The Trump administration’s construction project in Big Bend National Park, which is destroying the area’s pristine environment to build more of President Donald Trump’s border wall, is temporarily on hold following bipartisan outrage over the environmental damage.
“CBP is pausing all construction activity in Big Bend National Park while I visit and conduct a personal, on-the-ground evaluation,” Rodney Scott, head of Customs and Border Protection, posted on X Monday. “CBP is firmly committed to protecting America, and that includes our national treasures like Big Bend National Park.”
Last summer, Congress gave the Trump administration $46 billion to construct a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, a project that is happening with little to no oversight in order to fast track construction.
Big Bend, bordering Mexico in West Texas, features volcanic dikes, dinosaur bones and stunning canyon views. In July, the Trump admin waived restrictions on construction, allowing bulldozing and parts of the border wall and roads to be built, drawing the ire of environmental groups and the National Parks Conservation Association, which has warned that the damage could last generations.
“Bulldozing Big Bend National Park is an unconscionable attack on one of America’s greatest treasures,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, National Parks Conservation Association President and CEO, told USA Today. “The administration is slashing through miles of this wild landscape, threatening access to recreation and harming sensitive wildlife habitat.”
The Big Bend project is on hold for now, but on Tuesday, the Trump admin advanced plans to open up approximately 45 million acres of wilderness in places like Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to road construction and logging, removing protections that have been in place for a quarter century, according to the New York Times. The move will rescind the “roadless rule” enacted by President Bill Clinton, opening up millions of acres of untouched wilderness to destruction.
“By ripping protections from some of our oldest intact forests, the Trump administration is endangering the drinking water supplies of tens of millions and threatening wildlife habitats and recreation opportunities in almost every state,” Drew McConville, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told the Times.
None of this is entirely surprising given how Trump eroded environmental protections for national parks in his first term, such as shrinking the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. Those efforts were challenged in federal court, but in his second term, Trump has doubled down on his efforts to reshape these and other parks. It’s not yet clear how bad the damage is, but it’s also evident that Trump is just getting started.
In late July, according to the FBI, utility companies in at least seven states experienced cyberattacks from “malicious cyber actors” who remotely accessed water management systems, causing loss of pressure and flooding. As it turned out, there were more hazards. The agency warned in a recent alert that “untreated ground water [could] seep into pipes.” At least 30 municipal water facilities were hit in Minnesota alone. These cyberattacks were likely launched by Iranian agents as part of Donald Trump’s ongoing war with the Islamic Republic he started alongside Israel, and they could become part of a new normal as the conflict drags on.
Now, in a memo released Wednesday, the White House is attempting to fight back against cybercrime by encouraging private companies to go after transnational criminal organizations “by incorporating the ingenuity of the private sector.” Details are vague, but a fact sheet hints at combatting “transnational cybercrime, fraud and other predatory schemes against American citizens,” such as ransomware attacks, phishing schemes and sextortion.
U.S. hacking laws prohibit individuals and companies from launching cyberattacks. According to TechCrunch, “the private sector can defend against incoming cyberattacks, but not launch of operate them,” a policy that spans several presidential administrations.
This program is still in the very early stages, with more guidance coming in the next few months. But there’s no way this could possibly backfire, right? I’m kidding: Even under normal circumstances, giving private companies this much power is likely to incentivize inventing enemies to fight or drive unnecessary spending. That’s the military-industrial complex in a nutshell.
You could say this program comes straight out of the Age of Sail, in which governments issued letters of marque and reprisal, licenses that authorized privateers to essentially practice legalized piracy, with private vessels attacking enemies of the state. Think of American shipping companies plundering British ships, which was common practice once upon a time. These letters haven’t been issued since the Civil War, but the parallel is obvious and creates shades of gray that could present major problems. Just look at Capt. William Kidd, who was hired by the British government to hunt pirates, but was later executed for being one.
