Hacks star Hannah Einbinder ended her Emmys speech with choice words for Donald Trump’s secret police force and some solidarity with the people of Palestine.
More than a dozen elected officials were arrested in or around 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, where ICE detains people in what courts have ruled are unsanitary conditions.
Police arrested more than a dozen New York state and city elected officials Thursday at 26 Federal Plaza, the Manhattan immigration court and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, many as they pressed to gain access to the building’s 10th-floor lockup, where recent court rulings—including a temporary restraining order—directed ICE not to cram immigrants into overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.
The lawmakers and other officials, arrested around 3:45 pm local time, say they were “attempting to conduct oversight” following claims that people appearing for court hearings were being confined for hours or days without proper food, medical care, or contact with attorneys.
A spokesperson for New York City comptroller Brad Lander’s office told WIRED by phone that Lander and 10 other elected officials were denied access and then arrested while “engaged in an action on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE inhumanely detains thousands of immigrant New Yorkers.” Lander was previously arrested at the same facility in June while accompanying a migrant man whom ICE targeted with arrest.
A joint press release issued by New York officials in the aftermath lists the electeds among those arrested:
NYC comptroller Brad Lander
State senator Julia Salazar
State senator Jabari Brisport
State senator Gustavo Rivera
Assembly member Robert Carroll
Assembly member Emily Gallagher
Assembly member Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas
Assembly member Marcela Mitaynes
Assembly member Claire Valdez
Assembly member Tony Simone
Assembly member Steven Raga
Public advocate Jumaane Williams
Assembly member Phara Souffrant-Forrest
Council member Sandy Nurse
Council member Tiffany Caban
At least some officials, according to Lander’s office, had been released at the time of writing. The final four on the list were arrested outside the facility, reportedly by the New York City Police Department. Dozens of New Yorkers who had gathered, holding signs and chanting “ICE out of NY,” were also arrested, officials said. A follow-up demonstration was planned for 6 pm ET at Foley Square, a longtime rallying point for immigrant rights protests in the heart of Manhattan’s Civic Center neighborhood.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor ICE immediately responded to a request for comment. Reached by phone, a New York Police Department spokesperson declined to comment because “the incident is ongoing.”
Under federal law, members of Congress have explicit authority to inspect immigration detention facilities, including conducting unannounced visits. State and city lawmakers don’t have that authority and must rely on DHS or ICE to approve such requests. The Trump administration has instituted new policies, such as mandating advance notice and designating certain field offices and short-term sites off-limits, that have blocked or delayed congressional oversight visits in recent months.
Federal judges and civil rights groups have zeroed in on the conditions inside 26 Federal Plaza. This summer, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction against the government after allegations surfaced that the facility’s detainees were being crammed into severely overcrowded rooms and made to sleep on bare floors and were denied food, hygiene, and confidential access to their lawyers.
The problems echo a broader pattern across the US, where watchdogs and courts have flagged overcrowding, poor sanitation, and blocked access to counsel in ICE facilities from Arizona to Louisiana.
Advocates say some of the most jarring overcrowding is happening on 26 Federal Plaza’s 10th floor, where detainees have estimated that between 70 and 90 people have been crammed into rooms measuring roughly 215 square feet. That would leave each person with roughly the space of a doormat—less room than a folded bath towel—in an area no bigger than a studio apartment kitchen.
The arrests came as part of a coordinated action by progressive Democrats, timed to amplify demands for Albany to reconvene and pass the New York for All Act. The bill would bar state and local agencies, including police and sheriffs, from sharing information or resources with ICE, aiming to stop what lawmakers describe as abductions of immigrants at court hearings and check-ins. Along with New York City Council’s proposed Trust Act—which would let people sue if city agencies unlawfully cooperate with ICE—the legislation is essential, Democrats say, to defend due process and prevent local governments from becoming de facto extensions of ICE.
“The criminalization, demonization, and state-sponsored violence against immigrants in this country has reached a fever pitch under this administration. All of us, and especially elected leaders, must do more to protect New Yorkers, regardless of when they arrived,” Assembly member Emily Gallagher, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Many elected officials have been arrested while protesting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Among others, in June, Senator Alex Padilla of California was handcuffed after challenging Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem at a Los Angeles press conference, and in May, Newark mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside a federal detention center during an attempted oversight visit.
