Most US Voters Support Trans Rights, Even Republicans

This video explains what everyone on the real left already knew instead of forgetting the transย  / woke culture wars and moving right, the center left keeps demanding which is simply code speak for leaning right.ย  While all the same democratic strategists since the Bill Clinton days demand candidates move to the right to “triangulate” to capture republican voters these polls show what we already knew.ย  The culture wars are losing for the republicans.ย  After republicans spent nearly 3 million dollars in ads against trans people the polls showed almost no one felt those adverts influenced their vote.ย  Even as red states rail against higher education, acceptance, and tolerance of people who are different it is losing them votes.ย  Some thing the Christian nationalists who are in the height of their influence now in political circles don’t understand is that people who grew up with LGBTQ+ classmates, friends, and even dated some do not find them the evil that these hate religions preach they are.ย ย 

*** Personal note.ย  ย I explained to Ali in an email that I am not functioning.ย  For what ever reason wheither it be anemia or something worse I am desperately tired from the time I manage to get up.ย  I often get up only to a few hours later go back to bed for four or more hours.ย  I have started taking vitamin B-12 and a woman’s one-a-day vitamin.ย  That with more red meat which was recommended to me in the past every time I go into anemia.ย  ย How ever I get up, I have coffee and stuff with Ron then I need to go back to bed for normally 4 hours, get up and do dishes while watching The Majority Report.ย  How ever some days like yesterday I did not even get that far, going to back to bed by 2 pm only to have Ron wake me and beg me to eat.

I have done better today only going back to bed for 3 hours later in the morning.ย  I wanted to go to bed two hours ago, but Ron was all upset he couldn’t sleep due to the neighbors having new skirting put around their home outside our bedroom.ย  So I got him in his recliner and moved his CPAP out to his chair.ย  Still he was not tracking.ย  Good news as I was falling asleep at my desk he woke up and is fixing supper.ย  At this point I am so tired I don’t really care whether I eat or not.ย ย 

I tried to reply to comments, but I couldn’t.ย  I even started to move old saved open tabs out by making a new cartoon / memes post but I simply couldn’t do it.ย  Right now the best I can do to function is make doctors appointments and watch videos that don’t take too much thought to understand.ย  That means most political videos are outside my ability.ย  I am sorry but right now I am functioning at the level of a confused grandpa.ย  Sorry.ย  I hope to get better soon.ย  Ron says if I don’t clear up by next week we will demand the primary care see me and deal with it. I’m not sure if I want that as my last visit he was insisting I thinkย  about getting a colonoscopy.ย  ย Anyway.ย  This is a good video and one I watched several hours ago when I was much sharper than I feel now.ย  ย ***ย  Hugs

 

It Is Earth Day, 2026

https://peacebuttons.info/orderpp-the-ecology-corner.htm#geac

All About That Shadow Docket

221. Chief Justice Roberts and the Clean Power Plan

Remarkable reporting from the New York Times provides a peek behind the curtain of the February 2016 rulings that ushered in the modern emergency docket. And what it reveals is pretty discouraging.

Steve Vladeck

Welcome back to โ€œOne First,โ€ a newsletter that aims to make the U.S. Supreme Court more accessible to lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Iโ€™m grateful to all of you for your continued support, and I hope that youโ€™ll consider sharing some of what weโ€™re doing with your networks.

(snip)

Back in February, I wrote about the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Courtโ€™s unsigned, unexplained February 2016 rulings blocking President Obamaโ€™s โ€œClean Power Plan,โ€ and how they ushered in what might be called โ€œthe modern emergency docket.โ€ In my earlier post, I raised a series of questions about what had led the Court to do something that, in 2016, was completely unprecedented (blocking an executive branch program then under review in the lower courts), and whether the justices had any idea of the Pandoraโ€™s Box they were opening. As I wrote, โ€œbecause the Court didnโ€™t write then, and hasnโ€™t explained itself since, weโ€™ll never know (at least, until our grandkids can read the justicesโ€™ internal papers from that time period).โ€

It turns out, thanks to some truly remarkable reporting from Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak for the New York Times, that we didnโ€™t have to wait quite that long. On Saturday, Kantor and Liptak published 16 pages of (leaked) internal memoranda from six of the justices providing a window into how and why the Court did what it did on February 9, 2016. And the memos are, at least to me, a remarkable combination of eye-opening and sadly unsurprising. As I explain below, I think there are at least five significant takeaways from these materialsโ€”none of which paint the Court in an especially flattering light. And at the heart of most of them is Chief Justice Roberts.

