1. From 10 to 100% - tariffs on 60 countries, driving up basic goods prices.

2. 50% — the new tariff threatened against Canada.

3. Illegal — the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional, forcing billions in refunds back to corporations.

4. $2,000 — the “tariff dividend” promised to every American. Never materialized.

5. Falling — real wages, as prices outpace pay.

6. -23,000 — jobs lost in July 2026, instead of the 80,000+ expected.

7. -103,000 — May and June job numbers revised down.

8. 4.1% — unemployment, driven by people giving up the job search, not more hiring.

9. Lowest in 5 years — labor force participation. 7.9% — the real unemployment rate (U-6), nearly double the official 4.1% headline number.

10. $1.28 trillion — American credit card debt, an all-time record.

11. 12.8% — credit card delinquency rate, up from 7.6% since 2022.

12. $440,600 — median U.S. home price, an all-time high, up 36 straight months.

13. 6.5%+ — mortgage rates for two straight years running.

14. 27% — first-time homebuyers’ share of the market, down from 34% in 2024.

15. 27-80% — home price increases by market over five years.

16. 64% — combined rise in electricity, gas, and water costs over five years.

17. 59% / 103% — the rise in water bills / natural gas prices over five years.

18. 14th Amendment — the constitutional right Trump’s January 2025 executive order tried to strip from American-born babies.

19. 6-3 — the Supreme Court vote striking down that order as unconstitutional (June 30, 2026).

20. 5 weeks — how long it took Trump to sign a new executive order defying that same Supreme Court ruling.

21. 1798 — the year of the wartime law (Alien Enemies Act) Trump invoked in peacetime to try to deport Venezuelans without due process.

22. 7 — federal appeals courts that ruled it unlawful to deny ICE detainees bond hearings.

23. $1 billion+ — Trump family crypto income in 2025 alone.

24. $500 million — the secret stake a UAE-backed fund bought in Trump’s crypto company, followed by U.S. approval to sell that country advanced computer chips.

25. 114% — average premium increase after ACA subsidies expired.

26. 58% — the rise in average monthly health insurance premiums.

27. 4.8 million — Americans expected to lose health coverage.

28. $2,000/month — the health premium a 60-year-old earning $63,000 could now face with zero federal help.

29. 8 states — projected to lose over half their subsidized health enrollment.

30. 340,000 — U.S. jobs at risk from the healthcare coverage collapse.

31. $863 billion — cut from Medicaid over 10 years.

32. 10.3 million — people projected to lose Medicaid coverage by 2034.

33. 1.4 million — LEGAL noncitizens barred from Medicaid starting October 2026.

34. $155 billion — cut specifically from rural Medicaid spending.

35. $187-295 billion — cut from SNAP over 10 years.

36. 36% — SNAP benefit cuts projected by 2034. Thanks to the “Big Beautiful Bill”.

37. Zero — funding left for SNAP-Ed, the federal nutrition education program, now defunded entirely.

38. 25% — the share of Black Americans who rely on SNAP, disproportionately hit by these cuts.

39. “Department of War” — the Pentagon’s new name, a rebrand that could cost up to $2 billion.

40. 9 of 22 — officers Defense Secretary Hegseth struck from one Navy promotion list — mostly women and Black officers.

41. 60% — the share of senior officers fired by Hegseth who are female or Black.

42. 2nd — the African American Joint Chiefs Chairman, Gen. CQ Brown, that Hegseth fired.

43. 6-3 — the Supreme Court ruling letting political parties spend unlimited money coordinated directly with candidates, benefiting the GOP.

44. “Most important investment vehicle” — how the National Republican Senatorial Committee itself described its new unlimited coordinated spending power.

45. Gutted — the FEC’s budget, crippling its ability to audit campaigns or investigate complaints.

46. Passport or birth certificate — what the House-passed SAVE Act would require just to register to vote. 21.3 million — American citizens of voting age who lack ready access to a passport or birth certificate, mostly because roughly half of Americans don't hold a valid passport, and up to 69 million married women don't have a birth certificate matching their current legal name after changing it at marriage.

47. “Surround the polls” — what Trump ally Steve Bannon called for ICE to do this November.

48. “Do anything necessary” — Trump’s answer when asked if he’d send troops or ICE to polling places.

49. Illegal — sending armed federal agents to polls, under federal law (18 U.S.C. §§ 592-594) — and Trump’s own DHS and DOJ picks still won’t rule it out.

50. 30 states — sued by the DOJ to seize their voter rolls, including sensitive personal data.

51. 17 — federal courts that have already dismissed DOJ’s voter-roll lawsuits against resisting states.

52. 2 — executive orders (March 2025, March 2026) directing USPS to withhold mail ballots from states that won’t hand over voter data.

53. 30% — the share of all U.S. ballots cast by mail, now a political chokepoint.

54. Defiance — USPS finalized its mail-ballot rule anyway, despite a standing federal court injunction blocking it.

55. 23+ states — suing, alongside the NAACP, to block that USPS rule.

56. Millions of pages — of food safety oversight lost as the FDA and CDC gutted their staff, followed by major recalls (eggs, lettuce, jalapeños, blueberries).

57. 31% — the year-over-year drop in NIH cancer research funding.

58. 1,800+ — NIH research grants terminated.

59. $6.90/lb — ground beef, near record highs, up ~24% since Trump took office.

60. $4.31 — the price of a gallon of milk nationally.

61. Highest ever — $4.09-$4.14 vs. $3.16-$3.20 — gas today (August 2026) is roughly a full dollar more per gallon than the same week last summer, under Biden — the highest gas has ever been this late in the year, ever recorded.

62. $1.8-1.9 trillion — the federal deficit, projected to nearly double by 2036.

63. $40 trillion — the national debt, a historic milestone. When Biden left office (Jan. 2025), the debt stood at $36.2 trillion. Now it's over $40 trillion — a jump of roughly $3.8-4 trillion in just 19 months under Trump.

64. $16 million — the final cost of the Reflecting Pool renovation, 8 times the original promise.

65. 4 times — Trump has falsely claimed the Iran war was over or the Strait of Hormuz was open.

66. 6 months — the Iran war, with no resolution.

67. 42 days — of Strategic Petroleum Reserve left, the lowest level since 1983.

68. $500 billion — the estimated total cost of the war.

69. Trapped at sea — the USS Lincoln crew, on an extended deployment with documented morale and supply crises.

70. Threats and hostility toward America's closest traditional allies — Trump threatened 10-25% tariffs against 8 NATO allies in an unprecedented pressure campaign to force Denmark to sell Greenland, refusing to rule out military force. He's also repeatedly floated annexing Canada. He is also threatening Oman right now.

71. Thousands — of Trump mentions in the Epstein files, released late and heavily redacted, with a photo of Trump mysteriously removed from the DOJ’s site.

72. 15+ — corrupt former officials pardoned, including a Honduran ex-president convicted of trafficking 400+ tons of cocaine into the U.S.

73. Pay-to-play — documented cases of clemency granted in exchange for payments.

74. $30 million+ — steered by Cabinet members toward Trump-linked businesses.

75. $5 billion+ — solicited by Jared Kushner from foreign governments while serving as a U.S. envoy.

76. Dismantled — the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section.

77. Hatch Act — the law senators say may have been violated in a partisan push to redraw voting maps.

78. 3 million acres — of public land proposed for sale across 11 Western states.

79. $213 million — cut from the National Park Service.

80. 58 million acres — of forest stripped of protection via the Roadless Rule rollback.

81. $720 billion — needed nationally just to upgrade the power grid.