Trump’s cyberattack program, in all likelihood, will just be another way for his tech-bro allies, like Peter Thiel of Palantir, to siphon more money from the government while doing next to nothing to actually protect Americans or improve their quality of life. This is especially concerning in light of recent news that the Homeland Security Department spied on left-leaning Minnesotans who criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Think these tools and tactics won’t be used domestically? That would certainly buck the trend of U.S. tech companies that regularly surveil Americans, be it Flock Safety, whose ubiquitous cameras are being used to stalk people getting abortions, or Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that hunts migrants.
A better solution might be to invest more in improved cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, like the power grids that risk being hacked. As they say, the best defense is a good offense. A digital bill of rights would be a major part of that by boosting privacy and protecting the level of data that corporations can siphon up about ordinary people. An even simpler solution, come to think of it, would be not picking fights with other countries that are likely to fight back. Alas, that’s probably too obvious a strategy for our tech-illiterate president, and not enough of a slush fund for Silicon Valley. Maybe someday we’ll have leaders who understand the internet and the importance of avoiding perverse incentives. Until then, it’s a good idea to keep your system software updated and use a strong password.
What They Said: The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Judy Chu, who is a psychologist and represents a district in Southern California. “Caring for our nation’s Veterans is a fundamental responsibility,” the letter says. “That includes ensuring access to high-quality mental health care.”
The lawmakers demanded that the VA disclose details about its shortage of mental health providers and the impact on veterans. It also pushed the agency to lay out how long veterans have to wait for care.
As ProPublica has detailed, while the VA has long had a shortfall of mental health providers, the situation has gotten far worse under the current Trump administration. Hundreds of mental health staffers have left the VA and not been replaced.
Background: ProPublica’s investigation recounted the troubling experiences of both mental health providers and of veterans seeking care.
With so many staffers leaving and not being replaced, the remaining providers have often been stretched remarkably thin.
A psychologist who worked for a VA in Arizona recounted how some of her one-on-one sessions were replaced with online group sessions that included as many as 35 veterans. The therapist said their remaining individual sessions were sometimes limited to as little as 16 minutes.
“It was always bad,” said the psychologist. “And now it’s at a breaking point.”
In VA exit surveys that ProPublica obtained, mental health staffers who quit often wrote that they were no longer able to provide high-quality care.
“Mental Health is understaffed, burned out,” wrote one New York-based staffer who was leaving. “There is not enough mental health care for the Veterans who need the services.”
Veterans, meanwhile, have started to fall through the cracks.
Jason Beaman, a Navy and Army vet, was shuffled among therapists who later left until he finally had enough. “I just quit. I don’t want to mess with the therapist anymore,” Beaman told us this spring.
Why It Matters: After Trump returned to office last year, his administration promised to deliver veterans “the highest quality care.”
The VA is the country’s largest healthcare system, serving 9 million veterans. Those men and women face many mental health issues at a higher rate than the general population. They die by suicide at roughly twice the rate.
VA mental health staff have developed deep expertise in addressing the particular needs of vets. Indeed, studies have shown that vets get better care at the VA than through private providers.
“VA psychologists are best in class,” said Russell Lemle, former chief psychologist for the San Francisco VA Health Care System and now a senior policy analyst at the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute. “When you lose them, the veterans are the ones who pay the price.”
ProPublica reported that in January, the department had around 500 fewer psychologists and psychiatrists than it had at the same time last year. Recent VA data shows those head counts continue to decline.
Response: In response to questions from ProPublica, VA spokesperson Quinn Slaven defended the agency. “The Trump Administration is solely focused on measuring VA’s success by how well it serves Veterans,” Slaven wrote in an email. “This commonsense approach has led to dramatic improvements for Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors across the country.”
Slaven said that the VA completed a record number of mental healthcare appointments in the past fiscal year while also lowering veterans’ wait times.
