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Community Spotlight: Dripping Springs, Texas

Shoutout to Dripping Springs, Texas, where people were back on the corner this weekend with signs, flags, and letting their voices be heard! ✨ Local organizers are starting to show up with their communities every Saturday across the country!

This is what decentralized organizing can look like and why it’s needed. Local organizers can hold monthly, daily, or weekly rallies, recurring actions, marches, meetings, or whatever makes sense with your community. If nothing is currently happening locally, that can also be a great reason to start something.

Every community is different, but opportunity is everywhere. You just have to look for it.

Local action grows through consistency. Two or three people can become five or six, and before long, dozens of community members will be showing up regularly. This is how a support network becomes strong, through relationships and a consistent routine.

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Tiny Billboards ($$$) in Your Wallet

Here’s a creative idea you can engage in next time you have a pen and cash: “Tiny billboards”!

By adding pro-democracy messages, people have shared examples to us ranging from “Vote Blue” and “Free Speech” to messages about ICE, Trump, democracy, and the election. One community member said they took the idea on a cross-country road trip and intentionally spent their marked money along the way, while others said they’ve been doing different versions of this for years.

Is writing on money legal? Generally, yes. Federal law prohibits mutilating or defacing U.S. currency with the intent to make it unfit to be reissued. Writing a message on a bill doesn’t violate that law, provided the bill remains usable. Make sure to keep bills usable, never alter their denomination or obscure identifying information like the serial number and do not write on the bill to promote a business or as an advertisement.

Cape Cod Covering 3 Overpasses!

The Cape Cod community shared photos with us from a Cape Cod action where organizers took their message directly to passing traffic. On a busy changeover day, they covered three overpasses with signs reading “America Is Not for Sale” and “End the Trump Grifting.” The drivers response was overwhelmingly positive, with plenty of visible support and, according to the organizers, only one single person shouting “Communist.” 😂

Local groups are finding more simple and visible ways to get loud for democracy.
A few signs, an overpass, and a committed group of people can put a message in front of thousands of drivers and visitors moving through the town/city.

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Small Acts Can Make a Big Difference

One of our 50501 members recently shared how they spent a Saturday evening by writing a few letters. One of the letters to hold an elected official accountable (Rand Paul) and the other, offering support and gratitude to someone they felt deserved to hear it (Dr. Fauci). It’s a small action, but it’s something almost anyone can do from home.

You can:

• Write a postcard

• Call your senator

• Email your governor

• Thank an organizer or someone speaking up

• Contact an official about an issue you care about

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Do you have a favorite podcast? Here is what some of our 50501 community members recommend:

A recent post in our FB group asked “What podcasts do you listen to for information and encouragement?”, We want to share a few of the favorites and to see if Substack (you!) has any more recommendations to leave us in the comments.

is the most recommended by our community so far, receiving by the strongest response and several additional mentions throughout the thread. is another favorite, along with @Rachel Maddow. Our community also gave a lot of love to What’s the Plan, hosted by ’s Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, and with , which came up a handful of times. More popular recommendations includes Sisters-In-Law, Secular Talk with , , and @Pod Save America.

What are your top 3 podcasts?
(Bonus points if you link or tag them!)

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50501.CO ✨NEW✨

Monday:

The Trump administration wants the names of families on cash assistance

24 states sued to stop the Trump administration from handing over immigration authorities personal records of families enrolled in Temporary Assistance for Families in need.

TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) provides for $16 billion a year in 50 states plus several other states and territories. This money can be used to assist families and individuals with things like food, rent, child care, and even emergency housing assistance.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that the Trump Administration is exploiting a program intended to keep children fed to fuel the government’s surveillance of its citizens. Administration officials argue that verifying citizenship and the immigration status of program recipients is necessary and that collecting the information from states is part of that process.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that this administration is exploiting this program which is built to keep children fed, to fuel the governments surveillance effort, however, the agency says it needs the data to confirm that states are verifying citizenship and immigration status.

5 federal workers sue over care their insurance used to cover

A class action filed in federal court in Washington DC argues that taking gender-affirming care out of federal employee health plans is sex discrimination via Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

Carriers in the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs may now deny the identical procedure when it’s used for gender transition. A July study from UCLA’s Williams Institute estimated that between 39,400 and 57,800 transgender people are covered by federal employee health plans.

New York lost the mask rule and kept a bigger one

A federal judge blocked New York from requiring ICE agents to uncover their faces and show identification, then refused to block the state law ending local police cooperation with ICE.

The District Judge Mae D’Agostino judge acknowledged that New York officials may have legitimate concerns about the dangers posed by masked, unidentified agents however, she still blocked the provisions, ruling that a state can’t regulate how federal officers carry out their duties.

And on Monday we published a guide to the fastest-growing local fight in the country, you can read it here:

People are Cutting Down Flock Cameras and Cities Are Cutting the Contracts

Between August 2021 and May 2026, communities in 28 states ended at least 82 Flock surveillance contracts, and 39 of those happened in the first five months of this year.

The post walks through what the cameras document and the documented cases of officers using plate data to track women they were involved with. You can read the full guide by clicking here.

Tuesday:

Trump vowed to free speech. Judges in 75 cases ruled he stifled it.

Reuters found that judges ruled against the administration on First Amendment grounds in 75 of the 93 cases where those arguments were raised. Under Biden, judges heard 27 such cases and ruled against him in 13.

The rulings cover retaliation against law firms, restrictions on journalists, funding cuts aimed at universities, actions against pro-Palestinian students and faculty, and excessive force at protests.

Ten of the decisions came from judges appointed by Republican presidents. Reagan appointee William Young, ruling in September that the administration illegally detained, deported, and revoked visas of foreign students and faculty over their advocacy, wrote that the president’s failure to grasp that the government can’t punish speech he dislikes is itself a threat to everyone’s speech.

Some of the rulings are preliminary.

The administration appealed about two thirds of them, and in 15 of the 75 it persuaded an appeals court to pause or overturn the decision, including the reversals that returned Columbia activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi to detention on jurisdictional grounds without any ruling on the merits.

Nearly eight months of a tube through the nose

A Guardian investigation of court records found at least 10 cases in which ICE sought to subject detained hunger strikers to involuntary medical procedures. At least three, and possibly five, were force-fed.

A Kurdish asylum seeker held at the Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Los Fresnos, Texas was force fed for nearly eight months, with the filings ending when he was deported, and another person at the same facility endured six months of it. Another man was force-fed eight days into his strike and officials were feeding him twice a day by the time a facility doctor filed a declaration calling it medically necessary.

This process involves guards restraining a person while medical staff push a tube through the nose and into the stomach and pump in liquid nutrition. Human rights organizations have widely classified force-feeding competent hunger strikers as torture.

Wednesday:

More than 50 military spouses and parents detained

An Associated Press investigation identified 52 parents and spouses of active-duty service members detained since Trump returned to office. At least 6 were deported, 1 self-deported, and 8 were still in federal custody when AP published this article.

For decades, bipartisan consensus shielded troops families from deportation.

A policy implemented in April 2025 states that military service doesn’t exempt anyone from immigration consequences. DHS doesn’t track these, so AP built the count from thousands of federal court records compiled by Habeas Dockets, existing coverage, and direct verification with families and attorneys, and says the number is likely much higher. DHS responded that at least seven of those detained had been removed from the country before, at least eight had removal orders, and at least two had drunk-driving or drug convictions.

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Wendy Gbeve was standing beside her father, Luis Alberto Ramirez Zavala, when immigration officials arrested him at a USCIS interview in Missouri about his pending application. He was deported to Mexico two weeks later, and she says ICE has never told the family why it happened so fast.

Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo is on administrative leave caring for his 5-year-old stepson after his wife Maisa Lopes Eliaser was detained at a USCIS office in Alabama. Officials asked him and the boy to step out of the room, and the next time they saw her was inside a detention facility.

Under Trumps administration, the average wait for military parole in-place has more than doubled.

The Marine Corps stopped advertising their enlistment to protect immigrant relatives, however, Army and National Guard recruiters continue to promote it, including an Army recruiter post in July about helping enlistees protect the parents who sacrificed for them.

Army Specialist Romero Ralios spent roughly 9 months on the southern border supporting Customs and Border Protection before his father, a Guatemalan with no criminal record was recently detained. “It was karma. I should’ve known,” Ralios told AP. “All those families I broke. I have regrets.”

On Wednesday we shared an article about this weeks primary polls:

Tuesday Delivered Big Wins for People Power

AIPAC’s PAC spent a record-breaking $30.6 million dollars in Michigan’s Senate primary and its candidate still finished in second, Missouri buried two Republican backed amendments by roughly 80 and 83 percent, and Kansas voters rejected an elected supreme court about 61 to 39.
You can read the full article by clicking here!

Thursday:

Birthright Citizenship: Thirty seven days after losing. Trump signed two more orders

Trump signed 2 executive orders targeting birthright citizenship. One of them expands the categories of people the administration considers ineligible and the other seeks to ban what it is calling, birth tourism.

The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in Trump v. Barbara that his first-day 2025 order was unlawful and out of step with the Fourteenth Amendment on June 30. Trump called the decision “very unfortunate” and that the administration is “making adjustments.”

1,666 complaints & Seven investigations

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility received 1,666 misconduct complaints in 2025, the most recorded since 2005.

OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) went from 29 to 16 employees and its director was fired with no current replacement. The inspector general’s office lost 99 employees since the end of the Biden administration.

There’s been a disturbing pattern and reoccurrence of errors in the first Comey prosecution, and last month Judge Kathleen Williams accusing senior officials including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche of reaching a settlement in Trump’s suit against the IRS.

A journalist asked a judge to throw out charges for doing her job

Attorneys for Twin Cities journalist Georgia Fort asked a federal judge on Thursday to dismiss the charges against her over her coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church, arguing the indictment violates her First Amendment rights.

Fort was indicted alongside former CNN host Don Lemon and dozens of protesters on charges of conspiring against the right of religious freedom at a place of worship. Her attorneys argue that nowhere in the 19-page indictment is there a single allegation that any defendant used physical force, threatened violence, or blocked the church entrance, which the charged statutes require.

They reject the government’s claims that Fort chanted with protesters and used her camera as a weapon, and say her role was to observe and document.

Magistrate Judge John Docherty refused to sign search warrants for Fort’s and Lemon’s YouTube accounts twice, finding they didn’t comply with the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, the government eventually withdrew them.

At a July hearing, a government attorney acknowledged a mischaracterization in an affidavit while maintaining the case had probable cause, and Judge Doug Micko partially granted Fort’s request for grand jury testimony and exhibits. Nothing has been dismissed and the allegations still have to be tested in court.

Mitch McConnell: Fifty-six days, 51 missed votes, & two photographs

Sen. Mitch McConnell has allegedly been discharged from the rehabilitation center and will recover at home.

But he still hasn’t been seen in public since June 11...

Dispatch audio obtained by ABC and NBC show that an Advanced Life Support ambulance dispatched to McConnell’s home at 8:36am on June 14. A medic reporting CPR in progress at 8:42 and a dispatcher confirming a cardiac arrest response at 8:43. This audio was never publicly addressed by his office.

It took until July 12 for McConnell to say anything, he said that he had fallen, was briefly unconscious, and that he dealt with a mild case of pneumonia, and that he didn’t have any broken bones, suffered a concussion, had a heart attack or stroke, or any tumors or hemorrhages.

The Office of the Attending Physician later said his regimen included multiple physical therapy sessions a day and that his childhood polio remains a significant factor in his mobility. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear wrote to him asking for an update and his office released two still photographs from the hospital, and still no video or audio.

Trump ally Laura Loomer claimed, without evidence, that McConnell was brain dead, then claimed, again without evidence, that the released photos were doctored, and versions of the theory that he had died and it was being concealed have circulated widely since.

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Friday:

ICE will release body camera footage when ICE feels like it

ICE says every field officer nationwide will have a body camera by the end of September.

Its policy says video of shootings and encounters where officers cause death or serious injury gets released promptly only after the agency determines that doing so “is in the best interests of the agency.”

Officers must turn the cameras on during routine enforcement, including arrests, search warrants, and emergency responses, and at least one member of every arrest team will be required to wear one.

When an officer kills someone, the recording then goes to a committee of ICE officials and ICE lawyers and they will decide if you see it or not.

If the ICE director finds that “specific and compelling circumstances” justify withholding a video, the director can block or indefinitely delay its release, even footage that gets released will have officers faces, names, and badge numbers redacted.

ICE spent $30.9 million in July on body camera equipment, the spending started one day after an ICE officer fatally shot a 25-year-old motorist in Maine, days after another ICE officer shot and killed a Houston homebuilder on his way to work and neither of the shootings were recorded on a body camera.

ICE arrested and sent over 43,000 people into detention in July, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term, according to agency detention data provided to Congress and reviewed by the Washington Post. The Post found ICE averaging around 1,432 arrests a day through July 12 and 1,450 a day from July 13 through the end of the month. And the pace didn’t slow down after the Houston shooting on July 7 or the Maine shooting on July 13. More than 238,000 people were sent into detention in the first seven months of 2026.

CBS News has reported more than 46,000 July book-ins using a broader measure that counts everyone booked into ICE detention, including people first arrested by other agencies such as Customs and Border Protection. The Post figure counts people arrested by ICE and sent into detention.

And Here’s Another Dancing Todd Video For Your Friday!

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TL;DR

Voters in Michigan, Kansas, Missouri and Washington went to the polls yesterday (Tuesday 8/5/26)

In Michigan, progressive physician Abdul El-Sayed defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic Senate primary after AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC spent a record $30.6 million supporting Stevens or opposing him. 🎉 A Detroit state representative unseated a sitting member of Congress. In Missouri, voters rejected two Republican-backed constitutional amendments, including one that would have required citizen-led constitutional amendments to win in all eight congressional districts, but the night was not a complete sweep: Rep. Wesley Bell, backed by AIPAC-aligned spending, defeated former Rep. Cori Bush. Kansas voters rejected direct elections for their state Supreme Court, about 61% to 39%.. In Washington’s most competitive House district, Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican state Sen. John Braun both advanced to November. Results remain unofficial until each state certifies them.

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Quick Summary & Results:

Michigan

• Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary. He will be running against Republican Mike Rogers this November in the Midterms

• Jocelyn Benson won the Democratic nomination for governor. She will face Republican Rep. John James this Novemeber

• Donavan McKinney defeated Rep. Shri Thanedar in the 13th District

• William Lawrence won the Democratic primary in the battleground 7th District

• Rashida Tlaib easily won renomination in the 12th District

Kansas

• Voters rejected the constitutional amendment to directly elect state Supreme Court justices, about 61% to 39%

• Cindy Holscher won the Democratic nomination for governor and will face Republican Ty Masterson this November

• Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton won the Democratic Senate primary and will challenge Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in November in the Midterms

Missouri

• Amendment 4, which would have imposed a district-by-district requirement on citizen-led constitutional amendments, it failed with more than 80% voting no

• Amendment 5, which would have begun phasing out the individual income tax based on revenue growth triggers, failed with about 83% voting no

• Rep. Wesley Bell defeated former Rep. Cori Bush

Washington

• Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican state Sen. John Braun advanced from the top-two primary in the 3rd District

• Washington will continue counting mail ballots, so their final percentages and primary vote margin will change before certification

$30.6 Million AIPAC Money

AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC, the United Democracy Project, spent more than $30.6 million supporting Haley Stevens or opposing Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.

This was the largest amount AIPAC’s political operation has ever invested in a single race. Federal Election Commission records also showed that other outside groups supporting Stevens and spent more than $50 million altogether. However, Abdul El-Sayed still won. 🎉

The Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning with El-Sayed leading by 14,893 votes, under one percentage point, out of more than 1.5 million ballots.