82. First-ever — highest-level federal grid reliability alert, a near-blackout warning.

83. 47+ — deaths in ICE custody since January 2025, the highest rate on record.

84. Renée Good — a U.S. citizen shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

85. Alex Pretti — a U.S. citizen and ICU nurse shot and killed by federal agents while helping a bystander.

86. Hundreds — of U.S. citizens wrongfully detained by ICE.

87. “By mistake” — how U.S. citizens have been deported, a documented, recurring error.

88. Hundreds of thousands — of legal immigrants stripped of TPS protection.

89. Thousands — of protected wild mustangs sold to foreign slaughterhouses.

90. At least a dozen — Trump-endorsed candidates who lost their own party’s 2026 primaries.

91. 327 stocks, $12.8 million — bought by Trump’s accounts the day before he announced a 90-day tariff pause that sent markets soaring 10% — a trade not disclosed until over a year later, past the legal deadline.

92. $580 million — in oil futures bets placed just 16 minutes before Trump posted about “productive” Iran talks that moved oil prices.

93. $2.2 billion — Trump’s total reported 2025 income, from crypto, stock trades, foreign real estate, and lawsuits against news organizations.

94. From $50M to $400M — Eric Trump’s personal fortune since the 2024 election.

95. From $50M to $300M — Don Jr.’s personal fortune in the same period, fueled partly by a $620 million Pentagon loan to a company his investment firm had just backed.

96. 8 countries — where Trump’s sons have met with foreign officials while pursuing new Trump Organization business deals — Serbia, Hungary, the UK, Qatar, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Somaliland, and Israel.

97. “Monsters,” “lunatics,” “crooked” — Trump’s own words attacking federal judges who ruled against him, part of a pattern serious enough that Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare public rebuke.

98. Wanted posters — of federal judges, put up by a sitting GOP congressman, amid a wave of death threats and bomb threats against judges and their families.

99. $42 billion — in broadband funding Trump’s AI executive order threatens to withhold from states that pass “onerous” data center or AI regulations, using federal money as leverage against local communities’ authority to protect themselves.

100. Rubber stamp — how Republicans in Congress have responded to nearly all of this: passing the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” rejecting oversight hearings, blocking inquiry resolutions, and refusing to hold a single significant hearing on any item on this list.

It started with one guy, one lie, and one lawsuit

This entire myth traces back to a single man: Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor who published a study in The Lancet in February 1998 claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

It was fraudulent. From. The. Start.

Investigative journalist Brian Deer spent years digging into it and found that Wakefield had altered the medical records of all 12 children in the study, that he’d been secretly paid by a law firm building a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers (subtle!), and that only one of the nine children he claimed developed “regressive autism” after vaccination actually had autism at all.

One. Out of nine. He was rounding up. Aggressively.

The Lancet retracted the paper in 2010, and Britain’s General Medical Council STRIPPED Wakefield of his medical license that same year for fraud and ethical violations. Not “some questions were raised.” Fraud. That’s the legal word for it.

And that fabricated, retracted, license-losing paper is still, more than 25 years later, the entire scientific foundation this conspiracy theory rests on. That’s it. That’s the whole building. One rotten plank from 1998, and everything else is vibes.

Enter Trump, stage NBC

Here’s where it gets extremely on-brand: the person who shaped Trump’s views on vaccines and autism wasn’t a doctor. It was Bob Wright, the former chairman of NBCUniversal, the network that put Trump on television with The Apprentice in 2004.

Trump and Wright had been close friends since 1986. Wright even bought a 50% stake in Trump’s Miss Universe pageant. This is not a scientific collaboration. This is a business relationship that produced a medical opinion, which is somehow the most 2020s sentence I have ever written.

In 2005, a year after The Apprentice launched, Wright and his wife Suzanne founded Autism Speaks after their grandson Christian was diagnosed with autism. Both privately believed his vaccines caused it. Trump has said, on camera, that his views came from “great friends, Bob and Suzanne Wright.” Donald Trump Jr. has confirmed the same story.

Autism Speaks itself spent years and millions of dollars funding vaccine research it had no scientific reason to fund, and multiple senior staff resigned in protest because leadership kept entertaining a theory the science had already closed the book on.

So no, Trump didn’t arrive at this belief through evidence. He arrived at it through a friendship forged on a reality TV set, laundered through a charity that, for years, wouldn’t fully shut the door on a lie. And now he’s got RFK Jr. right there to keep the door propped open. Sequel nobody asked for.

Okay, but what does the actual data say?

Glad you asked. Here it is, receipts and all.

United States: 17-18 vaccines recommended, 84-88 total doses, meaning 57-71 individual shots from birth to age 18. Autism rate: 1 in 31 children (3.2%), the highest ever recorded, per the CDC’s 2025 ADDM Network data.

Denmark: 10 vaccines, about 30 total doses by 18, roughly a third of the U.S. total. Autism rate: roughly 1-1.5%, similar to or lower than the U.S., with a third of the shots.

Sweden: fewer vaccines than the U.S., skipping several routine U.S. additions like chickenpox, flu, and COVID shots. Autism rate: roughly 0.23-0.68%, lower than the U.S.

Japan: 14 vaccines. Autism estimates range from 1 in 55 to 1 in 160 depending on the study, because Japan’s screening and diagnostic practices differ by region. Translation: the number moves with how hard you look for it, not with how many shots a kid got.

If Trump’s theory held up, fewer vaccines should mean less autism, everywhere, consistently. It doesn’t. Denmark and Sweden vaccinate far less than the U.S. and report similar or lower autism, not proportionally lower rates that track the dose count. The one country giving the most vaccines also happens to have the most advanced, most accessible autism screening infrastructure on Earth. That’s the actual variable. Not the needle. The net we’re using to catch diagnoses.

So here’s the part where I ask you to do something

I know. You’re tired. I’m tired. We are all so tired of relitigating settled science because a man who got his medical opinions from a reality-TV network chairman is now the one in charge of the CDC’s vaccine schedule.

But here’s the thing about “tired”: it’s exactly the mood this administration is counting on. Exhaustion is a strategy. If we’re too worn out to show up, they don’t have to convince anyone of anything. They just have to outlast us.

The midterms are how we say no. Not with a tweet, not with a group chat rant (send me those too, I love them), but with a ballot. School boards, state legislatures, Congress, every single one of these seats is where policy like this either gets rubber-stamped or gets stopped cold. RFK Jr. doesn’t run HHS in a vacuum. He runs it because people who could have voted against this didn’t.

So register. Check your registration even if you think you’re already set. Make a plan for early voting. Drag a friend who “doesn’t really follow politics” to the polls with you, and tell them this newsletter is ONE OF THE WHYS.

Science didn’t change. The facts didn’t change.

What can change is who’s in charge of ignoring them.

LET’S GO.

I get it. When you live through what many of us have lived through — when you’ve watched a country’s institutions get hollowed out from the inside — the fear is not irrational. It’s earned. But fear that isn’t grounded in facts doesn’t protect us. It paralyzes us. And paralysis is exactly what benefits the people counting on us to disengage.

So let’s get grounded. Here’s what’s actually true, and here’s what we do about it.

He cannot cancel the election. Full stop.

This isn’t a matter of opinion — it’s the Constitution. Article I, Section 4 is explicit: the president has no role in administering elections at all. He doesn’t oversee them. He doesn’t run them. And no one who does oversee them works for him.

Yes, he fired members of the Election Assistance Commission. But here’s the thing people miss: the EAC doesn’t oversee elections either. It offers guidance and funding to states and counties — support they’re grateful for, but nothing more. Its absence doesn’t hand anyone control over how we vote.

