@itscaitlinhd
@itscaitlinhd
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On a break from social media. Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and feature writer at @theatlantic, via @nytimes & @npr. [email protected].
Brooklyn
Joined October 2011
1/ I've spent the last 18 months investigating how our government reached the point of taking children away from their parents as a way to discourage migration to the United States. Here's my story about how and why it happened, and who's responsible.
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4/The implications cannot be overstated. At press time, the parents of 185 separated children still had not been found. Even those who have been reunified remain, in many cases, profoundly traumatized. Both parents and children are struggling with severe mental illness.
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3/It's easy to blame family separations on a few hawks and a chaotic administration, but they were co-signed by dozens of high ranking political appointees and bureaucrats. Some actively supported the idea, but many simply declined to push back, figuring that someone else would.
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8/When I asked government officials how this could have happened, many told me they had no idea how badly awry separations would go. But government records show the opposite-everything that went wrong was documented in advance warnings. Still, the administration forged ahead.
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12/And the work is ongoing. @iamfannygarcia and @NaraMilanich are recording the oral histories of separated families to ensure that their stories are preserved.
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5/For years we've been told that separations were done humanely and without incident. That's not true. Neris González, a Salvadoran consular worker, recalls kids being physically pulled back and forth between their parents and agents; she worried some might get hurt.
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2/ Beyond the answers to those initial questions, I came away with a new understanding of the government processes and procedures that exist to prevent bad policies from being implemented--systems that in this case, were dismantled, disempowered or ignored.
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9/This piece is the continuation of a body of work by many reporters who helped to uncover family separations before they were publicly acknowledged, during the many months when government officials were misleading congress and the public about what they were doing.
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7/González can still hear the children's ear-piercing screams. She recalls getting ready to leave the facility at the end of the day. The children hugged and clung to her, begging her not to leave them in the detention center alone.
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11/There are too many to name, but among them @JuliaEAinsley @lomikriel @jacobsoboroff @gingerthomp1 @mariasacchetti @nickmiroff @dlind @jonathanblitzer @haleaziz and of course, @nixonron @mirjordan @shearm and @juliehdavis. The list goes on and on. Please add to it.
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A judge has ordered that Kirstjen Nielsen be deposed in a lawsuit over family separations.
BREAKING: Former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's Deposition Approved by Court, Citing Compelling Evidence of "Bad Faith" in Family Separation Practices. Learn more in our press release:
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6/She says the CBP processing center where she worked was virtually locked down while separations were underway. No one outside of government was allowed in to see what was going on.
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13/This story couldn't have happened w/out my brilliant colleagues, starting w/ the unparalleled @sstossel. @AndrewAoyama's research was indispensable, as was a copy and checking army, plus our photo, art and experimental storytelling departments. I'm so lucky to work with them.
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1/ For the Atlantic's September cover story, I took 3 trips to the Darien Gap to try to understand the forces driving people there: instability, policy failures, and smuggling orgs that are eager to take advantage. @lynseyaddario captured it all.
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Good journalism calls out (bipartisan) political talking points that are *designed* to mislead the public, and then follows them up with the truth. This is not an added bonus, if you manage to get to it in your story. It's the whole job.
Asylum is not a "loophole." It is the law. Providing access to it is required by U.S. & international statute. These are facts. Facts are our job. How & why do the biggest news organizations in the U.S. publish & promote blatant inaccuracies on immigration? It is irresponsible.
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1/The WaPo ed board to congress in response to our story on family separations: "Mr. Trump pushed to revive it, and he could do so again if he wins a second term. There has been no accounting for the officials who conceived, pushed and carried it out. "
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Texas officials acknowledge that they are taking fathers away from their spouses and children. And some Texas troopers are wearing green uniforms, confusing families who think they're turning themselves over to immigration agents.
Exclusive: Texas troopers have split up at least 26 families at the border by detaining fathers on trespassing charges, while the other members — including small children — are transferred to Border Patrol, sources tell @JustJhair and me
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Stephen Miller was the closest we’ve had to a border czar—chaos ensued. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s actual job has been to address the “root causes” of migration, something we hear little about in the debate. So I broke down some of them.
