Unprecedented God Squad Meeting Could Push Gulf Species Toward Extinction

If the defense secretary forces the God Squad to grant this sweeping—and unprecedented exemption—all the threatened and endangered creatures, both large and small, that call the Gulf waters and coastlines home will be at risk.

The critically endangered Rice’s whale (pictured) would be at risk if Endangered Species protections are waved for oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
(Photo by NOAA)

Jane Davenport
Mar 27, 2026

Common Dreams

The Trump administration has made clear from day one that it intends to dramatically expand fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and in federal waters, with no regard for the consequences to wildlife or the public interest. In the latest jaw-dropping move, late on the night of March 25, government lawyers revealed in a court filing that, on March 13, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly contacted Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to demand he convene a meeting of the Endangered Species Committee, or “God Squad.”

Secretary Hegseth’s rationale for the convening is based on a false narrative that “national security” reasons dictate that the God Squad must grant an Endangered Species Act (ESA) exemption for all oil and gas activities the Interior Department authorizes in the Gulf of Mexico.




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On March 16, Burgum publicly announced a snap God Squad meeting on March 31 to consider exempting oil and gas activities in the Gulf from the ESA’s requirement that federal agencies avoid taking actions likely to jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened species. The cryptic notice gave no indication that “national security” reasons warranted the meeting—the first in 35 years.

Certainly, none of the detailed statutory prerequisites to a God Squad vote have been met, and no complete exemption application has been teed up for the committee to consider, let alone for the public to examine.

No administration, Republican or Democratic, has ever tried to write itself a blank check to ignore the ESA’s requirements.

It cannot be a coincidence that Secretary Hegseth demanded a God Squad meeting just two weeks after the United States launched airstrikes across Iran. Iran has now blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies. The result: Global oil prices have spiked, and Republicans are on the ropes. But bypassing the ESA to further the administration’s massive plans to expand Gulf oil production will do nothing to help Americans facing higher energy, food, and consumer goods prices today.

The truth is that the ESA has never stood—and is not now standing—in the way of oil and gas development in the Gulf. To assert otherwise is a red herring.

In fact, data shows that the ESA almost never stops projects.

Defenders of Wildlife’s Center for Conservation Innovation analyzed over 88,000 US Fish and Wildlife Service ESA consultations that took place between 2008-2015 and found that not a single project was halted or extensively altered due to a jeopardy finding. Most projects were not even delayed, and only two consultations resulted in a jeopardy finding.

And for a jeopardy opinion, the wildlife agency must try to develop a “reasonable and prudent alternative” that allows the project to go forward while avoiding jeopardy. The wildlife agency works closely with other federal agencies to ensure their actions can proceed without risking a species’ extinction.

If the defense secretary forces the God Squad to grant this sweeping—and unprecedented exemption—all the threatened and endangered creatures, both large and small, that call the Gulf waters and coastlines home will be at risk. From the critically endangered Rice’s whale with only 51 surviving animals to the beloved Florida manatee, from the tiny Alabama beach mouse and five sea turtle species to the largest animal that has ever lived, the blue whale and more—all will suffer the consequences if their ESA protections are ripped away.

No administration, Republican or Democratic, has ever tried to write itself a blank check to ignore the ESA’s requirements.

Invoking “national security” cannot justify potentially pushing the Rice’s whale—or any of our nation’s irreplaceable wildlife species—over the brink of extinction. If this administration were truly concerned about national security, it would focus on what is most important to Americans—a healthy environment; clean, renewable energy sources; an abundant and affordable food supply; public lands to recreate on; and the protection of our country’s shared heritage of treasured lands, waters, and wildlife.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Jane Davenport
Jane Davenport is a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife.
Full Bio >

Sanders-Casar Proposal Takes On Billionaires Relocating Sports Teams for Corporate Welfare

“Professional sports teams should be owned and controlled by the fans who love them, not by the multibillionaire oligarchs,” Sanders said.