So who actually runs our elections?

State and local lawmakers create and enforce election law. At the county level, it’s a clerk, an elections board, commissioners handling ballots, equipment, and polling locations. Disputes go to state and county judges.

The one narrow federal exception: Congress can set Election Day, the date electors vote, and the date electoral votes are counted. That’s it. Presidential elections are still run entirely by the states.

What CAN he actually do?

He can talk. He can push Congress to pass laws — like the SAVE Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to vote (plot twist: he doesn’t have the votes to pass it). He can sign bills into law. He can try to withhold federal funding from states that won’t hand over their voter rolls.

Notice the distinction, because it matters: threatening to make funding harder to get if a state doesn’t cooperate is very different — legally — from ordering a state to comply. He can do the first. He cannot do the second. Some of what he attempts may well be illegal, and it will be challenged in court. That’s the system working, not the system failing.

What about ICE at the polls?

Non-citizens already can’t vote in federal or state elections — and even according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization with every incentive to find fraud if it existed, non-citizen voting is essentially nonexistent. So ICE has no legitimate reason to be anywhere near a polling place. If agents show up and intimidate voters anyway, that is a crime, and it is prosecutable.

Can he steal the election?

Practically speaking, no — and here’s why: there are 50 states and more than 3,000 counties, each running its own election system. That decentralization, which so many people criticize as messy or inefficient, is actually our strongest defense. It makes a coordinated hack or a top-down steal nearly impossible. Most voting machines aren’t even connected to the internet.

The most important fact of all

Our elections are run by roughly 10,000 people across this country — clerks, registrars, election directors — most of whom you’ve never heard of. Many of their names are on your ballot this year. Whoever wins those races will be the ones overseeing 2028.

Let’s call it what it is

And let’s not be naive about any of this, because I refuse to be. We know exactly what kind of “leader” he wants to be — one who tests every guardrail to see which ones actually hold, who governs by chaos because chaos is disorienting, who talks about cancelling elections and sending agents to polling places not because it’s a real plan, but because the talk itself is the weapon. The goal was never necessarily to pull it off. The goal is to make us feel small — to convince us that nothing we do matters, that the outcome is already decided, that showing up is pointless. Fear is the strategy. Disengagement is the prize. Every time one of us thinks “why bother, it’s rigged anyway,” that’s a win for him, and it didn’t cost him a thing.

We don’t hand him that win.

So here’s what we do

We don’t spiral. We don’t disengage. We get to work.

• Sign up to be a poll worker. Democracy runs on people, not magic.

• Look for election officials on your ballot — clerks, registrars, secretaries of state — and vote like it matters, because it does.

• Support organizations fighting for these offices, like the State + Local Election Alliance (SLEA), which is focused on the most powerful election offices in swing states and counties — the ones under the most pressure right now.

• Talk to your community. Share what’s true. Correct what’s not. Fear spreads fast; so can clarity, if we’re intentional about it.

To those of us who came from countries where elections could be cancelled, where the rules did change overnight, where institutions were hollowed out one appointment at a time — I know why this feels urgent. I know why “can he cancel it?” doesn’t feel rhetorical to us. But that same experience is exactly why we recognize something important: the fight isn’t lost by losing an election. It’s lost by people deciding not to show up for one.

We show up. Informed, organized, and absolutely not afraid.

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After June 24, 2026, Venezuela is a country in mourning. Two earthquakes — a 7.2 and a 7.5, striking just 39 seconds apart — tore through northern Venezuela in the early evening, collapsing buildings, destroying entire coastal communities, and killing nearly 2,000 people as of this writing, with tens of thousands still missing. The UN estimates the twin quakes wiped out 6% of Venezuela’s GDP in a single night.

This is a once-in-a-century catastrophe. And for Venezuelans everywhere, in the country, in the rubble, in ICE detention centers across the United States, and in our living rooms in Miami and Houston and New York, it divides our history in two.

But there is a story within this story that the world needs to hear.

On the same day the earth split open, a group of 147 Venezuelans deported from Texas landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía aboard Flight 164. Among them: 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children.

They had survived ICE detention. They had survived the threat of deportation. They had made their last phone calls to their families.

From the airport, they were transported by SEBIN (the repressive arm of the regime) agents to Hotel Santuario La Llanada, a remote facility in La Guaira managed by the Venezuelan government, where they were supposedly to complete identification and medical procedures before being released to their hometowns.

At 6:04 p.m., the earthquakes hit. The building collapsed. Of the 147 deportees, only 12 survived.

Anderson, 21 years old, had called his mother from the hotel at 5 p.m. “I love you so much, Mom. See you tomorrow at home,” he told her. Today he is in a hospital, his legs amputated.

Angelo Mejía Meléndez, 27, had been building a life in Miami, working at a pier. His family identified his body by a distinctive pizza tattoo on his arm.

Daniel Núñez had lived in Jacksonville for nearly five years, working in construction, paying taxes. His mother said: “Venezuelans are not animals. They are humans, not criminals. My son paid taxes.”

When asked about the flight, the Department of Homeland Security said it “safely reached Venezuela” and that once individuals left ICE custody, ICE was no longer responsible for them.

We told them. For over a year, we told them.

The Venezuelan American Caucus has been warning the world and denouncing the Trump administration for more than a year: do not deport Venezuelans back to Venezuela. We do not have a safe country to return to. We have been persecuted. We have been imprisoned. We have been threatened. Our families live under a regime that uses hunger and fear as political weapons. There is no safety waiting for us on the other end of those deportation flights.

They did not listen. And now 135 people who survived everything — the Darien Gap, Mexican cartels, the ICE detention centers, the uncertainty — are dead. These were not criminals. These were people who tried to do everything right. Many had asylum petitions that were never resolved. Many had TPS — a legal protection this administration stripped away with the stroke of a pen. They paid taxes. They worked. They built lives. And then they were put on a plane, handed over to a regime that imprisoned them on arrival, and killed by an earthquake in a building they were never supposed to be in. Deported into the hands of two governments that failed them, and into the path of a disaster that had no mercy.

This is what we have been fighting against. And today, more than ever, this fight has entered a new and urgent phase.

What comes next cannot wait.

More than 6,000 Venezuelans remain in ICE detention centers right now, with deportation flights still planned — and now, they have been told, those flights will be military. Military flights. Back to a Venezuela that is still pulling bodies from the rubble, where hospitals are damaged and destroyed in every possible way, where bridges have collapsed, and where entire communities no longer exist. The earthquake has not stopped them. Our community here — Venezuelans who have built lives in the United States, who pay taxes, who contribute, who love this country — is living in terror. TPS is gone. Humanitarian parole is gone. The legal protections we fought so hard to build have been stripped away one by one.

We need new protections. We need TPS to be reinstated. We need Deferred Enforced Departure. We need a moratorium on deportations to Venezuela. We need Congress to act. And we need resources to keep fighting.

The Venezuelan American Caucus does this work every day — advocacy on Capitol Hill, legal support, community education, rapid response communications, and a relentless presence in every room where decisions about our community are being made.

If Flight 164 moved you. If the images from La Guaira broke your heart. If you believe that no one should be deported into a disaster zone, into a dictatorship, into the rubble of a collapsed building — please support our work.

DONATE TO THE VENEZUELAN AMERICAN CAUCUS

There is a before and an after.

We are living in the after. And we need your help.

Adelys Ferro

“The White House cannot use criminal enforcement as a diplomatic light switch,” former federal prosecutor Duncan Levin told the AP. “DOJ decisions are supposed to be based on law, evidence, policy and public safety; not on whether a foreign official is useful to the administration at a given moment.” He is right. And Americans need to understand why this matters, not just for Venezuela, but for themselves.

