,” when in reality it’s murderous occupying forces being confronted by people who just want to live free of their violence. While Greg Bovino has reportedly left town, the terror plays on and the need for neighbors to protect neighbors continues apace. 

Earlier this month I called a man in Minneapolis we’ll say is named James. The line rang a few times with no response, and a few minutes later he called back to explain: He’d been responding to an ICE sighting nearby that had been flagged in a local group chat. James is just a guy. He lives in Minnesota with his family and pays taxes there and has had a generally nice life. But now while working his remote job from home, he runs out at a moment’s notice to protect his neighbors from federal mercenaries. Because that’s what good neighbors do.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the contrast between the unfathomable violence being inflicted by the federal government and the mundane tasks of everyday life. One minute you’re putting the same fork in the dishwasher for the 800th time, the next you’re taking down plate numbers for an SUV with heavily-tinted windows; or in Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s cases, being shot and killed. Renee Good and her wife had just dropped off her six-year-old son at school when she came face-to-face with ICE; despite the unimaginable loss, her wife would still need to pick him up later. 

While the stories of American citizens being harmed by the lawless agencies of DHS seem to be resonating most widely, this is, at its core, about immigrants and immigration. Masked men trawl our streets in search of people who have black or brown skin, who primarily speak a language that isn’t English, plucking them off the street to disappear into the vast bureaucracy of the federal detention system. They’re reduced to an A-Number, a nine-digit identifier from DHS used to track an individual’s movement through the system. The A stands for alien.

Non-citizens caught in DHS’s web of terror don’t get the hero treatment because we don’t know most of their names. They’ve been forced to live in the shadows since Trump declared open season on their lives. While Good and Pretti may inspire us to keep going and to use any privilege we have to stand between the hunters and the hunted, the unnamed and unseen are the ones we’re visibly fighting for. It is because we believe they belong here, that they have legal and human rights, that they deserve to be here just as much as we do that we have this fight at all. And on the rare occasions we do know their names—Wael. Maher. Liam.—we have to shout their stories so loud that it’s impossible for the enemy not to hear. 

One year ago yesterday, I published the story that changed my career and was one of the earliest signs that Trump’s second administration was gunning for total destruction. The White House Office of Management and Budget sent a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies letting them know there would be an imminent “pause” on all federal grants and loans so they could do an audit making sure each they were in compliance with Trump’s hateful values. I was the first one to obtain and publish a copy, and I signed off my piece by writing “One week down. Many to go. Let’s do this, y’all.” It’s hard to believe we made it another 52 weeks. And it’s hard to believe how much the government has been dismantled and how many human rights have been destroyed in that period of time.

I keep searching for a way to sum it all up, to explain to my future self and other’s future selves what it was like living through history. But even for someone like me who has not directly been in harm's way, there are maddeningly few words that feel powerful enough to even describe the experience of simply bearing witness from afar. It feels almost hubristic to think I, or anyone, could possibly capture the current essence of existence.

The enormity of everything feels too monstrous to tackle and words about facts and figures seem locked behind a door. I so badly want to adequately express how it is to be a journalist right now, how it is to simply be a person in this country right now, and sit with the frustration of knowing I can’t. But it’s better to try than risk forgetting. This isn’t the time to say nothing.

Photo by Chad Davis

You’ve probably seen him: The pint-sized CBP chief with the nazi haircut and matching wardrobe stomping around the streets of various US cities and terrorizing innocent people. His name, if you’re fortunate enough to not have learned it by now, is Greg Bovino. And on Tuesday I diagnosed him as a bitch.