The VA previously declined our request for an interview. Instead, spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz accused ProPublica of attempting to mislead the public by “cherry picking issues that are limited to a handful of sites and in many cases were worse under the Biden Administration.”
After ProPublica shared the findings of its investigation and the names of veterans who would appear in it, the agency reached out to several to inquire about their care and offer help.
The congressional letter gives the VA until Aug. 14 to respond.
Last month, Paramount Skydance CEO and Trump ally David Ellison threatened to relocate the company out of California in response to his ongoing legal battle with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is suing, along with 12 other states, aiming to block the $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery takeover. The threat was first reported by Semafor. Now, Bonta has responded.
“Paramount agreed to halt the merger until a court decision or until June 2027, asked for a November trial, and is now back with another attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through,” Bonta wrote on X. “Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose in court. It didn’t work the first time … and it won’t work this time.”
If Paramount were to move its HQ, it would likely happen before Oct. 1, when “Paramount will start accruing a $7-million-per-day ‘ticking fee’ payable to WBD shareholders until the deal closes,” according to Variety. Which state will it be? That’s not clear yet, but presumably it wouldn’t be any of the dozen states suing the company, which include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington. Ellison’s shortlist reportedly includes Georgia, Texas and Tennessee.
The Warner Bros. Discovery takeover has been steeped in controversy since the beginning. Recently, a pair of government watchdog groups demanded investigations into whether Paramount gifted luxury gala tickets to Federal Communications Commission members, thus violating ethics requirements, while the company sought approval for its acquisition.
In a span of weeks, Paramount agreed to halt the merger until a court decision or until June 2027, asked for a November trial, and is now back with another attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through.
Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose…
Ellison has been a major Trump acolyte in the president’s second term. After the Trump administration approved Skydance’s takeover of Paramount in 2025, Ellison hand-picked political commentator Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, sparking months of controversy as viewership has cratered and stories related to the Epstein files and immigration were spiked.
Since he returned to office, President Donald Trump’s administration has upended foreign aid. It’s labeled well-established, long-running programs as “not aligned with American interests” and slashed their budgets.
Still, the billions of taxpayer dollars Congress has allocated for foreign aid programs must be spent; lawmakers have insisted the government continue to fund humanitarian aid, global health and pro-democracy causes around the world. With most of the old programs now gone, however, we wanted to know: What is the Trump administration doing with that money now?
Recently, we published our investigation that found one answer to that question in a little-known bureau of the State Department that has dramatically transformed under Trump. For decades, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, known as DRL, has supported human rights in some of the most oppressive countries in the world. Now, our reporting found, it’s planning to direct funds to controversial groups supporting right-wing causes in Europe and elsewhere.
Our full story lays out some of the groups the government has considered funding, which include a British free-speech organization that has fought against bans on “gay conversion therapy” and a British American think tank created this year to focus on “existential threats to Britain, to America, and to our shared Judeo-Christian civilisation.” (Administration officials dropped that grant after significant pushback from Congress.)
One proposed grant particularly caught our attention: Trump administration officials suggested funding research on crime against minority populations in South Africa.
It’s clear from sources we spoke with that the key targeted minority population in question is the white ethnic group known as Afrikaners. Afrikaners were responsible for creating the nation’s infamous and brutal racially segregated apartheid system. Previously, DRL staff had been told to begin the process of awarding funds to a group called Lex Libertas, which was founded by a controversial figure who has called for Afrikaner self-governance. The group is currently fundraising to place 3,000 white crosses on the National Mall in remembrance of attacks on South African farmers.
The proposed grant was later opened up to allow a broader set of invited groups to apply for $1 million of funding, though it is still intended for the same purpose, according to people with knowledge of the process. The State Department declined to say whether Lex Libertas will be among those invited to compete, citing ongoing deliberations, but said the Trump administration has serious concerns about the human rights situation in South Africa that need to be addressed. Lex Libertas did not respond to questions about the organization or the proposed grant.