I Have Seen This Movie Before, And I Am Exhausted Of Saying It.

I am Venezuelan American. I left a country that did not collapse all at once. It collapsed gradually, one institution at a time. First, the courts stopped being independent. Then, the attorney general’s office became the president’s legal shield. Then, investigations into allies were quietly buried, and investigations into enemies were amplified and weaponized. Then one day you wake up and there is no justice system left…, only a system of power that uses the language of justice to protect itself.

What the Trump administration did this week is not a foreign policy footnote. It is a structural warning about what is happening to the rule of law in this country.

The Department of Justice is not supposed to be an arm of the White House. Federal prosecutors are not supposed to receive instructions from the Oval Office about who to investigate and who to protect. The separation of powers — the principle that no single branch of government controls all levers of the state — is not a technicality. It is the entire architecture that makes democracy possible. It is what makes the United States different from the countries its people flee. Or it was.

The Staggering Contradiction

And this is what makes this story not just troubling but openly, almost defiantly hypocritical: While the Trump administration was quietly telling prosecutors to leave Delcy Rodríguez alone, it was simultaneously stripping over 600,000 Venezuelan TPS holders of their legal protections — people who came to this country, worked legally, paid taxes, and built lives here. It was deporting more than 25,000 Venezuelans back to the very country they fled — a country that, let's be clear, is still a dictatorship. Maduro may be gone, but the regime's structure, its repression, its military apparatus, its political prisoners — all of it remains intact. And it was detaining thousands more in ICE facilities right now: families separated, mothers deported without their children, American-born kids waking up in homes where a parent simply no longer exists.

These Venezuelans were labeled gang members. Terrorists. Criminals. Tren de Aragua. They were stripped of every legal benefit they had. They were deported to the same government whose acting president the Trump administration is now protecting from criminal investigation.

Let that sink in. The Venezuelan people fleeing the regime? Persecuted, deported, detained. The Venezuelan official who ran that criminal regime? Protected. Useful. “Doing a great job,” Trump has wrote many times on social media.

This Is Not About Venezuela

I am writing about the United States. I am writing about what it means when a president can pick up the phone, or send a quiet instruction through channels, and tell federal prosecutors who they are allowed to pursue and who they must leave alone. It is about what happens to a democracy when the Justice Department stops being independent and becomes instead a tool of whoever is in power.

This is not my personal opinion. This is documented. The AP reports that the same pattern is playing out with Colombian President Gustavo Petro — the DEA had designated him a priority target, and U.S. officials recently assured the Colombian government he faces no charges. The New York Times reported the same thing in March.

A pattern is not an accident. A pattern is a policy.

And this comes on top of what we already know: the DOJ’s reported pressure on the IRS to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit in a deal that would shield him, his family, and his businesses from future audits. The firing of prosecutors who investigated January 6th. The installation of loyalists at every level of federal law enforcement.

What is being built here, piece by piece, is a Justice Department that protects allies and punishes enemies. Not based on evidence. Not based on law. Based on political utility.

That is not justice. That is exactly what I left Venezuela.

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What happens to a 60-year-old man, diabetic, 40 years in the United States, with American children and grandchildren, when agents show up at his door on a Sunday morning, with no warning, and leave him in a city in southern Mexico at midnight?

I’ll tell you what happens. It happened to Miguel Ángel.

Miguel Ángel is 67 years old. He lived in Naples, Florida for over 20 years. He has diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, and survived colorectal cancer. He needs insulin to live. When they deported him, they confiscated his phone, his wallet, his documents. They dropped him in Tapachula (a city where the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG are fighting a bloody territorial war).

Without insulin, within three days, he started losing his vision. “If I go blind here,” he said, “who is going to take care of me? I have no family here. I have no one.”

This is happening right now. And it is documented.

Human Rights Watch just published a 66-page report (based on over 50 interviews and analysis of ICE’s own data) revealing what the Trump administration is doing with Cubans it cannot deport to Cuba, because Cuba refuses to take them back.

The numbers are staggering. From January 20, 2025 to March 2026, the United States deported over 18,000 third-country nationals, people who are neither American nor Mexican. 70% were sent to Mexico. Cubans are the largest group: over 4,300 deported in that period. 26% had zero criminal record. None. Only 16% had a violent offense as their most serious conviction.

Now, there is historical context here that matters, because it makes this story even more revealing.

Cubans are, historically, the only immigrant group with a special legal protection in this country. It’s called the Cuban Adjustment Act, and it has existed since 1966. Congress created it because it recognized that Cuba is a dictatorship, and that Cubans deserved special consideration. To be clear: that does not mean every one of these men qualified for that protection, or that all of them had full legal status at the time of their deportation. Many had lost their permanent residency following criminal convictions. That is the reality, and I won’t hide it.

But here is what that history tells us: if even the community that has historically had the most legal protections, the most political consideration, the most recognition in this country — if even they are being deported without a hearing, without a judge, without any individual review, and abandoned in Mexican cities controlled by organized crime — then the message is clear. No one is safe. No community. No protection is permanent when there is political will to ignore it.

Julio had his ICE check-in scheduled. He had complied four months earlier. He was outside his workplace when he saw four vans approaching slowly. “I didn’t run,” he said. “I didn’t move. I was here legally. I gave them my license and my work permit. The officer looked at my information, turned to another officer and said: ‘It’s him.’ Like they had been looking for me.”

He was deported to Mexico with no hearing. No opportunity to object. No judge ever reviewed his case.

And when they arrive in Mexico, the abandonment is total.

They are dropped off buses at midnight. They are handed a paper saying they have 10 days to regularize their status, in a country where they know no one, have no documents, and cannot legally work. They are left in industrial zones, hours away on foot from the only available shelter, surrounded by organized crime. The Amparito shelter in Villahermosa — the only one serving them — just closed due to the violence surrounding it.

Javier, 62, from Orlando, with diabetes stealing his vision, sleeps in what he calls “a little cave” next to a gas station. “I shake out my shirt,” he said, “I put pieces of cardboard on the ground and cover myself with the shirt. I am sleeping on the street. Like a dog.”

And then there is Ricardo.

Ricardo del Pino was 67 years old. He was deported on July 3, 2025, after serving a 17-year sentence. He applied for asylum in Mexico. The Amparito shelter fought to get him medical attention. He was hospitalized multiple times. He was severely malnourished. No legal documents.

Ricardo died on February 21, 2026.

His death certificate listed his nationality as UNKNOWN.

A man who lived in the United States for decades. Cuban by birth. Dead in Mexico. No country. No name. Nothing.

That is what this policy means in real life.

And I say to you today: what they are doing to the Cuban community is the laboratory for what they can do to any immigrant. Even with any of us? Deporting people to Mexico without due process, without a hearing, without individual review is the precedent that can be used tomorrow against our community.

I will not stay silent. For Mario, who cries at night thinking about his grandchildren. For Miguel Ángel, who is losing his sight on a street in Tapachula. For Ricardo, whose death certificate didn’t even list his nationality.

These are human beings. They are part of our community. And they deserve for us to raise our voices when they no longer can.

We are asking for nothing more than basic human dignity. Due process. That’s it.

In my opinion, today was one of those days.

The Trump-aligned argument to dismantle birthright citizenship—one of the clearest guarantees of the 14th Amendment—didn’t just face skepticism. It unraveled under basic constitutional scrutiny.