This name-calling may seem beneath me, but it’s important to understand two things: one, no it’s not; and two, humiliating fascists is a surprisingly successful tool of resistance. The genesis of bitch diagnosis started last June when I called US Border Czar Tom Homan one on Bluesky in response to some awful thing he’d said. I know it’s a loaded word for some that can be viewed as misogynistic, but when directed at cruel men in power, it just feels right. I meant a bitch in the sense that he’s a whiny baby who takes no responsibility for his actions and blindly follows orders from the Trump administration. Well, this characterization so tickled one of my followers that they sent me $25 on Venmo with the note, “To support calling Tom Homan a bitch.” Naturally I shared a screenshot of the payment, and a few thousands dollars in donations to The Handbasket later, a meme was born. And now it’s helped raise more than $18,000 for immigrant rights in Minnesota.

i've seen enough: greg bovino is a bitch.

— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social)
9:19 PM • Jan 20, 2026

Bovino held a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Minneapolis during which he rubber stamped all of ICE and CBP’s brutal actions against people in the Twin Cities. "Everything we do is legal, ethical and moral," he said. After months of watching this pathetic man tour around the country like a war tourist, I had enough. So I posted on Bluesky, “I’ve seen enough: Greg Bovino is a bitch.” I quickly received a Venmo for it, as has become tradition when I lob the b-word at a Trump lackey, but then it occurred to me this could be a great vehicle for fundraising to help the people hurt most by Bovino and his soldiers. A few minutes later I got another Venmo with the note “Bitch Bovino fund.” And thus the Greg Bovino Bitch Fund Benefiting Immigrant Rights in Minnesota was born. 

Launched at 4:46pm ET on Tuesday, I said that all funds raised through the end of the day would go to an immigrant rights organization in Minnesota. Donations started trickling in, and almost immediately there was one for $500. Then the trickle turned into a stream, with more donations coming in each minute than I could record in real time (including one from Lilly Wachowski, co-director of The Matrix films!) Three hours later, I declared a goal for the end of day: $10,000. We reached it at 9pm.

I knew there would likely be more coming in, but I decided to cap the first donation there and give additional funds to another org. As a result of hundreds of donations, we sent $10k to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, a nonprofit working tirelessly to defend low-income immigrants and refugees, free of charge. It was an organization recommended to me by people on the ground in Minnesota.

I figured a few more dollars would roll in after that initial triumph, but it turned out to be more than a few: By Wednesday afternoon the Greg Bovino Bitch Fund Benefiting Immigrant Rights in Minnesota had raised an additional $8,500. After asking for more recommendations, I chose to send the fund’s money to the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC). It’s an organization that supports immigrants in all areas of life, from housing to food, to workplace and legal support.

While the most grueling and dangerous work is being done on the ground in Minnesota and Maine and communities big and small around the country, it was incredible to see the spirit those frontline responders have inspired in people everywhere who want to help however they can. Maybe you get to call Bovino a bitch to his face; maybe you just donate to the fund. It takes all kinds. While our collective rage isn’t enough to stop every violent, unlawful, inhumane immigrant roundup, a sense of community pride has allowed us to at least protect many of the most vulnerable.

This isn’t typically the station of a journalist. I was brought up in a culture where divorcing yourself from the subject matter was required to be good at your job. But—and pardon the continued cursing—fuck that. I’m here to first and foremost inform and educate, but if I can use this little platform for material change, that’s what I’m going to do. I hope others have the courage of conscience to realize these are not normal times, and society as we know it is slipping away. But it’s time to hold tight to shared human values and try to preserve what is good.

Even if that involves calling someone a bitch.

Related from The Handbasket:

• Behind the disturbing image of ICE snatching a half-naked, elderly Hmong American from his home

• Queer trans ICE protester in small Minn. city recounts agents' violence and humiliation

• The hell of being a ‘Kavanaugh stop’ victim

If you want to support The Handbasket’s 100% independent journalism, subscribe for free now. You can also become a premium subscriber or leave a tip.

It’s an image that will knock you sideways: As snow falls, an elderly man wearing nothing but blue boxers and white Crocs with his hands restrained behind his back is forced out of his home by ICE agents. In the photo captured by photojournalist Leah Millis, you can see a red and white plaid blanket is draped around the man’s shoulders, but his chest is completely bare, exposing him to the harsh elements. It’s something out of a nightmare. It’s something that happened in St. Paul on Sunday.