Former diplomats who have worked extensively on human rights told us they were shocked that the victimization of white South Africans would be prioritized over the serious issues elsewhere in the region.
“It’s laughable to suggest that on the African continent, the prime issue of human rights concern is whites in South Africa,” one former agency official said when we asked him about the grant. South Africa is plagued by violence, but extensiveresearch has found that white South African farmers are not victims of crime at higher rates than other groups.
Experts also described the proposed grant to fund research into violence against Afrikaners as keeping with the Trump administration’s overall stance toward South Africa.
For decades, the U.S. relationship with the country has been symbolized by our massive support for HIV care, Mattie Webb, a professor at the Virginia Military Institute who studies South Africa and U.S. foreign policy, told us.
Since Trump returned to office, there’s been a stark shift as the administration has strengthened ties with borderline white nationalist groups that are considered fringe in South Africa.
“The U.S. is very clearly shifting its priorities away from aid that would benefit far more people in South Africa to this narrow focus on the white minority,” Webb said.
There have long been tensions between South Africa and the U.S., former diplomats told us, but the aid the U.S. provided saved lives and helped sustain a working relationship that is vital to U.S. national security and economic interests. Now, by seeking to fund a movement antagonistic to the South African government, the U.S. risks driving a wedge between the two nations.
Other grants also raised red flags for experts and lawmakers. Political appointees at the State Department are considering funding a British free-speech organization that has fought bans on discredited therapy practices that attempt to convert gay people to heterosexuality. That proposed $5 million grant would provide support for people facing “deplatforming” and advocate against “restrictive online safety and hate speech laws,” according to a document we reviewed. (The organization’s founder said it had “neither applied for nor been awarded a grant from the US State Department or any other branch of the US Government” but did not respond to our other questions.) And a call for proposals recently released by the bureau would fund research, conferences and cultural engagements in wealthy democracies to develop “civilizational self-confidence in Europe.”
Not all the proposed funding is directed to controversial groups, our reporting found. But even some of the grants slated to fund more traditional human rights projects skirt federal requirements for competitive bidding that are meant to deter waste, fraud and abuse. Instead, officials are trying to direct millions to handpicked organizations, according to sources and documents.
In response to questions about our reporting, the State Department stressed that the process of awarding grants is ongoing and that multiple offices provide input, writing that “programs are still in active deliberation and receipt of a grant is not guaranteed to any organization that does not meet all requirement and standards for federal grants.”
We are continuing to report on foreign aid and the Trump administration’s policies in South Africa. If you have tips or information we should know about either of these issues, please feel free to get in touch with us! Reach out via phone or Signal to Anna Maria Barry-Jester at 408-504-8131 or Sharon Lerner at 718-877-5236.
Additional deaths involving Delaney Hall, a private immigration jail run by The GEO Group in Newark, New Jersey, has sparked renewed calls for the closure of the notorious 1,000 bed facility even as the Trump administration dramatically increases arrests and detentions across the nation.
On Saturday Aug. 1st, 41 year-old Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died while in custody. Multiple press reports and Lopez-Cornejo’s mother maintain that Lopez-Cornejo, a father of a 12-year-old girl, who suffered from chronic illness, died from medical neglect after he was refused treatment. He had been in the United States for 20 years and was taken into custody on his way to work.
In a statement shared with CNN, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that Lopez-Cornejo “experienced a medical emergency while in ICE custody,” and GEO Group staff “responded immediately and called 911 for emergency medical services.”
After the confirmation of Lopez-Cornejo’s death, Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) disclosed he had learned of a third death in late July in which the detainee experienced a seizure not long after arriving at Delaney Hall. According to Menendez’s account, GEO Group and ICE officials told him they called for EMS and the unidentified man was taken to University Hospital where he died. His name and additional details have yet to be disclosed.
Back in December 2025, 41 year-old Jean Wilson Brutus died while in custody in Delaney Hall. At that time, 30 people had died in ICE custody across the country that year.