The AIPAC-funded ads focused on manufacturing and featured old footage of Barack Obama praising Stevens work on the auto industry rescue. Sure, Obama said those things back in 2018, when she was running for the House. He didn’t endorse Stevens in this Senate primary.

Former Rep. Andy Levin, who lost to Stevens in a 2022 primary after redistricting said: “AIPAC never runs on AIPAC. They never even talk about Israel and Palestine.”

Stevens didn’t personally “receive $30 million from AIPAC.” However, United Democracy Project and other outside groups made independent expenditures supporting her or attacking El-Sayed. Those groups are legally prohibited from coordinating those expenditures with a candidate’s campaign.

Stevens conceded Wednesday morning and pledged her support to El-Sayed for November and Sen. Gary Peters, who had endorsed Stevens in the primary, called on Democrats to rally around El-Sayed. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer congratulated him and emphasized party unity, although she didn’t issue the same kind of explicit endorsement. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who suspended her campaign in July but remained on the ballot, gave El-Sayed her “full endorsement and support” shortly after 2 a.m., hours before the Associated Press officially called the race.

AIPAC will keep opposing Abdul El-Sayed:
After El-Sayed won, AIPAC announced that it plans to oppose him again in November, when he faces Republican Mike Rogers.

The most money AIPAC has ever spent on one race. The candidate it backed still finished second.

Detroit

State Rep. Donavan McKinney defeated Rep. Shri Thanedar, 51.9% to 48.1%, a margin of nearly 4,200 votes out of about 112,000. The results remain unofficial until certification, but all precincts have reported. (Michigan Public)

The money story here is actually kind of funny when you think about it. Thanedar is a wealthy businessman who has poured millions of his own money into his political campaigns. Federal campaign-finance records through July 15 showed him with just over $5 million in cash on hand. McKinney had about $143,000.

Thanedar had the endorsement of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and support from AIPAC PAC, which had raised approximately $155,000 for his reelection campaigns since 2023. McKinney had Michigan’s organized labor movement, the Michigan Chronicle, Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib, and former Rep. Brenda Lawrence. (FEC & Michigan Chronicle)

McKinney, a democratic socialist endorsed by DSA, is now heavily favored in November. The Cook Political Report rates the district Solid Democratic. If elected, he would restore Black representation to Detroit’s congressional delegation, which the city lost after Thanedar won the seat in 2022. 🎉 Before that, Detroit had been represented by a Black member of Congress for nearly 70 years.

McKinney said afterward that the campaign had shown how “the poorest district in the state can come together to defeat the richest lobbies and multimillionaires.”

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The Seventh

William Lawrence, a community organizer who co-founded the Sunrise Movement, won the Democratic primary in Michigan’s 7th District by double digits. He received roughly 43% of the vote, defeating two more moderate, establishment-aligned opponents: former U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink and former Navy SEAL and Obama military aide Matt Maasdam.

Lawrence will face Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in November in a district the Cook Political Report rates a toss-up. Trump carried it by about one point in 2024, and Barrett won his first term with just over 50% of the vote.

Lawrence campaigned on Medicare for All, stronger labor rights, taxing billionaires and corporations, and perhaps most importantly for communities across the district, demanding the end of unchecked construction of massive AI data centers, which became a central part of his campaign and helped him win strongly in Mason, where a new data center has been proposed.

Missouri said no twice, and it wasn’t close

Republican lawmakers referred two major constitutional amendments to voters, and Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe placed them on the August primary ballot. Both got torched. 🔥

Amendment 4 would have required citizen led constitutional amendment to win a majority in every one of Missouri’s eight congressional districts, not just a statewide majority. Based on 2024 turnout, the Missouri Independent reported that as few as roughly 5% of all votes cast statewide, concentrated in one district, could have potentially blocked an amendment supported by statewide majority.

Missourians have used citizen-led constitutional amendments to legalize medical and recreational marijuana, expand Medicaid, legalize sports betting and restore abortion rights. Amendment 4 would have made wins like those dramatically more difficult and, based on past election results, would have blocked every citizen-led constitutional amendment approved in Missouri since 2020. It lost with about 80% voting no.

Amendment 5 would have required lawmakers to phase out Missouri’s individual income tax based on revenue growth triggers. It also would have authorized lawmakers to expand sales and use taxes and weakened existing constitutional limits on taxing goods and services. It lost with about 83% voting no.

Two other Missouri amendments passed.
Amendment 1 renews an existing 0.1% sales tax supporting state parks and soil and water conservation, it’s a renewal, not a new tax.
Amendment 2 requires all charter counties, including Jackson County, to elect their county assessors and comply with state training requirements.

Kansas and the Court

About 61% of Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have abolished the state’s Supreme Court Nominating Commission and replaced the current selection system with direct elections for six-year terms.

Kansas Republicans hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers and placed the amendment on the August primary ballot, when turnout is typically lower and the electorate generally leans more Republican. Unaffiliated voters could still vote on the amendment, but they had no partisan primary of their own drawing them to the polls. It was the same strategy used for the August 2022 abortion amendment and Kansans rejected that one too.

Republican lawmakers and conservative groups have spent years attacking the court over decisions protecting abortion rights and requiring the Legislature to meet its constitutional school-funding obligations. After voters refused to remove abortion protections directly in 2022, Republicans pursued a different route by changing how the justices are selected.

Retired Justice Carol Beier said: “The Kansas Supreme Court must remain fair and impartial for every citizen. It cannot and will not be bought to give a few an unfair advantage.”

Kansas has now rejected two Republican backed attempts to weaken that protection. Both were placed on August primary ballots and both failed.

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Washington uses a top-two primary in which every candidate appears on the same ballot, regardless of party.

In the 3rd District, Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican state Sen. John Braun have both been projected to advance from a nine-candidate field.

Early returns showed Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun nearly tied for first place, but both were comfortably ahead of the rest of the field and secured places in November.

Trump endorsed Braun in April and called Gluesenkamp Perez a “true Radical Left Extremist”, an unusual description for a Democrat who has repeatedly broken with her party and ranked among the House Democrats most likely to vote with Republicans.

Washington conducts its elections almost entirely by mail, so the totals will continue changing. Counties are scheduled to certify the primary on August 18, followed by state certification on August 21, the November matchup has been projected.

Reminder!!

• Check your registration at vote.org, and check your household’s too because purges DO happen.

• Look up who’s on your next ballot. Check the School board, county commission, assessor, everyone. Learn about them and what they stand for to help be a community voice.

• Read the Missouri results and the Kansas results

  ---

Other? Share it to us in the comments:
& If you’re in any of these 4 states, did you vote Tuesday?

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Sources

CBS News: Gluesenkamp Perez and Braun advance in Washington’s 3rd

Axios Detroit: McKinney wins the 13th District primary

Al Jazeera: How much has AIPAC spent against Abdul El-Sayed

Common Dreams: AIPAC’s 2026 spending tops $100 million

Missouri Independent: Voters reject income tax phaseout and initiative petition changes

CBS Detroit: AIPAC spends nearly $30M in the Michigan Senate primary

Michigan Advance: McKinney unseats Thanedar

Bridge Michigan: Michigan congressional primary results

KCUR: Guide to Missouri’s four August 2026 amendments

Kansas Reflector: Voters reject judicial selection amendment by wide margin

KSN: Cindy Holscher wins the Democratic primary for governor

MyNorthwest: Gluesenkamp Perez edges Braun by 263 votes

AP via WTOP: Tlaib wins the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s 12th

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You’ve already driven past one

You can it’s a Flock camera from the black pole, small rectangular box and a solar panel bolted at the top, they usually sit at intersections.

It takes pictures of your car and logs the plate, along with the make, model and color. It uses AI and other smart features to remember the dent in your bumper or the sticker in your back window… it then filed that into a interconnected nationwide network that thousands of agencies can search.

The Institute for Justice has now documented at least 28 cases nationwide of officers allegedly abusing license plate reader data to track romantic interests such as current partners, exes, and in one Florida case a stranger a deputy met on a TV set and later pulled over.

A Milwaukee officer looked up the location of the woman he was dating 124 times, and her ex another 55 times, according to the criminal complaint. A Richmond County, Georgia deputy allegedly searched one woman’s plate 1,639 times.

On top of that, most of these cases were not caught by internal audits, For example, the Milwaukee case surfaced because the victim looked up their own plate on a public site built from Flock’s own audit data and found odd activity.

Between August 2021 and May 2026, communities in 28 states terminated at least 82 reported Flock contracts.

39 of those happened in 5 months:

• Redmond, Washington, voted 7–0 on July 21, 2026, to terminate its Flock Safety contract and end the city’s automated license plate reader program.

• Monroe County, Indiana, voted 2–0 to end its Flock contract about a year early and agreed to pay approximately $3,000 to remove six cameras. Commissioner Jody Madeira called it “$3,000 well spent.”

• Bandera, Texas, population roughly 900, saw its first installed Flock camera sawed down two days later. A second camera was installed on a sturdier city-owned pole, but after months of public opposition, the council voted 3–2 in May to terminate the grant-funded program.

Meanwhile, hundreds of new contracts were signed this year.

CNN found constitutional conservatives outside Houston and progressives in Massachusetts arriving at the same conclusion from opposite directions.

About the cameras… on the ground

Across the country, Flock cameras are being cut, painted, and toppled.

People accused of destroying or damaging Flock cameras are facing serious felony charges and thousands of dollars worth in damage claims.

One man in Suffolk-Virginia, faces 25 charges for allegedly damaging 13 Flock cameras which is 13 destruction-of-property counts, 6 petit-larceny counts and 6 counts of possessing burglary items.

There’s also a strategic reason to keep the focus on the contracts rather than the poles: A damaged camera can be replaced but a canceled contract can’t.

What you can do to DeFlock your community

Look up your town on DeFlock’s crowdsourced camera map and check ALPR.watch, which tracks which local government meetings have ALPR on the agenda. Then send this to someone who drives more than you do.

You can Email your city manager and police office to ask: “does our department use ALPRs, and which outside agencies can search our data”?

The ACLU’s Get the Flock Out toolkit has the records request templates and a model oversight ordinance ready to send.

Find your contract’s Flock expiration date and add the date to your calendar so you can attend a local meeting before the date with search logs. This organizing has helped produce at least 82 reported contract terminations.

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Are these cameras legal?
Yes, for now. A federal judge upheld Norfolk, Virginia’s 176-camera network in January. The residents who sued, backed by the Institute for Justice, are appealing, and IJ has a separate class action going in San Jose. Kentucky capped retention at 90 days effective July 15, Washington’s governor signed its Driver Privacy Act, Maine has restricted ALPRs for years, and Colorado’s warrant bill died on the Senate floor in April after law enforcement pushback.

Is cutting a Flock Camera down illegal?
Yes. Prosecutors are charging destruction to Flock Cameras as felony criminal mischief or destruction of property, damage claims run into the thousands per camera.

How do I find out if my town has them?
DeFlock maps them nationwide.
Ban Flock Cameras tracks state-by-state status, and Who Approved This tracks contracts, dollar amounts, and renewal dates.

Can I find out if an officer searched my plate?
You can, sometimes. The website: HaveIBeenFlocked collects audit data from the governments that publish it. That is exactly how the Milwaukee case broke open.

Does canceling actually remove the cameras?
No, not automatically. It can take weeks… Eugene OR, found a camera had switched back on without authorization.

My police chief says our data is protected. Is it?
Ask for the complete search and audit logs, outside-agency access records, hotlist records, and current sharing settings, not just the summary.

They told us it solves crimes. What do I say back?
Say that’s not the concern. Monroe County’s commissioner said the technology had a role, then voted to end it anyway. A tool can help an investigation and still collect too much information, give too many people access or create risks that outweigh its benefits.

Our council will not budge
Framingham took many months, Pittsboro started in February and won in May, Bloomington needed a council resolution and a full report to get them to budge. Every one of these communities started with residents who were told no.

What is the Flock pole nearest you, and has anyone in your town asked the council about it yet?

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ICE forced medical treatment on a hunger striker. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it limit who gets a mail ballot, and Trump told the Senate to skip its August break for a voting bill that continues to fail. Trump also let a Supreme Court deadline lapse, two Republican senators stalled his attorney general nominee, and the Senate went on record against a Maxwell pardon.

Monday

Trump came at voting from two directions

The administration asked the Supreme Court to let it enforce Trump’s mail voting order. Trump also demanded the Senate cancel its August break for the SAVE America Act.

The order directs Homeland Security to compile state citizenship lists and requires Postal Service rules limiting mail ballots to voters on them. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., successfully challenged the restrictions, and the First Circuit declined to revive them.

On Monday we shared an article regarding recent ICE impersonators:

ICE Impersonators Forced an Oregon Driver Into an SUV

On July 17, two men in tactical vests marked “POLICE,” with one of them carrying a rifle who pulled a driver over near Woodburn. They said they were ICE, and forced the driver into an unmarked SUV.

A third man inside assaulted the driver, the driver was then released twenty minutes later and hospitalized. Federal agencies confirmed the three were not ICE. Claims spread online (from changed/edited records) that the victim was a woman who was sexually assaulted, You can read the full article by clicking here.

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Tuesday

ICE confirmed forced medical treatment of a hunger striker

A budget filing from ICE’s Health Service Corps, surfaced by the Guardian, says one detained hunger striker was “subject to force feeding, hydration, or forced urinary catheterization, or involuntary blood draws.”

Homeland Security wouldn’t say which procedure was used. Eunice Cho of the ACLU calls the authorizing court orders a rubber stamp, since many detainees have no lawyer to challenge them.

The deadline passed and Trump never filed 🎉

Tuesday was the last day to ask the Supreme Court to rehear its birthright citizenship ruling.

The Court ruled 6 to 3 on June 30 in Trump v. Barbara. A week later Trump posted he would seek a rehearing “IMMEDIATELY.” He had 25 days.

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Wednesday

Epstein survivors carried the files to the Senate, and Blanche’s vote was postponed

Survivors launched the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile on the National Mall and hand delivered files to Senate Judiciary offices. Later that night, Chairman Chuck Grassley postponed Thursday’s vote on Todd Blanche.

The bookmobile will carry all 3.5 million released files to communities through the midterms. (Click here to learn more about the bookmobile and when it will pass through a town near you)

“A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote against justice,” survivor Elizabeth Stein said.

The Senate then agreed by unanimous consent that Maxwell should get no pardon, with no roll call taken, so nobody went on record and nobody objected. Blanche stalled over Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, who want written assurance that the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund from Trump’s IRS settlement is dead. By Thursday Trump was posting he had “no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name” until January.

How, Exactly, Do You End Up Beefing With Ms. Rachel, of All People?

On Wednesday we shared an article on Ms. Rachel:

Ms. Rachel posted that being against genocide is not controversial and that staying silent about it is. She named no country. The verified State of Israel account replied, “Ms who?”

In June she hosted a press briefing on a UN report finding Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, which Israel rejects. She sang outside Delaney Hall with families of detained immigrants, then wheeled 535 packets of letters from children held at Dilley into the Capitol. You can read the full article by clicking here.

Thursday

Two thirds say the Iran war has not been worth fighting

National poll results came out that revealed sixty four percent of Americans say the war with Iran hasn’t been worth fighting, against 33 percent who say it has.

Republican approval of Trumps Iran handling fell from 71 to 61 percent in a month.

At least 18 American service members have died since February.

Forty percent now call gas prices a major stressor, up from 27 percent prewar.

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Some Recent Good News:

Kansas voters kept a safeguard worth thousands of ballots

The Kansas Court of Appeals refused to let Secretary of State Scott Schwab revive a law that would have thrown out mail ballots arriving after Election Day.

Kansas has counted ballots postmarked by Election Day and arriving within three days since 2017. This cushion saved 2,110 ballots in 2024 and 32,000 in 2020, and it holds for the August 4 primary.

Kotek pulled state land out of a proposed Salem data center in Oregon

Governor Tina Kotek ordered Oregon to terminate the sale of roughly 32 acres of state-owned land intended for a proposed data center in southeast Salem.