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1/T-42 coverage depicting migrants as inherently threatening--ppl who will take your jobs, your safety, your health, your *something*--plays into centuries-old xenophobic stereotypes that have never been borne out by facts.
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We tend to forget that the last president to oversee record breaking numbers of migration prior to Biden was Trump.
A strange thing about media coverage of Trump and the border: It largely erases his term as president. He didn't fix anything. He too released many migrants. He couldn't get his own plan passed *with unified GOP control.* My new piece gets into this:.
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I am being asked at NABJ if I would ever be interested in audio. The erasure must stop!
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I had the privilege of joining the best, and my favorite anchor @Yamiche, to talk about migration through the Darien Gap. Thank you! 🙏🏾🙏🏾.
Today, I interviewed my dear sister-friend, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist @itscaitlinhd about her latest cover story for @TheAtlantic on @MSNBC. She wrote about the Darien Gap and the families and children making the dangerous journey.
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This implications of this change in Florida law are massive. Here's a (2020) story that looks at the dangerous consequences of mixing fear of immigration enforcement with healthcare. w/ @lynseyaddario
Florida hospitals will now ask about your immigration status. What to know, how to answer
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I'm so honored to have won this year's Livingston Award for National Reporting. And I implore you to go read and watch the work of my fellow winners--I'm in awe of them.
Congratulations to Caitlin Dickerson - @itscaitlinhd of The Atlantic our 2023 National Reporting winner for “We Need to Take Away Children”. Read more about Dickerson's story here 👉 @UMichiganNews
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“Was it the image of Massey standing on her porch, as the light emanating from her living room highlighted her slender frame? I saw a small woman in her nightclothes having a tense exchange with an officer who was bigger. And stronger. And armed.”.
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Less than 5% of border crossers are from Muslim-majority countries, yet @Haleaziz found that they made up more than *60%* of people charged over 18-months in Del Rio, TX under a rarely used, and especially harsh, border crossing statute.
We uncovered a federal effort that disproportionately prosecuted migrants from Muslim countries at the border. The migrants, like Afghan journalists/activists, were jailed for months. DOJ stopped after our inquiry. “Why is it just us in detention?”.
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2/ ". Nor has the U.S. government offered the traumatized families permanent legal residence in the United States, even as a means of reuniting deported parents with their children. It is past time for Congress to address these issues.".
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The secret is out! I was once a cheerleader… and I watched 7 hours of television about cheerleaders… and here are my thoughts:.
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1/If you want to make a movie about the impact of journalism, I would start by incorporating a single person consuming journalism… having their assumptions challenged, discovering nuance they didn’t realize existed before, being moved. I saw none of that in Civil War.
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I woke up at 4:45 to bring you the news in the only TV hit that wasn't blown out by veepstakes and the election. We got into it anyway. But the point is, never say I'm uncommitted!.
.@itscaitlinhd joined @kasie to discuss her expansive reporting from an epicenter of the migration crisis and how what's happening at the southern border will impact @KamalaHarris in 2024 ⬇️
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Came her to say that @Sulliview, one of my heroes, complimented the speech that I gave at @columbiajourn school yesterday so I will be retiring. (Kidding. but I will be soaring for a while.) . Forgive the cliche, she is a north star!.
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3/ The real winners from the senate negotiations (whether or not the border bill passes) are Trump’s anti-immigrant advisers, who successfully leveraged his messaging abilities to shift the national debate, such that Dems are now embracing ideas that were once considered fringe.
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1/ The thing about a border czar is that, if we had one, they would be ineffectual. Time and again, we've seen that it's all but impossible to control global migration patterns from the US border alone. Just ask the United States Border Patrol.
Republicans are attacking Harris over the Biden Admin’s border policies. That was both predictable & inevitable. But the lines they’re using to do it are wildly inaccurate—even desperate. The real story of her role as VP is far more interesting. My latest:
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1/ Coming out of my writing hole to say: It’s important in pointing out Trump’s efforts to undermine bipartisanship that we don’t accidentally imply the Senate Border Bill would magically fix decades of immigration issues.
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So very honored and grateful to have been selected as part of the phenomenal new class of New America fellows. And congratulations to my fellow class members! Can't wait to start working with you.