Unlike the high profile violent confrontations witnessed in Minneapolis that sparked massive street protests and culminated in the murders of Renee Good and Alex Peretti, ICE is now utilizing non-law enforcement databases for programs like Medicare to target and apprehend thousands of people who are actually in this country legally. In fact, scores of American citizens have been abducted off the street and detained.
Since Delaney Hall re-opened as a private immigration prison at the start of the second Trump admin, grassroots groups like NJ Pax Christi and Eyes on Ice NJ have had a humanitarian witness at the site located next to the Essex County Correctional Facility in the Ironbound section of Newark.
At least 22 people have died in ICE custody in 2026, with close to four months still to go in this year.
Back on May 9, 2025 masked federal agents abducted Newark Mayor Ras Baraka off of a public street outside the private jail, only to release him later that day after a mass non-violent protest. While charges were dropped against Baraka, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice continues to prosecute Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) on charges related to that day that could result in a 17 year jail term. McIver, along with Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-N.J.) and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), who were also on site at Delaney Hall that day, insist they were there only fulfilling their constitutionally-protected oversight duties.
The city of Newark has been pressing for The GEO Group to permit a fire inspection and obtain a certificate of occupancy for the sprawling private jail. Back in 2021, activists had successfully lobbied the state of New Jersey to prohibit municipal and county governments as well as private facilities from entering into new contracts with ICE to house immigration detainees.
Private jailers like The GEO Group successfully challenged the legislation in court. At the time, the Biden administration was holding more than 26,000 detainees nationwide at more than 120 sites. Multiple press reports indicate the Trump administration is now holding almost three times that number at over 450 facilities in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and in U.S. territories. In July, ICE reported it had arrested 51,000 people, the largest number in the Department of Homeland Security’s history, according to ABC News.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump pledged to target millions of U.S. residents and “deport them so rapidly” he would “rescue every town that had been invaded and conquered.” In that same campaign, Vice President JD Vance advanced an admittedly completely fabricated story about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio kidnapping and eating their neighbors’ domestic pets. The claim was so outrageous that local municipal officials and Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine spoke out on behalf of Springfield’s Haitian residents, who they said had filled jobs in the rust belt town that had actually helped revive the local economy.
At least 22 people have died in ICE custody in 2026, with close to four months still to go in this year. That does not include the multiple fatal shootings just since Trump was sworn in for the second time. According to the Guardian, last month’s fatal shooting of 52 year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was the 10th such fatal ICE shooting since Trump regained office.
In an interview with WBAI Pacifica Radio, Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.), who has been in Congress for less than three months, recounted that in her multiple visits to Delaney Hall “what was clear was that there were individuals being detained with chronic health conditions that were not receiving the kind of care that is necessary and mandated by their doctors.”
Lack of access to timely medical care has been a long standing and well-documented complaint throughout the ICE system and private contract immigration prisons across the nation.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, 300 detainees launched a hunger and labor strike at Delaney Hall. Under the GEO Group business model, detainees maintain the private jail for a dollar a day. Earlier this summer, large crowds of protestors converged on Delaney Hall in support of the hunger strikers.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) ICE agents stand guard in front of protesters outside Delaney Hall which is being used as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center on May 26, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey.
While New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill has been a vocal opponent of the private jail and was turned away when she initially came for a visit, she did call out the New Jersey State Police at the height of street protests outside Delaney in solidarity with the hunger strikers.
The move marked a significant escalation and came after the Trump administration threatened to suspend the processing of international flights at Newark Liberty International on the eve of the World Cup, in which New Jersey had invested heavily.
Henry Craver, writing for the American Friends Service Committee, described GEO and ICE’s repressive and violent response to the show of solidarity for the hunger strike.