ChongLy Scott Thao, also known as Saly, is a Hmong American born in Laos who has lived here most of his life. Born in a Laos refugee camp, he’s a US citizen, and St. Paul, Minnesota is his home. His mother Choua, who passed away just three weeks ago, was a nurse who helped American troops during the Laotian Civil War and brought her family stateside post-war as part of a large wave of Southeast Asians seeking refuge. Despite his status, Thao was subjected to the ultimate indignity when federal immigration agents broke down his door Sunday, terrorizing him, his wife and his five-year-old grandson, his family has confirmed. Though he ended up being returned, the damage is done and the message has been sent: If you’re not white, you’re not safe. 

“Whatever you think it is, it’s worse,” Brandi Reilly, a neighbor who witnessed Thao’s detainment, told me by phone on Monday about what it’s been like in the Twin Cities of late. Sunday morning Reilly and her partner Kristi Nelson hit the streets of St. Paul for the first time since the occupation began to serve as observers. First they stood watch outside a local church with a predominately Spanish-speaking congregation, and shortly after a call went out to their Signal group that ICE agents were surrounding a nearby home and observers were needed. They went over, the man’s immigration status immaterial to the effort to protect him.

“There were, gosh, 10-15 agents,” Reilly, a nurse practitioner who has many Hmong patients and has watched up close the impact on the community, recalled. “They were surrounding the house. They all had weapons. People were screaming to see a judicial warrant. They were ignoring everybody. Neighbors were outside. They [the agents] had hands on tear gas, hands on their weapons. It was scary.”

Shortly after the men busted down Thao’s door, they came out with their supposed target in hand: A short, elderly, half-naked man being marched out of his home. Photos from that moment show his grandson looking out the window, a pacifier in his mouth. Brandi said Thao had red marks on his face and legs. “He looked like he had been physically assaulted before they brought him out of the house,” she said. “He just looked terrified and broken.”

Thao was then thrown into an ICE vehicle and taken away. Reilly and Nelson captured video of the whole scene, which I’ve posted to Youtube.

“I am so angry and infuriated over what happened yesterday to my brother-in-law, ChongLy Scott Thao, (Thao) that I can’t sleep,” Louansee Moua, Thao’s sister-in-law, posted to Facebook late Sunday night. “Instead of staying silent, I chose to act.” A post earlier in the day from Brandi confirmed that Thao had been returned, and later a statement from Moua posted on the Hmong American Experience Facebook page confirmed the same. “Saly is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has NO criminal record,” Moua’s statement read. “ICE drove him around for nearly an hour, questioned him, and fingerprinted him. Only after all of that did they realize he had no criminal history and no reason to be detained. They then dropped him back off at his apartment like nothing happened.”

I reached out to Moua for more information about what happened. In response, she shared the text of her Facebook post and later, a statement from the family. She started a GoFundMe for Thao to cover medical and potential legal expenses, which has already raised more than $25k as of this publication.) 

In a sad commentary on the current situation, some of those I spoke to remarked on the fact that Thao was thankfully dropped back home, as opposed to somewhere random like ICE did with a teenage Target worker in Minneapolis last week.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin shared a statement to X at 1:26pm ET Monday afternoon in response to a post about Thao’s arrest, alleging that the operation was targeting “two convicted sex offenders” with final orders of removal from an immigration judge. She claimed, without evidence, that Thao lives with these two men and that he was detained because “he matched the description of the targets.”

A few hours later, the DHS X account posted photos and information for the two Asian men they were supposedly looking for, writing they’re “the WORST OF THE WORST” as an apparent justification for Thao’s arrest. They did not attempt to explain or prove the men were connected to him, and both appear to be significantly younger than him. I reached out to DHS for more clarity, but in the absence of additional information, it appears Thao was taken half-naked in 10 degree weather simply because he’s Asian. 