At multiple points, the Court’s conservative justices themselves signaled something important: this is not a close call. Chief Justice John Roberts cut straight through the central talking point. When Trump’s Solicitor General tried to justify the policy by saying “it’s a new world”—where people can travel more easily—Roberts responded with a line that will likely echo beyond this case: “It’s a new world; it’s the same Constitution.”

For me, that’s the whole case, right there.

You don’t rewrite the Constitution because the world changes. You amend it. And no one has done that.

Justice Kavanaugh made another critical point, dismantling one of the most common political arguments behind this effort—the comparison to other countries: “I get the point… many other countries don’t have this. But I’m not seeing the relevance as a legal, constitutional interpretive matter.” In other words: what Europe does is irrelevant. The U.S. Constitution is the only thing that matters here.

Justice Gorsuch also appeared unconvinced, exposing how shaky the argument really is. At one point, he pressed Trump’s lawyer with a basic but revealing question: “Do you think Native Americans are birthright citizens under your test?” The response—“I have to think that through”—said more than enough. Gorsuch later underscored the problem, noting that parts of the argument sounded like something out of “Roman law sources.”

And then came Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who exposed the real-world consequences of what the administration is proposing. At one point, she pressed on how this would even work in practice: “We’re bringing pregnant women in for depositions? What are we doing to figure this out?” When the answer revealed that babies could be denied citizenship first—and only allowed to challenge it after the fact—Jackson didn’t let it go: “After the fact, after their baby has been denied citizenship.”

That’s not just legally weak. It’s administratively chaotic and morally indefensible.

Even Justice Amy Coney Barrett—often aligned with the conservative bloc—pushed back on the lack of constitutional grounding: “You say the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to put all newly freed slaves on equal footing… But that’s not textual.” And later, more bluntly: “Yeah, yeah, yeah… But what about the Constitution?”

Exactly.

Because at the end of the day, that’s the problem for Trump’s argument: it’s not rooted in the Constitution. It’s rooted in politics, hypotheticals, and fear.

There was also a revealing moment when Justice Jackson asked whether Congress could control who qualifies for citizenship under this framework. The answer from Trump’s own lawyer was hesitant at best—directly contradicting the widely understood purpose of the 14th Amendment: to prevent exactly that kind of manipulation.

Let’s not forget why the Citizenship Clause exists. It was written to close the door—permanently—on political attempts to decide who belongs and who doesn’t.

That door is not supposed to reopen every election cycle.

Could the Court still surprise us? Of course. It’s always risky to predict outcomes based on oral arguments.

But if you read the room today—really read it—this didn’t look like a Court preparing to dismantle over a century of constitutional law.

It looked like a Court reminding everyone that the Constitution still means what it says.

My expectation? A strong ruling reaffirming birthright citizenship. Likely with only the most predictable dissent (7-2).

And one final irony that didn’t go unnoticed today: as Mary Trump pointed out, “the best case against birthright citizenship is Donald, because our grandfather was an anchor baby.”

History has a way of circling back.

So does the Constitution.

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For Trump to undo it with an executive order is not just legally reckless — it is the move of an authoritarian. And if he truly believes the Constitution stands in his way, there is a process for that: amending it requires two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states — 38 of them. That is the democratic guardrail our founders built precisely to stop one man from rewriting the rules of belonging.

But instead of going through that process, Trump showed up today — making history as the first sitting president ever to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court — and sat just feet away from the nine justices who will decide this case. Call it what it is: intimidation. I have seen this playbook before. When a president physically plants himself in a courtroom to watch judges rule on his own power, that is not curiosity. That is a threat dressed in a motorcade. Over 200,000 children are born to immigrant parents in this country every year — their entire future hangs on whether this Court has the courage to say that no president, not even one sitting in the room, is above the law.

Stay tuned for updates….

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I was one of those eight million. And I was not surprised. I was moved. And, if I am being completely honest with you, I felt something I have not allowed myself to feel in a very long time: relief.

I am a Venezuelan American woman. I left a country that didn’t collapse overnight — it was dismantled, piece by piece, while many people looked away, told themselves it wasn’t that bad, convinced themselves that maybe this leader was different, that maybe the institutions would hold. They didn’t. I watched Venezuela lose its democracy in slow motion. I know what the beginning looks like. I know what the middle looks like. And I know, with every cell in my body, that we cannot afford to find out what the end looks like here.

When I left Venezuela, I never imagined I would one day be fighting the same fight on American soil. But here I am. And I am not backing down.

“The authoritarian playbook is not subtle. It never is, once you’ve read it. And I have read it. I have lived it.”

First, you come for the immigrants — you make them the enemy, the threat, the “other.” Then you come for the press. Then for the courts. Then for anyone who dares to say out loud what everyone can already see. When I see immigration enforcement turned into a weapon that terrorizes families, I don’t just see a policy. I see a pattern. When I see attacks on healthcare, on women’s reproductive freedom, on the civil rights of the LGBTQ+ community, I see a regime that has mistaken power for a crown. When I see reckless warmongering and working families crushed by inflation and broken promises — I see a government that no longer believes the rules apply to it.

I have seen this before. In another language. In another country. I know exactly where it leads.

That is why yesterday mattered so much. Not just as a protest. As a declaration. Millions of ordinary people — teachers, nurses, veterans, students, grandmothers, immigrants, and lifelong Americans — stood up and said: this is not who we are. We do not bow to kings. Not here. Not ever.

People ask me sometimes: how did Venezuela fall? And the honest answer is that it fell because too many good people stepped back at the wrong moment. Because those in positions of influence chose comfort over courage. Because the institutions that were supposed to hold the line did not hold it.

I have also seen what happens when people tell themselves it will get better. When they normalize one outrage at a time until the outrage becomes the norm. That is how Chávez happened. That is how Maduro happened. Authoritarian regimes don’t defeat their opponents outright — they exhaust them. They make people doubt themselves. They make resistance feel futile.

Yesterday proved that the American people are not exhausted. They are awake.

“The Venezuelan people did not get a second chance to stop what happened to their country. I think about that every single day. But the American people still have theirs.”

The streets proved that yesterday. Eight million people proved that. On the bridges of Washington D.C. In the streets of New York, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Florida — everywhere. People held American flags and handmade signs and showed up with their own two feet. Do not let go of that.

· · ·

I want to speak directly to my fellow activists, my fellow organizers — the people who wake up every single morning and choose this work, even when it is invisible, even when the crowd is small, even when the cameras aren’t rolling. This is not a moment for retreat. Not one single step back.

I know some of you are tired. I know this fight feels endless. I know that watching democracy erode is exhausting in a way that is almost impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced its absence. But I need you to hear this, and I need you to believe it: the cost of stepping back is always higher than the cost of staying in the fight. Always.

Activists like us — people who have dedicated their lives to justice, to community, to the idea that things can be better — may be living through the most consequential chapter of our careers. This is, without exaggeration, one of the most important moments of our lifetimes. History is watching what we do. History is watching whether we lead or whether we fold.

Lead.

· · ·

I also want to speak to every American who marched yesterday, or who watched from home and felt that fire in their chest: you are the majority. The people who believe in democracy, in dignity, in the American dream — you outnumber those who would dismantle it. Eight million people in the streets is not a fringe movement. It is the heartbeat of this country refusing to be silenced.

This is not a partisan issue. This is not about Republican versus Democrat. This is about whether we believe that no one is above the law. That power must be checked. That the people — all the people — are sovereign. These are American values. These are the values that generations of people fought and died to protect. They are worth fighting for today.

There will be people who tell you to calm down. To wait and see. To give it time. I have heard those words before, in another language, in another country. I know where they lead.

The American dream is not dead. But it will only survive if we fight for it — together, loudly, and without apology. It is time to honor our values and our principles. Not tomorrow. Not after the next election. Right now.