“In one incident guards tried to remove a strike leader soon after the strike began,” Carver wrote. “When other detained people formed a human shield around him, armed officers returned in force. They swept through multiple units, physically assaulted people, and deployed tear gas. People in those units told AFSC that they struggled to breathe for hours after.”
Carver continued: “The retaliation escalated in the following weeks. Hundreds of detained people have been transferred out of Delaney Hall to facilities in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania — far away from their families and communities.”
With a Republican Congress very much under the control of Trump, efforts at oversight of ICE and the private prison system that has expanded significantly has been left to the Democrats, who are in the minority. Grassroots efforts at the municipal level have been far more effective in galvanizing resistance to the creation of new immigration prisons.
State lawmakers also have a mixed record when it comes to reigning in ICE’s mass deportation strategy. A federal judge recently struck down New York State’s legislation to prohibit federal agents from wearing masks while letting stand a provision that prohibits town and county governments from entering into so-called 287(g) partnership that deputizes local police to enforce immigration laws.
“I need to say that every single American should be paying attention to what’s happening here — our government is treating a set of people with such impunity, with such inhumanity it is costing them their lives,” Mejia said. “Now we can debate our positions on immigration and immigration reform but I think it is fair to say that essentially sentencing people to death is not what the American people are calling for or want.”
Mejia continued: “It is imperative that at least the state of New Jersey is pushing hard to make sure that our state officials have full and unrestricted access to these detention centers to ensure the well being of these individuals. These are human beings.”
Trump has repeatedly described undocumented immigrants as “animals,” “illegal monsters” and “gang members” staging “the largest invasion in the history of our country.”
These claims, which have been the way the Fox media complex frames the immigration, are easily debunked by study after study that found immigration into the U.S. is actually associated with lower crime rates.
Earlier this year, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines. He was charged with corruptly concealing a document or record, one of the nine people convicted in the prosecution following last year’s noise demonstration at the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas in northern Texas. Unlike the others convicted in this case, Sanchez-Estrada was not at the protest and maintains he had no role in its planning.
According to prosecutors, Sanchez-Estrada moved the zines at the request of his wife, Maricela Rueda, who attended the demonstration and was sentenced to 70 years in prison after being convicted of rioting, explosive charges and providing material support to terrorists. But no evidence was presented at trial regarding why Sanchez-Estrada moved the publications, which a defense committee has subsequently told Salon “was done entirely of his own accord and for his own reasons.”
The Prairieland case has been widely criticized for its application of terrorism charges against protesters. Sanchez-Estrada’s conviction, in particular, has been criticized for the harsh sentencing applied and his tangential connection to the protest. Ana Bell, the sister of Sanchez-Estrada, spoke with Salon about her brother’s case and what it means for free speech in Trump’s America.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How is your family holding up, and how has the trial and conviction impacted you and your family personally?
My brother Dez was the main caregiver for my parents, with him having the most flexible schedule. He could easily schedule his appointments for whenever my mom didn’t have a doctor’s appointment and stuff like that. We’re not complaining. They’re parents, and we love them. We want to take care of them. It did present a challenge that we weren’t expecting because he was the main person taking care of them.
My younger brother is a teacher, so he’s usually in a classroom. I opened a bookstore a couple of months ago, so I’m trying to run the business and everything. It’s been interesting with all of the things that we have to take care of. We were talking yesterday, I had to figure out how to deal with his taxes. He was detained, I have his power of attorney, and I’m just like, “Okay, so a lot of this stuff that is in the house, what is receipts, what is actually business expenses? Stuff like that is not something that one is expecting to do, and all of a sudden you have to take care of it, and it adds an additional layer of stress that wasn’t there before.
“Everything that’s happening right now, it’s very hurtful, very painful for our family.”
And that’s on top of the emotional roller coaster. You don’t know if this is the last conversation we will have for a while, because he could be moved to a different facility and then we have to figure out how to set up communications, how to set up his commissary. Like, would we be allowed to visit him in person? Is he even at a distance where we can drive to see him?