Behind the scenes, Roberts led the charge for the Court to blaze a new trailโ€”relying on statements outside the record; invoking the wrong standard for the kind of relief the applicants sought; failing to even acknowledge the irreparable harm the government (and the environment) would suffer from the Court intervening; and pushing back aggressively when Justices Breyer and Kagan both urged a compromise that should have accounted for his ostensible concerns. Iโ€™ve suggested before that theย realย acceleration of the Courtโ€™s modern emergency docket behavior can be traced to 2018, right around when Justice Kavanaugh succeeded Justice Kennedy. But in the first major case in which the Court granted emergency relief as a means of shaping nationwide policy, it turns out that the justice who led the charge was the one who was doing quite a bit more than calling balls and strikes. (snip-the rest is on the page)

Open Windows & Clay Jones

Yes!

Virginia votes tomorrow

Clay Jones

Republicans are upset because tomorrow, they could lose at their own game.

After Texas redistricted in the middle of the decade to give Republicans more congressional seats, which Donald Trump demanded, Virginia decided to add more blue seats. This upset Republicans because, dammit, they invented this game.

Now, the same groups that want to add more red seats in Texas are spending big money to argue against adding more blue seats in Virginia. The commercials have been wild, with some of them warning that Richmond Democrats are engaged in a โ€œpower grab.โ€ Some of the ads warn that this disenfranchises Black voters. Others state that if you vote, yes, that means more โ€œillegalsโ€ will invade the state to commit crimes. It’s getting nasty, but Republicans don’t know how to win any other way. They use this information, and they cheat. (snip-MORE)


Kash Patel sues The Atlantic for defamation

F.B.I. director is seeking $250 million in damages

Ann Telnaes

Under the influenceย and unqualified.


The Book of Sam

I have been waiting since 2006 to get this movie quote into a cartoon.

Clay Jones

Last week in Cameroon (in case you are a Republican, that is a nation on the continent of Africa), Pope Leo quoted a Bible verse, which was, โ€œJesus told us, โ€˜Blessed are the peacemakers, but woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.โ€™โ€ And then, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, while claiming that God is on his side to wage war, quoted a fake Bible verse at a prayer breakfast.

The verse was inspired by Ezekiel 25:17 and comes from one of my favorite movies,ย Pulp Fiction. It was delivered brilliantly and forcefully by one of my favorite actors, Samuel L. Jackson. (snip-MORE, also deliberate and forceful!)

Looking At This Week With Joyce Vance

The Week Ahead

Joyce Vance

We seem doomed to another week of war news. On Sunday, Trumpย announced on Truth Socialย that the U.S. military seized an Iranian-flagged ship that he said tried to run the U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Marines boarded the cargo ship Touska after it was disabled. Trump posted that the USS Spruance โ€œgave them fair warning to stop,โ€ but that โ€œThe Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom.โ€

But whatโ€™s happening with the president as he conducts his war is now completely out of bounds. This morning, just after 8 a.m., he had a longย rambling post on Truth Socialย that concluded, โ€œif they donโ€™t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!โ€

Notice how Trump speaks in the language of an all-powerful businessman, a CEO without a board to tell him what to do. He is sending โ€œMy Representativesโ€ to Pakistan and โ€œif they (Iran) donโ€™t take the DEAL,โ€ heโ€™ll do โ€œwhat has to be done.โ€ Itโ€™s crazy on steroids, and well past the point where even his own party should be giving him a pass. The president of the United States is threatening to bomb civilian targets and devastate a civilian population. War crimes, plain and simple.