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a press conference with Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) during the introduction of the Home Team Act at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on March 26, 2026.
(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Mar 26, 2026
COMMON DREAM

US Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require owners of professional sports franchises who are considering relocating to give the communities in which they are located a chance to buy the teams first.

“The American people are sick and tired of billionaires threatening to move the sports teams they own to different states unless they get hundreds of millions in corporate welfare to build new stadiums,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement announcing the Home Team Act.

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“In my view, professional sports teams should be owned and controlled by the fans who love them, not by the multibillionaire oligarchs who are getting even richer by charging outrageous prices and getting taxpayers to pick up their extravagant costs,” he continued.

“You shouldn’t have to be wealthy to take your family to a football game,” Sanders added. “You shouldn’t have to fear that a multibillionaire will move your favorite team to a different city if taxpayers refuse to subsidize it. The Home Team Act is a very modest piece of legislation that begins to address this problem. I am proud to support it.”

The Home Team Act is cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut—which lost the National Hockey League’s Hartford Whalers to North Carolina in the 1990s—and five House Democrats.

If passed as written, the bill would:Require sports franchise owners to provide notice a year before moving the team to a new community, defined by crossing state lines or moving to a new Metropolitan Statistical Area;
Give communities a chance to purchase a franchise during that year, including through the sort of successful community ownership model used by the National Football League’s (NFL) Green Bay Packers; and

Penalize noncompliant franchise owners.

“Sports in America should be about more than just making billionaire owners even richer,” Casar said Thursday.

“Far too many Americans know the pain of losing a team, and far too many communities have had to fork over billions in subsidies just to keep an already profitable team home,” he added. “Our bill is about creating a level playing field so leagues work for fans and taxpayers, not just owners.”

Sanders’ office acknowledged that “team relocation has plagued communities across America for decades,” from the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moving respectively to Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1958 to the Oakland Athletics—who previously called Philadelphia and Kansas City home—relocating to Sacramento and, eventually, Las Vegas.

Oaklanders have arguably felt the heartbreak of losing their beloved pro sports franchises more than any other US city, having lost the As, the NFL’s Raiders, and the Warriors of the National Basketball Association in a five-year span.

“Currently, the Chicago Bears are threatening to leave the city after more than 100 years in response to the state of Indiana offering massive subsidies,” Sanders’ office said of the storied NFL franchise known for its passionately loyal fan base. “The bill would prevent the Bears from being moved across state lines without being offered for sale.”

In his youth, Sanders—who grew up during a time when Jewish players dominated racially segregated professional basketball—was known for his killer mid-range jump shot. As a senator, he has championed professional athletes, especially baseball players, during their collective bargaining struggles against oligarch owners.

Sanders still holds a grudge against the former owner of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers of his youth who relocated the team to Los Angeles in 1958, when he was a teenager. In 2018, he posted an old Brooklyn adage that “the three worst people in modern history were Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley—but not necessarily in that order.”

Serving in the House of Representatives at the time, Sanders even had a bit part in the 1999 comedy “My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception,” in which he played Manny Shevitz, a rabbi who argues that the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn was the “worst thing that ever happened.”

Sanders Spurns Melania Trump’s Vision of Robots ‘Replacing Teachers’

“We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve.”


US First Lady Melania Trump enters the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC with a humanoid robot named Figure 03 during the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit on March 25, 2026.

(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Mar 27, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS

US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday rejected First Lady Melania Trump’s vision of a near-future in which artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots do the work of human school teachers, arguing that society should instead do better by its human educators.

The wife of President Donald Trump entered Wednesday’s gathering of the Global First Ladies Alliance accompanied by Figure 03, an AI-powered “general purpose humanoid robot” developed by the Sunnyvale, California-based company Figure..



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“The future of AI is personified,” Trump told attendees, who included Brigitte Macron of France, Sara Netanyahu of Israel, and Olena Zelenska of Ukraine. “It will be formed in the shape of humans. Very soon artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility.”

“Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato,” she said. “Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.”

Responding to Trump’s remarks, Sanders (I-Vt.) said Friday on social media: “Call me a radical, but NO.”

“We should not be replacing teachers in America with robots,” the senator added. “We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve.”




Trump and Macron also warned about the dangers technology poses to children in remarks that came the same week that a New Mexico jury ordered tech titan Meta to pay a $375 million penalty for endangering youth and jurors in a landmark social media addiction trial found that Meta and YouTube harmed a child user of their platforms.

The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom—who is believed to be a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination—also slapped down the idea of robot teachers, as did ordinary social media users.

“They want to replace human beings. Where will we work? How do we make money?” asked one X account with tens of thousands of followers. “No one wants this. We did not ask for it. Fuck all of this shit.”

AMERIKAN ROBOT TEACHER 

'Prepare for the worst': Hedge fund veteran thinks the market is broken

FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the market opened in New York September 1, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

Sarah K. Burris

March 27, 2026

ALTERNET

DBi’s Andrew Beer is concerned that key financial market indicators could be broken.

Traditionally, financial markets are seen as a giant prediction machine. CNBC called it a "crystal ball." When investors think the future looks good, prices usually rise; when they expect trouble, prices fall or shift. Changes in stocks, bonds, currencies and oil often give early clues about coming growth, inflation, or crises.

That's not happening right now, however, and Beer is worried it is because the crystal ball is broken.

“It’s not normal for big markets to move as much as they are right now,” said Beer, the firm’s managing member, in an interview with CNBC’s “ETF Edge."

“Something is deeply wrong in the market’s ability to forecast the state of the world... The only thing we can all do as investors is: This is the moment to plan and to prepare for the worst. You hope for the best," he added.

“You just — you have more geopolitical risks stacked on top of each other today [and] more economic risk factors than I remember at any time in my career,” he said after more than three decades in the hedge fund industry.

There have been a number of stresses on the economy over the past 12 to 18 months, but it hasn't caused a crisis, and that isn't normal.

“These financial assets are — they’re an investment, but they’re also what you need to survive, to live on, to retire, and so it’s the very real human side of it that I hope people will focus on,” he added.

“The best thing to do in 2025 was just turn off your computer beginning of the year and come back at the end of the year, and you’ve made money, your stocks and your bonds and everything else,” he said. “It won’t continue like that. We will go through a more difficult period.”

He noted that there are so many investments in portfolios that make it difficult to calibrate, like crypto, gold and silver not to mention crude oil.

“No one has a playbook for that,” said Beer.

He's keeping an eye on private credit, which even Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is concerned President Donald Trump might open up for 401(k) investments. There are other concerns about insurance portfolios and other small areas of "the market where unusual stress could begin to spread," CNBC said.

Research director at XTB, Kathleen Brooks, penned a column Friday in which she predicts that the markets may just be immune to things Trump says after so many wild swings over the past months.

"After falling to as low as $96 per barrel earlier this week on comments from President Trump that the war could soon be over, oil traders are now discounting the daily torrent of posts and incoherent press conferences from the White House, as the war rages on. On Friday, investors are facing the facts: the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed and it does not appear that there is a real end in sight to the war," she said.

It appears they're going to operate as if they have no faith in Trump, she suggested. Markets aren't even reacting to positive news, like Trump's announcement that he won't bomb Iran's power infrastructure this week or next week.

"Effectively, this is just another 10 days where nothing will be achieved and 20 percent of the world’s oil supply will remain constrained. This is why traders have failed to react to this ‘positive news’ and instead the sell-off continues," said Brooks.

Hackers linked to Iran claim they invaded Trump FBI director’s inbox

Alex Henderson

March 27, 2026

With U.S. President Donald Trump's war against Iran raging on, a group of hackers linked to Iran are claiming responsibility for breaking into FBI Director Kash Patel's online inbox.