Kotek said developments of this scale must make sense for natural resources, utility customers, and surrounding communities. This is a win but may not automatically end the entire project there. Kotek has direct influence for the Salem location because it’s state owned land. Other proposed centers sit on private or locally controlled property, where decisions largely run through city land-use rules and permitting.

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Movement Spotlight

Japantown stood strong against a planned ICE facility

Organizers and South Bay officials rallied Wednesday outside the historic Issei Memorial Building against a planned ICE facility near Gilroy.

“Today, unfortunately, it’s too late to just say never again,” said Susan Hayase of San Jose Nikkei Resisters, noting that Japanese Americans resisted inside the World War II camps with strikes and draft resistance. Santa Clara County sued in June.

The ICE facility shows detention space for 150 people.

Trump’s biggest setback this week came from courts, from two departing Republican senators, and from Epstein survivors. The midterms are **95 days away** and will be here before you know it.
Go to https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/ to check if you are registered and find out who is running in your area for local offices.

Latest Questions in our Subscriber Chat:

Is your community organizing against a data center? What strategies are working and are your local officials listening?

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TL;DR

Ms. Rachel posted that being against genocide isn’t controversial and that staying silent about it is. She didn’t even name a country. But then the verified State of Israel account responded, “Ms who?”.

Ms. Rachel recently wheeled 535 packets of detained children’s letters to the Capitol and hosted a press briefing on the UN commission report that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children.

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You might not know who Ms. Rachel is.

You might know her by her appearance: the pink shirt, overalls, and headband... If you have parented a toddler in the last five years, she’s bought you at least half an hour of peace and quiet a few times a week.

Ms. Rachel started Songs for Littles on YouTube in 2019 after looking for speech resources for her own son and not finding what she needed which was slow speech, repetition, and sign language.

Millions of subscribers and a Netflix series later, she’s one of the most trusted adults in American childhood.

She also refuses to be a person who only notices some children.

Ms. Rachel has raised more than one million dollars for children in conflict zones including Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan.

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She posted “Why is Ms Rachel controversial?” Her answer was that being against genocide isn’t controversial. Staying silent about it is.

She didn’t tag anyone. She named no country, no leader, or military here. Yet, the verified State of Israel account showed up in her replies with: “Ms who?”

They volunteered themselves because they know what they’re doing.

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On June 23, 2026, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry released a report titled “The essence of childhood has been destroyed.”

It found that Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, and that this targeting is a key element establishing genocidal intent.

The commission concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel’s government rejects both findings and denies committing genocide.

Days later, Ms. Rachel hosted a press briefing on that report, featuring commission member Chris Sidoti and an emergency physician who had worked in Gaza’s hospitals.

On June 8, she stood outside Delaney Hall, the ICE detention facility in Newark, and sang with the families of people locked inside.

She met a 13-year-old girl whose father, a truck driver who lived here 20 years, was detained in February and missed her birthday. The girl’s younger brother is nonverbal and can’t walk. Ms. Rachel sang to him. He signed more, again and again.

The next day she wheeled a black suitcase into the Capitol in a bubblegum-pink suit, carrying 535 packets of letters and drawings from children held at the Dilley detention center in Texas. Every member of Congress was meant to receive one. Republicans and Democrats both.

One letter, from a 7-year-old boy: “I cry a lot.”

In April 2025, the group StopAntisemitism asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Ms. Rachel was being paid by a foreign party, suggesting it might violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Asked whether it actually had proof, the group’s director said it didn’t. Ms. Rachel called the accusation absurd and patently false.

When critics told her to stay in her lane and sing kids’ songs, she gave the entire answer in one word:

“No.”

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How can you dislike Ms. Rachel?

It’s Ms. Rachel.

Authoritarian systems run on selective empathy. They need you to sort children into the ones who “are important” and the ones who are “collateral”.

Ms. Rachel makes that more challenging for the regime because she keeps pointing at a kid and saying: that is somebody’s child.

What you can do

• Sign the petition to close the Dilley ICE detention center. It surpassed 324,000 signatures in June and now has more than 327,000. Dilley is the facility where the children who created the 535 packets of letters and drawings Ms. Rachel carried to Congress were being detained.

• Subscribe to Ms. Rachel! (Or give her a follow on threads!)

• Call your representative about family detention. Her letters got onto their desks and your call go into their phone logs, offices really count those.

• Share this to help spread awareness, and when someone tells you she should stay in her lane, they’re angry about which children matter.

  ---

How do you feel about Ms. Rachel speaking out?

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Sources

• OHCHR | Commission of Inquiry press release, June 23, 2026

• UN News | Commission finds deliberate targeting of Palestinian children

• Al Jazeera | September 2025 genocide determination and June 2026 findings

• CNN | Israel rejects the findings

• Truthout | Ms. Rachel press briefing

• NBC New York | Delaney Hall visit

• Colorado Springs Gazette | 535 packets, Dilley letters, Capitol Hill

• Washington Post | Ms. Rachel visits Capitol Hill

• The Hill | StopAntisemitism letter to AG Bondi

• Mediaite | Group provided no public evidence for the allegation

• Variety | More than $1 million raised for children in conflict zones

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TL;DR:

On Friday, July 17, two men, one armed with what Oregon State Police confirm to be a rifle, pull over a driver on a rural Oregon highway identifying themselves as ICE. The two armed men force the driver into an unmarked SUV where a third individual awaits and assaults the man. 20 minutes later the men release the driver and flee the scene on foot. Federal Agencies confirm the three men were not federal officers. Keep reading for the full story.

A driver on Oregon Highway 211 near the 5 mile post (just east of Woodburn) was pulled over by two men in a blue or gray SUV with no license plates.

The men were wearing boots, baseball caps, face coverings, green long-sleeve shirts and had on their tactical vests with “POLICE” written in large white letters on the front of the vests. Each of the men had on a badge that read “Police”.

One of them was carrying what the OSP officer described as a rifle.

They said they were ICE and said the driver was being detained.

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What Oregon State Police confirmed

The driver was pulled from his car and searched.

He was then put in the back seat of the suspects’ SUV. A third person remained in the SUV the entire time, acting as a guard. The guard assaulted the driver while he was being held in the SUV. The driver was released by the suspects twenty minutes later. The driver then went to the hospital for injuries sustained during the assault.

After some hours at the hospital for injuries to his face, he was discharged and when he returned to his vehicle he received a number of texts on his phone from 971-502-5548. They appeared to be from a law firm representing him regarding the earlier events.

There is no explanation for why the sender of these texts would know that the victim needed a lawyer. OSP contacted federal agencies, and they confirmed that the men were not federal police officers. The FBI is currently investigating the incident.

The sexual-assault allegation

As the story was spreading posts started identifying the victim as a woman who had been sexually assaulted by the third person in the SUV who acted as a guard. OregonLive reported earlier that there was more specific language in the account of the incident that had been ‘scrubbed’ from the police release.

However, the publicly available evidence doesn’t confirm the sexual nature of the assault or the gender of the victim. The assault was reportedly carried out by the third person in the SUV, described by the police as the “guard” or “watch” but in both releases of the information from OSP, the assault is described without elaboration as to what the assault was.

OSP hasn’t revealed specifics about the assault but both releases have described the assault to be perpetrated by the third individual acting as guard to the victim.

There might be information that’s not released in order to protect the victim and or to allow the agency to continue an active investigation but none has been given to the public as to why certain information is not being released.

The disguise

This is a typical way that ICE operate. Covered faces, a fake “POLICE” sign with no department listed, an unmarked SUV, a visible gun. And, for good measure, a completely unverifiable set of demands on the driver to comply immediately.

Oregon saw this coming

Oregon passed House Bill 4138, the Law Enforcement Accountability and Visibility Act, which took effect on March 31st.

The legislation has two main provisions: first, law enforcement must “wear clothing that visibly displays their name and identifying number as well as the name of their employing agency,” and, second, an agency as a whole may cover their faces in the course of their work for 180 days after which time no individual officer may do so.

On May 27, the City Council there passed an ordinance, “Right to Know Who’s Policing You”, which requires police to investigate individuals detaining or stopping members of public for reasons unknown to them who do not display proper credentials. As reported by the Oregonian, City Councilor Sameer Kanal made clear that this ordinance wouldn’t unmask federal agents in Portland, because the City of Portland is already locked in a court of law with feds regarding their use of masks in this city.

How can the government demand immediate obedience when the public has no reliable way to verify who is hiding behind the mask?

This could happen to anyone.

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Sources

Woodburn Independent | OSP release, July 24

KOIN | Suspects impersonated ICE, assaulted victim

KGW | OSP and FBI investigating

KEZI | Full OSP verification guidance

Oregon Legislature | House Bill 4138 (LEAVA)

OPB | Portland approves mask and ID policy

Willamette Week | Council passes mask ban 8-4

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Monday

Good Trouble was everywhere

Good Trouble Lives On weekend of action of July 17-19 saw over 600 communities around the country hold nonviolent, nonpartisan actions of service and learning to honor the life and work of Congressman John Lewis.

The Transformative Justice Coalition and other partners organized Good Trouble Lives On around the theme of Teach, Reach, Preach.

Friday night held teach-ins, vigils and voter education activities. Saturday and Sunday were filled with voter registration activities and community gatherings including gatherings at congregations where clergy taught about voting rights and the moral obligation to participate in our democracy and protect it.

A federal judge threw out the RNC’s demand for New Jersey voter data

US District Court Judge Georgette Castner threw out a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee to force the State of New Jersey to hand over sensitive information regarding all of its voters.

In her opinion, the RNC had failed to allege “concrete plans for how it intends to use the specific records” sought in the lawsuit. Castner observed that her court’s situation was “strikingly similar” to that of a Pennsylvania case that had been recently rejected by the Third Circuit and therefore she was dismissing the RNC’s lawsuit as well.

The court dismissed the case because the RNC didn’t show a concrete injury or adequately explained how it planned to use the records.

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Tuesday

Tens of thousands of immigrants kept the right to work

Boston U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton granted a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) that blocks the Trump administration from yanking work authorization from tens of thousands of asylum seekers and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders scheduled to expire this summer under new retroactive terms of their status.

Gorton didn’t rule on the new asylum application fee that USCIS is charging, he ruled that the severe consequences of not paying the fee, i.e. the rejection of an application, the termination of a work authorization, and the initiation of removal proceedings against an individual, are potentially severe and thus warrant a temporary injunction to be decided by August 5. The judge is a George H.W. Bush appointee, so let’s not go down that partisan road here. People who go through the proper process to earn a living in this country should be able to continue to do so until their case is fully heard.

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Wednesday

ICE has 56 excessive force complaints and one referral

The House Homeland Security Committee Democrats received a closed door briefing today from ICE officials.

After the briefing the Democrats released some figures that “defy belief.” There are 56 complaints of excessive force lodged against ICE officers, with 32 of them cleared.

One officer was referred for possible disciplinary action and the rest are currently under investigation. That one officer could possibly be disciplined for excessive force out of all of the incidents that have occurred in the last year and a half of surges and deaths of civilians by ICE officers “defies belief” said Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

There were two separate shootings in the past week, in Maine and in Houston, that resulted in the deaths of two people. Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement began increasing the number of deportations of immigrants living in the US without legal permission in 2025, there have been a rise in deaths in immigration encounters.

Thompson said he had expected more answers from Wednesday’s hearing but found himself with more questions. Most fundamentally, Thompson said, is who investigates complaints of excessive force by immigration officers. Sometimes the FBI does. Sometimes it’s Homeland Security Investigations. Officials gave inconsistent answers about which agency investigates officers use of force.

The two shootings of people in cars that triggered the new policy of stopping cars only when there is no alternative and using lights and sirens before approaching the car had been conveyed to officers orally, and had not been reduced to a written directive.

The suspension of most vehicle stops, announced after the shooting in Maine, had been reversed the next day by the President’s statement that he wanted officers to continue stopping cars to check for immigrants.

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Thursday

Twenty five states sued rather than trade elections for disaster money

Twenty five states and the District of Columbia sued the federal government over FEMA and DHS policies to condition billions of dollars in disaster and homeland security grants on changes to voting and immigration laws.

Twenty five states and the District of Columbia filed a federal lawsuit in a Rhode Island court challenging the conditions imposed by the federal government on billions of dollars in funding each year for disaster relief and homeland security grants.

Under the conditions imposed by FEMA and DHS, the states must convert to paper ballot systems, conduct manual audits of their voting systems, reconcile their voter registration lists, and verify the citizenship of every registered voter in their databases.

In addition, the states must assist DHS in enforcing immigration laws and DHS can withdraw all grants at will.

The lawsuit challenges conditions attached to several FEMA and DHS grant programs. As noted above, states that refuse to comply with Trump’s demands risk losing at least 20% of their HSGP funding and that’s because HSGP funds are intended to help states and localities prepare for and respond to a wide range of threats, including cyber attacks and terrorism.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said that the Trump administration is “unlawfully withholding billions in critical funding” from states that refuse to give in to the administration’s election and immigration demands.

A federal panel let Tennessee split Memphis three ways

A panel of three judges yesterday declined to block the new congressional district map for Tennessee’s upcoming August 6 primary elections.

The map splits the majority Black population of Memphis into three different districts, including one currently held by Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), who announced his retirement from the House of Representatives after the new maps were passed by the state legislature.

The three-judge panel that will hear the lawsuit challenging the new congressional district maps drawn by the Republican majority in the Tennessee state legislature consists of two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee.

The two sides presented their arguments and the panel expressed skepticism towards the plaintiffs’ claims that the maps as drawn will dilute the voting power of Black citizens in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The case follows the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Tennessee is among eight Republican-led states that have redrawn congressional districts since last year.

Amber Sherman, a Memphis voter and plaintiff, called the ruling painful and said, “When our voting power is diluted, our neighborhoods have a harder time making their voices heard on the issues that shape our daily lives.”

Good Trouble Lives On Official Weekend of Action and Press Releases

Democracy Docket Federal Judge Dismisses RNC Voter-Roll Lawsuit in New Jersey

Reuters Judge Temporarily Blocks the Administration From Stripping Immigrants of Work Permits

Associated Press ICE Discloses 56 Excessive-Force Complaints and One Disciplinary Referral

Democracy Docket Legal Challenge to Trump’s Mail-Voting Order Can Continue

The Guardian States Sue Over Election and Immigration Conditions Attached to FEMA Funding

Associated Press Federal Judges Allow Tennessee’s New Congressional Map

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ICE runs on private airlines, tech companies, local police, contractors, and public cooperation, and each of those is a place where you can push back. In January 2026, Avelo Airlines dropped its ICE deportation flights and closed its Arizona base after months of protests. Below you’ll find 7 ways to push back. You don’t have to do all 7 but the more you can do, the better.

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Fighting back is more than a big No Kings march

No Kings protests and other big gatherings help bring attention to what’s going on, but it’s not the only way, and not everyone can safely march. Many people have disabilities, swing/night shifts, caregiving duties, or immigration worries of their own, and that’s okay, there is a lot to do and many ways to fight back.

ICE rents planes, uses software, and leans on local police. ICE also counts on the belief that their system is too strong and complicated for us to challenge it.

1. Pressure the companies that fly for ICE

ICE doesn’t own planes, it pays private airlines to fly people to detention and deportation.

One of them, GlobalX, flew more than half of ICE’s deportation flights in 2024 and 2025. GlobalX also flies commercial clients like college sports teams, so it has customers and a reputation to protect.

Do this: Pick a group that hires an ICE-linked airline by clicking here and try to reach out to them, ask: Will you stop booking airlines that operates ICE deportation flights? And also ask who chooses the airline and when the contract ends. Keep the pressure on those who sign the contracts. Look up which carriers fly for ICE at ICE Flight Monitor.

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2. Do your Local Police work with ICE?