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A periodic reminder to be skeptical if someone tells you a simple narrative about how border crossings are up or down bc of X. Is their evidence merely correlative? What motivations may they have to push the narrative? Any factors they may be leaving out, intentionally or not?.
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Very sad content warning. Khán was swept away by a flash flood in the Darién Gap last December. When I asked his mom about sharing this, she replied, "Share it with everyone and stop this from happening… too much painful loss for me.". Read his story: .
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From now on, when I'm asked why our country's immigration system is still broken, I'm just going to quote this column by @hwypol: . (
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Here's my interview with @arishapiro on @npratc about our @TheAtlantic cover story on family separations carried out under the Trump administration.
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1/ICYMI: Matt Albence, an enthusiastic proponent for Zero Tolerance who tried to stop separated families from being reunited (writing, “We can’t have this”) is poised to join GEO, a private prison company that is federally contracted to detain migrants.
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1/Happy belated pub-day to @rachelswarns and her powerful new book, The 272. It painstakingly details how the American Catholic church simply would not exist as we know it today if it had not owned and sold (not freed) enslaved people--often tearing families apart in doing so.
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Beyond honored to have been selected by the @silversfound judges, and to be in the company of such brilliant colleagues. Onward. And thank you.
Caitlin Dickerson @itscaitlinhd is a winner of the 2023 Robert B. Silvers Prize for Journalism. The judges praised Dickerson for her “dogged, exhaustive reporting, which illuminates the magnitude of America's ongoing immigration crisis.”.
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4/Importantly, I learned that the death tolls we have are significant undercounts. A 9-year-old from Vietnam named Khan took the same route I did only a week later and was swept away by a flash flood. These are the consequences of a failure to address mass migration.
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A must read for New Yorkers (and anyone concerned about the US border):.
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I'll be on @CNN at 10pm to discuss the week's news. To recap: Yesterday, Trump suggested he would reimpose family separations if elected again. Tomorrow, the pre-textual Title 42 policy ends. (Oh and Monday I won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on immigration.) Hello!.
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Since 2020, public servants who've spent careers working to protect elections "have been harassed, intimidated, and in many cases driven out of office. " . Now, they are "wondering if anything can stop the collapse of our most essential institution." .
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Nobody keeps it real like Linda! I loved and treasure the opportunities I had to learn from her.
News: Linda Wertheimer is retiring after 53 years at NPR. She directed the very first day of All Things Considered, and later hosted it. NPR exec Edith Chapin writes: “None of us would be here today without Linda’s commitment.” We celebrate her tomorrow on Morning Edition.
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3/I came away with new insights into deterrent policies—ones that reroute migration through dangerous paths without actually minimizing it. Again and again, I heard that the reasons people had left home were simply more foreboding than the roadblocks we put in their way.
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Re-upping my story about a small town that was terrorized the first time Trump ran for president. Local officials received death threats and battled depression. They were all republicans, and the saga began with an anti immigrant conspiracy theory.
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Deterrence: . "It seems like this is the worst ever tragedy we’ve seen in the Mediterranean." .
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3/Don't just take pictures of people at their worst, looking desperate. Talk to economists and business owners. Schools. Transportation. Hospitals. Find out what this really means for American life; don't vaguely imply a looming doomsday.
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2/Each time I returned, I saw new bridges and paved roads appear deeper in the jungle, Wi‑Fi hotspots extend their reach, and landmarks that were previously known only by word of mouth appear on Google Maps--all of which speak to the overwhelming power of global displacement.
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4/For ex., my sources in NYC migrant shelters say that newcomers are typically employed within days of their arrival, heading to work 6-7 days a week for jobs in construction, food delivery, cleaning, gardening.
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For having $100 more than an ill-conceived asset limit allows, the gov't charged a poor elderly woman $20k. More great reporting from @NPRJoeShapiro. He tirelessly seeks out high need, low glamour stories, and they have major impact. We should all be a bit more like Joe. .
50 years ago, SSI was created to lift impoverished disabled/elderly from poverty. NPR investigation finds its dated rules and absurd bureaucracy now keep people stuck in poverty
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Always read @JerusalemDemsas. So many parallels here to the intractability on border issues: . Voter frustration empowers politicians who promise to "crack down" -- which has no discernible impact on the problem, for anyone.