There is no waiting. There is only now.

And now, we resist, and in November, we vote.

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW: It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. It is a serious federal felony. States already verify citizenship when people register (in many different ways). And after years of investigations, audits, and reviews, there is still no credible or proven evidence of widespread non-citizen voting.

In 2016, the Brennan Center found roughly 30 suspected cases out of 23.5 million votes cast — about 0.0001 percent. Georgia officials, reviewing nearly two decades of records, identified only 20 potential non-citizens among more than 8 million registered voters.

Post-2020 elections reviews tell the same story. In Georgia, investigators examining the 2020 election ultimately confirmed just one case of a non-citizen voting out of millions of ballots cast. Reviews in other states, including Arizona, likewise found no evidence of widespread non-citizen participation. The data across multiple election cycles points in the same direction: the problem being cited to justify sweeping new restrictions is vanishingly small.

That is not a systemic crisis. That is statistical noise. Yet the proposed “fix” is to require strict documentary proof of citizenship when registering and casting the vote, such as passports or original birth certificates.

Here is who that actually hits.

Roughly half of American citizens do not have a passport. Millions do not have immediate access to their birth certificate. Getting a passport can cost hundreds of dollars and take weeks or months. For many working families, that is not a small inconvenience, it is a real barrier.

Married women would be among the hardest hit. Tens of millions of American women have changed their last name. When documents do not perfectly match, these voters can be forced into additional bureaucratic hoops simply to prove what is already true: they are citizens.

Naturalized Americans — who are just as American as anyone born here — would also face new burdens if they do not have their naturalization papers readily available or cannot afford a passport.

Rural Americans would feel this sharply. Access to documentation services is more limited in many rural communities. Seniors would be heavily affected as well, especially those who have relied for years on absentee voting. And low-income Americans — regardless of party — would face the steepest climb, because documentation in America is not free and not equally accessible.

Now consider the push to eliminate or severely restrict mail-in voting.

Despite recent claims, the United States is not alone in using mail voting. More than 60 countries allow some form of postal (mail) or absentee voting, including major democracies like the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Here at home, millions of legitimate voters rely on it: military families overseas, seniors, rural voters, people with disabilities, and shift workers who cannot easily stand in line on Election Day.

Historically — and this is important — older voters and rural voters, many of them Republicans, have been among the most consistent users of absentee and mail voting. Restricting it does not just affect one party. It risks disenfranchising voters across the map, including in deeply conservative states.

This is why this debate should not be reduced to red versus blue.

The United States is a federal system. The Constitution gives states primary authority to run elections. That means we already operate under a decentralized structure with multiple layers of verification, signature matching, database checks, and serious criminal penalties for fraud.

Election security matters. It absolutely does. But security cannot become an excuse to make voting harder for eligible citizens who have done nothing wrong. When new rules require costly documents, create name-matching traps for married women, burden naturalized citizens, and squeeze rural and low-income voters, we have to ask the obvious question: Who is this really solving for? Because the evidence is clear. The risk of widespread non-citizen voting is vanishingly small. The risk of eligible Americans being discouraged or blocked from voting is very real.

We should be able to hold two principles at the same time: Protect election integrity. Protect every eligible citizen’s access to the ballot. A healthy democracy demands both.

A strong democracy does not fear its voters — it empowers them. The real threat to our elections isn’t phantom voters, it’s policies that push real Americans out of the process.And that is exactly why we oppose the SAVE Act and new efforts that would make it harder — not safer — for AMERICANS to vote.

For years, I listened to unwavering speeches about morality. About Christianity. About family values. About protecting children at all costs. About how the abuse of minors was the ultimate red line, the one thing that could never be excused. A deal breaker. A moral absolute. And yet here we are.

Court records exist. Sworn testimony exists. Investigative documents are public. Names appear. Connections are documented. Photos are real. Associations are not hypothetical. And instead of outrage, instead of a reckoning, there is silence. Shrugs. Deflection. Even applause.

I cannot understand how a political movement that claimed the moral high ground for so long can now look away from something so grave, unless morality was never the point. Unless it was always conditional. Unless it only applied to others.

Because we all know the truth. If this were Obama, or if this were Biden, there would be no silence. There would be no patience. There would be no calls to move on. There would be relentless outrage, nonstop coverage, endless investigations, and sermons delivered from every possible podium. The contrast is impossible to ignore.

While millions of people like me demand accountability—regardless of party or power—demanding that anyone implicated face consequences, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, independents, celebrities, billionaires, royalty, artists, or public figures of any kind, here in the United States something deeply disturbing has taken hold. On one side, there are those of us insisting that justice must apply equally, that no name is too powerful, no fortune too large, no title too prestigious to escape scrutiny. On the other side, association itself has become almost a badge of honor. It is grotesque, but it is real.

In other countries, leaders have resigned simply for appearing in the Epstein files. A prince lost his titles and was removed from the monarchy. Public disgrace followed proximity, not conviction. Accountability was understood as a duty, not a punishment. And yet here, instead of consequences, some of the very people named or connected hold positions within the president’s administration. Where other democracies act to protect institutional integrity, we look away. Where others draw a line, we erase it.

So how did we get here? How did we reach a level of polarization so extreme that it turned into a cult of personality around a man who does not deserve it, a man who has been found liable in a court of law for sexual abuse, and yet is treated as untouchable? How did accountability become optional? How did cruelty become normalized?

Because cruelty is not abstract. It is visible when journalists, especially women, are insulted and publicly humiliated from positions of power. When a president mocks reporters, attacks them by name, demeans their appearance, and uses language so degrading it hardly bears repeating, and instead of outrage there is cheering.

How did we decide this was acceptable? That this was leadership. That this was strength. And also, how did we become so numb to corruption that we barely react when power is openly monetized? The same people who expressed moral horror over Hunter Biden selling paintings for large sums, who demanded investigations and accountability, now watch a president and his family enrich themselves openly and grotesquely by exploiting their position in government, and they say nothing. Not only do they say nothing. They justify it. They defend it. They celebrate it.

So I have to ask what morality even means anymore.

Is morality loyalty? Is it silence? Is it blind obedience to a single figure, no matter the conduct, no matter the harm, no matter the lies?

Because morality cannot mean rules for some and excuses for others. It cannot mean that abuse is unforgivable unless it becomes politically inconvenient. It cannot mean that protecting children is a principle only when it is useful.

If that is what morality has become, then words like values, faith, and family have lost their meaning. In fact, it is hard not to wonder whether these words ever truly meant something to them at all. And that brings me to the most painful question of all. Who are we? Is this America? Is this our America? A country where character no longer matters. Where victims are treated as background noise. Where accountability is partisan. Where power is worshipped and cruelty is dismissed.

Silence in moments like this is not neutral. Silence is a choice. Silence is permission. And when a society chooses silence in the face of abuse, corruption, and cruelty, it is not just failing politically. It is failing morally.

If this is not a deal breaker, then nothing is. And if nothing is, then the problem is no longer just one man. It is what we have allowed ourselves to become.

I think about Alex Pretti and Renee Good. I think about Minnesota. I think about hundreds of children in detention centers; children who did not choose borders, policies, or politics, but are paying the price anyway. I think about families torn apart with paperwork and force, doors torn down without warrants, a Constitution treated as optional depending on who is on the other side of it.

I think about the violence in the streets and the violence carried out quietly, bureaucratically, with signatures and stamps.

And I think about how much of this has been normalized.

There are moments when it feels like part of this country has gone numb, as if repeated exposure to cruelty has made the unbearable feel routine. As if the most abominable crimes, including the abuse of minors, can be reduced to files, headlines, or political footballs.