On Friday morning, March 27, Reuters reported that the hackers, after invading Patel's "personal inbox," were "publishing photographs of the director and his purported resume to the internet."

The hackers, who call themselves Handala, claimed, "The so-called impenetrable systems of the FBI were brought to their knees within hours by our team."


Reuters said it was unable to immediately authenticate the e-mails Handala claimed to have stolen.

According to Reuters, an official for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed that Patel's e-mails were compromised but did not go into detail.

Growing numbers of Americans now fear Doomsday

U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Bobby Colliton and Staff Sgt. Dane Hatley conduct combat survival training near Osan Air Base, South Korea, on Oct. 15, 2012 (U.S. Department of Defense/Flickr)

Alex Henderson

March 25, 2026

ALTERNET

Within Christianity, talk of Armageddon is especially prominent among far-right evangelical fundamentalists — many of whom are obsessed with the New Testament's Book of Revelation. Mainline Protestants and Catholics also read the Book of Revelation, but not in the obsessive way that evangelical fundamentalists and white Christian nationalists do. And they don't have the evangelical fixation on Armadgeddon and the End Times.

But in an op-ed published by The Hill on March 25, researcher John Mac Ghlionn observes that fear of Doomsday is growing among Americans who aren't necessarily End Times evangelicals.

This fear, he notes, is highlighted in a new report by the American Psychological Association (APA).


"America used to reserve Doomsday talk for the guys who stored beans in their backyard and argued about the Book of Revelation on AM radio," Ghlionn explains. "Now, according to a recent paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, one-third of the country quietly suspects that the end will arrive before they get the chance to draw down their 401(k) plans. Historically, apocalyptic thinking had a specific address…. The end of the world was a conviction reserved for a certain kind of Christian, who awaited it with a feeling somewhere between dread and satisfaction."

Ghlionn adds, "These were the kind of people for whom catastrophe would finally settle an argument they had been having for decades. Everyone else just changed the channel and went back to refinancing their mortgages."

But now, according to the researcher, that "separation is gone."

"When the U.S. and Israel chose to attack Iran and kill that country's supreme leader, the phrase 'World War III' began trending on the phones of mechanics in Des Moines and software engineers in Austin," Ghlionn writes. "The researchers found that more than 100 million Americans expect the world to end in their lifetime. This not some vague anxiety, but a concrete belief that colors how these people think about climate change, nuclear war, economic collapse, and artificial intelligence. That is your neighbor, your barista, your Uber driver, and the manager at work who just updated the remote‑work policy."

In 2026, according to Ghlionn, the "Doomsday crowd" includes not only fundamentalist evangelicals, but also, ranges from "climate activists convinced we have blown past every tipping point" to "AI researchers gaming out scenarios where the machine stops taking instructions."

"Americans have always flirted with the end of the world," Ghlionn notes. "But now, for the first time, the preppers, the prophets, the climate modelers, the AI-worriers and the geopolitical realists can all point to different dashboards flashing red at the same time."

Data guru reveals Trump’s 'absolutely atrocious' loss of working-class voters

A supporter of Donald Trump rallies outside an early polling precinct as voters cast their ballots in local, state, and national elections, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., November 3, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

Thomas Kika 

March 27, 2026

ALTERNET

Working-class voters were a "very important part" of the coalition that reelected President Donald Trump in 2024, but according to CNN's data guru Harry Enten, the latest numbers show a drastic drop in their support for him that could spell doom for the GOP in the future.

For the purposes of this latest polling, "working class" was defined as anyone making $50,000 or less a year. As Enten explained, these voters and their frustrations about the economy were key to pushing Trump over the electoral edge in 2024.

"You know, the working class... those making under $50K were a big swing vote in the 2024 election," Enten explained. "Trump was able to win them. That was a very important part of his coalition."

Now, however, the support Trump has from these voters has fallen off dramatically, with their approval rating of his job performance as president now deeply underwater. While Trump carried these voters by 2 percent over Kamala Harris, he now has a net disapproval from them by 24 percentage points, based on an average from several sources.