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5/Doomsday coverage is great for local pols who now have an excuse for why they haven't successfully addressed homelessness in their cities (distracting from the fact that this was the case before anything changed at the border--see Invisible Child, for ex.).
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2/The resource strain at the border and in some cities (including mine) is real, but it's not the full, fact-based picture of how newcomers would impact American society. It's a tiny fraction of it.
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This rare 18 minute (!!) TV hit summarizes years of reporting on family separations, with some bonus material on the growing challenge of forced migration worldwide. Thank you so much for having me @AmanpourCoPBS and @NPRMichel.
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4/ The fact that Trump's concern with immigration stems only from its ability to help him win elections is well documented old news. He may kill this bill & win a battle that helps him in Nov, but the folks writing his immigration policies are thinking (and winning) much bigger.
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Big news.
NEW . Trump administration officials Jeff Sessions and Kirstjen Nielsen ordered to testify on family separations
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The Atlantic publishes “Si Trump gana,” Spanish translation of “If Trump Wins” special issue.
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7/Further reading on the impact of fear-mongering, which is as old as our country:
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Since backing away from settlement negotiations, Biden's DOJ has been arguing zealously in court against separated families who've sued the government for damages. They're doing so using arguments that are provably untrue.
NEW: In court filing last week, as Biden task force works to reunite hundreds of families still separated after being torn apart by Trump admin, Biden DOJ argues lawsuits filed by families should be tossed because policy was "adopted" for "perceived humanitarian considerations."
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6/Such coverage is also wonderful for pols who promote the great replacement theory and its euphemistic variants, scaring the audience without providing them with important context.
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Politics, as journalism, suffers when we stop listening. Stephanie McCrummen spent time with Black voters in a storied Dem stronghold, where Tiktok is shaping views, yet "no Biden campaign offices had opened yet, and no caravan of organizers was rolling into town.".
Long before the debate, there were troubling signs for Biden in the strongest of Democratic strongholds, where loyalties are fraying, and right-wing propaganda is seeping into social media feeds of young black voters.
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Asma is one of the most rigorous, fair and empathetic reporters covering politics today. We’re all so much better off thanks to her work.
There’s been a LOT of incoming over the years - often directed at the scarf, and what folks imagine I’m supposed to be. But, randomly, twice this week, two separate strangers stopped me on the street to tell me how much they appreciate my work on TV. And it meant so much 🙏.
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4/My husband who works in film says I shouldn't spoil the ending, so I'll just say that the actions of the "writer" character (who doesn't write a single word in the film) made me say something like "that's so stupid" out loud in the theater.
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Important: Massive thx to @daniguerreroo & @vitachronicles for toiling through hours of audio from the Darien, w an assist from @giselasalimp . These women—a PhD and two journos—have produced great work and are just getting started. So glad to have them on my team and me theirs!.
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🙏🏾😭!.
ASME Awards 2023: @TheAtlantic nominated in Public Interest category for "We Need to Take Away Children.," by @itscaitlinhd #ASMEAwards.
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1/ Some eye-popping details from @vanromo 's write up of Florida's new immigration law: The Florida Policy Institute estimates that without undocumented workers, the state's GDP would drop by $12.6 billion in one year.
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🙏🏾.
A breathtaking achievement by @itscaitlinhd and @lynseyaddario. It's not just an urgent story of human suffering, but one that seems almost impossible in its reporting challenges. They scaled boulders and forded rivers to bring you this story. Read it.
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Trump administration officials were warned that sanctions would cause Venezuelan children to go hungry, and cause mass migration to the US. They moved forward anyway. Great reporting.
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2/ To that end, it would be cool to see some evidence-based analysis of the border bill and its potential for success/failure/something else. (It’s a bill with consequences, after all, not just a political football.).
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5/I know it's a movie and exaggeration is expected. But at this moment in history and with a budget this large, these depictions matter, so I'm willing to be tough on a project with so much potential.
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An *essential* read by @JerusalemDemsas on border policies. If you cover politics, don't throw up your hands when immigration comes up--"it's complicated!"--and get worked by the refs (to quote JD). Instead, read her piece, ask smarter qs, and inform your audience effectively.
On May 11, Title 42 expired and the entire political establishment and commentariat braced for chaos at the border. But chaos never came. My latest for @TheAtlantic >>.