The revelations around the Epstein files should have shaken us to our core. Instead, too many people shrugged. That, more than anything, terrified me. Because a society that stops being horrified by the abuse of children is a society in deep moral danger.

And yet, this is not the whole story.

In the middle of this darkness, I have also witnessed courage. I have seen solidarity show up when it mattered. I have seen people refuse to look away. I saw it in the support that Liam Conejo Ramos received. I saw it in the actions of some congress members, measured, present, and willing to do what decency required in a moment that demanded it.

And I saw it, most powerfully, in the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets, defying bitter cold, intimidation, and real threats from ICE and the government, to defend immigrants, to defend democracy, and to defend our shared humanity.

Alex Pretti was killed, and his death became a line many refused to let be crossed in silence. People showed up anyway, not because it was safe, but because it was right.

These moments don’t erase the harm. But they remind us that conscience is still alive.

I won’t pretend I’m not afraid. I am. The persecution, the criminalization, the lies, the Fulton County FBI ordeal, and the broader erosion of our Constitution, laws, and norms terrify me. The casual talk of criminalizing dissent, of expanding surveillance, of turning law enforcement into a political weapon—these are not abstract threats. They are warnings. History has shown us where this path leads.

And yet, despite all of this, something else is happening too. People are becoming less divided. People are waking up. Across communities, across backgrounds, across political identities, more and more Americans are saying: this is not who we are. Not because they all agree on policy, but because they recognize something deeper is at stake: dignity, humanity, the rule of law, the idea that no one should be disposable.

I feel encouraged because I am seeing unity not built on sameness, but on shared values and principles. On the simple, radical belief that cruelty is not strength, that violence is not order, and that fear is not leadership.

For a long time, many believed that immigrants were subjects,manageable, exploitable, removable. Not neighbors. Not contributors. Not human beings.

They were wrong.

We are human beings. And beyond that, we are an asset to this country: economically, culturally, morally. We build. We care. We organize. We love. We raise families. We defend principles that too many have taken for granted.

And we are proud of that.

What gives me hope right now is not a single politician or moment. It is the power of ordinary, decent people who are choosing to stand up anyway, people who understand that dignity is not weakness, that compassion is not naïveté, and that love—real love, grounded in justice—is a really strong weapon against hate, violence, and fascism.

I am also moved by the millions of people who are picking up the phone, calling senators, calling representatives, demanding that silence end and accountability begin. People are no longer asking politely for statements; they are insisting on action to protect the rule of law.

Americans have died. Innocent immigrants have died.

This is not the way. For years, many of us have pushed for meaningful immigration reform that could have prevented this level of harm, this level of chaos, this level of loss. Instead, lives have been sacrificed to political gamesmanship, with immigrants turned into convenient pawns—useful during campaigns, expendable in governing. But the country is pushing back now, and the message is clear: human lives are not bargaining chips, and justice cannot wait.

This moment demands courage, not numbness.

It demands that we feel the pain, name the injustice, and still choose to act. It demands that we protect children, defend families, uphold the Constitution, and refuse to trade our humanity for comfort or silence.

I don’t know what comes next. None of us do.

But I know this: as long as people are still willing to be horrified by cruelty, still willing to stand with the vulnerable, still willing to believe that dignity matters, we are not lost.

And I am still here. Still fighting. Still believing.

When it looks like fascism, feels like fascism, communicates like fascism, and acts like fascism, it is no longer irresponsible to name it.

It is necessary.

What we are witnessing in the United States follows a pattern history knows well: state power turned against communities, enforcement without accountability, rights treated as inconveniences, and cruelty normalized as policy. We are watching human rights, civil rights, and constitutional rights violated in plain sight — and then explained away. Even worse, we are being told not to believe what we see with our own eyes or hear with our own ears.

That message is not accidental. That message is authoritarian.

The horrendous, unjust, and abominable killings of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti are not isolated. They are part of a broader system where people are detained without due process —including babies—peaceful protesters are assaulted, workers are arrested at their jobs, and families are terrorized in their own neighborhoods. And when the public reacts with horror, the response from those in power is chillingly familiar: this is normal, this is necessary, this is for your safety.

Fascism does not begin by abolishing constitutions. It begins by hollowing them out. By redefining rights as privileges. By turning enforcement into spectacle. By demanding obedience not just to power, but to lies. The public is trained to distrust its own moral instincts, to accept cruelty, and to look away.

And yet, this piece is not only about fear or grief.

There is hope here.

If there is a silver lining in this abomination, it is that Americans are waking up. People are beginning to understand what authoritarianism actually looks like — not in history books, not in other countries, but here, now, in their own cities. They are learning how fascism feels, how it speaks, how it justifies itself.

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

History also teaches us something else: authoritarianism does not fall because it is exposed. It falls because people act. Democracy is not self-executing. It must be defended — loudly, collectively, and without apology.

That defense starts now.

Call your senators. Tell them the condition is non-negotiable: ICE must leave our cities, and the Border Patrol must return to the border, not our neighborhoods — especially in the cities where they are causing documented harm and violating human and civil rights.

No more blank checks.
No more funding without accountability.

ICE does not belong in our cities. The Border Patrol does not belong policing neighborhoods. What is happening is not security — it is abuse of power, carried out with public money and protected by silence.

Call 202-224-3121, the direct line to the U.S. Senate. Ask to be connected to your senators. Leave a message if no one answers. Call their state offices if Washington lines are full (you will find the phone number on their official websites). These calls are logged. They are counted. They matter.

Be clear: not one more dollar for Homeland Security unless ICE leaves our cities and the Border Patrol returns to the border, where it belongs. Demand a “no” vote on the appropriations bill.

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Fascism thrives on apathy. Democracy survives on participation.

We are not powerless. We are not exaggerating. And we are not wrong to trust what we see. The United States is at a crossroads. One path leads toward normalization of abuse and erosion of freedom. The other requires courage — sustained, uncomfortable courage — but it leads toward something worth saving: our democracy, our liberties, and our Constitution.

Enough is enough.

Call your senators. Refuse to look away. History will not ask whether we were polite. It will ask whether we acted when it mattered.

And it still matters.

That is exactly what I felt when I saw the case of Liam Conejo Ramos — a five-year-old child detained by ICE — a child whose image has now gone viral because it captures, in one devastating frame, what is happening in the United States right now.

A tiny boy. A cute winter hat. A Spiderman backpack. Walking toward school — or at least walking toward what was supposed to be a normal childhood morning. And instead of walking toward safety, he was walked into the arms of a system that has decided that Latino children are acceptable collateral damage.

Let’s be clear about what we know. Liam’s family has no criminal record — none, zero — absolutely nothing. They entered the United States legally, through a port of entry, and asked for asylum. They did what we tell people to do when they’re seeking protection: show up, present themselves, and go through the process. Even Liam’s school has confirmed that their documents were valid, current, and legal. They have not done anything illegal. They are not criminals. They are a family asking for safety.

So how did we get here? How does a law-abiding asylum-seeking family end up with their child in detention?

The answer is as simple as it is sickening: they used him.

Yes, it is true: the father ran. But we have to be honest about what that moment means. No one truly knows how they would react when they suddenly feel their entire life could change in a second — when the possibility of being detained by ICE becomes real in front of your own home, when your dreams are one step away from collapsing, when everything you have tried to do “the right way” feels like it could be erased in an instant. Judging a person’s reaction in a moment that extreme — so desperate, so borderline — is not only easy, it is often unfair.

