Theme: official narrative
The gap between official accounts and what evidence shows — propaganda, denial, and the deployment and unraveling of state-issued fictions.
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The First Bumbling Raid
Investigative journalist Radley Balko launched an ongoing series cataloguing the false official statements that the Department of Homeland Security has issued after specific acts of abuse or violence by ICE and Border Patrol officers in the field; the first installment examines the illegal raid on ChongLy Scott Thao and his family.
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When the Body Cameras Caught the Chase
Body camera footage from an October 2025 Chicago incident contradicts the Department of Homeland Security's account: Border Patrol agents continued a high-speed pursuit against direct supervisor orders to end it, blew a tire, crashed, and then deployed tear gas in the surrounding neighborhood.
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When the Cameras Came Out
Federal prosecutions of protesters and others accused of 'assaulting' or 'impeding' federal officers have repeatedly collapsed when courtroom evidence — particularly video — contradicted the officers' sworn statements.
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Seventy-Three Percent
Of people booked into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since the start of the second Trump administration's enforcement push, seventy-three percent had no criminal conviction of any kind; eight percent had a conviction for a violent or property offense.
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The Sheriff Who Spoke Up
A day after Cumberland County, Maine sheriff Kevin Joyce publicly criticized ICE for arresting one of his corrections officers, ICE served the county with a subpoena demanding employment data on every person who had worked at the jail since January 2025; the agency separately ended its long-standing detention contract with the county.
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The Doxxing That Hasn't Happened
The Department of Homeland Security has cited doxxing of ICE agents and rising assaults as the public rationale for permitting agents to operate while masked; according to DHS's own press releases, no ICE agent has been doxxed or assaulted in connection with this rationale since the start of the second Trump administration.
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Fifty-Nine Million, Conservatively
A Chicago Tribune review of court filings, databases, and public records puts the federal cost of Operation Midway Blitz, the immigration enforcement surge in Illinois, at at least fifty-nine million dollars over four months — a back-of-the-envelope figure DHS declined to confirm or contest.
2026
2025
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Less Than a Minute
A New York Times reconstruction of the September 12 Chicago-area shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez — drawing on surveillance footage, body-camera video, and bystander recordings — contradicts the DHS account: the videos do not show Villegas-Gonzalez striking either officer with his car, and one of the officers describes his own injuries on camera as 'nothing major.'
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What the Body Cam Said
Federal agents shot Marimar Martinez, a US citizen in Chicago, multiple times; the Department of Homeland Security's account claimed she menaced agents with a gun and her car, but charging documents and body camera footage have since contradicted nearly every element.
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What the Cold War Did to Passports
Historian Julia Rose Kraut, author of 'Threat of Dissent,' surfaced the Kent v. Dulles precedent on Bluesky in response to an Intercept report that Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who has already sought to punish immigrants for their speech — would have new legislative authority to extend that punishment to U.S. citizens; in 1958 the Supreme Court held that the right to travel cannot be conditioned on a citizen's political speech.