For example, this weekend, on Saturday, we were able to visit. My mom, dad and his stepdaughter. So he was able to see me and he was so happy that she was there. But then on Sunday, when it was my turn to go visit him, we showed up, and visitations had been canceled, so we didn’t get to see him on Sunday. Now we have to wait until next Saturday or Sunday, and hope that from here until then, he hasn’t been moved to a different facility, and we didn’t miss our chance to see him.
Sometimes he calls and we miss the phone call, or sometimes the number doesn’t work, and like you’re trying to press five to answer the call, and it just hangs up the call instead. It’s an emotionally-charged situation, even though it was just a phone call. It all adds up because right now, everything feels like an open wound that we have been trying to heal, and it’s not closing. Everything is fresh. Everything just gets harder.
Could you talk a little bit about how it feels having people on the internet trading incorrect information about your brother?
I’m not saying that these people have ill intent, but I do believe that words have a lot of power and the words we use to communicate can make a breakthrough.
Someone asked me in a comment if he had just printed the magazines, and someone would come and grab them from that house, and I was just like, “You have completely wrong information.” These were magazines that he bought. They weren’t 10 or 20 copies of the same magazine. They were one like one copy about freedom, one about the environment. They were materials that he read, and he critiqued.
I think people just need to take a step back before making a statement and actually do a little bit of research because a lot of the information is just one Google away. You can go on the internet right now and look for all the evidence. It’s available. It has been unsealed. Once you have that in your hands, you can see all the information, not just what I say, not just what the government is saying.
I try not to spend a lot of time online doing this because, as I said, I do run a business. I have three kids. I’m a single mom. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and a lot of people are just running with it, kind of like a case of broken telephone.
Everything that’s happening right now, it’s very hurtful, very painful for our family. If I don’t check my emotions before I start talking with people, I could make it a bigger issue than it actually needs to be.
For me, it’s very important right now for people to understand that while my brother is the one who is in jail, and the government is not literally stating, “We are coming for your freedom of speech.” That’s exactly what is happening. He is just the vessel right now.
Could you speak a little bit about what it’s been like to witness this campaign from the government to paint your brother in this way? I think the idea that you could be convicted for what amounts to moving a box of your own magazines is a very foreign idea to most Americans.
It is very disturbing. I just opened a bookstore. So what are the odds that I literally have countless works right now in my store of examples of people who fought against fascism? I only sell fiction, but you have Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games,” you have Harry Potter in Hogwarts, you have Thomas in “The Maze Runner.” You have all these characters that are literally standing up to oppression and fascism, and those who are in power and they show an amount of corruption that you think only happens in books.
“We felt that the government was trying to make an example out of people who are not content with the current administration.”
We felt that the government was trying to make an example out of people who are not content with the current administration. Judge Reed, at my brother’s sentencing, said it. The state is trying to make an example to not encourage people with similar ideologies to follow this path. “The reason why you guys are getting this many years,” and this is me paraphrasing, “It’s because we’re trying to make an example.” He said the quiet part out loud, and it’s on the record.
This is the reason why I encourage people over and over to look at the court transcripts, listen to what the prosecution presented as their case, listen to what the defense attorneys were questioning and asking for and then see who told the truth by looking at the evidence that they’ve presented to you.
In my brother’s case, when you look inside the box, everything was dated prior to COVID. Even if you did not like the political observations of some of those magazines, essays, critiques, poetry or whatever was in ther, these are feelings from the people, and they’re protected under the First Amendment. You are allowed to feel how you want. You are allowed to feel that the current administration is the best one ever, and you’re allowed to tell that to people and not go to jail. But you’re also allowed to do the opposite and it still doesn’t earn you a sentence.
None of the stuff that was in there, whether it was for or against the government, was a crime or illegal to have, and it was not used to persecute anybody who took part in the noise demo, which my brother was not an attendee of.