All of this from the candidate who, in November of 2024, in the closing days of his campaign for the White House, said that โ€œIf Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace.โ€

Every accusation is a confession. And the Truth Social posts happened after Trump called NATO and our allies โ€œabsolutely uselessโ€ at a Turning Point USA event Friday night. If youโ€™re exhausted, and honestly, at this point, who isnโ€™t, take a deep breath, plan for a little extra fellowship with friends (more on my plans at the end), and remind yourself that we cannot afford to put our heads in the sand and that the effort to overwhelm us in intentionalโ€”thatโ€™s how authoritarians do it. Itโ€™s a good week to talk with people about whatโ€™s going on, to encourage them to stop and think, and then to make sure theyโ€™re registered to vote.

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, was on ABCโ€™s โ€œThis Week,โ€ Sunday morning, and he chimed right in with the president. Host John Karl asked if Trump was prepared to go back to โ€œfull-on warโ€ and Waltz responded, โ€œall options are on the table. We could take that infrastructure out relatively easily. The Iranian air defenses have been absolutely decimated.โ€

He continued, without being prompted, โ€œAnd just to get ahead of a lot of the critics and hand-wringing, throwing out irresponsible terms like โ€˜war crimesโ€™, attacking, destroying infrastructure that has clearly and historically been used for dual military purposes is not a war crime.โ€

Then Waltz did it again on NBCโ€™s โ€œMeet the Press,โ€ where volunteering to Kristen Welker, who hadnโ€™t asked about it, that the U.S. could still target civilian infrastructure in Iran if a ceasefire deal wasnโ€™t reached, again claiming that wouldnโ€™t amount to war crimes. โ€œWe have a long history of taking down bridges, power plants and other infrastructure that is powering Iranโ€™s military,โ€ Waltz said, as though that somehow made it acceptable. โ€œIn the laws of land warfare and the rules of engagement, any type of infrastructure that is co-mingled is absolutely a legitimate target.โ€ He reiterated on CBS, appearing on โ€œFace the Nation,โ€ that because the IRGC is running bridges and power plants, they are โ€œlegitimate military targets,โ€ again rejecting the notions that bombing them would be โ€œsome type of war crime.โ€

So bombing civilian targets seems to be top of mind for the president and one of his key spokespeople on these issues, which should concern all of us.

Waltz is a former Army Special Forces Officer, decorated for his bravery. He graduated from Virginia Military Academy, according to his bio from his time in Congress, but he is not a lawyer. Apparently, concerns about launching attacks against civilian populations didnโ€™t stick. Waltz was Trumpโ€™s first National Security Advisor this term, but he resigned following Signalgate after serving for just 101 days. (Tonightโ€™s trivia: Thatโ€™s the second shortest tenure of any NSA. Mike Flynn, who was Trumpโ€™s first NSA in 2017, resigned after just 24 days, two Scaramuccis, and was ultimately convicted of lying to the FBI before Trump pardoned him.) Trump nominated Waltz to serve as the U.N. Ambassador the same day he stepped down.

Today, the United States struck yet another vessel in the Caribbean. Three people were killed. The U.S. Southern Command account on Twitter said they were narco-terrorists. These attacks used to be shocking. Now, they barely garner notice. As of the last strike, four days ago, Reuters reported the death toll was โ€œover 170.โ€ Three people were killed in that strike last Wednesday, as well.