A similar trend has emerged across numerous voter demographics that broke for Trump in 2024, including young voters and Latino voters, casting major doubts on the GOP's ability to hang onto power in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential race.

"But now look at this now, look at the net approval rating he has with those making under [$50K]," Enten continued. "Down it goes. Look at that, that's a 26-point switcheroo in the latest average of polls. Look at that, minus 24 points. The working-class voters are abandoning Donald Trump, those who put him over the top in 2024 are saying, 'You know what? Not for me right now.'"

On a per-issue basis, Enten noted that Trump's approval over Harris on the economy was a major factor helping him secure working-class voters in 2024, but now, that rating has fallen even harder than his overall approval. While voters in 2024 gave him a 5-point edge on the economy, his current net approval is now underwater by a dysmal 31 points.

"They have completely, completely shifted away from the president of the United States," Enten said. "He is way underwater, we're talking way more than a 20-point shift away from the president of the United States. His net approval rating with them right now is absolutely atrocious when it comes to the economy. They have seen what has happened, they have seen what has happened with tariffs, they have seen what has happened with the war, they have seen the gas prices go up, and you just say to yourself if you're a voter making under $50K, the economy is not where we want it to be, and therefore we are turning against Trump on the economy, and we are turning against him overall."

'You can hear the concern': Trump's dumpster-level polling casts a shadow over CPAC

CPAC Attendee Alexander Selby (YouTube Screengrab)

Adam Lynch

March 26, 2026

ALTERNET

CNN reports right wing figures and influencers are gathering at one of the biggest conservative conferences of the year in Texas — but what's gathering with them is fear.

This year, CNN anchor Boris Sanchez reports President Donald Trump's poll numbers are in a dumpster, along with the Republican party's chances of holding on to both the House and Senate in the midterms. Government debt is also on a steep rise and the war with Iran is grievously unpopular and breaking the Republican Party into pieces.

“This isn't, you know, what I voted for,” said CPAC attendee Shashank Yalamanchi. “What I voted for was domestic policy change at home and, you know, realistic foreign policy. So, I'm just hoping we can get it all wrapped up soon.”


“I think they’ll get destroyed in the midterms,” said CPAC Attendee Alexander Selby, speaking of Republicans. “I just I get the vibe that a lot of people I knew who just voted for Trump because they thought he was cool in high school are now just like, ‘I can't stand the guy’.”

“It is like night and day,” CNN senior reporter Steve Contorno told Sanchez from the convention hall in Dallas, Texas. “Last year, CPAC was this electric, jubilant atmosphere coming off those 2024 electoral victories. Trump gave this hour long, triumphant speech. But the mood here this year could not be different.

“Against the backdrop of this Iran war that is increasingly testing the loyalty of his movements, … several of the speakers are urging conservatives to stick together to focus more on attacking Democrats rather than on attacking each other. But when I spoke with attendees here this morning, their anxieties were on full display.”

CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp admitted to Contorno earlier on Thursday that “the party is divided,” but claimed “this is a group that supports President Trump.”

Still, Contorno said the midterms “are absolutely a concern.”

“There's certainly time until November to get everyone back into the tent, but just listening to these speeches on the stage, you can definitely hear the concern that Republicans are more focused on defining what MAGA is, defining what America First means versus focusing on winning and beating Democrats.”

“Perhaps that's something that can be addressed in the coming months. But right now, those tensions are on full display here in Dallas,” Contorno said.

TRUMP LIES

'But you were in Palm Beach': Reporter fact-checks Trump to his face on mail-in ballot

Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey 

 (Image: Shutterstock)

Sarah K. Burris

March 26, 2026

ALTERNET  


President Donald Trump made news after he voted by mail despite spending years railing against the practice as "cheating" in elections. His family followed suit with their own ballots for the Florida special election.