287-g (a program) lets ICE deputize your local police and sheriffs to act as immigration agents. This program has expanded with 135 program agreements at the start of 2025 to more than 2,100 by July 2026, (this month). These deals are signed by local officials and voted in your local public meetings.

Do this to help fight back: You can search the ICE 287g list for law enforcement involved with the program. If your area is on it, email your sheriff, mayor, and council and say: Will you end this agreement? What’s the process to withdraw?! Then try to set a weekly reminder to scan the local meeting agendas for words like “ICE,” or “287g,” and be sure to speak up before the vote.

3. Look up the Public Records

Most people don’t realize they can do this. You can look up public records without being a journalist or reporter. You can view government invoices, agreements, and emails which are often public under records laws. Following the records can show you and your community how much local officials are working with ICE.

Do this: You can file a narrow records request with an agency: Copy and use this: Under the applicable public-records law, I request ALL contracts, agreements, and invoices between ‘insert agency here’ and ICE or DHS from January 1, 2025 to today. Please send them electronically, and give me an estimate if fees will top $25. There are free tools like MuckRock that walk you through this process. You can turn what you get back into a timeline/summary to share or that a local reporter can use.

4. Tech Companies Powering ICE

In January of 2026, the EFF reported that ICE uses a Palantir tool that maps targets and scores/records their likely addresses, pulling from Medicaid and other records. Palantir disputes it. Either way, these companies have employees and shoppers who are being affected by this kind of surveillance.

Do this to help fight back: If you work in tech, own stock, attend a school, or belong to a union or professional group, ask: Does my employer, school, or city hold a contract with ICE or an ICE data vendor? Then push for something specific, like a worker letter, student resolution, or a promise not to renew the contract. Skip “boycott everything.” and aim at one contract. The EFF report is a good place to start. You can also learn more about FLOCK cameras by clicking here

5. Help Rapid Response from Home

Trained volunteers respond in-person when ICE shows up, but Rapid Response groups need people behind the scenes too. They need help answering phones, checking and verifying reports, translating, and reaching out to lawyers.

Do this: Join a group that already exists instead of starting your own alert page. (But if your community doesn’t have one yet, definitely get one going!) Contact a local immigrant-rights or rapid-response network and ask what remote help they need, like hotline shifts, translation, or graphics/flyers. The United We Dream MigraWatch hotline can direct you to local groups. You can also learn how to report safely from our guide, ICE Vehicles Don’t Look Like ICE Vehicles Anymore.

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6. Get “know your rights” cards out to people

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center makes Free Red Cards, in more than fifty languages, these help explain rights in a simple and easy to understand way.

Do this: Download and print Red Cards, then hand them out, mail them to a trusted local group, or pay for a batch to be printed. The cards are always free, so ignore any account charging for them. While you are at it, share vetted legal help and remind people of three things: a notary is not a lawyer, a comment online is not legal advice, and no one should pay an unlicensed “consultant.”

7. Support Affected Families

One detention can drain a family very fast with legal fees, bond, rent, missed paychecks, and long drives to a detention center.

Do this to help fight back: you can set up a small monthly donation to a local bail or bond fund and look for clear local leadership with a secure donation page. You can also help by spending money at immigrant owned businesses when fear of being kidnapped by ICE keeps their regular customers away.

The people ICE targets are the ones who pay the price if something goes wrong. When you’re not sure about something, ask an immigrant-led group what they need, and take the boring (but necessary!) job.

These are only 7 ways to fight back. Help our community by sharing more ideas in the comments:

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Sources/Reading

Avelo Airlines ending ICE deportation flights and closing its Mesa base | CNBC

ICE Flight Monitor | Human Rights First

GlobalX ICE flight records, reporting by The Guardian; NCAA charter estimate, De-ICE These Flights campaign | Democracy Now

287(g) program, models, and participating agencies, ICE | ILRC national map

Palantir enforcement-targeting tool report | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Reporting ICE activity safely

MigraWatch hotline United We Dream

Free printable Red Cards Immigrant Legal Resource Center

LinkTree

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On Friday evening, as the light faded over one of Brea, California’s busiest intersections, community members lit candles at the corner of Imperial Highway and State College Boulevard. So far, they’ve stood at that corner every Monday for more than a year. They stood with handmade signs, candlelight, and music, one small point of light at the start of a very big weekend.

From July 17 through 19, more than 600 communities gathered for Good Trouble Lives On, the sixth annual national weekend of nonviolent, nonpartisan action honoring Congressman John Lewis. Organizers built the weekend around three things, Teach, Reach, Preach, and centered this year’s actions on voter registration, civic education, and faith-based organizing. It was a weekend spent building people and relationships that will defend the vote this coming November and beyond.

The weekend was built to outlast the weekend

Organizers with the Transformative Justice Coalition and partners structured all three days around Teach, Reach, Preach. Friday was for teach-ins, vigils, and voter education. Saturday was for reaching people directly through registration drives and community gatherings. Sunday brought work into congregations, where clergy connected voting rights to moral responsibility.

Every official event carried a commitment to nonviolence, de-escalation, and lawful conduct. That discipline is the same discipline John Lewis practiced, and it’s what keeps our people safe

In New York, Friday brought a march and a dance party

In New York, Friday’s action began at Foley Square in Manhattan, where a coalition including the New York Immigration Coalition, Hands Off NYC, the Workers Circle, and partners held a rally and march defending Black voting power and immigrant New Yorkers, with a march toward Cadman Plaza and an outdoor dance party with Public Service NYC.

Lean into joy. This movement never asked anyone to choose between resistance and celebration and we really need both, and New York brought both.

In Santa Barbara, hundreds of people became more than a crowd

By 11 a.m. Saturday, nearly 300 people lined Cabrillo Boulevard near Stearns Wharf, the Santa Barbara Independent reported. Volunteers in yellow vests waved at honking drivers. Local groups recruited newcomers into postcard writing, phone banking, and text banking.

One affiliated group, Commit to Democracy, said its volunteers sent more than five million text messages during the last general election.

And in the places the cameras rarely go

In Fultondale, Alabama, high school students, artists, and faith leaders gathered at St. Luke A.M.E. Church on Sunday. In Huntsville, organizers described disrupting the system with joy. In Lynchburg, Virginia, the Lynchburg Voters League held its second annual Good Trouble weekend. In Chicago, a candlelight vigil near Buckingham Fountain opened a weekend of registration events across the city.

Some gatherings were large. Some filled a church or a single street corner. Every one of them makes a difference. Thank you to everyone who showed up or shared to help get the word out.

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Why this year carries extra weight

This weekend took on new urgency amid a broader assault on voting rights, including the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which sharply narrowed how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be used to challenge racial vote dilution in redistricting. Justice Elena Kagan warned in dissent that the decision renders Section 2 “all but a dead letter.” And according to the Brennan Center, at least 9 states enacted 12 restrictive voting laws this year, and nine of those laws are slated to be in effect for the November midterms.

None of this is inevitable, and more than 600 communities just spent three days proving it.

Every registration table, teach-in, congregation that took up the cause this weekend is a barrier answered with a person who now knows how to get through it.

What this weekend built

• A college senior is building a campus organization that didn’t exist a month ago.

• Congregations across the country preached democracy from the pulpit.

• Strangers picked up lyric sheets and sang together.

• Newcomers signed up for their first phone bank.

• People who were frightened on Wednesday stood shoulder to shoulder with neighbors by Saturday.

Don’t let the weekend end here

• Check your voter registration, especially if you’ve moved, changed your name, or skipped recent elections. If you hit a problem or a question, the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline is 866-OUR-VOTE.

• Become dependable somewhere. Join a local group doing voter outreach and claim a recurring piece of the work: a phone bank shift or a registration table.

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  Sent in and written by Erika Berg, Click here to read: John Lewis | A Tribute

  

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Did you show up for Good Trouble? How did it go?

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This week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. A 52-year-old husband, father of three sons and construction-business owner, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston’s Magnolia Park on July 7 while driving his crew to a job site. He was not the person agents were looking for. The Harris County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. A 25-year-old father of a 3-year-old girl, shot and killed by an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13. He was also not the target either. The agents involved were not wearing body cameras.

Then yesterday morning, a third name we still don’t know of a 28-year-old man in St. Augustine, Florida, one of four people who ran when ICE and Homeland Security Investigations agents confronted their parked car at a gas station. He was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer as he fled across State Road 16. Authorities have not released his name, and it happened the same day the administration told ICE to pause most vehicle stops.

Three deaths from ICE enforcement encounters in one week.

This weekend, from Friday, July 17, through Sunday, July 19, communities across the country are taking action. They’re honoring John Lewis, defending voting rights and demanding an end to an agency whose operations keep leaving people dead.

What is happening this weekend

Six years after the death of Congressman John Lewis, the Good Trouble Lives On national weekend of action runs Friday through Sunday under the theme “Teach! Reach! Preach!”

Friday is Teach: teach-ins, civic education, and community discussions.
Saturday is Reach: rallies, marches, voter registration, and outreach, with actions planned nationwide.
Sunday is Preach: interfaith services centered on civic responsibility and voting rights.

The campaign is anchored by voting rights, organized by groups including 50501, the Transformative Justice Coalition, Black Voters Matter, Indivisible, and the Declaration for American Democracy coalition, with hundreds of thousands expected to participate

Every Good Trouble event is required to be nonviolent, lawful, and weapons-free.

Good Trouble Lives On is nationally anchored in voting rights, civic education and defending the civil rights John Lewis spent his life fighting for.

But after ICE agents killed Lorenzo and Johan, two fathers who were not even the targets of the operations, and after a third man died fleeing an ICE encounter in Florida the very next day, many communities will also carry demands for ICE accountability and abolition into this weekend’s actions.

These fights are not separate.

The government attacking voting rights is the same government unleashing masked federal agents into our communities, conducting dangerous vehicle stops and defending deadly force before the public has even seen the evidence.

Look at the map.

The national map will tell you something is being planned however, your local organizers tell you where your community is actually meeting up.

A pin on the map might be one volunteer’s listing, the bigger gathering your neighbors are planning might be ten miles away, outside an ICE facility, at a courthouse, in a church parking lot, or on an overpass in the next town over.

Anyone can add an event to a national map without knowing what local coalitions have already decided

Do both:

1. Open the Good Trouble Lives On map and the Mobilize event finder. Search your town, your county, and the nearest city.

2. Then check your local groups, 50501 group, Indivisible chapter, immigrant rights organization, or the community groups you already trust. Ask where the meetup point is.

And if you check everything and the nearest action is still just you? Showing up alone is bravery. One person with a sign on a rural highway reaches hundreds of cars. Some of the most important protests in this movement have started exactly that way. But if you are hoping to stand in a crowd, confirm where the crowd will be before you leave home.

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Maine: you are showing up and we are all watching

Within hours of Johan’s killing, hundreds of people gathered in Biddeford and Portland. About 85 people demonstrated in Bangor, more than 80 gathered in Waterville, and more than 250 protested outside the ICE facility in Scarborough on Tuesday, the largest crowd organizers say that facility has ever seen.

Maine saw that ICE took another life and took to the streets. Within a day of Johan’s killing, the administration directed ICE to suspend most vehicle stops nationwide.

This weekend, Maine communities are folding that grief and fury into Good Trouble actions across the state. Gatherings are being announced quickly and are changing quickly, so check the Good Trouble map alongside the organizations closest to this fight:

• The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition runs a statewide ICE response hotline at 207-544-9989 and an immigrant resource hub with multilingual know your rights materials.

• Presente! Maine, an immigrant-led organization supporting Maine’s Latino community and helping lead the response to Johan’s killing, is an important source for community-led action announcements.

• The Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project provides free immigration legal help across Maine.

Don’t assume the biggest Maine gathering will be in Biddeford, and don’t assume it won’t be. Check before you go, and check again the morning of

Houston: the movement for Lorenzo is not slowing down

Houston has been in the streets since July 8. Marches through the East End. Vigils on Canal Street where Lorenzo was killed. Over a hundred people outside City Hall this past Saturday demanding an independent investigation, and elected officials from the Harris County DA to members of Congress refusing to let the case disappear.

Houston organizers move fast, and new actions are often announced only days or hours ahead through community networks. For this weekend, watch FIEL Houston, LULAC, Houston area labor unions, and the Good Trouble map, and verify dates carefully. Flyers from the July 8 through 12 actions are still circulating and can be mistaken for new events.

The Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative hotline is 1-833-468-4664 for anyone who needs help locating a detained loved one or finding free legal assistance in Greater Houston

Two more dates for your calendar:

• Wednesday, July 15 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT: the national Justice4Lorenzo&Johan: Day of Action and Accountability Movement Call, featuring Lorenzo’s loved ones, case updates, and planning for vigils on or around July 25.

• On and around Saturday, July 25: coordinated community vigils nationwide. More info to come.

  

Support the families directly

Both families have verified fundraisers.

• Justice and Support for Johan Sebastián’s Family: Funds are entrusted to Johan’s sister and will help cover legal expenses, funeral and repatriation costs, and continuing support for his wife and daughter.

• In Loving Memory of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo: Organized by the LULAC Institute to support funeral and legal expenses and provide ongoing help for Lorenzo’s wife and three sons.

Fake fundraisers often pop up after national tragedies.
Share these direct links, not screenshots. We also have the links in our Linktree, by clicking here.

Before you go checklist for this weekend

• Confirm the listing says 2026. Old Good Trouble flyers from last year rank high in search results.

• Confirm the organizer posted the same time and place on a live page or active account.

• Read the ACLU protesters’ rights guide.

• Print a few Know Your Rights red cards to hand out. They’re available in multiple languages and help people clearly invoke their constitutional rights when immigration agents come to their homes, workplaces or communities.

Whatever you can do is enough

If you can march: pick your event, invite others, and show up to an event this weekend.

If you can’t be in a crowd: consider donating to the family funds above, join Wednesday’s movement call from your couch, print red cards for your neighborhood, or share the verified maps and links..

If all you have is your voice: tell people about Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, tell them what happened.

50501 Linktree

If you have a protest sign ready or if you have protest sign ideas, share them in the comments to help inspire others.

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To Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who lived in Houston for more than thirty-five years, built homes for a living and was beginning another morning of work when ICE took his life.

And to Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who rose early for his wife and little girl and never made it home.

And to the man in St. Augustine whose name we don’t yet know. We will learn your name, and we will say it too.

You should all be alive. We will say your names across this country.

ICE keeps killing, lying, and avoiding any accountability.

Abolish ICE.

Another person was shot and killed this morning in an incident involving ICE near Pool and Hill streets in Biddeford, Maine, according to state officials. Authorities have not released the victim’s name, said who fired, or explained what happened. It came just six days after an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston as he drove his construction crew to a job site.

Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights found that 52 people have died in ICE custody during the first 500 days of this administration. The mortality rate in custody has more than doubled and is nearly four times what it was under the previous administration. Separately, a Guardian review found that 10 people had been fatally shot by ICE or Border Patrol officers during this administration before today’s incident. The Biddeford shooting may raise that number, but authorities have not yet said who fired.

More raids, detention, and more money have not bought accountability, instead they have bought fear, secrecy, and death.

Abolishing ICE means to dismantle an agency that has proven time and time again that it can’t be trusted with this much power.

ICE doesn’t run one office per state. Its Enforcement and Removal Operations division splits the entire country into 25 regional field offices, and each one covers a wide territory, often several states at once.

If your state is not named below, it’s not because ICE is absent. It’s because your state is run out of a regional office headquartered somewhere else. Phoenix oversees Arizona. St. Paul covers Minnesota and the states around it. Every state in the country falls under one of these 25.

Use this only for lawful, peaceful organizing.

Plug into immigrant-led groups in your area, line up legal observers and medics, protect vulnerable neighbors, and always verify a location before announcing anything.