Moua shared a family statement with The Handbasket late afternoon Monday disputing DHS’s claims. “Mr. Thao is a United States citizen with no criminal record,” the statement said. “He does not live with, nor has he ever lived with, the individuals DHS claims were targets of this operation. The only people residing at the home are Mr. Thao, his son, his daughter-in-law, and his young grandson. They do not know the individuals DHS references.” The family said no warrant was presented, agents did not ask for Thao’s ID, but they “nevertheless forcibly entered the home with weapons drawn.” Moua told The Handbasket that Thao and his family have lived in the home for two years.

St. Paul’s Hmong roots go back at least 50 years when refugees began arriving there from Laos after helping the Americans in the Laotian Civil War (also known as “The Secret War,” which took place concurrently with Vietnam.) Since then, there have been multiple waves of migration resulting in an older first generation community of mixed citizenship status—some non-citizens, but most naturalized citizens, like Thao. Regardless, Hmong people are knit into the fabric of the Twin Cities. 

According to the US Census Bureau, an estimated 360,000 people who identify as Hmong live in the United States, at more than 90,000, the metropolitan area with the largest Hmong population is Minneapolis/St. Paul. This past November, the city of St. Paul elected its first Hmong American mayor, Kaohly Her. Mayor Her testified before members of Congress last week who traveled to Minnesota to address the ongoing siege, and shared how the ICE occupation has impacted her community.

“We received reports of federal law enforcement officers going door to door, asking people where the Asian people live, right in our very own city,” Mayor Her said. “I myself have received advice to carry my passport with me, because they may try to target me based on what I look like as well.”

Her’s testimony and Thao’s experience fly in the face of what DHS Kristi Noem has claimed about ICE actions in Minnesota. “In every situation, we’re doing targeted enforcement,” Noem told White House reporters on Thursday. “If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there and having them validate their identity.”

The fear and trauma gripping the Twin Cities comes in many forms. Reilly, the observer, shared how her children grew fearful for her safety after hearing about Renee Good’s murder by ICE. “They came to me and they said, ‘Mommy, we don't want you to get shot. You're a lesbian and they shot a lesbian.” 

Even so, Reilly and Nelson feel it’s their duty as white women to help protect their neighbors of color. “We might not have been alive for Stonewall, but by God, we're alive for this,” Reilly said. And what they witnessed on Sunday has only strengthened their commitment to observing and bearing witness.  

“While ChongLy was not physically injured, the emotional and psychological harm has been profound,” Moua wrote on his GoFundMe. “ChongLy also lives with severe psoriasis, a chronic condition that is significantly worsened by extreme stress. Since the incident, his health and emotional well-being have declined.” 

Thao is considered one of the lucky ones, but that hardly means he escaped unscathed. ICE’s lawlessness in Minnesota and beyond is creating new physical and moral injuries every day that will likely take a lifetime to heal.

Send tips via Signal to marisakabas.04 or via email to mkwrites4000@proton.me

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When Alice Valentine heard ICE agents were swarming a shopping center filled with Somali-owned businesses on Monday, she woke up her girlfriend Sofia, grabbed a backpack with respirators and whistles that they put together based on an protest preparedness article they read last week, and immediately drove over to help. The St. Cloud, Minnesota couple who are both American citizens are not seasoned protesters; they’re new to this type of action, which they learned about from a ICE watch Signal group chat formed in the wake of Renee Good’s recent murder. And within a few moments of arriving at the parking lot, they were shoved to the ground by agents, pepper sprayed, thrown in a van and hauled away.

I was fortunate to speak to Alice via phone on Wednesday, two days after her and Sofia’s violent and shocking ordeal. The 25-year-old and her girlfriend, who are both queer and trans, co-own a salon in the small city about an hour from Minneapolis that offers massage and electrolysis services catering to the queer and trans clients. While Alice has spent the past year or so devoted to creating solidarity in the local queer community, coming face-to-face with law enforcement to protect her immigrant neighbors was something brand new. While Minneapolis is rightly in the spotlight for ICE brutality, she wants people to understand that the agency is lashing out well beyond city boundaries, and smaller towns are being caught under the administration’s violent and punishing boot.