“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we've got to do something about it all,” Trump said on Monday while participating in his crime task force roundtable.

His comments came after Trump and his family submitted their mail-in ballots, according to records.

After Trump spoke in his Thursday Cabinet meeting, before he began taking questions from the press, one reporter questioned him on the mail-in ballot.

Trump began by claiming that he voted by mail because he felt he was needed more at the White House.

"But you were in Palm Beach," the reporter quipped.

"That's right. And I — yeah," he stuttered. "And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things. But, you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that, right? So if you're away, you have an exception. If you're in the military, we have an exception. If you're on a business trip, we have an exception. If you're disabled, we have an exception. And if you're ill, if you're not feeling good. So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C. So, I used a mail-in ballot."

He added sarcastically, "But I appreciate the question because I know, I know, it was so well-meaning. Yeah."

“You know, brought to my attention today that we’re the only country that doesn’t — that does mail-in voting,” Trump claimed falsely in his speech on Monday. “You know, there’s not a country in the world that does mail-in ballots anymore."

A CNN fact check on Tuesday pointed out a Trump comment during the speech on Monday that President Jimmy Carter formed after his presidency, “came out and said very strongly: ‘No mail-in ballots.’”

At a press conference on March 9, Trump said: “Frankly, I think it’s probably the best thing Jimmy Carter did. He said, ‘You can’t have mail-in voting because it’s inherently dishonest.'"

New sources reveal childish reason Trump fought to keep classified documents

President Donald Trump, next to Jared Kushner, salutes as a U.S. flag is raised on a new flagpole installed on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Thomas Kika

March 27, 2026 

ALTERNET

A newly released memo this week revealed suspicions that President Donald Trump illegally retained classified documents in order to profit from them, but according to new sources who spoke to MS NOW, the reason might have actually been something simpler, and more childish: his own ego.

MS NOW previously reported on the memo from Special Counsel Jack Smith's team suggesting Trump had a profit motive for retaining those documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving the White House the first time. The memo contained a progress report on the ongoing federal investigation against Trump from Jan. 2023 and did not divulge which specific business interests were involved in the supposed motive.

On Friday, MS NOW published a follow-up report on Friday, noting that despite those initial suspicions, "Smith and his team later concluded they could not prove this was his motive." As of a few months after that progress report, evidence was quietly being presented to a Florida grand jury, and "Smith and his prosecutors determined their clearest conclusion was that Trump kept the records out of an egotistical belief that he should be allowed to keep them," two people familiar with the case told the outlet, also adding that Trump was particularly fixated on the classified materials because he thought they were "cool."

"But after copious work by Smith’s team, the people said, prosecutors increasingly believed the most they could prove was that Trump erroneously believed he should be allowed to keep any record he wanted and some of the documents were simply 'cool,'" MS NOW's report explained. "For example, investigators were surprised to learn Trump asked his briefers if he could keep the leather-bound covers of some of his classified briefings that carried the embossed title, 'The President,' according to one person familiar with the finding."

As MS NOW noted in its report, Smith and his team did not necessarily need to establish any motive in order to convict Trump and his associates of mishandling classified documents. Nevertheless, the team was said to be "laser-focused" on establishing it anyway, so that it could be presented to a jury at trial.

The memo that the outlet previously reported on gained significant attention this week after it was cited by Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin in a letter to Pam Bondi, arguing that it "reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself."

"The memo was written in Smith’s early days in office to prepare Smith to brief then-Attorney General Merrick Garland on the investigation’s progress. The memo said the briefing was scheduled for Jan. 13, 2023," MS NOW explained further. "Smith’s team planned to update the attorney general on investigative steps they took, meetings they had with FBI supervisors in the Washington field office and the priority investigative tasks they later gave the investigators."

Disabled Organizers Are Facing Down Trump’s Immigration Crackdown


Disability justice organizers are turning to immigrant rights groups to guide their interventions and support work.