These are also not the only places ICE operates. The agency runs sub-offices, detention centers, processing facilities, and temporary staging sites that may not appear on ICE’s public field-office directory. What this list gives you is ICE’s 25 publicly listed ERO field offices, which oversee enforcement and removal operations across their assigned regions

This list focuses on ICE’s 25 publicly listed ERO regional field offices and its national headquarters. For ICE’s broader directory, including sub-offices, investigative offices, legal offices, and other local facilities, click here.

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ICE regional enforcement offices

Arizona Phoenix Field Office 2035 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85004

California Los Angeles Field Office 300 North Los Angeles Street, Room 7631, Los Angeles, CA 90012

San Diego Field Office 880 Front Street, Suite 2242, San Diego, CA 92101

San Francisco Field Office 630 Sansome Street, Room 590, San Francisco, CA 94111

Colorado Denver Field Office 12445 E. Caley Avenue, Centennial, CO 80111

District of Columbia National ICE Headquarters 500 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20024 (ICE uses 20536 as its government mailing ZIP.)

Florida Miramar Sub Office, Miami Field Office 2805 SW 145th Avenue, Miramar, FL 33027

Georgia Atlanta Field Office 180 Ted Turner Drive SW, Suite 522, Atlanta, GA 30303

Illinois Chicago Field Office 101 W. Ida B. Wells Drive, Suite 4000, Chicago, IL 60605

Louisiana New Orleans Field Office 181 James Drive W, St. Rose, LA 70087

Maryland Baltimore Field Office 31 Hopkins Plaza, 6th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21201

Massachusetts Boston Field Office 1000 District Avenue, Burlington, MA 01803

Michigan Detroit Field Office 985 Michigan Avenue, Suite 207, Detroit, MI 48226

Minnesota St. Paul Field Office 1 Federal Drive, Suite 1601, Fort Snelling, MN 55111

New Jersey Newark Field Office 970 Broad Street, 11th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102

New York Buffalo Field Office 250 Delaware Avenue, 7th Floor, Buffalo, NY 14202

New York City Field Office 26 Federal Plaza, 9th Floor, Suite 9-110, New York, NY 10278

Pennsylvania Philadelphia Field Office 114 North 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Texas Dallas Field Office 8101 N. Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, TX 75247

El Paso Field Office 11541 Montana Avenue, Suite E, El Paso, TX 79936

Harlingen Field Office 1717 Zoy Street, Harlingen, TX 78552

Houston Field Office 126 Northpoint Drive, Houston, TX 77060

San Antonio Field Office 1777 NE Loop 410, 15th Floor, San Antonio, TX 78217

Utah Salt Lake City Field Office 2975 Decker Lake Drive, Suite 100, West Valley City, UT 84119-6096

Virginia Washington Field Office 14797 Murdock Street, Mail Stop 5216, Chantilly, VA 20598-5216

Washington Seattle Field Office 12500 Tukwila International Boulevard, Seattle, WA 98168

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Justice for Lorenzo: Day of Action & Accountability

Movement Call Wednesday, July 15

Join the Justice for Lorenzo movement call. Hear directly from Lorenzo’s loved ones, get updates on the case, and learn how communities can demand accountability in the weeks ahead.

Justice for Lorenzo: Day of Action & Accountability Movement Call Wednesday, July 15, 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT Register here

Abolish ICE. Protect our neighbors. Show up peacefully.

For Lorenzo and those killed by ICE, whose name we will continue to say.

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This week began with fireworks smoke still hanging over Washington and ended with the White House removing every commissioner from the Election Assistance Commission, the one federal agency built to help states run elections.

Not only that but an ICE killed a Houston father on his way to work, the Justice Department threatened election officials in every state with criminal prosecution, and the ceasefire with Iran gave way to two nights of strikes.

Courts kept Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center and ordered his payment to E. Jean Carroll released. Hundreds marched in Houston, Mexico moved past diplomatic complaints and toward the courts, and thousands are still standing behind a military officer who chose his oath over his career. Here’s what happened.

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Monday

The 4th of July Smoke & Recap

After the 850,000-firework display over the National Mall, Washington briefly recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world on Sunday, according to the global monitoring platform IQAir. City officials issued a Code Red air quality alert, warning that the air was unhealthy for seniors, children, and people with medical conditions, after regional forecasters had initially predicted even worse Code Purple conditions. Air quality returned to moderate by Monday morning, but the scale of the pollution, and the fact that internal National Park Service documents showed officials expected it, was becoming clear.

Our Monday article covered what happened in Washington and across the country:

They Launched 850,000 Fireworks | 250 “Celebration” Recap

The Tubman $20 bill is officially dead

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed to Spectrum News on Monday that the administration has abandoned the decade-old plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, saying “we are not at present” moving forward. He didn’t give much of a reason. In the same interview, he also said the Treasury is prepared to move quickly on a new $250 bill featuring Trump’s image if Congress approves it, since federal law bars living people from appearing on currency.

Tuesday

ICE killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on his way to work

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three, was driving his construction crew to a job site Tuesday morning when an ICE officer shot him on Canal Street in Houston’s East End. He lived in the United States for roughly 35 years and was working toward legal status, according to his family. DHS claims he rammed an ICE vehicle and tried to run over an officer. His family disputes that account, and three men detained during the stop told an attorney the agents were never in danger. The officers involved were not wearing any body cameras, and no federal video of the shooting has been released. The Harris County Medical Examiner has since ruled his death a homicide, and U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia says he was not even the target of the operation.

We published a full account of Lorenzo’s story and the growing demand for an independent investigation:

He Was Driving to Work. Another Person, Shot and Killed by ICE.

The Justice Department threatened election officials in every state

Also on Tuesday, the Justice Department sent letters warning election officials they could face criminal prosecution if they knowingly allow noncitizens to remain on voter rolls or cast ballots. A department spokesperson confirmed the letters went to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and gave officials five days to explain how they will comply. Noncitizen voting is already illegal and studies have repeatedly found it to be rare, and the department has yet to win a single lawsuit seeking access to state voter rolls. Election law experts told Votebeat the letters look less like the start of prosecutions and more like an attempt to pressure and intimidate the people who run elections ahead of November’s midterms.

Wednesday

Trump declared the Iran ceasefire “over”, again

After Iran was accused of attacking three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the United States struck more than 80 Iranian targets that night, then launched a second wave of roughly 90 strikes Wednesday. The administration also revoked the sanctions waiver that had allowed Iranian oil sales under the interim deal. Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump said he considered the ceasefire “over,” though he suggested negotiations could continue even as he called them a waste of time. Iran retaliated with drone and missile attacks on U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait, and the renewed fighting raised fears that the conflict could return to a broader war.

Courts handed Trump two setbacks

A federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s name must stay off the Kennedy Center while his administration appeals the order that forced its removal. The three-judge panel found the administration offered no specific facts or evidence for its claim that losing the Trump name would harm the center’s finances.

A judge ordered the release of $5.8 million to E. Jean Carroll, the $5 million a jury awarded her in 2023 plus interest, after the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of the verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that Trump “has been stalling this case for years.” Trump’s lawyers asked an appeals court to pause the payment that same day, and the court refused Wednesday night.

Thursday

Major Jason Watson remains restricted to base

Major Jason Watson is not in confinement, but he remains restricted to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling and under a gag order preventing him from discussing his case publicly. The Air Force confirmed that no charges have been formally filed as of Thursday, though its investigation remains open. Watson said he understood the consequences he might face when he stood on the Capitol steps and called for Trump’s impeachment and removal.

Our latest update explains where his case stands and how thousands of people are supporting him:

What We Know Now About Major Jason Watson

Mexico is demanding accountability for deaths connected to ICE

Mexico announced Thursday that it will request criminal charges over the deaths of 17 Mexican citizens in ICE custody or during Trump administration immigration operations, including 14 deaths in detention and three during enforcement actions such as the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. The request carries no legal force inside the United States, but President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico is choosing to “move beyond diplomatic channels,” and the government will also back civil lawsuits against the private companies that operate detention centers.

Today: Friday

Trump gutted the Election Assistance Commission

The week ends where it began, with elections under pressure.

Trump fired the two Democratic commissioners of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, by email Thursday afternoon, while its remaining Republican commissioner, Christy McCormick, was allowed to resign. With its fourth seat already vacant since April, the commission now has 0 commissioners. Career staff can keep running existing programs, including disbursing election security grants and certifying voting systems under current standards, but the agency can’t approve new policies, update its guidelines, or take any commissioner-level action without a bipartisan quorum.

The Election Assistance Commission distributes federal election funds, maintains the national voter registration form, and tests and certifies voting systems that states rely on. It resisted Trump’s demand to add a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement to that form, a demand a federal judge already blocked. The firings came days after the Supreme Court gave presidents broad power to remove leaders of independent agencies, and just months before the midterms. Any replacements must be confirmed by the Senate, which means the agency’s leadership will stay empty for some time to come.

Some Good News

Olivia Rodrigo, who condemned the administration’s use of her music in a deportation video last year, spent this week helping her fans get ready to vote.
She partnered with the nonprofit HeadCount to launch a sweepstakes for VIP tickets to her all-women Daisy Chain Fields festival, and entering means checking your registration status, registering to vote, or exploring election information ahead of the midterms. HeadCount partners with musicians and music events to promote civic participation, and Rodrigo just pointed one of the biggest fanbases in music its way. We need more celebrities to do things like this and to use their platforms for good.

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Movement Spotlight

The spotlight belongs to Houston.

On Wednesday evening, hundreds of people marched down Canal Street in Magnolia Park, chanting “ICE out of Houston” and building a memorial of candles, flowers, and handwritten notes at the spot where Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed.

Local artist Sarah Fisher spent the day painting his portrait.

U.S. Reps. Al Green, Christian Menefee, and Sylvia Garcia joined the crowd to demand a transparent investigation. This neighborhood refuses to let a him become a statistic, and their pressure is part of why multiple investigations are now underway.

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If the dismantling of the EAC worries you, there’s something concrete you can do:

Benjamin Hovland, one of the fired commissioners, said his hope is that more Americans will step up to serve as poll workers in the midterms.

Your county needs them, the training is short, and it is one of the most direct ways to protect the vote in your own community.

50501 Linktree

What is one thing your local group is doing this month that other readers could borrow?

Have you ever considered volunteering as a poll worker?

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He stood on the Capitol steps in uniform, held a sign reading “Impeach. Convict. Remove,” and let himself be arrested for it. He said the price was one he was willing to pay.

He is restricted to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. He can’t speak to the press. Here is where his case stands and how to stand with him.

Where his case stands

Major Watson is not in confinement, but he’s restricted to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, DC. He is under a written order to not speak with the press or post about his case. Major Watson, who stood up so the rest of us would speak louder is, for now, not allowed to speak at all.

DC criminal charges have been declined for prosecution. But the Air Force investigation is open, and his attorney confirms it covers four articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: contempt toward officials, failure to obey an order, conduct unbecoming an officer, and conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline. No charges have been formally filed and no court date is set. If this ends in a court-martial and a conviction, he could face dismissal from the Air Force, forfeiture of pay and benefits, and possible confinement.

His attorney says his position hasn’t wavered. Watson believes the administration’s conduct in Iran violates the Constitution he swore to defend, and he expects this may end in a court-martial and he is ready to meet it.

How to support him

• Consider giving to his official legal defense fund. The Major Jason Watson Legal Trust fund has raised $309,002 toward its $350,000 goal from 7,481 donors.

• Join the organizations carrying his message forward. The Removal Coalition and Defenders Of Our Republic (DOOR on Bluesky).

• Call your representative and senators. Tell them you’re watching how a 17-year officer is treated for peacefully petitioning Congress. The Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

• Share his story. He is under a gag order. We are not.

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Major Watson said:

“If just a nobody like me can take a stand for our Constitution and our democratic republic, then you can too.”

Prove him right.

For Major Jason Watson, who kept his oath.

Major Watson called himself “just a nobody.”

But he is not a nobody now. Thank you Major Jason Watson!

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We read the filings, track the updates, check the sources, and turn it into something people can understand and use. Paid subscription doesn’t buy secret content. It funds the time it takes to get the public content right.

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TL;DR

On Tuesday morning, an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three, in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood while he was driving workers to a construction job. ICE says he “weaponized his vehicle.”

His family says he lived in Houston for 35 years and would have complied with any lawful stop, and witness photos reviewed by LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) appear to show a van with no visible damage.

This is at least the eighth death in this administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, and in case after case, video has later contradicted the government’s first story.

And to make matters worse, the three eyewitnesses who were in Lorenzo’s van, including his brother, are now in ICE custody at an undisclosed location, and his family fears they will be deported before they can even testify.

You can sign the petition, support his family, and demand an independent investigation right now. (We have also added these links to our Linktree in our bio for easier access if you can’t find this email/article)

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Picture this: it’s your normal Tuesday morning

It’s 6:50 a.m. and the sun has been up for barely half an hour.

You’re doing what you do every workday, driving your van through the neighborhood, picking up your crew, and heading to work. You’ve completed the same drive for years. You have lived in this city for 35 years and you built a construction business from nothing but hard work and early mornings.

Then unmarked SUVs close in around your van.

And the men inside them are federal agents, but nothing about their vehicles says so. Within minutes, you’re shot.
Your brother is in the van too, and one of your sons will learn what happened on this very street.

That’s the story of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s last morning.

He died on the way to the hospital.

The Department of Homeland Security put out their side of the story within hours.

According to the agency’s statement, officers attempted a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation, and Lorenzo rammed an ICE vehicle, refused verbal commands, and “weaponized his vehicle” against an officer, who fired in self-defense.

A statement written by the agency whose officer pulled the trigger.

Notice what the statement does NOT include: ANY evidence.

• No body camera footage has been released.

• No dash camera video.

• No dispatch logs.

• No photos of the damage his van supposedly caused.

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Thirty-five years of 6 a.m. mornings

Lorenzo’s son Ronaldo, a teacher, stood in front of cameras on Wednesday and told the world who his father was.

Ronaldo described his dad as a man of unbreakable routine. He was up before sunrise every day, out the door around 6 a.m., building homes in North Houston. Evenings usually meant sitting the front porch and listening to music with his dog right beside him.

Ronaldo said his father had lived in Houston for 35 years and was working through the legal process to obtain a work permit. On Tuesday morning, Lorenzo picked up three men for work, including his own brother, when agents in unmarked vehicles stopped him.

His son’s answer to ICE’s story was simple: “my father would have complied.”

A man who spent 35 years showing up on time doesn’t wake up one Tuesday and decide to fight the federal government with a work van.

We wrote an entire post about how ICE now hides in plain sight. This is not normal! Armed men in civilian SUVs box in your van, “fleeing law enforcement” and “trying to escape what looks like a carjacking” can be indistinguishable from the driver’s seat.

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Let’s talk about the van.

LULAC leaders reviewed photos and videos taken by witnesses at the scene.

Domingo Garcia, LULAC’s national president, said the images appear to show no visible damage to Lorenzo’s van. His challenge to the government: “If their people are innocent, prove it.”

If a van rammed a law enforcement vehicle hard enough to justify deadly force, the evidence should be sitting in plain view on both bumpers for us all to see.

LULAC has acknowledged it hasn’t seen all the evidence. Neither have we. The people who have the evidence are the same people whose story it would confirm or destroy, and they’re not releasing it.

LULAC is offering a $5,000 reward for footage and information.

The Texas Tribune is collecting tips and video through secure channels. Civil society is having to crowdsource the truth that the federal government is sitting on.

An important note: Lorenzo’s family has asked for privacy and has asked people not to circulate images of his final moments.

The witnesses have disappeared into ICE custody

Three men were in the van with Lorenzo when he was shot, including his own brother.

They saw everything.

They are the closest thing to civilian eyewitnesses of the shooting itself that we know of and ICE detained all three.