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Charles Ogletree was from my home town; his scholarship helped me pay for college. Grateful to have been able to learn about his life's work at a young age. May he rest in power.
RIP to Charles Ogletree - a legal giant, who learned from Thurgood Marshall and mentored a student named Barack Obama.
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A small but mighty @TheAtlantic contingent -- @devillenews and I -- will be at #NABJNAHJ22. DM us to set up a meeting if you’re interested in learning more about The Atlantic!.
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2/The film depicted journalists getting each other killed for the thrill of a beautiful photo (and the photos were beautiful.) But I saw no sense of mission in those journalists, just competition for competition’s sake, with deadly consequences.
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Also (duh!) @ahylton26, @anniecorreal, @bylizrobbins, @mollymotoole, @mollyhf, @priscialva, @juliaprestonnow, @tedhesson, @BobMooreNews and more and more. (Hate these lists bc it's so hard to capture all). Not to mention @kannoyoungs and @camiloreports more recently. On and on.
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I'm so very excited and fortunate to be a Shorenstein Center Fellow this semester at the Harvard Kennedy School while I work on a book. Pinch me. And/or send book writing tips.
We're thrilled to welcome our new and returning Spring 2023 Shorenstein Fellows to the center: @itscaitlinhd @adamlashinsky @okapifilm, and @brianstelter & @jonathan_c_ong
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2/ Cynical politicians cling the myth, because, as Jonathan Blitzer rightly puts it, "The immigration debate in Washington tends to reduce the rest of the world to an afterthought.".
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.@ByFernandaS asking the right qs of how this is being covered and what end it's meant to serve: "The only people who seem to not have a say in all of this are the bus passengers. No one asked whether they want to be filmed and photographed as they disembarked in New York.".
The dirty politics of busing migrants is officially an emergency — and that’s what the governors of Texas, Florida and Arizona have wanted all along. My latest for @PostOpinions:
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I love my dog. sue me! . Ellen Cushing offers validation, and a light sprinkle of cold water to the face regarding the fancy dog food industry we're buying into.
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3/Of course a lot of the film was familiar: The tradition of mentorship. Maladaptive impacts of PTSD. Risk. But without a discernible point to all that (informing the public! hello!) they seem like vapid thrill seekers.
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"High housing costs have a way of making every problem a housing problem." .
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The 272 "journeys to slavery’s heart of darkness. But it is also the moving human story of some of the people who endured.". Congratulations to my #1 journalism mentor @rachelswarns on this richly-deserved NYT review!!. You really must read her book.
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JD Vance on The Case for Reparations: “I have at least been convinced of the virtue of compensating modern victims who’ve suffered redlining or denial of federal benefits.”
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.@elainejgodfrey on the state and local election boards who are preparing for chaos thanks to concerted efforts to undermine their work and force through a result not based on actual votes, but on pressure and intimidation--all in plain sight.
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Put her in charge of things! (Multiple).
New: I'm launching a podcast! .
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Knock ‘em down, roll ‘em around, come on defense—. I’ll see myself out…. .
@itscaitlinhd can’t stop watching Netflix's new docuseries about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: "What makes the show interesting is how easy it is to see beneath the veneer."
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2/Before this appointment, Albence continued to work in immigration detention, having collaborated with the Biden administration as a representative of his consulting company, GrindStone--even though he has been sued for his role in family separations.
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Shout it from the rooftops.
Special shout-out to The Atlantic’s Scott Stossel, who has now edited Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in two consecutive years — last year’s Sept. 11 essay by @JenSeniorNY and this year’s article by @itscaitlinhd on Trump’s family-separation policy
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"In a sign of just how much the politics on the issue have changed, Mr. Biden, as a candidate in 2019, excoriated Mr. Trump’s policies. 'You come to the US and you make your case. based on the following premise, why I deserve it under American law.'".
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Another beautiful, heartbreaking story from Jen Senior. Don't delay!.
Whole generations of adults were lost to institutionalization. They were warehoused, hidden away, forgotten. So many of us colluded in their erasure. This piece is my small attempt to un-erase one of them. 8/8.
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That frequent feeling when a thought that's been swirling in the back of your mind manifests itself as an Atlantic article. New from @russellberman.
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