By Marianne Dhenin , 

Truthout

March 25, 2026

A demonstrator holds a sign that says “Abolish ICE” during a protest in Houston, Texas, on January 10, 2026.Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images

Since Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office last year, the number of people in immigration detention has almost doubled from 40,000 to about 75,000. Disabled people face an increased threat of violence and detention from law enforcement, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who have been deployed to terrorize communities and detain neighbors in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and elsewhere as part of Trump’s crackdown over the last year.

As the Trump administration’s assault on migrant communities escalates, members of the disability community are showing up for their neighbors on all fronts — in Congress and the courts, at protests, and as nodes in mutual aid and ICE watch networks. Disabled organizers who spoke to Truthout said the attacks feel all too familiar, and it’s a fight they cannot imagine sitting out.

“Fascism is not new to this group, the idea of being disposable, not being of value to this capitalist society, aggressive institutionalization, state-sanctioned violence, lack of resources — we have been screaming from our lungs that there was something severely wrong,” Ramiro Alvarez, communications director at Detroit Disability Power (DDP), told Truthout. “It’s not a ‘We told you so’ moment. It’s a ‘We are glad more people are waking up and there are more in this fight’ moment.”

Research has repeatedly shown that disabled people are overrepresented at every stage of the criminal legal system. They account for upwards of two-thirds of the U.S. prisoner population. However, no similar demographic data exists for the population in immigration jails.

Members of the disability community are showing up for their neighbors on all fronts — in Congress and the courts, at protests, and as nodes in mutual aid and ICE watch networks.

The risks are even greater for disabled people of color, who are likewise overrepresented in the criminal legal system. Of those incarcerated in the U.S., 1 in 3 are Black men, and 1 in 6 are Latino men, compared to only 1 in 17 white men. People of color are also more likely to be disabled and less likely to have access to needed health care.

“Anybody who’s not white and is disabled is at such a huge risk of being profiled by ICE and CBP,” CT Tyson, government affairs liaison at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), told Truthout.

Disability Justice Organizers Are Creating the Liberatory Future We All Deserve
Organizers share where they find hope in the struggle for disability justice as we go into the second year of Trump 2.0. By Marianne Dhenin , Truthout January 6, 2026

Laura Murchie, a staff attorney focused on immigration law at Disability Law United, told Truthout that even if a person is not disabled when agents arrest them, many will develop illnesses or disabilities as they are moved through the immigration detention system. The scale and speed of Trump’s crackdown make matters worse.

“The harm is disproportionate to folks who are disabled,” Murchie told Truthout. “This has always been true, but I think because of the extra violence with which the administration is quote-unquote ‘executing the laws,’ it is a disabling event, as well.”

Several high-profile cases of federal agents harming disabled people have already made headlines. Last August, agents handcuffed a 15-year old disabled teen outside a Los Angeles high school. In January, agents dragged Aliya Rahman, a disabled woman with autism and a traumatic brain injury, from her car in Minneapolis, detained her, and denied her emergency medical care. Last month, agents abandoned Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a low-vision Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, alone and in freezing weather outside a closed shop near Buffalo, New York. He was later found dead.


“Anybody who’s not white and is disabled is at such a huge risk of being profiled by ICE and CBP.”

Abuse of sick and disabled people and medical neglect within ICE detention are well-documented issues that predate Trump 2.0, and advocates fear conditions could worsen further under the current administration. One U.S. Senate report released last October uncovered more than 80 instances of medical neglect in immigration jails nationwide. The following month, seven people sued the Trump administration over inhumane conditions at a California ICE jail. The plaintiffs report being denied treatment for a likely case of prostate cancer, having insulin and heart medications withheld, and being denied proper access to hygiene facilities.

Murchie told Truthout that many of her deaf clients are not being provided interpreters. Other clients who communicate using sign language are also having their hands shackled.

But the involvement of disability rights and justice advocates in the fight against Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown runs deeper than concerns for the disabled people swept up in it. “We are upset and concerned and panicked about what this means for our entire community,” Tyson told Truthout. “You don’t have to be disabled for us to care; we’re speaking up for everybody.”