According to reporting by The Bulwark, their current whereabouts are unknown, the family and local advocates fear they will be deported before they can give testimony, and ICE didn’t respond when asked where the men are being held.

The only known eyewitnesses to this killing by federal agents are in the custody of the agency that did the killing, at a location that agency will not disclose.

Ronaldo told The Bulwark he hopes those men will get the chance to give statements about what they saw, he believes their accounts will show his father was afraid, not aggressive.

If the witnesses are deported before an independent investigator interviews them, their testimony effectively disappears.

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We have been here before

Lorenzo’s death is at least the eighth during this administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, according to the Associated Press. And in case after case, the government’s first story fell apart the moment video surfaced.

Renee Good. ICE claimed the officer’s life was at risk from her moving vehicle. Video showed she was turning her wheels away from him when he opened fire.

Ruben Ray Martinez. DHS said he intentionally ran over an agent. The released footage doesn’t clearly show the vehicle striking anyone. He was 23.

Marimar Martinez. ICE alleged she tried to ram federal agents in Chicago. Video evidence showed otherwise, and the charges against her were dismissed.

In every fatal case so far: NO officers were charged!

LULAC CEO Juan Proaño told reporters that the federal government handed the public a story about Renee Good that collapsed when video came out, and that Houston is now being handed the SAME STORY in similar words.

And notice the timing. DHS has spent months on an image polish, telling reporters it wants operations to look more restrained and professional, while arrests surged past 10,000 in a single five-day stretch at the end of June.

The day before Lorenzo was killed, border czar Tom Homan acknowledged that about half the people ICE is targeting have no criminal record.

Who is investigating?

The FBI’s Houston field office confirmed it’s leading an investigation into a potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.

The one killed is their suspect.

The shooting has been handed to the DHS Office of Inspector General, meaning the department that oversees ICE is examining ICE.

Houston police say they weren’t involved and the mayor’s office referred questions to Homeland Security.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents the neighborhood, is demanding a full and impartial investigation with all footage and communications preserved.

Rep. Christian Menefee, Harris County commissioners, FIEL Houston, and LULAC are all saying that local authorities, including the Houston Police Department and the Harris County District Attorney, need to be doing more.

Magnolia Park is not staying quiet, and neither should you

Within hours of the shooting, neighbors gathered on Canal Street with flowers and candles.

By Tuesday evening, protesters were chanting against ICE in the neighborhood and by Wednesday morning, Lorenzo’s son was at a podium with civil rights leaders, elected officials were on record demanding answers, and a national organization had put a cash reward out for information.

The government wanted this to be a one-day story. We need to get louder!

Here’s how you can help:

Sign LULAC’s petition demanding an independent investigation and the release of all evidence such as body camera footage, surveillance video, and witness statements. As I’m writing this, the petition has a total of 69,090 signatures. Lets show up for Lorenzo and get that over 100,000!

Help his family’s Gofundme if you can, (Currently at $109,554) organized by the LULAC Institute for Lorenzo’s wife and three sons, or share it if you can’t donate to help.

Call your representatives, especially if you live in Texas, and ask…
1) If they support an independent, local investigation into the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
2) If they will demand that ICE disclose the location of the three witnesses in his van and guarantee they’re not deported before giving testimony.

Find your representatives at 5calls.org.

If you’re in Houston or know someone who is. Footage and firsthand accounts are what broke the government’s story in Minneapolis and Chicago. The Texas Tribune is taking tips securely via Signal and WhatsApp, and LULAC’s reward stands.

Help make his name travel further than their press release

His name was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
He was 52.
He built homes for other families for 35 years while building a life for his own.
He wanted to see his sons become great people, and then he wanted to sit on his porch with his dog and his music.

The government has a story about him and has not shown us any proof. We have a story about the government’s stories, and ours comes with exposing their track record.

Send this post to the person in your life who says “well, he must have done something.” Ask them, if ICE has the footage that proves their story, why haven’t we seen it?

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Sources

• Texas Tribune | ICE agent fatally shoots migrant in Houston

• Texas Tribune | Son of man killed by ICE agent calls for investigation

• NBC News | Man fatally shot by ICE officer during traffic stop in Houston

• Associated Press | Houston shooting marks at least the 8th fatality in US immigration sweeps

• KPRC 2 Houston | Family demands answers after deadly ICE shooting

• KPRC 2 Houston | Houston leaders, LULAC call for independent investigation

• FOX 26 Houston | Press conference after death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo

• LULAC | Petition demanding a full, transparent investigation

• GoFundMe | In Loving Memory of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo (organized by LULAC Institute)

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TL;DR

America turned 250, and the administration let off 850,000 fireworks. A Code Red air alert. A campaign speech where a birthday was supposed to be. And while the smoke settled over Washington, the country logged its 224th mass shooting of the year. The next chance to show what this country is comes July 17 to 19, the Good Trouble Lives On Weekend of Action.

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Washington, D.C. The Fourth of July.

A hundred degrees before noon, and the parade is already canceled. By afternoon the sky goes dark and the National Mall is evacuated for a thunderstorm. By night, the President walks onto a stage no president had used for a July 4 speech in seventy-four years and talks about voting restrictions and communism while people wait.

Then the fireworks start. Eight hundred and fifty thousand of them.

And by the next morning, the city that was ordered to celebrate is warned about the unsafe air conditions.

Watch until the 20 seconds when the time-lapse kicks in.

Timelapse credit to Dave Statter, watch the video here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/885930180677044

Last year, the official National Mall Fourth of July fireworks show used about 7,000 fireworks

This year: 850,000. That is roughly 121 times bigger.

If it ran forty minutes, that is something like 354 explosions every second, for forty straight minutes.

The threat in that air was not “smog.” A University of Maryland expert told NBC Washington the danger was fine particulate matter, PM2.5: particles small enough to travel deep into your lungs and into your bloodstream, linked to heart and lung damage. That’s why D.C. went to a Code Red alert and forecast a Code Purple, the level where the air is unhealthy for everyone, not just the vulnerable.

D.C. Fire and EMS logged 96 patient contacts and carried 40 people off the Mall. George Washington University Hospital saw 289. HHS counted 314. The city took 6,009 calls to 911 between midnight and morning, and the 9 p.m. hour became the busiest hour for 911 all year.

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Trump’s Speech

Trump delivered a campaign-style speech calling for voting restrictions, proof-of-citizenship requirements, limiting mail ballots, warnings about “communism.” Aside from his own 2019 address, no president had given a July 4 speech on the National Mall since 1951.

The reason for that is that the Fourth is supposed to be the one day that belongs to all of us.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll found many Americans already felt the 250th events had gotten too political including a majority of Americans overall, three-quarters of Democrats, and half of Republicans.

He counted the crowd, like always

After videos of empty seats went around, Trump said 422,000 people were there before the storm and 150,000 came back for the speech. Those are Trump’s numbers, and no independent confirmation has been provided.

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While the smoke settled over Washington, emergencies kept unfolding across the country with more shootings.

By Monday morning, the Gun Violence Archive had counted at least 224 mass shootings in America this year, along with 6,604 gun-related fatalities.

At least 43 people had been killed in shootings since early Saturday. At least six mass shootings were recorded on the Fourth, with more by Sunday.

One of those shootings happened at a Fourth of July cookout near Coney Island, where eight people were shot, four adults and four children, ages 6, 7, 12, and 14. Police said a suspect wearing a black mask fired into the courtyard where a family event, then ran.

The Gun Violence Archive counts a mass shooting as four or more people shot, injured or killed, not including the shooter. It is not only counting the days when everyone died. It is counting the scale of the violence. A CNN analysis found that July 4 and July 5 have seen more mass shootings than any other calendar days since 2014.

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The streets of the capital held two very different visions of America that day.

Down one street, hundreds marched against Trump, chanting “Free DC!” Women’s March had listed a Free America Weekend of Action, including a Veterans Against Fascism turnout in Philadelphia. This country belongs to We the People.

Down another street hundreds of masked members of the white nationalist group called “Patriot-Front” moved through Washington carrying Confederate flags and chanting “Reclaim America.” The group claimed around 400 (Look at that “diversity”… eyeroll):

So here is the question the Fourth put on the table, in the open, in daylight:

Who gets to claim this country? The people who want it to belong to everyone, or the ones who cover their faces and try to take it back for a few?

If you have time, check out this video from the Veterans March on Philly for ‘Freedom Over Fascism’ that took place:

Imagine the Fourth of July that we continue to fight for

A block party where nobody checks the sky for toxic smoke with hazardous particles, a cookout where we don’t have to worry about someone being shot, a country that spends its birthday arguing about barbecue instead of what this administration has thrown at us.

The next day of action is July 17 to 19:

Good Trouble Lives On, honoring John Lewis.

If you’re organizing: post your event where people can find it and plan for the heat. Water & shade.

If you’re attending: find the action nearest you at the Good Trouble website, be sure to bring some water.

If you can’t be there: you are still in this. Share the event in group chats and talk about it with whoever you can!

Check out our Linktree for upcoming Trainings and Live Sessions:

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What did the Fourth look like where you live? Fireworks, protest, quiet, smoke, all of it?

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Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and the United States turns 250 years old.

The document that started it all said that a government’s power comes from the people, not from a king. (National Archives)

This Week in Review.

Monday:

The Supreme Court protected late-arriving mail ballots 🎉

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states can count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. The decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee rejected a Trump-backed challenge and kept grace-period rules in place in more than half the states and Washington, D.C. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberal justices, and Trump called it a “tremendous loss.” Mail voting is how a lot of seniors, disabled voters, military families, rural residents, and working parents cast a ballot at all, so protecting it protects turnout.

The Supreme Court handed the president more firing power

On the same day, the Court ruled 6-3 that Trump could fire FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, and in doing so it overturned a 1935 decision that had let Congress shield the leaders of independent agencies from being fired at will. Those agencies, from the FTC to the labor and product-safety boards, were built to guard the public from fraud and abuse without bending to whoever holds the White House. Giving the president the power to remove their leaders makes it easier to turn watchdogs into loyalists, though the Court did leave the Federal Reserve alone for now.

We published a digital safety guide

Monday’s post we shared a walkthrough for locking down your phone before you head to an action. Hardening your device is a way of protecting the people around you, your friends, family, and fellow organizers, not just yourself. We go over having a long password, turning off face and fingerprint unlock before a protest, trimming app permissions, setting up Signal, and downloading offline maps. Check it out by clicking here.

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Tuesday

Birthright citizenship survived 🎉

The Court struck down Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, ruling 6-3 in Trump v. Barbara that his executive order was unlawful and reaffirming that nearly everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen. Five justices grounded the decision firmly in the 14th Amendment, the promise written after the Civil War to answer who counts as an American once slavery ended, and a sixth agreed the order was unlawful on narrower grounds, which left the core protection intact. Trump tried to limit that promise to the children of citizens and permanent residents, and the Court said no.

Trump’s crypto fortune raised corruption questions

Trump’s annual financial disclosure, released Tuesday, showed more than $1.4 billion in crypto income for 2025, now his single biggest source of money, even as his administration writes the rules that industry lives under. A president earning that much from a business his own government regulates is not normal or right!

Taxpayer-funded “Freedom Trucks” rewrote American history

Six traveling “Freedom Trucks” fanned out for the 250th with a mobile-museum version of history whose content was created by conservative groups including Hillsdale College and PragerU, where an AI-generated George Washington tells visitors their rights are a “gift from God” beneath a ceiling reading “In God We Trust.” The trucks ran on a $14 million federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, paired with $10 million from Freedom 250. The exhibits flatten the American story down to a handful of mostly white founders and skip slavery, Native removal, labor, and civil rights, which is a lot of public money for one narrow, sanitized version of a country this large.

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Wednesday

Nearly 450,000 New Yorkers started losing health coverage

Coverage began ending July 1 for nearly 450,000 New Yorkers on the state’s Essential Plan, a casualty of federal Medicaid cuts in last year’s budget law and the expiration of subsidies that made Affordable Care Act plans affordable. The Essential Plan covered people who earn too much for Medicaid but not enough for private insurance.

A judge blocked USPS mail-ballot restrictions

Federal Judge, Emmet Sullivan, blocked the Postal Service from a rule that would have refused to deliver ballots from states that did not provide their voter lists and adopt new balloting procedures. He found it violated a 2021 settlement with the NAACP that requires USPS to prioritize timely delivery of election mail through 2028. It was the second court loss in two weeks for Trump’s push to squeeze mail voting, and another reminder that lawsuits and civil-rights groups are still holding the line.

Major Jason Watson chose the Constitution over his career

Active-duty Air Force Major Jason Watson stood on the Capitol steps in uniform, held a sign reading “Impeach Convict Remove,” and called for the impeachment, conviction, and removal of Trump and Vice President JD Vance. He is believed to be the first active-duty commissioned officer to do so publicly, and he knew what this would cost him: military rules sharply limit political activity in uniform, and the Air Force has opened an investigation that could end a career of more than twenty years. (Major Jason Watson has been in the military for 17 years.) He said that he was willing to pay the price, and for a lot of us in this movement, it’s a brave and courageous service. Rep. Al Green, who walked him to the steps, praised him afterward in a video as showing “the kind of courage necessary to inspire others,” and we are proud of him too.

Over $125,000 has already been raised for Major Jason Watson!

We have added his Spot-Fund link to our Linktree:

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We shared a Fourth of July reflection

The Fourth has always been an activist holiday. It traces 250 years of disobedience, from abolitionists and suffragists to labor organizers, farmworkers, disability-rights occupiers, and today’s No Kings crowds, who kept forcing the country to live up to what it wrote down. Check it out by clicking here.

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Thursday

ICE arrested 10,000 people in five days

ICE arrested about 10,000 people over five days at the end of June, roughly 2,000 a day, a sharp jump reported by the Associated Press as the agency traded city raids for steadier enforcement. Behind that number are parents pulled from workplaces, kids waiting on a pickup that will not come, and whole neighborhoods wondering who’s next.

A court drew a line on indefinite detention

The 5th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the government can’t hold immigrants longer than 90 days without a bond hearing, the chance to ask a judge for release. The case was brought by three fathers of U.S.-citizen children, each in the country more than a decade with no criminal record, detained after Texas traffic stops. The ruling could reach thousands held in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

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Friday

Did Trump hijacked America’s 250th birthday?

Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, led by Rep. Jared Huffman, released a report titled “From Vanity to Insanity,” accusing Trump’s allies of turning the nation’s birthday into what they call a “hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment.”

Freedom 250 denies it, calling the report “categorically false” and a “partisan smear,” and that denial belongs right here at the top.

Congress created America250 in 2016 as a bipartisan commission so the birthday would belong to everyone. The report says that when that commission would not bend to Trump, the White House stood up a rival group, Freedom 250, and tucked it inside the National Park Foundation, a public charity, so it could raise money outside the transparency rules Congress wrote.

Then it declared Freedom 250 the main event. Congress set aside $150 million for the 250th, America250 expected $100 million of it and has received only $25 million, while Freedom 250 grew.

The sharpest allegation is a bait-and-switch that could amount to wire fraud, donors who meant to give to the bipartisan commission were allegedly handed Freedom 250’s bank details instead, so their money flowed to Trump’s group.

The report also describes selling access to the president through sponsorship packages that end in a photo op, soliciting foreign money (the report says its CEO, Keith Krach, pitched foreign leaders at Davos), and steering contracts to Trump allies, including the firm that helped stage the rally before the January 6 attack.

In the clip below, Rep. Huffman walks through what happened, arguing that Freedom 250 has been harvesting personal data from Americans who sign up for “free” events, and that park rangers were ordered to strip factual signs about slavery and Native removal. Freedom 250 says no funds were diverted, that sponsors knew who they were paying, and that it takes no foreign donations.

However, a birthday meant for all of us was run through a private company with the details hidden from public view.