Also appearing on the Sunday shows, FBI Director Kash Patel said he would file a defamation case on Monday against The Atlantic, which reported last week, in a story headlined, โ€œThe FBI Director Is MIA,โ€ that Patelโ€™s colleagues are โ€œalarmedโ€ by โ€œepisodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.โ€ Two dozen people interviewed for the story โ€œdescribed Patelโ€™s tenure as a management failure and his personal behavior as a national-security vulnerability.โ€

Nominees for important government positions, and Director of the FBI is among the highest because of access to national security information, are heavily vetted before they take office. But as with so many other norms in the time of Trump, Patelโ€™s questionable personal choices have continued to come to light since he took office. The report says that Patel is โ€œdrinking so heavily that meetings need to be rescheduled and his security detail has trouble waking him up. Among the reportโ€™s most chilling revelations, โ€œCurrent and former officials told me that they have long worried about what would happen in the event of a domestic terrorist attack while Patel is in office, and they said that their apprehension has increased significantly in the weeks since Trump launched his military campaign against Iran. โ€˜Thatโ€™s what keeps me up at night,โ€™ one official said.โ€

Screen grab of Patel โ€œcelebratingโ€ with the U.S. Menโ€™s Hockey team after their Olympic victory.

This morning, Fox host Maria Bartiromo asked Patel, โ€œSo youโ€™re gonna sue them?โ€ โ€œAbsolutely,โ€ he responded. โ€œItโ€™s coming tomorrow.โ€ He added that it would be for defamation.



Iโ€™m looking forward to discovery. Especially the part where Patel is deposed, under oath. Expect the lawsuit, which he probably has to file to look tough for the audience of one, to be dismissed before it gets that far. Patel would face questioning about his drinking and other misconduct while in office. And he would be exposed to penalties of perjury.

The Atlanticโ€™s report concludes with this story: โ€œPatel has publicly proclaimed that the FBI needs to demonstrate that it is โ€˜fierce,โ€™ and officials I spoke with said that he is fixated on that image in private as well.โ€ So what is he doing about that? Apparently, Patel โ€œrecently expressed frustration with the look of FBI merchandise, complaining that it isnโ€™t intimidating enough.โ€ The Atlantic explains that โ€œOfficials have grown accustomed to such behavior, and they have learned to roll their eyes at it. But they said that the absurdity masks real concerns about what Patelโ€™s leadership has meant for an institution that the country relies on for national security and the safety of its citizens. โ€˜Part of me is glad heโ€™s wasting his time on bullshit, because itโ€™s less dangerous for rule of law, for the American public,โ€™ one official told me, โ€˜but it also means we donโ€™t have a real functioning FBI director.โ€™โ€

Itโ€™s likely that Patel has little support inside of the building, and that could mean this is just one of many stories that get launched in an effort to ease him out before itโ€™s too late. When the โ€œthatโ€ in โ€œThatโ€™s what keeps me up at night,โ€ is the Director of the FBI, not a foreign terrorist or criminal threat, then it’s highly likely the career folks, and maybe even some of the politicos, want a โ€œreal functioning FBI directorโ€ in place.

I started out by saying weโ€™re entering this week already exhausted and itโ€™s important to keep taking care of ourselves. My plan this week involves spending time in person with my #SistersInLaw cohosts Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Barb McQuade, and Jill Will-Banks, when we do the podcast live in Denver on April 23rd. If youโ€™re in Denver, I hope Iโ€™ll see you there! If youโ€™re in Atlanta, weโ€™ll be live there on May 3. There is nothing as important as being with the people that we love right now.

Weโ€™re in this together,

Joyce

Monday, Back To It!

Masters Of War

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxcRbDnMs-OZRd4YLOay14vzCBEdbb1V7B

A Little Decent News

Montana Supreme Court Rules Its Constitution Entirely Protects Trans Citizens In Landmark Ruling

The ruling will have enormous impacts for transgender residents in the state.

Erin Reed

On Monday, the Montana Supreme Court issued a landmarkย 5-2 rulingย declaring that “transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination,” and that transgender people constitute a suspect class under the state’s equal protection clause. The ruling in Kalarchik v. State of Montana blocks a definition-of-sex law and related state policies that stripped all legal recognition from transgender people and barred them from obtaining accurate birth certificates and driver’s licenses. The decision rests on Montana’s constitution, whose Equal Protection and Individual Dignity clause has been repeatedly interpreted to protect transgender peopleโ€”and which the court made clear provides far greater protection than the federal constitution. Justices have now issued the clearest declaration ever that transgender people in the state will have enhanced protections of their rights, grounding the ruling in equal protection, sex discrimination, and privacyโ€”principles with broad applicability in a state that has become a major battleground for anti-trans legislation and resistance to it. (snip-MORE)


Colorado Supreme Court May Force Children’s Hospital To Resume Trans Youth Care

Several justices seemed to support the families of trans youth on the question of whether to force Colorado Children’s Hospital to discontinue capitulating to the Trump administration.