My understanding is that you must commit a crime in order to be punished, right? It’s not because of what you think. It’s not because of what you read. It’s not because of what you have in your house. Even more absurd is that it’s not because of the paper magazines, books or pamphlets that you have in your house. That’s what is so incredibly disturbing to me.
What is your message to other people who might be critical of the current government, to would-be protesters?
If I could just give one word of advice to people, as a person who loves this country but doesn’t love what is happening right now, it would be to study the Constitution and fight for it. Listen to which political candidates right now are talking about freedom of speech or immigration issues. Ask yourself what things seem to be in jeopardy in our Constitution and find a way to make a change for those. I do not believe that staying quiet is the way to go. I also don’t believe violence is the answer. I do believe that we all need to speak up and defend and uphold the Constitution.
Why do you think the government decided to go after your brother? Assuming this conviction stands, there will be potentially profound implications for the First Amendment and who does and does not enjoy freedom of speech in this country.
I actually think that if he had been somebody else, it would have been the same thing. With him, I feel like the main reason why was that his wife was at the noise demonstration. She was arrested on July 4, and the government had a whole day to look into her and see who she was married to. He was arrested on Sunday, and they did a big production. I watched a video of his arrest.
“In the current political climate, anyone who has brown skin is low-hanging fruit. It’s someone who you expect to get lost in the system.”
I saw all the units that were surrounding him and asked, “What is this?” They came after him as if he were a terrorist, and all he had with him was a box of zines. At some point, they claimed it was explosives, but when they opened it, it was just paper. In the current political climate, anyone who has brown skin is low-hanging fruit. It’s someone who you expect to get lost in the system.
But the fact is that he’s an immigrant — an immigrant who has legal status in the county but an immigrant regardless. Right now, there is so much hateful and hurtful feelings towards immigrants that I feel he was just the perfect scapegoat. It changed the whole thought process of how they see him. They completely dehumanized him simply because of that.
For me, it just aligns so perfectly with everything that they were looking for in a “terrorist.” Even the beard. Some people were crazy about how he had a beard and said that he was in a sleeper cell and all this stuff. He’s a tattoo artist who loves cats. This is outrageous.
There are some headwinds in that this appeals to the Fifth Circuit and then the Supreme Court, both of which are very closely tied to the current administration and their view of the world. At the same time, these judges who handled the case, they do have a record of going too far, even for the Fifth Circuit, and so I’m wondering how optimistic you are about your brother being able to prevail through the legal system.
I wanted to believe that justice would be served. I wanted to believe that we would be bringing my brother [home], but the moment I heard the sentence for Autumn Hill and the reasons that the judge gave, the judge said that the sentence was not more than he thought was reasonable to give. That changed my perspective on that moment. I lost hope before we got to my brother’s sentencing. I lost hope because it didn’t make any sense. It didn’t make any sense from the legal point of view that they would receive this much punishment for something that was so minimal.
I don’t know how to feel. Part of me wishes that I could be hopeful again, because we’re gonna keep fighting regardless. I made the statement before that we’re probably going to spend every last minute of our lives trying to fight for his freedom, and that’s very unfortunate because he’s so young. They’re all so young, but they shouldn’t be behind bars. And I feel that the justice system is failing them, and it’s failing all of us. If the appeal doesn’t work, then it will be just like a failure in the justice system. I want to be hopeful, but I’m not holding my breath.
Do you think there is a chance of a potential political solution to this, or is there the political bravery out there to speak to this issue? I’ve spoken with people who have suggested that the next president should consider a pardon if they don’t prevail on appeal.
I don’t think the current administration will do it at all. But I would like to think that we will vote better next time, and that if we have not been successful with the appeal, or we’re still fighting this case, we could ask for a pardon.
So I’m hoping that if we end up having to go that route, we are able to ask for it and that it might be granted. I would like for the judicial system to actually do its part and be just.
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