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Trump heads to Mount Rushmore

Today Trump travels to Mount Rushmore for a Freedom 250 keynote and fireworks, the first fireworks there in six years, ahead of Saturday’s big event on the National Mall. In the past he mused openly about adding his own face to the mountain, which tells you most of what you need to know… the 250th keeps getting pointed back at Trump to fuel his ego.

The Good News 🎉

Birthright citizenship survived, mail voting won twice, once at the Supreme Court and again when a judge blocked the USPS rule. Detained immigrants won a due-process line. And Major Jason Watson reminded everyone to put the Constitution ahead of comfort.

Mark your calendar:

Good Trouble Lives On, a weekend of action from July 17 to 19 honoring John Lewis, built around teach-ins, voter engagement, and community events nationwide. (goodtroubleliveson.org)

What to Pay Attention to

Watch Freedom 250. The money, the secret donors, the federal funds, the personal data, and whether Congress ever holds a real hearing. Huffman says his investigation continues past the Fourth and could bring subpoenas or criminal referrals if Democrats retake the House.

Watch ICE. The arrest numbers are climbing fast, and quieter tactics don’t necessarily mean less harm.

Watch voting rights. This week brought wins, but the broader push to make voting harder is not over especially with how much Trump keeps pushing for the SAVE act.

Watch July 17 to 19. Good Trouble Lives On!

The 250th belongs to the people, not MAGA, not to Trump.

If you’re protesting tomorrow, share your protest signs in the comments so we can all see them:

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And shoutout to Todd, who keeps morale high in our 50501 Facebook group with his daily protest dance videos. He’s out there every day waving signs. Thank you, Todd!

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TL;DR

The United States turns 250 on July 4, 2026. The founding was an act of defiance. People looked at a king and said hell no. But most of the freedoms you actually hold now, from the vote to the weekend, were won later, by the people that the founders left out. This Fourth, you do not have to choose between celebrating the country and fighting for it. Doing both is the most American thing you can do. Two ways to act are below, including local actions this Fourth of July weekend and the John Lewis Good Trouble Lives On weekend on July 17.

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This Saturday, the country turns 250.

There will be fireworks, flags, cookouts, and a sky full of light.

And this year, a lot of us feel complicated about it. So before anything else, let’s read the room, honestly.

However you’re walking into this weekend, we are in this together.

Maybe you’re ready to celebrate. You got invited to a cookout, a lake, a campsite, a backyard with someone’s speaker turned up. Go. You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting a good day with the people you care about. And if you’re a veteran, or you love one, and that flag means something you served for, then celebrate it all the way. You earned the fireworks, and nobody can take that from you.

Maybe you can’t get there this year, and the flag feels heavier than it used to. You are watching the Trump administration test how much of the Constitution can be ignored. You’re watching ICE pull parents out of driveways and workplaces and leaving kids waiting in a pickup line for someone who won’t be coming home. You’re watching rights you assumed were permanent get treated as optional. If “Happy Fourth” is sticking in your throat this year, that’s not you being un-patriotic, you’re paying attention.

However you choose to spend this weekend, you are welcome here. Those who want to be in the street holding signs, and those who need a break and won’t be anywhere but the couch.

There’s no single right way to love a country that is in trouble.

And please, let’s not spend this weekend turning on each other over how we each get through it. The neighbor flipping burgers and the neighbor marching are not enemies. Save that energy for the people trying to take our rights.

But wherever you land this weekend, don’t let anyone tell you that standing up for democracy is the un-American part of it.

The country was born because people refused a king.

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted a document that accused a sitting monarch of a long train of abuses and declared that governments get their power from the consent of the governed, not from a king. (National Archives, Declaration of Independence)

And let’s be honest about who wrote the document. Majority of the founding fathers were wealthy, many of them enslaved Black people, and the country they designed put white men of property at the top and everyone else underneath. However, the words they set down turned out to be bigger than they were, and what came next, is the reason the 4th of July is meaningful to us all.

So when someone tells you this year that activism ruins the Fourth, you can tell them the truth. Activism is the Fourth.

The promise was always unfinished, and to be progressive

The Declaration didn’t make America free for everyone.

Women had no political power. Enslaved people were held in bondage by some of the same hands that wrote “all men are created equal.” Native nations faced removal and broken treaties. The promise was written before the country was willing to keep it.

That gap, between what America said and what America did, is what drove every movement that followed, forward.

Abraham Lincoln understood this. In an 1859 letter, he argued that the Declaration’s lasting power was never the men who signed it but the principle they set down, an abstract truth of equality meant to stand, in all coming days, as “a rebuke and a stumbling block” to reappearing tyranny. (Letter to Henry L. Pierce, April 6, 1859)

That is what the 4th of July is for. Not pretending the promise is done. Reclaiming the unfinished promise as our inheritance and our assignment.

The flag belongs to the people. The word freedom belongs to the people. And so does the work.

A different way to celebrate, with both hands full

You don’t have to pick between joy and resistance this weekend. You can hold space for both.

You can laugh with your family and still tell your truth. You can watch the fireworks and still remember that some of the brightest moments in this country’s history came from people who were told to sit down, be quiet, and wait their turn. They didn’t stop and that’s the only reason we have rights at all.

Celebrating as an activist means celebrating with purpose.

Pick something from the list below. We will come back to it with a full plan at the end. First, the part that should make you proud to be standing where you’re standing:
The 250 years of people who built the freedoms you are about to grill hot dogs under

250 years of moving forward

What follows is not every righteous act or fight in American history. This article would be never ending, and flattening them into one interchangeable story would be a full textbook. A slave revolt, bus boycotts, factory occupations, and a prayer camp on the Missouri River were not the same act. They used different tools in different dangers.

But each one exposed a gap between American ideals and American reality, then forced that gap into the open until the country moved.

1773: The harbor before the holiday | The Boston Tea Party

Before there was a Fourth of July, there was a property crime.

On December 16, 1773, colonists in Boston boarded three ships and dumped roughly 90,000 pounds of British East India Company tea, some 340 chests, into the harbor to protest taxation without representation. (Massachusetts Historical Society)

It punished Boston with the Coercive Acts. That backlash helped push thirteen colonies toward revolution.

Power has always called resistance “too much,” right up until history calls it necessary. Every generation gets its version of the harbor and has to decide what it will tolerate.

1776: The words that became a weapon

The founders wrote that all men are created equal, and that a government’s power comes from the consent of the people it governs. They meant it narrowly, for men like themselves. But once those words became the country’s official founding claim, no one could control who picked them up. Anyone the country left out could point straight at its own founding document and ask a pondering question it couldn’t avoid: if you put it in writing that everyone is equal, when does that include me?

That’s a weapon in writing. You don’t have to create a new argument for your rights. You hold the country to the promise it already made in writing and puts on display every single Fourth of July.

It’s the exact move abolitionists made against slavery, that suffragists made for the vote, that workers made for fair conditions, and that disability rights, immigrant rights, and pro-democracy organizers still make today. Same words, aimed back at the country that wrote them.

1791: Speech, press, assembly, petition

The Bill of Rights was a condition the people insisted on because they feared the kind of power they just fought.

The First Amendment protects religion, speech, the press, the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (National Archives, Bill of Rights)

When you gather and when you demand redress, you are not stepping outside the American tradition. You are standing in the load-bearing center of it.

1831 to 1865: The long war on slavery

Resistance to slavery was constant, and it took every form available.

It was Nat Turner’s 1831 uprising in Virginia, which terrified slaveholders because it shattered the lie that the enslaved accepted bondage. (Encyclopedia Virginia) It was the Underground Railroad. It was Frederick Douglass and a generation of organizers. And from 1836 to 1844, it was abolitionists burying Congress in anti-slavery petitions until the House adopted a “gag rule” to table them unread, a rule John Quincy Adams fought year after year until it finally fell. (Britannica, John Quincy Adams)

They sent paper. Power panicked. That is how much organized moral pressure is worth, even before it wins.

1848: Seneca Falls writes a new declaration

In July 1848, organizers gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, and 100 women and men signed a Declaration of Sentiments that deliberately rewrote the founding line to read “all men and women are created equal.” (National Park Service)

It demanded more than the vote: property rights, education, custody, a public voice. Frederick Douglass backed it and printed the proceedings.

Seneca Falls makes a difference because it turned scattered grievance into an organized, documented, repeatable campaign.

1852: Frederick Douglass tells the truth about this exact holiday

Invited to speak for Independence Day in 1852, Douglass delivered his address on July 5 and asked what, to the enslaved, the Fourth of July truly was. He refused to let the nation enjoy its symbols without accounting for its contradictions. (National Park Service, Underground Railroad)

He didn’t hate America. He loved justice too much to applaud the lie. This weekend, we can do what Douglass did: celebrate what is real and name what is broken.

1865 to 1870: Freedom written into the Constitution, then attacked

Winning the Civil War ended slavery but it didn’t end the fight over who counted as fully human under the law.

The Reconstruction Amendments tried to remake the country: the 13th abolished slavery, the 14th guaranteed citizenship and equal protection, and the 15th barred denying the vote based on race. It was a second founding. And the backlash was immediate: Jim Crow, white supremacist violence, and court rulings that gutted the promise for nearly a century.

Rights must be defended after they are won, or they are quietly taken back.

1886 to 1937: Workers make democracy reach the workplace

It runs from the 1886 fight for the eight-hour day through the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which killed 146 workers, most of them young immigrant women, and forced sweeping safety reform. (Cornell ILR, Triangle Fire) It runs through the 1936 to 1937 Flint sit-down strike, where autoworkers occupied the plants and the Women’s Emergency Brigade kept them supplied until General Motors recognized the union. By 1935, the National Labor Relations Act made organizing a protected right.

Much of what we take for granted now, weekends, safety standards, collective bargaining rights, and overtime protections, began as demands long before they became law. The boss didn’t just wake up generous. Workers organized.

1955 to 1965: The movement that moved the country

The Civil Rights Movement won because people organized at every level at once.

It was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began in December 1955 and ran for more than a year. For nearly that entire time, Montgomery’s buses were virtually empty. Supporters walked as many as eight miles a day or used volunteer carpools. The National Park Service notes that Montgomery City Lines lost 30,000 to 40,000 bus fares each day, and the boycott stayed more than 90 percent effective. (National Park Service) It was lunch-counter sit-ins, Freedom Riders, voter registration drives, and the Selma marches, where the televised brutality of Bloody Sunday turned a local struggle into a national reckoning. The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Dr. King framed the founding documents as a promissory note America had written to every citizen and then defaulted on for Black Americans. The movement came to collect.

1965 to 1970: Farmworkers turn a grape into leverage

While the country watched the South, a different fight was growing in the fields of California.

Sparked by Filipino AWOC organizers including Larry Itliong and Ben Gines, and later joined by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the National Farm Workers Association, the Delano grape strike that began in 1965 turned into a national boycott. Organizers asked shoppers across the country to stop buying grapes until growers recognized the union. The boycott helped nationalize the farmworker struggle and put real economic pressure on growers. (National Park Service, The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott)

A grape is a small thing. Millions of people refusing to buy grapes, adds up. The farmworkers proved that a person with no wealth and no title still controls one decision the powerful can’t take: what they will and will not spend money on. This is leverage we carry with us into every store.

1969: Stonewall turns survival into a major movement

In June 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York met something the police did not expect: people who fought back, for days. (NPS)

It wasn’t the first act of LGBTQ+ resistance, but it became the catalyst that shifted queer politics from quiet survival to mass liberation. Pride began as a refusal to be raided, shamed, and erased.

When people say activism is too loud, remember that the people told to be quiet are the ones making history loud enough for the next generation to live in.

1969 to 1973: Native nations force the country to look

Indigenous resistance began the moment colonization did. But the Red Power era made it impossible to ignore in a new way.

The occupation of Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971 drew national attention to treaty rights and sovereignty. (Alcatraz Occupation) In 1973, the American Indian Movement and Oglala Lakota community members held Wounded Knee for 71 days over treaty violations and federal neglect. (Britannica, American Indian Movement)

No honest celebration of America can erase the nations who were here before America existed.

1969 to 1971: Dissent becomes an act of love

On October 15, 1969, an estimated two million Americans took part in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a nationwide day of demonstrations and teach-ins on campuses and in towns across the country, one of the largest demonstrations the nation had seen. (Michigan State University Libraries) The movement was messy, broad, and bitterly contested. It also moved the national conversation.

Dissent can be the highest form of care for the lives a government is willing to spend. That means just as much now in 2026 as it did in 1969.

1970: Grief becomes an plan | Earth Day

The first Earth Day in 1970 took a feeling millions of people carried and gave it meaning. Built on the teach-in model, it helped drive a wave of landmark environmental law. (EARTHDAY.ORG history)

Fear becomes a meeting. Anger becomes a law. Grief becomes a plan.
The planet needs us organized.

1977 to 1990: Disabled activists make access a civil right

In 1977, around 100 disabled activists occupied a federal building in San Francisco for nearly a month, the only Section 504 sit-in to continue past the first few days, to force the government to enforce disability rights it already promised under Section 504. They won! (504 Protest) Then the movement kept going, until the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990.

Disabled people fought to be seen, and because they did, the United States became more accessible for everyone.

1987: ACT UP refuses to let people die quietly

During the AIDS crisis, government neglect and stigma were lethal. ACT UP formed in 1987 and used direct action and civil disobedience to force attention onto research, treatment access, and drug pricing. Its first demonstration, on Wall Street in March 1987, targeted the roughly $10,000-a-year price of AZT, the only approved AIDS drug at the time. (New York Public Library, ACT UP New York records)

Their line was Silence equals death, it’s true about every crisis. Power would rather bury the voices of the people.

When institutions move slow, people die. When people organize, institutions can be forced to move faster than they wanted to.

2006: A day without us

In the spring of 2006, an estimated six million people joined some 400 protest actions in more than 200 cities and towns against legislation that would have made felons of undocumented immigrants and the people who helped them. The bill, HR 4437, died in the Senate, and the mobilizations became a turning point in immigrant civic participation. (University of Washington, Mapping American Social Movements)

A country that runs on people it is taught not to see was being asked to look. Food systems, care work, construction, agriculture, the daily life of every neighborhood. Activism makes the invisible visible.

2013 to 2020: A national reckoning

Black Lives Matter began in 2013 and grew through a decade of protest. After George Floyd was murdered in 2020, demonstrations spread to thousands of cities and towns, with researchers estimating 15 to 26 million participants. (Harvard Kennedy School)

Video revealed injustice and people had to decide whether to look away or speak up.

That is remembrance as resistance: saying the names a country tried to move past, and refusing to let it.

2017 to 2022: The streets stay full

The 2017 Women’s March drew millions across the United States, with estimates ranging from 3.2 million to 5.3 million participants, making it the largest single-day protest in U.S. history at the time. (Britannica, Women’s March) In 2018, after the Parkland shooting, students led March for Our Lives, with hundreds of sibling events across the country and around the world. (March for Our Lives, EBSCO Research Starters) In 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, people built abortion funds, ballot campaigns, and networks of care. (Dobbs opinion, Supreme Court of the United States)

2025 to 2026: No Kings, no exceptions

And now, us.

Across all 50 states, people have joined No Kings mobilizations against authoritarianism, executive overreach, and democratic backsliding. Organizers estimated that the first two rounds drew more than 5 million people in June 2025 and 7 million in October 2025. For March 28, 2026, CBS and AP reported that organizers estimated at least 8 million participants across more than 3,300 events worldwide. (CBS News)

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What would you have done?

Stop for a second and put yourself inside one of the previous time eras where activism needed you. In times of reflection is where lesson lives.

It is 1977 in San Francisco, and you’re one of the disabled activists who just occupied a federal building to force the government to enforce a disability rights rule it kept stalling on. The sit-in lasts nearly a month. Some of you are here without easy access to attendants or medication. You sleep on office floors and nobody knows yet that you will win. You only know that leaving and giving up means the rule dies.