Erin Reed

On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whetherย Children’s Hospital Colorado can be forced to resume gender-affirming careย for transgender youth. The hospital was one ofย roughly 40 across the countryย that capitulated to Trump administration threats and shuttered their trans youth care programs. However, the hospital’s position has grown increasingly untenable, as hospitals in states likeย Minnesotaย andย Californiaย have begun reversing course and as the Trump administration has suffered mounting losses in federal courtsโ€”including anย Oregon ruling that vacated the very declarationย the hospital cited as justification for halting care. Hearing arguments on Tuesday, several justices appeared skeptical of the hospital’s rationale, questioning whether Colorado’s civil rights protections for transgender peopleโ€”among the strongest in the nationโ€”can simply be overridden by federal threats that do not constitute law. (snip-MORE)


They served their prison time. Then came deportation.

Apr 15, 2026 Candice Norwood

This story was originally reported by Candice Norwood of The 19th. Meet Candice and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

JJ had a five-year plan to turn his life around. 

After being released from prison in 2022, he completed an 18-month job training program with the Los Angeles-based organization Homeboy Industries and began working as a cook for the groupโ€™s onsite cafe. He enrolled in two different community college programs to study business administration and culinary arts. He volunteered with groups to help other trans Latinx and formerly incarcerated people get back on their feet. By the time he reached the five-year anniversary of his release date, JJ hoped he would have saved enough to buy a house with his sister.

He also wanted to travel more, and last April, JJ went to Thailand with his mom, sister and a friend. It was his first time outside the United States since he and his parents entered the country without legal documentation when he was a toddler. They later obtained permanent resident status, and his sister was born in the United States.

โ€œI always told myself, the moment I was able to come home, and if God permitted me to get my life together, that I would like to travel with my family,โ€ JJ told The 19th. โ€œBeing able to give that to both my sister and my mom โ€” even if I knew that this would be the end result, for me to get deported โ€” I would do it all over again, just to see them happy.โ€

JJ, who asked for The 19th to withhold his last name for privacy, was not particularly concerned when returning to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and going through the standard post-flight motions. He waited in line for customs, showed his passport and green card, and got his fingerprints taken. But then, the customs officer made a phone call and escorted JJ away from his loved ones.

The weeks that followed felt like a different kind of prison: five days in LAX sleeping on the floor and living off of vending machine food, he said. Then it was five months in Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, where it came down to two options: JJ could do a โ€œvoluntaryโ€ departure to Mexico, or he could challenge his case in court and risk staying in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) indefinitely. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The 19thโ€™s request for comment by the time of publication.

The choice was clear for JJ, he said, even if that meant returning to a country he hasnโ€™t known since age 2. โ€œI’ve been here since September, and I’m barely learning how to maneuver around. My Spanish is horrible,โ€ he said recently from Mexico. โ€œPeople notice that I’m not from here because of the way I speak.โ€ 

In the second Trump administration, people with JJโ€™s background โ€” a formerly incarcerated trans immigrant โ€” have three targets on their backs, and the power of the federal government aimed at them. Trump has repeatedly stated that ICE, under his administration, will detain and deport โ€œthe worst of the worst,โ€ particularly people who have committed crimes. A combination of anti-trans, anti-immigrant and tough-on-crime messaging by the White House depicts a country under siege. 

To carry out its mass deportation mission, the administration has ramped up partnerships with local law enforcement and correctional facilities that allow the federal government to take custody of people held in prisons who have already served their sentences. Even in states like California, which limit local law enforcement partnerships with ICE, federal law defines a broad list of criminal offenses that can make a noncitizen deportable, even if that person secured legal status like JJ.

