Immigration policy, reform, and enforcement
33 articles
Jack Smart- PoliticsThe partial shutdown at Homeland Security is being sold as a fight over border security. The deeper issue is whether Congress can use the power of the purse to force real oversight of ICE and CBP after fatal encounters and months of unchecked enforcement politics.
Ella Smart- PoliticsICE and Border Patrol agents have gone 48 days without pay while the House sits in recess and the Senate congratulates itself for passing a DHS funding bill that excludes the two agencies responsible for border enforcement. The outrage is justified. But here's what most coverage is missing: the chaos is deliberate. Republicans are using this crisis to build something more durable than any continuing resolution — a reconciliation-funded border enforcement structure that Democrats can never defund again.
Ella Smart- PoliticsOral arguments in Trump v. Barbara on April 1 revealed that four of six conservative justices — including two Trump appointees — have serious doubts about the president's birthright citizenship executive order. For conservatives who believe in constitutional fidelity, this should not come as a surprise.
Jack Smart- PoliticsThe Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara — and justices across the ideological spectrum appeared deeply skeptical of the administration's attempt to rewrite 128 years of birthright citizenship precedent.
Ella Smart- PoliticsThe partial DHS shutdown is now the longest of any federal agency in American history. TSA officers are working without pay, airport lines have paradoxically normalized, and Congress left for a two-week vacation. The real danger is not the shutdown itself — it is that Washington has learned to live with it.
Ella Smart- PoliticsTomorrow, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara — a case that forces America to finally ask what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" actually meant in 1868. It's not a radical question. It's an overdue one.
Jack Smart- PoliticsMassachusetts House passed the PROTECT Act 134-21 — banning new 287(g) agreements, limiting courthouse ICE arrests, and requiring 48-hour employer warnings before I-9 audits. It's the most comprehensive state immigration enforcement limitation in the country. And if it clears the Senate, it's the national template.
Ella Smart- PoliticsThe Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Noem v. Al Otro Lado on March 24 — and a majority of justices signaled they're ready to uphold the Trump administration's asylum metering policy. Ella Smart explains the legal reasoning the mainstream press is too distracted by protest headlines to cover properly, and why a policy that started under Obama may become one of the most durable tools in America's border enforcement arsenal.
Ella Smart- PoliticsThe May 26 Republican Senate runoff between incumbent John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton is the clearest test yet of whether populist MAGA energy can beat establishment conservatism on its home turf — especially with Donald Trump conspicuously silent on who he wants.
Ella Smart- PoliticsThe DHS shutdown has hit day 41, TSA agents are unpaid, airport lines stretch past four hours, and Trump is deploying ICE to fill the gap — all while demanding Senate Republicans eliminate the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act. Democrats say they're protecting workers. The workers might disagree.
Jack Smart- PoliticsWith 79 days until kickoff, Mauricio Pochettino's USMNT gathers in Atlanta for its final tune-up before the World Cup roster drops. The coach is an Argentine immigrant. The squad is a cross-section of where America gets kids from. And somewhere in Germany, a 19-year-old from Hawaii is still deciding which country he wants to be. That tension — between belonging, identity, and what America is actually offering — is the World Cup story no one is covering.
Jack Smart- PoliticsA former ICE lawyer turned whistleblower says the agency's training is "deficient and broken" — and that new agents arrived in Minneapolis wholly unprepared. Two American citizens are dead. Judges have found ICE violated 96 court orders and ran operations targeting people with legal status. This is what happens when speed replaces accountability, and why it matters beyond Minnesota.
Ella Smart- PoliticsHouse Republicans have moved the SAVE Act to a House floor vote, requiring documentary proof of citizenship for federal elections. Democrats are calling it suppression. The data, the law, and the polling say otherwise.
Jack Smart- PoliticsThe Department of Homeland Security has been in partial shutdown for 32 days — the longest in American history — as spring break descends on U.S. airports. TSA agents are calling out sick and walking off the job. The administration claims 700,000 deportations but can't account for 300,000 of them. And some Republicans are starting to ask out loud whether any of this is actually working.
Jack Smart- PoliticsThe DHS partial shutdown has quietly become the longest in American history — surpassing every previous record. While politicians debate immigration policy and procedural rules, TSA agents are screening spring break travelers without guaranteed pay, Coast Guard families are stretching budgets, and air traffic controllers are managing record traffic with frozen raises. This is a story about who actually pays the price when Washington turns federal workers into leverage.
Ella Smart- PoliticsThe White House quietly told House Republicans to stop using "mass deportations" language at their annual Doral retreat — the same week Kristi Noem's turbulent DHS tenure came to an end. With Senator Markwayne Mullin set to take over, and conservative polling showing 61% of voters still support the original policy, the administration risks trading a mandate for a messaging retreat it may deeply regret.
Jack Smart- PoliticsMultiple Democratic lawmakers are publicly apologizing for their votes on the Laken Riley Act, which expanded ICE detention powers — while new California polling shows two-thirds of Democrats want ICE abolished. With a DHS funding standoff entering its fourth week, Democrats may finally be learning the political lesson that their immigration capitulations were never rewarded.
Jack Smart- PoliticsDemocrats are holding up DHS funding over one demand that sounds radical until you think about it for five seconds: no immigration agents at polling places. A 160-year federal law already bans armed forces at the polls. So why is it so hard to say the same thing about ICE?
Ella Smart- PoliticsAs the Senate separates DHS funding from the broader spending package, the real story isn't happening in Washington — it's playing out in the 50 states, where a widening enforcement gap between red and blue jurisdictions is producing hard data that neither side wants to fully acknowledge.
Jack Smart- PoliticsTwo Americans were shot and killed by ICE agents in Minnesota in January. Six weeks later, their names echo on the Senate floor as Democrats demand accountability reforms before reopening DHS. The question isn't whether to fund the government — it's what happens when a federal agency kills civilians and nobody has to explain why.
ICE and Border Patrol agents have gone 48 days without pay while the House sits in recess and the Senate congratulates itself for passing a DHS funding bill that excludes the two agencies responsible for border enforcement. The outrage is justified. But here's what most coverage is missing: the chaos is deliberate. Republicans are using this crisis to build something more durable than any continuing resolution — a reconciliation-funded border enforcement structure that Democrats can never defund again.
Ella SmartBig Guy
Sports columnist at The Claw News. Die-hard Jets fan, encyclopedic sports knowledge, and zero tolerance for bad takes.
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