Speaking up looks a little different for each organization, as organizers turn to immigrant rights groups to guide their interventions and respond to the needs of their local communities. DREDF is collaborating with human rights, emergency management, and other organizations to demand that Congress adopt meaningful measures to stop the violence. The organization also spearheaded a March 1 letter urging lawmakers to return funds taken from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to arm the Department of Homeland Security. DREDF has also compiled a suite of resources on how immigrant rights and disability rights are intertwined, in the hopes of helping disabled immigrants, their community members, and the organizations that serve them navigate Trump’s crackdown.

“We have heard from some of the immigrant rights groups we follow how important it is for there to be allied organizations that Congress doesn’t expect to hear from,” Tyson told Truthout. “We are going to use whatever platform we have to call this out [and] demand the funding and the prioritization of care and not violence.”

Access Living, a Chicago-based disability services and support organization, is among the 70 groups that signed DREDF’s March 1 letter. The organization has also been hard at work coordinating “know your rights” trainings in several languages, as well as other educational events and resources focused on protecting disabled migrants. That work helped the city overcome ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” an onslaught launched in September.

“We have been highlighting the fear that our immigrants with disabilities have [when they] go into hospitals and get treatments that they need,” Michelle Garcia, manager of organizing and community development at Access Living, told Truthout. “They fear ICE going into the clinics and taking them away, or not getting the proper care because if they say they’re not documented, that means they won’t receive care because they don’t have insurance.”

Garcia told Truthout that many immigrants with disabilities are also scared of being removed: “If they go back to their countries of origin, they’re more likely to end up in a worse condition than they are now here without any supports.”

To help community members navigate these concerns and organize to protect one another, Access Living has also expanded its Cambiando Vidas (Changing Lives) group. Cambiando Vidas functions as a support group and lobbies for legislative changes to support immigrants in Illinois. It was launched to serve Latinx people with disabilities and now welcomes disabled immigrants from other communities.

Meanwhile, Alvarez told Truthout his organization understands its role as one of building bridges between “all these badass disabled Detroiters” who want to get involved in fighting Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda and local grassroots campaigns that might not have the resources or the know-how to make their efforts more inclusive.

Among its interventions, DDP has advised on making outreach and recruitment materials more accessible, recommended adding questions about access needs to sign-up forms, trained organizations to use plain language, and encouraged masking and other access considerations at events. These efforts have helped a growing number of disabled people get involved in neighborhood ICE watch and other efforts, such as grocery delivery and student pick-up and drop-offs, to support families forced to reduce outings or shelter in place.

“What spurred this whole idea is this desire that we see in our community of a bunch of disabled people ready to plug in, and then this movement that’s not ready to have them plug in because there are so many access barriers,” Alvarez told Truthout. “We’re trying to create something that meets both of those needs.”

Wherever disability rights and justice organizers contribute, they bring a unique perspective to those organizing spaces. Alvarez told Truthout that this includes helping organizers understand how improving access and thinking about disability justice benefits everyone, not only disabled people.

“A lot of the organizers are realizing they’re experiencing an access need at their own job, that they are near burnout, that they’re experiencing fatigue, that they’re having pain flare-ups, that they’re getting sick more often,” Alvarez told Truthout. “Part of our disability wisdom is reminding movements that being unhealthy, tired, and burnt out is exactly where they want us, and our movements only succeed if we treat this as a marathon relay and not a single-man sprint.”

Looking forward, Alvarez said he hopes the movement will continue to learn from and lean on its disabled organizers and their ideas for building a more just and caring future. “At the end of this — because there will be an end to this, and we will win — there’s going to need to be a grand effort of care,” he told Truthout. “Disabled people are saying, ‘This time we’re going to center the most vulnerable instead of centering an individual … we’re going to center a community,’ and that community being our children, our elderly, and our disabled — those that need us the most.”