News & Commentary

The road to Artesia from Las Cruces, New Mexico, is a scenic three-hour drive past pristine white sand dunes, through chilly, foggy mountain ranges, and across flat, open pampas spotted with yucca plants. Artesia, itself, is a dusty town of around 11,000 people, mostly farmers, ranchers, and workers at local oil wells and refineries.

I traveled that road myself this week, on my way to the new Family Residential Center in Artesia run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This facility currently houses around 620 women and children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It’s the first step in the federal government’s ill-advised plans to dramatically expand the warehousing of vulnerable children and their parents in facilities throughout the country, at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars.

This piece originally appeared at Defense One.
Muhammad

We still don't know where the drugs came from.

This piece originally ran on MSNBC.com.

They say you can't fight city hall, but sometimes there's no other choice.

Imagine entering family court and knowing that what's at stake is the person you hold most dear – your child. Now imagine having a judge tell you that he's removing your child from your custody, from your home. When you ask him why, the judge's replies, "I honestly can't tell you." The judge then signs an order giving custody of your son to Social Services.

“Many of you have worked for a long time to see this day coming. You organized, you spoke up, you signed petitions, you sent letters -- I know because I got a lot of them.”  

This piece originally ran on Al Jazeera America.

Right now we are in a storm of contested rights, as businesses and institutions across the country ask for express legal permission to use religion to discriminate based on sexual orientation, sex, and gender identity.