In November, local media reported that a drag show planned in Southern Pines, NC was prompted "a big reaction" from "critics." A letter sent by a Christian school to local businesses was quoted, warning of "LGBTQ forces" coming after children. Yesterday that drag show was cut short because substations were shot in what is being called a "targeted" attack, leaving more than 40,000 residents without power.

Because of the Senate hearing yesterday, I see a lot of folks re-appalled by the forced sterilizations that happened to women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center. I think it's important to note that there has been ZERO accountability. I'm working on reporting about this now, but the Senate hearing only confirmed what women detained at ICDC have been telling us. Dr. Mahendra Amin subjected them to unnecessary operations and other gynecological procedures without their full and informed consent.

This morning for @prismreports I interviewed a 62-year-old healthcare worker with absolutely no safety net for retirement and who must work two jobs to make ends meet. She's organizing for workers' rights in the south. Racial justice is at the center of much of this multiracial, multigenerational labor organizing in the south because racist anti-worker laws were designed to exclude Black and brown workers from labor protections.

ATTENTION NORTH CAROLINA REPORTERS: I hope you are paying attention to this reporting about the use of child labor by Packers Sanitation Services. This company is operating in our state. kcur.org/news/2022-11-1… When I was working on this reporting for @scalawagmag about Mountaire Farms' treatment of undocumented workers in North Carolina, Packers Sanitation Services came up in a few records I obtained from DOL. scalawagmagazine.org/2021/07/mounta…

A group of migrants were hunted and shot by brothers Michael and Mark Sheppard last month. At the time, Michael was warden of the West Texas Detention Center run by the private prison company LaSalle Corrections. Under the Trump admin, this would have been much bigger news. Multiple publications have identified Jesus Ivan Sepulveda Martinez as one of the migrants who was shot. Michael Sheppard reportedly shot the 22-year-old in the head and he died at the scene. Another victim, who was shot in the stomach, is recovering and has not been identified.

I wrote about the attacks on Drag Queen Story, why they’re happening, and what queens and Drag Queen Story Hour’s original creators think about it: prismreports.org/2022/07/01/you… This is actually serious reporting! But this might be one of my favorite paragraphs I’ve ever written.

Two men, who didn't identify themselves, came to my dad's house and started asking questions about his internet service provider, the cost of his monthly bill, etc. I hovered in the background and listened because I immediately got scam vibes. This one dude does a bunch of fake math and yammers on about download speeds, which he knows my dad doesn’t know anything about.

It is very very very very very very very hard to see just how differently asylum seekers are treated/reported on based on race and country of origin. Look at the coverage of Ukrainian migrants and compare it to reporting about Black and brown migrants and understand that the same media that (rightfully) bashed Trump for saying "shit hole countries" in practice, operates with the same belief.

I first reported on Susana Coreas for @prismreports in April. She is a trans asylum seeker who was waylaid in Mexico during Covid, so she created a shelter for trans and gender nonconforming migrants waiting for their chance to request asylum in the U.S. prismreports.org/2021/04/20/est… Like many of the trans women she was in the shelter with, she needed a sponsor. Just a couple of weeks after this story was published, Susana got her chance to request asylum in the U.S., but she did so without a sponsor.

In light of the news that the remains of 215 children were found at the site of a former residential school, I’m reading about how these schools came to be in Canada. The Canadian Prime Minister John Macdonald commissioned journalist & politician Nicholas Flood Davin to study similar “schools” for Indigenous children in the U.S. Davin recommended Canada follow the U.S. example of “aggressive civilization.”

BREAKING: DHS has instructed ICE to terminate its contract with the Irwin County Detention Center where detained women were sterilized. This was made possible by impacted people who spoke out against the abuse they experienced. prismreports.org/2021/05/20/ice… Advocates are hopeful that this will lead to the closure of ICDC, which has been at the center of allegations of human rights abuse and medical neglect for years. ICE began to transfer women from ICDC to Lumpkin, GA's Stewart Detention Center in Jan. By April, none remained.

NEW: Attorneys say that for more than a decade, the State Department has been “obsessed” with denying/revoking passports for Mexican American U.S. citizens. Attorney @prernaplal calls this "de facto denaturalization" & it's happening to their client: prismreports.org/2021/03/29/a-m… The State Department essentially questions whether Mexican American U.S. citizens from border states are indeed citizens, and the agency makes them jump through hoops to prove they were born in the U.S. -- only to revoke their passport or deny their ability to renew it.

As a newbie labor reporter, I'm struggling with: 1. Referring to people as "workers," as if there is nothing beyond labor. 2. Labor reporting that only ever covers undocumented communities in passing, if at all. By "struggling with" I mean I see it a lot in beat reporting, and I'm thinking through how I want to address it in my own reporting.

NEW: @Grassroots_News partnered with Texas Law and Immigration Clinic for a new report that shows how privately owned companies profit from the detainment of vulnerable asylum-seeking women at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in TX: prismreports.org/2021/03/26/tex… A group of formerly detained women have also formed a group called Mujeres Luchadoras & their goal is to shut Hutto down. They are organized by Sulma Franco, a queer asylum seeker from Guatemala who was detained at Hutto. They performed an action this week outside of Hutto.

ICE is reporting that it signed an $86.9 million contract with a non-profit called Endeavors to provide "temporary shelter" for migrant families: ice.gov/news/releases/… Endeavors appears to have been involved with a number of tent cities for migrant families, including Tornillo: endeavors.org/endeavors-invo…

I received my first shot today at a vaccine site in North Carolina run by FEMA. In case it's helpful, I'll share a few observations. I was asked for no identification or other information. I made the appointment online and checked in with my name. For folks working under a different name, this is important to note.

NEW: The Biden administration has spent Black History Month deporting Black immigrants. I spoke to @UndocuBlack’s @UndocuBlack_Pat and @HaitianBridge’s @GuerlineMJozef about the deportations, the media’s erasure of Black immigrants, and fairweather allies: prismreports.org/article/2021/2… In a nutshell.

NEW: No More Deaths & La Coalición de Derechos Humanos detail how when 911 response systems receive distress calls from migrating people, those calls are transferred to Border Patrol. Overwhelmingly, the agency leaves people to die in the desert: prismreports.org/article/2021/2… This is what this looks like in practice:

This week I published a new story on Mahendra Amin, the Douglas, GA doctor alleged to have performed operations on detained women without their full consent. This reporting included new allegations from former patients, some going back more than 20 years: prismreports.org/article/2020/1… In this reporting I wrote that the story about Mahendra Amin is also a story about ICE & rural health care. The former patients who came forward to speak were not detained women. They are white women living in the rural Georgia where half the counties don't have an OB-GYN.

EXCLUSIVE: Mahendra Amin, the doctor accused of performing surgeries on detained women without their full and informed consent, is also facing allegations from former patients in GA: prismreports.org/article/2020/1… A few important take aways: Just like women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center, former patients who spoke to me in this article allege rough treatment, lack of concern and care, and instances in which they were operated on that they now believe were wholly unnecessary

Based on tweets about my reporting, here are some things I hope you all will consider/understand: 1. Based on what I know and have heard, it is detained women who feel they were mistreated by Dawn Wooten, and some of these women are also Black. The mistreatment isn't just "jokes" and they are not allegations simply steeped in anti-Blackness.