The result is a system of โ€œdouble punishment,โ€ a prison-to-ICE pipeline that advocates told The 19th can be particularly detrimental for trans people. 

We just see trauma compounded on trauma compounded on trauma.”Lynly Egyes

Trans migrants often face rejection from family, abuse, job insecurity or homelessness as a result of their identity, which increases their risk of criminalization, advocates say. In ICE custody, they may be denied health care access, face sexual violence and be deported to countries that are hostile to their identity. Even for those who attempt to rebuild their lives after serving prison terms, โ€œICE could use that years later to target them, pull them into immigration detention and have them deported,โ€ said Lynly Egyes, the legal director at the Transgender Law Center.

โ€œWe just see trauma compounded on trauma compounded on trauma,โ€ Egyes said. โ€œWhen trans people are shuffled between systems such as prison into ICE custody, it completely strips them of any opportunity for freedom and connection with their loved ones and community.โ€

It took three attempts for Nataly Marinero to secure parole from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. It ultimately happened in 2023, and he was released after nearly 18 years of incarceration. The stateโ€™s parole approval rate was about 34 percent at the time.

During this process, the parole board assesses an incarcerated person’s behavior and activities while in custody and considers whether they will be a threat to the general public. The board considers a range of factors, including signs of remorse, past criminal history, age and plans for the future, according to the California department of corrections website. While in prison, Marinero took substance abuse courses, worked on getting his high school diploma, had a job as a clerk in the prison kitchen. He had not received a write up, an infraction in prison, in years, he said. Each of these factors help to build a stronger case for release.

Immediately after leaving prison, Marinero joined a reentry program in Los Angeles called A New Way of Life, where he received housing, a job and connections to other opportunities to help him transition to life outside.

Life felt good.

โ€œFreedom โ€” just to think about it makes me want to cry,โ€ the 40-year-old told The 19th. โ€œThat’s the best thing that ever happened to me.โ€

Marinero, who came to the United States without authorization at 17, was aware that ICE had put a โ€œholdโ€ on him at the beginning of his incarceration more than a decade ago. ICE โ€œholdsโ€ are requests asking jails or prisons to hold someone after incarceration so that they can be transferred to immigration custody.

“When you get to prison, your counselor would tell you when you have an ICE hold,” said Laura Hernandez, executive director of the California-based advocacy group Freedom for Immigrants.

“If you have an inkling that you may have an ICE hold, you tend to check every so often,” she added. “But sometimes ICE holds aren’t placed on anyone until right before they’re getting ready to be released. So people have to check like the entire time they’re inside.”

Whether the agency follows through on picking up immigrants with ICE holds on their accounts is largely a toss up. In Marineroโ€™s case, he was allowed to be released from prison; he was allowed to join a reentry program and to live his life for two years without being arrested by ICE.

In January 2025, he received a call from a woman who said she was his parole officer. This struck Marinero as odd, because this was a different officer from the man he had previously spoken with. The woman demanded Marinero come to the front of his reentry home, he said. When he obeyed, ICE agents were waiting outside and took Marinero into custody. 

His legal advocates at the California Coalition of Women Prisoners, who also serve trans people, moved quickly to assess whether Marinero could make an asylum claim as he was moved from an ICE holding facility to detention centers in California and Louisiana over the course of two months. Ultimately, his legal team was unable to file an asylum claim before his deportation. In April 2025, Marinero was placed in handcuffs and loaded onto a plane. He was back in El Salvador, a place he fled as a teenager and one of the most dangerous countries for trans people in Latin America.

Partnerships between federal immigration authorities, local law enforcement and state prisons have existed for three decades.

In 1996, fears about crime led to a wave of laws โ€” including the 1994 crime bill โ€” with more severe punishments and a historic expansion of law enforcement. President Bill Clinton signed into law two bills that created pathways to speed up the deportation of noncitizens with criminal records and broadened the list of crimes considered aggravated felonies. These crimes could range from murder and sexual assault to shoplifting and forgery. As a result, any noncitizens, including green card holders, with an aggravated felony record became eligible for deportation.