“A lot of people think that St. Cloud is sort of a Republican town, but the reality is that the surrounding small towns are very red.” Alice told me, “St. Cloud itself is fairly left-leaning.”  That’s why when—hours after the ICE murder or Renee Good—she heard 200 agents were coming directly to their town, she started chatting with other locals to organize and protect their neighbors. By Saturday, the first ICE agents were spotted in town. And when more than 50 ICE agents descended to round up local immigrants and their defenders on Monday, Alice and Sofia were ready.

Within 10 seconds of arriving at the Star City Mall, Alice said a silver Dodge pulled up and armed ICE agents got out. “I'm not a gun person, but the guns were really big. They weren't just like standard police pistols,” Alice said. “And so I started recording.” 

Alice and Sofia walked up to the agents and asked what the guns were for, and an agent immediately pushed Sofia. “I say, ‘Don't shove my fucking girlfriend,’ and he shoves me,” Alice recalled, “and then then it evolves really fast from there. Like I have pepper spray in my eyes. It's all over my body. And they're putting handcuffs on both of us.” A state senator was also reportedly pepper sprayed, among many others in the crowd.

At that point, the agents had Sofia on the ground as Alice tried to get the attention of other protesters to help them. “And I'm screaming for help. I'm saying that I'm a US citizen, that I was just there to record. But they [ICE] ignore me, and then they throw us in the van.”

In the video captured by a bystander and shared directly with The Handbasket, you can see them in the back row of an unmarked van, struggling to keep their eyes open as tear gas burns while yelling for help. Shortly after, they were en route to the Whipple Building in Minneapolis—ICE HQ in Minnesota—with three other detainees, at least two of whom Alice believes were Somali. 

“It was an emotional car ride,” Alice said. “Like at one point, my girlfriend and I were crying, and the man in the middle, he was a Somali guy. His face was really beat up. And he turned back to us, and he says, ‘God is with us. If God is with you, have nothing to fear.’” While it provided some comfort to Sofia, Alice said that as a person who’s not religious, it didn’t feel like there was anyone there to protect them.

Once they reached the Whipple Building, Alice and Sophia were given one water bottle which they immediately drank. It left them with nothing to treat their tear gas wounds, and when Alice called to ask for more water and additional treatment, she said they were instead met with more casual cruelty.

“I pressed the call button, and I was like, ‘We were pepper sprayed. We need medical attention as soon as possible.’ And there was just a pause, and we heard laughter in the background. And then a lady was like, ‘It's gonna be a while. We don't have medical on-site.’”

The two were questioned separately by ICE officers, and Sofia was subjected to particularly invasive and humiliating questions. They asked her if she had had a sex change and if she had a penis. Alice said back in the cell Sofia told her she answered truthfully to both questions to avoid the officers from groping her for answers. 

I asked Alice if she felt like, as visibly queer people, they were particular targets at the protest of agents working for an administration known to be virulently anti-LGBTQ+, and especially after they shot Renee Good four times—including once in the head—and killed her in a car with her wife Becca. Alice said it didn’t occur to her until she had time to reflect in the van. She said to Sofia “You know, I just realized that they probably knew Renee was a lesbian before they shot her.”

That realization continued to fester while Alice was locked up in Minneapolis. “When I was in the cell, I overheard a woman asking to call her girlfriend, and I started crying because I just thought of Renee, and I thought of my girlfriend and this girl. And I was like, ‘Why are so many lesbians being fucked up by ICE right now?’”

This week, journalist Katelyn Burns wrote about this dynamic. “The message is clear: looking wrong to a conservative, speaking wrong to a conservative man, not bowing and scraping to conservatives, or even just loving the ‘wrong’ gender, means you are an enemy. An enemy that should be put down.”