In a statement, Yasmine Farhang, executive director of the Immigrant Defense Project, applauded the lawmakers’ actions Thursday, accusing the US government of “egregious abuses of power,” and imploring New York governor Kathy Hochul to use her clemency powers to shield migrants dealing with overlapping punishments from the courts and immigration authorities.
“New York leaders cannot let this cruelty go unchecked,” she said. “The moment to act is NOW.”
Charlie Kirk’s suspected murderer was a 22-year-old white guy from Utah, but in the week since he was shot, at least six Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been forced to cancel classes due to bomb threats made against their students and faculty. Columnist Karen Attiah got fired from The Washington Post. Representative Ilhan Omar was nearly censured. Countless Black people have been harassed and, worse, countless immigrants have been threatened with the possibility of deportation, all for insufficiently respecting the life and death of a white supremacist.
Charlie Kirk’s suspected murderer was, again, a 22-year-old white guy from Utah who, I’ll bet, does not own either of my books and has most likely never read a single word I have written over my nearly two decades of public life, but this is what my mentions on Elon Musk’s apartheid-curious platform have looked like for a week:
Not that we needed more evidence, but the past week has been Exhibit One that this country hates Black people, and will do everything it can to silence, harass, and even murder us. A white man killed another white man for reasons we still don’t know, with a gun I don’t think he should have had, but Black people are catching death threats. That doesn’t make sense, unless you understand how deeply racist this country is. Black people are being fired from jobs and harassed online for insufficiently venerating a white supremacist, and having the temerity to describe his beliefs in public. It’s as if we’re all being asked to say our name is “Toby” instead of Kunta Kinte while being informed that the beatings will continue until morale improves. The white-led government, and many white employers, white-owned sports leagues, white public intellectuals, and a non-zero number of Black assimilationists and assorted would-be overseers are largely playing along with this racist gaslighting, proving once again that Black people have few, if any, real allies.
Somebody who considers themselves a good-white-ally(™) is just about to type “not all white people” or “also Matt Dowd” or “look at what happened to Jimmy Kimmel” in response to this article, as if I give a shit. What’s happening to white folks is that they’re being made to feel like Black people are made to feel every freaking day. Whenever white people catch a cold, Black people catch the flu, but God forbid I do a bit of triage before handing out chicken soup and Sprite to white folks feeling a bit under the weather these days.
The same thing is happening to the trans community, and the LGBTQ community more broadly, because when Kirk wasn’t railing against Black people, he was trying to stamp the LGBTQ community out of existence.
At this point, I’m supposed to turn and analyze what makes white males violently erupt against vulnerable people who have nothing to do with their problems. I’m supposed to talk about white gun culture and how it inevitably leads to racial and cultural violence. I’m supposed to talk about how Trump and his white supremacist government have given the very worst people in this country permission to carry out violence against any person they don’t like, with the promise of pardons should they undertake violence that pleases him. I know I’m supposed to address these topics, because these are the questions that have been floating around my professional networks for a week.
But even addressing those questions recenters the conversation around white folks and whiteness. It’s asking, “Now why did the monkey throw its poop at that fellow?” before you secure soap and a shower for the person covered in feces. At the moment, I’m just a little too beset by threats against myself and even my mother to think deeply about why white people do this. Analyzing why young white men are so dangerous to me is an intellectual luxury I do not have right now. I’m just trying to survive America for another week.
Luckily, after a fashion, I have some experience with this. This is not the first round of death threats I’ve gotten, and, unless they successfully kill me this time, it won’t be the last. I’ve been a Black man in the public eye for a while now, and you don’t get to be an old public Black person without developing a few coping mechanisms to keep you going. For a lot of people currently under threat, this is their first rodeo. There are, for instance, a number of staffers at The Nation who are for the first time having to live with what I live with every day, since the vice president went after our publication. There are folks who were never on the kind of violent watch lists Kirk created who now find themselves on the wrong end of the online rope.