Or it’s 1955 Montgomery, and the boycott means you walk to work in the pouring rain with aching feet for more than a year, while people in charge wait for you to get tired and give up.

None of these people knew they were on the right side of history. They only knew which side of the line they could live with.

You’re being asked for far less than they were. You can see that you’re not alone. In fact, we have more power now than ever before. The people in power will never be stronger than the power of the people.

So what does celebrating as an activist look like?

It looks like refusing to hand the country’s best ideas to its worst people. The flag is not theirs. The word patriot is not theirs. And love of country was never meant to mean doing what you are told.

Patriotism is not loyalty to power. It is loyalty to people!

It shows up as small, unglamorous care. Making sure your neighbor gets home. Making sure your vote gets counted. Making sure a kid can sit in classrooms without being afraid, a worker can speak up without being fired, a family can stay together, and the truth outlives a news cycle.

Your Fourth of July action plan

Pick one or two, or however many you choose. Don’t overthink it.

If you have 15 minutes. Check your voter registration, then send the link to someone so they can check if they are registered.

If you have 30 minutes. Call or email a representative about an issue you care about. You can keep it short, specific, or ask for one concrete action.

If you have an hour. Make a sign. Build a QR sheet of local resources for a cookout table. Share a verified event. Help someone figure out how to show up.

If you have the weekend. Find a local action and go. Use the Women’s March action finder and Mobilize to check whether there is a local action near you, and confirm the time, location, and format before you go. Bring water, sunscreen, and a friend. Know your rights. Leave the space cleaner than you found it.

Then put July 17 on your calendar.

The John Lewis Good Trouble Lives On Weekend of Action runs July 17 to 19, built around Teach on Friday, Reach on Saturday, and Preach on Sunday: teach-ins, nonpartisan voter engagement, and community events nationwide. (goodtroubleliveson.org) John Lewis risked his life on a bridge in Selma so future generations could keep expanding the vote.

Good trouble is the assignment he left us.

If you can’t show up publicly, you can still help. Boost verified information by sharing. Make graphics. Offer rides. Talk about it. Translate materials. Call an older relative who feels alone. Reach out to your community. Check on your neighbors. The movement is not only the person with the megaphone. It’s everyone who keeps the work alive.

A note for the tired

You may be tired or feel like you have already given everything you have and the news keeps asking for more stamina.

Hear this clearly.,, You do NOT have to carry the whole country. You only have to carry your corner. One small action at a time, at your own pace.

One conversation. One share. One call. One sign. One ride. One person pulled back from the edge of giving up. We grow this person by person. One action at a time. The Montgomery walkers were exhausted too. The farmworkers who marched 280 miles to Sacramento were exhausted too.

Tired people built nearly every freedom we have.

Rest when you need to. Rest is how you stay in this long enough to win. Then come back, we will be here waiting for you.

This Fourth, you can make it mean something

Remember what the fireworks are supposed to stand for… Freedom. The freedom people fought for before us, the freedom that people are still being denied, and the freedom that no king has ever handed willingly to anyone.

Don’t let anyone make you feel strange for loving this country enough to demand better from it.

The Fourth belongs to the people. So be the people. Be the one who makes courage easier for somebody else.

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Doing something unique for the 4th? Share it so the next person can find inspiration from your idea.

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When you show up to a protest, your phone is the most sensitive object you carry.

Hardening your device is what security professionals call OPSEC, Operational Security, but here, we also define it as community care.

Protecting your digital footprint is an act of solidarity that keeps your friends, family, and organizers safe from being “stitched together” into a map of movement activity. You don’t need to be a hacker to be safe. You just need to raise the “cost” of watching you so high that surveillance systems look for an easier target. You don’t have to disappear, you just have to stop making it easy for them.

Phones are tracking devices by design. However, you can take back control without throwing your phone in a lake. This guide walks through the essential “locks” for your device like strong passcodes, revoking app permissions, and using encrypted messaging for safer organizing.

Protest Morning Checklist

(*You can Screenshot and Save This for Later)

A quick-action guide to use before you leave the house for a protest.

[ ] Update Your Software: Tapping “update” patches the security holes that forensic tools often use to get in.

[ ] Back It Up: Use Data Protection (iOS) or zero-knowledge backups (Android) so your data is safe even if the device is lost or seized.

[ ] Set a 6+ Digit PIN: Move beyond basic patterns or four-digit codes. A long, random passphrase is harder for a machine to guess than a short, clever password.

[ ] Disable Biometrics: Turn off FaceID or TouchID. In many jurisdictions, you have stronger legal footing to refuse a passcode than you do to prevent someone from physically holding the phone to your face.

[ ] Prep Your Signal (Or other encrypting message app): Enable Registration Lock so your account can’t be hijacked, and turn on Disappearing Messages to keep your history tidy and safe. (Note: Recipients can still take a photo of a disappearing message with a second camera).

[ ] Check App Permissions: Revoke “Location,” “Microphone,” and “Contacts” from any app that doesn’t strictly need them.

[ ] Go Offline: Download Offline Maps and consider Airplane Mode. (Note: Apps can still store your GPS location and transmit it the moment you reconnect to the internet).

[ ] Know Your Rights: Police generally need a warrant to search the contents of your phone, but they may still seize the device during a lawful arrest.

Threat Modeling: Asking Questions

Security experts use the term “threat modeling,” basically just means asking yourself: Who are you protecting yourself from, and what would it cost you if they got in?

The answer looks different for everyone and no it’s not usually malicious or because you’re breaking any laws…

For example:

A nurse worried about an abusive ex has a different threat model than a journalist covering an ICE raid, who has a different one than a retiree who just doesn’t want a scammer draining their savings. None of those people are wrong, they’re just protecting against different things.

The Lockdown: Immediate Steps for the Street

Your phone holds your messages, your location history, and a running diary of your life. When you’re in the thick of an action, treat it like the sensitive object it is.

• The Biometric Trap: Under current U.S. law, which is still in flux, using a biometric scan like your face or fingerprint currently offers less legal protection than a memorized passcode. In some cases, officers could physically compel you to unlock a device with your face or finger, whereas a passcode kept in your head has stronger Fifth Amendment footing against compelled disclosure. So before you arrive, disable biometrics. On an iPhone, holding the power button and a volume button until the power-off screen appears immediately forces a passcode on the next unlock. On Android, use the “Lockdown” option in your power menu.

• The Connectivity Tradeoff: Airplane Mode stops your phone from constantly pinging cell towers, but it isn’t bullet proof. Even in Airplane Mode, apps can still store your GPS location and transmit that data the moment you reconnect to the internet. To truly stop location tracking, you must power the phone off completely.

• Forensic Tools: If a device is seized, law enforcement may use forensic tools like Cellebrite to try to extract images, contacts, and location history. These tools are most successful on older or unencrypted devices. This is why keeping your software updated is vital, updates often patch the security holes these tools use to get in.

• Lockdown Mode (Apple): Apple’s “Lockdown Mode” is an optional, extreme protection that blocks most message attachments and strips location data from shared photos. Be aware that it will cause your phone to not function normally (e.g., blocking some web features).

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The Foundation: Two Deadbolts for Every Door

If you do nothing more, take care of these two things right now. It takes just a few minutes and raises the “cost” of attacking you significantly.

1. Use a Password Manager: Reusing passwords is like having a master key for your house, your car, and your bank. If one site gets hacked, attackers will try that leaked password everywhere else. Use a manager like Bitwarden (which is free and open-source) to give every account a unique, long passphrase.

2. Passphrases over Passwords: A long, silly string of words like correct-battery-horse-staple is much harder for a machine, hacker, or AI to guess than a short, clever password with symbols. Length is what actually wears down the hackers.

3. Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): This adds the second lock so that even if your password is stolen, they still need a secondary code from you. Pro-tip: Codes sent via text message can be hijacked through “SIM swapping”. Whenever possible, use an authenticator app instead.

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Encrypted Messaging: Private Conversations

Regular texts and many chat apps can be read by your carrier or the company running the app. Signal has been a useful standard because it scrambles your messages so only you and the recipient can read them.

Signal is a nonprofit that collects almost no metadata about you.

In past court cases, the only data Signal could provide was the date a user registered and the last date they connected. To make your Signal even tougher:

• Registration Lock: Set a PIN so no one can hijack your number to a new device.

• Usernames: You can now connect with people on Signal without sharing your phone number at all.

• Helpful Note: Encryption protects a message while it’s traveling. It can’t protect a message if someone is holding your unlocked phone. Furthermore, disappearing messages don’t prevent a recipient from taking a photo of their screen with a second camera or screenshots.

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The Data Broker Audit: Cleaning the Bargain Bin

There’s a quiet industry that buys and resells your home address, phone number, and relatives’ names on sites like Spokeo or Whitepages. This is often where harassers start their search. You can opt out of these one by one, which is tedious but effective so that you can’t be found through them. Organizations like EFF (Surveillance Self-Defense) publish free, regularly updated guides to walk you through the process.

What’s NOT worth your anxiety:

Digital safety advice can easily spiral into anxiety.

• You don’t need to have a perfect digital footprint. Perfect security doesn’t exist for anyone. You’re just aiming to be a harder target than the next person.

• You do don’t need to buy expensive items or software. The most powerful tools like Signal, password managers, and 2FA are free.

• You don’t need to do it all today. Start small and work your way up. Every lock you set is a small, deliberate refusal to be an easy target.

Which part of phone safety feels the most confusing: Signal, location settings, passwords, biometrics, or data brokers?

And if you have a phone-safety tip that helped you, please share it in the comments so someone else can use it too!

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Resources to Learn More

Digital safety for protests
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Attending a Protest

Know your rights at a protest
ACLU: Protesters’ Rights

Signal privacy tools
Signal: Disappearing Messages
Signal: Usernames & Phone Number Privacy

Phone security settings
Apple: Lockdown Mode
Apple: Location Services & Privacy
Google: Android Location Settings

Personal security checklist
Consumer Reports: Security Planner

Support for people at higher risk
Access Now: Digital Security Helpline

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President Trump canceled the signing of a landmark bipartisan housing bill and said he wouldn’t approve it until Congress passed his proof-of-citizenship voting bill, turning the cost of a home into a bargaining chip for a restrictive elections agenda.

On Thursday the Supreme Court handed the administration two immigration wins, clearing the way to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitians and several thousand Syrians and reviving a policy that lets border officials turn away asylum seekers. And the Senate’s historic Iran war-powers rebuke on Tuesday was followed, less than two days later, by a walk-back after the president pressured the Republicans who crossed him.

Three separate federal judges blocked major pieces of the drive to put federal control over elections, including a permanent ban on the proof-of-citizenship order and a ruling voiding the plan to route mail ballots only to a federally approved voter list.

Voters in New York City delivered a progressive sweep that unseated two sitting members of Congress. And tomorrow, on June 27, organizers in Washington and communities across the country mark the run-up to the nation’s 250th with a day of action built around the history this anniversary is being used to erase.

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Trump held housing relief hostage to force a vote on the SAVE America Act

Congress passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with rare bipartisan force, 85 to 5 in the Senate and 358 to 32 in the House, one of the most far-reaching housing reform bills in decades. It would limit large institutional investors from buying up single-family homes, ease construction rules to expand supply, and update outdated federal housing programs. Trump was scheduled to sign at the Capitol on Wednesday, then canceled about an hour before the ceremony, posting that he would not act until lawmakers passed the SAVE America Act.

Once the housing bill formally gets presented to him, it becomes law without a signature after ten days, Sundays excluded, as long as Congress stays in session and he doesn’t veto it, and Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump will ultimately sign it.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who co-led the bill, said the president’s policies have driven costs up and holding the relief back shows indifference to the squeeze on American families.

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The Supreme Court cleared the way to end protected status for Haitians and Syrians

In a 6 to 3 ruling along ideological lines on Thursday, the Court held that the law governing Temporary Protected Status bars judges from reviewing the Homeland Security secretary’s decision to end it.

The decision lets the administration strip protection from more than 350,000 Haitians and several thousand Syrians who have lived and worked in the country legally, some for more than a decade, and advocates warned that the same reasoning now endangers the roughly 1.3 million people covered by TPS designations for more than a dozen countries. The State Department warns Americans against traveling to either Haiti or Syria, citing violence and instability.

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan pointed to Trump’s own statements about Haitians, which she called “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print.” Hours earlier the Court handed the administration a second immigration win, restoring its authority to turn away asylum seekers at overburdened crossings on the southern border. Krish O’Mara Vignarajah of Global Refuge noted that roughly a third of the affected Haitians work in health care, as caregivers, nurses, and doctors, which is part of why the protections once drew bipartisan support.

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Congress rebuked Trump on Iran, then walked it back two days later

On Tuesday the Senate adopted a resolution directing the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran, 50 to 48, the first time a war-powers measure cleared both chambers of Congress.

Four Republicans, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul, joined nearly every Democrat, while Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman was the lone Democrat opposed. The measure was a concurrent resolution, which means it never goes to the president’s desk and carries no force of law.

The following night the Senate blocked a separate, binding resolution led by Sen. Tim Kaine from advancing, 50 to 47, after the president spent the day leaning on the Republicans who had defied him.

Trump called Cassidy a “lunatic” in a closed-door lunch and by evening Cassidy voted no and Paul voted present, leaving only Collins and Murkowski. The rebuke and the retreat read best together, together they map how far congressional pressure reaches and the place it still gives way.

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Albania’s “Flamingo Revolution” kept the streets full over a Trump-family resort

For more than three weeks, demonstrators across Albania have rallied against a multibillion-dollar luxury resort linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, planned for the island of Sazan and the protected Vjosa-Narta lagoon, one of the Mediterranean’s largest flamingo habitats. Protesters carry pink flamingo cutouts, which gave the movement its name, and what began as an environmental fight has grown into a broader revolt against corruption and the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, drawing thousands and, by some local counts, tens of thousands into the capital.

The objection organizers keep returning to is not just the wildlife or the coastline but the secrecy, the permits and public consultations that residents say never happened before the bulldozers arrived. It’s a question that carries well past the Adriatic, about who gets to decide the future of a shared place, the people who live there or the powerful few who can afford to buy in.

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The Good News:

Three federal judges drew hard lines around the effort to take federal control of elections, and they did it inside a single week.

On Monday, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington blocked the use of a revamped immigration database, stitched together from Social Security numbers and citizenship data that advocates called unreliable, to scrub state voter rolls.

On Wednesday, Judge Denise Casper in Boston permanently barred the proof-of-citizenship registration order, writing that the Constitution gives the president no specific power over elections.

And on Thursday, Judge Indira Talwani voided the core of the March mail-voting order, the one that would have used the Postal Service to limit mail-ballot delivery to a federally approved voter list and would have built that national list in the first place.

Roughly two dozen states joined these suits, and the guardrails held this week because people went to court and made them hold.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsed slate swept the city’s congressional primaries, unseating two sitting House members.

Brad Lander defeated Rep. Dan Goldman, Darializa Avila Chevalier edged five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat in one of the biggest New York upsets in years, and Claire Valdez won the open Brooklyn and Queens seat.

In the suburbs, Cait Conley took the Democratic primary in the battleground 17th District and will challenge Rep. Mike Lawler in November.

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Tomorrow (Saturday 6/27) is All of U.S. 250:

A national day of action on June 27 built by a coalition that includes 50501 and the Women’s March.

As the country approaches its 250th anniversary, the organizers reject a sanitized “Freedom 250” telling of the founding and march instead for the fuller history, the part where people had to fight, organize, and bleed for decades to make the founding’s promises reach them.

There’s a main mobilization in Washington and local actions in communities across the country, along with a companion project called Letters to America for anyone who can’t march but wants their words on the record.

Find an event at allofus250.org!

Catch up on this week’s posts

Why Disability Rights Advocates Are Alarmed by the DOJ’s Olmstead Memo

All of U.S. 250, June 27th National Day of Action