โ€œIt especially hit lawful permanent residents,โ€ said Juliet Stumpf, the Edmund O. Belsheim professor of law chair at Lewis & Clark Law School, whose research centers on whatโ€™s referred to as โ€œcrimmigration.โ€

โ€œWe used to see lawful permanent residents as being able to remain in the country if they committed a crime,โ€ she added. โ€œBut now, we’ve added a whole other level of penalty, for lawful permanent residents especially, because they’re the ones that are going to be most vulnerable to deportation based on those grounds.โ€

One of the 1996 laws also laid the groundwork for the 287(g) program, which can essentially turn local and state law enforcement into an arm of immigration enforcement. These 287(g) agreements fall into one of three categories, one being the โ€œJail Enforcement Model,โ€ designed to identify noncitizens held in local jails or state prisons who can be transferred to immigration custody.

At the time of Trumpโ€™s first term, his administration ushered in a high โ€” at that time โ€” of about 150 active 287(g) agreements of all types. In the last 15 months, that figure has increased tenfold. As of April 10, ICE has signed 1,645 agreements across 39 states and two U.S. territories, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. That dataset indicates that 10 percent of these agreements, 171 total, fall under the Jail Enforcement Model.

One contributor to this growth is likely financial incentives built into Trump’s expansive 2025 so-called One Big Beautiful tax bill, said Karen Pita Loor, director of the criminal law clinical program at Boston University.

โ€œHistorically, 287(g) agreements were not financially profitable for these counties, localities, whatever jurisdictions. They weren’t making them money,โ€ Loor said. โ€œThe bill created really attractive financial incentives that make 287(g) agreements much more profitable.โ€ These benefits to local law enforcement agencies can include salary reimbursements, $7,500 for equipment and $100,000 for new vehicles.

Some states, like California, where JJ and Marinero lived, have laws limiting collaborations between local and federal law enforcement. But even in those jurisdictions, the more forgiving immigration policies often do not extend to migrants with criminal records.

Prior to Trumpโ€™s return to office, JJ and Marinero, who served their prison time and were on a path to rehabilitation, might have gone unnoticed by ICE, advocates said.

Now, for Marinero, โ€œI feel like going back to the same time when I was younger,โ€ he said. โ€œI can’t dress the way I want to dress. I canโ€™t be who I want to be. It’s kind of killing my self-esteem.โ€

I just want to be free.”Nataly Marinero

Growing up in El Salvador, Marinero did not have a specific word to describe how he felt about his gender. He just knew that people called him a girl, but he felt like a boy and preferred loose fitting shirts and pants rather than dresses. Marineroโ€™s religious family treated his self-expression like a curse that needed to be healed, he said. They told him he would go to hell if he didnโ€™t change. People called him a โ€œmarimacha,โ€ a slur for a lesbian or masculine girl. He was also repeatedly targeted for sexual violence.

โ€œIt was so bad that I wanted to try to kill myself so many times,โ€ Marinero said. โ€œI just want to be free.โ€ When his uncle offered to connect him with a group who could get him into the United States, Marinero jumped at the chance.

Being back in El Salvador 23 years later, Marinero mostly works and stays at home. He doesnโ€™t have friends, he said, though he recently found a boxing gym that is helping to relieve stress. In Mexico, JJ said he also keeps to himself and isnโ€™t open with people about his trans identity. He said it helps that he โ€œblends inโ€ as a man and doesnโ€™t get many questions or weird looks.

Next March will mark five years since JJ left prison. The five-year plan he mapped out for himself has changed quite a bit, but he hasnโ€™t lost all hope. 

โ€œI feel like I just came out of being in prison all over again, and I have to start all over again,โ€ he said. โ€œJust getting back on my feet; thatโ€™s really my fifth-year goal now.โ€

Trans Women BANNED From The Olympics | Trans Guy Reacts

Israel Stacking Up War Crimes In Lebanon