It is terrifying to be in the eye of violent white folks. You have to take them seriously when they say they want you to come to harm. I cannot promise that you, or I, will survive what they’ll do next, but here are some tips to make it through this current phase of white America.
Stick Together
They cannot kill, fire, or silence all of us. The violent people are predators and if you look at every natural predator on this earth, their first move is always to separate their target from the herd.
People must resist the urge to say some people deserve to be harassed and menaced by the government and the online right, as if to distinguish the people who deserve death threats from those who are “doing it the right way.”
Silence in the face of white supremacy is complicity with white supremacy. If we all resolve to not stay silent, we become a truth-telling hydra. Every time the white wing gets one of us, there should be others ready to take our places. (snip-MORE-excellent information)
I will never see a Robin Williams movie, an interview, or a stand-up without a tear in my eye. He made me laugh, he made me cry, he made me feel anger and he made me feel hope, all behind a mask paper-thin. He reveled in the joy of others, while in his heart he felt so alone. How few knew his hidden hurts? I feel the absence of this great man and am saddened that his joie de vivre was only a mask he used to protect us all.
My morning trek to the daily grind found me hearing about Charlie Kirk. I thought about the demands he made upon his audience; that they think his way, act his way, love his way, pray his way. Somehow those who think differently are more than a target for his former speeches, we have become enemies of our own government.
Again, I don’t want to see anyone hurt. But, what about those he made to feel alone?
What about those he made to feel hated? What about those he told ‘You don’t matter’? What about those he accused of horrible motives, intentions to commit crimes, just because they were different?
Why is crass, abusive, hateful, prejudiced, and violent words and actions acceptable to anyone? Why is it cheered in certain circles?
I have every right to be angry at those who sling abuse for political expediency. I have every right to be angry at those who whip the easily led mob into denying others their rights to be genuine, their hopes to feel love, their need for happiness. I’m so tired, so very tired of the justification, the hypocrisy, the gleeful ruination.
I so miss the promise of the 70’s. Change was supposed to come. I bought into the hype, only to see that the very fight continue. Maybe it’s not the era, maybe it’s just something in us that makes people keep doing this to each-other. I want to believe differently.
Sorry struggling to function. Spent the entire morning barely watching news unable to deal with everything. Decided to instead do what I enjoy. I took one of my computers apart to check it, and did a clean on both. I wish I could explain. Hugs.
Hi everyone. I have a video started to address a lot of what happened. But I had a horrible week and only wanted to hide from life. Long story short if I don’t finish the video as so often happen. At the beginning of the week I talked to my primary care doctor about my childhood in vague terms, the intrusive thoughts that have gotten worse, and the nightmares / yelling out at night. He admitted he was out of his depth on the issue but would help as much as they could and that they have a therapist on site that works with a psychiatrist and if I would see her she could help me better. Next week I will call her. He prescribed a medication to help me but I won’t take it. It kills your sex drive and ability entirely. Ron got on it before we knew what it did, and so now he will try to get off it. For a long time we did not know or understand why his desire and ability just stopped, now we know that it was the medication. Then Thursday coming home from the allergist the car broke down. I was lucky I was able to get it safety off the road on to a side street. Then I dealt with the getting it towed and all that. Then Friday I saw a podiatrist and found out that there is nothing they can do to help me, another one thing I have to learn to live with. It was all too much for me. Today we are finishing the floor in the small bathroom and reseating the toilet which is a horrible hard job for a weakening 70 year old man and a disabled 62 yr old with bone / muscle / nerve problems. My plan for this weekend is to catch up on all the comments I missed over the week by withdrawing from everything. Thanks to everyone for being here and to Ali and Randy for all the posts they make. Hugs
Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences.
If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. On his podcasts, and on the podcasts of friends and adversaries, and especially on college campuses, where he would go to debate students, Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.
Prove me wrong.
– Kirk’s challenge to students to publicly debate him during the tour of colleges he was on when he was assassinated.
On gender, feminism and reproductive rights
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
On immigration
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.
Scottie's Playtime 