After several hours in a cell with untreated wounds, Alice and Sofia were released from ICE custody. They were given no reason for their release, nor were they told what comes next. All of their personal belongings were returned to them except their cell phones, which remain with ICE.

Even in the wake of ICE descending upon his city without warning, brutalizing residents and whisking them away, St. Cloud Mayor Jake Anderson has kept his response passive and tepid: “There’s a lot of folks that are telling me that I should pull a [Minneapolis Mayor Jacob] Frey and tell them to get the F out. I don’t think that helps,” Anderson told a local news outlet earlier in the week. And on Thursday he told St. Cloud Live, “We’re limited in our role and I don’t want to attempt to step into lanes we can’t do anything about, because I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful.”

But the bonds of community that have been so quickly built in the face of state-sponsored violence cannot be undone. Alice said she sustained a sprained ankle during the ICE attack—which has left her temporarily unable to perform her job—and while at urgent care after her release she happened to meet a neighbor in the waiting room and they exchanged numbers. The Signal chat lives on, and while ICE has been relatively quiet in St. Cloud since Monday, people in the community are primed to defend their immigrant neighbors. 

“In retrospect, I would have done it again,” Alice told me. “Like, it was the most miserable day of my whole life. But I would do it again because I think that people need to know how evil ICE is and that this is happening, and that this isn't about putting murderers and rapists away. It's about racism, it's about Nazism, it's about fascism, and we need to do anything we can to stop it.”

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Lewiston, Maine

As ICE continues its deadly assault on Minneapolis and communities throughout the country, its likely next target has been revealed: The state of Maine. On Tuesday I learned that people were gearing up for enforcement actions based on rumors, and by Wednesday the mayors of the state's two largest cities addressed it, decrying ICE tactics as a “paramilitary approach.”

Mayor of Portland Mayor Mark Dion issued this statement Wednesday afternoon:

Just before Dion’s statement, Carl Sheline, Mayor of Lewiston, Maine published a statement of his own via Facebook confirming that ICE would be coming to their city as well.

Located 30 or so miles north of Portland, Lewiston is home to a large Somali-American population that goes back decades. There are an estimated 6,000 Somalis in Maine, with a large portion of that population concentrated in Lewiston. ICE would not confirm whether or not that was the basis for targeting Lewiston, or even confirm pending enforcement in the city or state. When reached for comment, an ICE spokesperson told The Handbasket Wednesday morning: “For reasons of operational security and officer safety, ICE does not comment on ongoing, upcoming or planned enforcement operations.”

A government source in Portland confirmed Mayor Dion and Mayor Sheline met on Tuesday to discuss how to handle the incoming ICE presence. There’s an ICE detention center in Scarborough, Maine just south of Portland which local sources speculate will serve as a home base for ICE actions in the area. 

Thanks to unfounded claims last month by a right wing Youtuber of widespread fraud across Minneapolis childcare centers run by Somali Americans, the community has become a target of ICE ire. The Trump administration announced this week it would be ending Temporary Protective Status for immigrants from Somalia, which has allowed them to live and work legally in the US. And predating this is the constant drumbeat of threats against Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a fierce progressive champion and herself a Somalian refugee who came seeking asylum in the US with her family. Now it seems that ire will be extended to the Somali community in Maine.

As rumors of ICE activity began to swirl earlier in the week, Portland Public Schools put out this statement in their community newsletter:

Attendance at Portland schools was down by as much as 25% this week, according to the government source, out of fear among immigrant families that ICE might already be lurking. I’ve been in touch with Portland Public Schools to confirm this figure, but they have not yet provided any statistics. 

Though it’s probably obvious, it’s important to underline that there are no current violent crime threats in either Portland nor Lewiston from immigrants or US citizens. According to analysis from October, Lewiston is among the top 10 safest cities in America based on a formula of home and community safety, natural disaster risk and financial safety. But as we’ve well-learned by now, this administration doesn’t need any legitimate pretense to invade safe American communities and leave them much worse off than they found them. 

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