Because what the videos show is even worse: Liam was right there, in front of his home, and ICE took him by the hand and walked him directly to his front door. They did not do this to protect him. They did it to see who else they could pull out of that house. They knocked on the door with the child in hand, using him as bait. He was an anzuelo.

And when the adults inside begged them — “Leave the child here. We will take care of him.” — ICE still chose to take him anyway.

They still detained a baby. A five-year-old.

A child whose only “crime” is being Latino, the son of Latinos, the face of a family seeking protection in the United States.

This is the part that should shake us to the core: a child with a Spiderman backpack is not a threat to anyone in this country. Liam is not dangerous. Liam is not a criminal. Liam is not “an invasion.” Liam is a child. Yet his image has become viral because it captures something many communities have been warning about for months: children are being weaponized. Used as leverage. Used as traps. Used as tools of enforcement.

And it is happening in America.

This is what Orwell warned us about: a government that expects obedience not just to power, but obedience to lies. We are watching evidence with our own eyes, and yet we are being told not to believe it — or to accept it with the right labels. We are being told that asylum-seeking families are “illegal.” That they don’t deserve rights. That they are “the problem.” But seeking asylum is not a crime.

A person asking for asylum is not “illegal,” no matter how many times that word is repeated to dehumanize them. Words matter because language is how cruelty becomes policy. If the public can be trained to label families as “illegals,” then anything can be done to them. If the public can be trained to see children as part of a threat, then their suffering becomes easier to dismiss.

This is not a political talking point. This is not a debate to win on television. This is a question of humanity — and a question of what kind of country we are becoming.

We also have to stop reducing this to numbers and statistics. These are not figures on a spreadsheet. These are families. These are mothers and fathers trying to survive. These are children who don’t even understand why the government is touching them, holding them, taking them away.

Liam is not a number. Liam is not a statistic. Liam is not a headline. Liam is a child.

That child in his winter hat and Spiderman backpack does not threaten America. He is America too. He is the future of America if we allow him to grow up in peace. If God willing, Liam will become one of the best citizens this country could ever have — not because he owes anyone gratitude, but because immigrant children often grow up carrying resilience, hunger, and determination that most people will never fully understand. His family is asking for nothing more than a fair chance: a fair process, a fair hearing, and the right to live without being hunted.

There are lines societies cannot cross. Because once you normalize the detention of children — once you normalize state cruelty toward families — the next cruelty becomes easier. And easier. And easier. Until you are living in a place where you no longer recognize your own country.

A government that can use a child as bait has already crossed a moral line.

Liam is not a number.

Say his name. Remember his face. And do not let anyone tell you that what you saw is not real.

I’ve replayed that sentence many times—not because it’s clever, but because it reveals something deeply broken in how we are being asked to think, feel, and choose sides.

Let me be clear: I do not rank my rejection of authoritarianism by flag, language, or political party. I do not measure cruelty with a partisan scale. I do not excuse oppression abroad to justify it at home, nor do I silence my conscience here to appear “strategic” there.

Maduro and his criminal gang (still in power, by the way) destroyed my home country. Trump threatens the values of the one that gave me refuge. Both truths can coexist. In fact, they must.

I was also told that it was irresponsible to give hope to Venezuelan immigrants—because “there isn’t much we can do for them anyway.” As if hope were a luxury. As if dignity were conditional. As if people who fled torture, hunger, and persecution should now be managed emotionally, taught to expect less, to accept abandonment quietly.

I refuse that logic.

Hope is not deception. Hope is survival. Hope is what keeps a mother going when her asylum case drags on for years. Hope is what keeps a family together when work permits expire, TPS is politicized, and fear becomes routine. Hope is what keeps a mother alive when ICE separates her family. Hope is not a lie—it is a moral obligation.

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Then came the part that hurt the most.

I was told we needed to support Trump because of “what he’s doing against and to Maduro.” That his posture, his threats, his so-called toughness somehow outweighed everything else. As if authoritarian behavior becomes acceptable when it wears the right enemy. As if cruelty toward immigrants here is forgivable if it is loud enough against a dictator there.

And finally, the justification I’ve heard too many times: negotiations with the dictatorship are necessary. Pragmatic. Inevitable. Even when the dictatorship is still in power. Even when nothing fundamentally changes. Even when the people pay the price while elites negotiate over their heads.

Let me say this plainly: negotiating with a dictatorship is not the same as negotiating for democracy.

I have lived the consequences of moral shortcuts. Venezuelans have lived them for decades. We know what happens when the world chooses convenience over principle, oil over people, optics over accountability. We know what happens when strongmen are normalized, when lies are tolerated, when institutions are weakened “just a little” for strategic reasons.

That’s why I cannot, and will not, support any leader who mirrors the very traits we claim to oppose.

You cannot fight authoritarianism abroad while flirting with it at home. You cannot defend democracy in Venezuela while undermining it in the United States. You cannot claim to stand with the oppressed while dehumanizing immigrants, mocking asylum seekers, or turning suffering into a campaign tool.

My criticism of Trump is not personal. It is principled. It comes from recognizing patterns—patterns I as a Venezuelan know all too well. The cult of personality. The attacks on the press. The erosion of institutions. The normalization of lies. The demand for loyalty over truth.

When you’ve seen a democracy collapse, you don’t romanticize anyone who plays with the same fire.

And no, my rejection of Trump does not diminish my rejection of Maduro, Delcy, Jorge, Diosdado, Padrino, or their criminal dictatorship. It strengthens it. Because when I say “never again,” I mean it everywhere. In my beloved Venezuela, and here, in my beloved United States, my country too. A country that has been my home for almost two decades, a country I love, cherish, respect, and defend.

I will continue to speak for Venezuelan immigrants—not because it’s easy, but because silence is what dictators count on. I will continue to give hope—not false hope, but human hope—the kind rooted in solidarity, advocacy, and truth. And I will continue to call out hypocrisy, even when it comes from people who think they’re being realistic.

If defending democracy means I’m accused of “hating” too much, so be it. I don’t hate. I remember. And remembering is what keeps me from choosing the wrong side of history—twice.

It’s one page. It’s full of broad slogans. And it comes at a moment when millions of Americans are already living the consequences of political games disguised as policy.

Let’s start with the most important truth: a “plan” is not a list of talking points. A plan is a roadmap. It has details. It has timelines. It has costs. It has accountability. It tells people what changes, when it changes, and how it protects them.

This one-page document doesn’t do that. It reads like a glossy outline — not the kind of governing that families who are sick, aging, uninsured, or financially stretched can afford.

And while Washington plays branding games, real people are paying the price.

Since January 1, millions of Americans have lost their health coverage or are at risk of losing it because they can’t afford rising premiums. Others are paying double or even triple what they paid just one year ago. In the most powerful country in the world, this should not be normal. It should be unacceptable.

Healthcare is not a political toy. It’s not a messaging opportunity. It’s not a campaign prop.

Healthcare is life.

A bipartisan solution was on the table — and the Senate blocked it

What makes this moment even harder to swallow is that there was a responsible, bipartisan path forward. A three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies had support and momentum. It was a stabilizing measure — a way to stop families from being pushed off coverage while Congress continued negotiating long-term reforms.

And then the Senate blocked it.

No clear explanation. No public urgency matching the scale of the damage. Just vague claims that “another deal” is being negotiated.

But what millions of families needed was not another vague promise. They needed the certainty of coverage. They needed action. They needed leadership.

Instead, we’re watching elected officials behave less like representatives of the public and more like instruments of one man’s political will. Time and again, too many Republicans in Congress have chosen obedience over responsibility — putting Trump’s approval above the basic well-being of the people they were elected to serve.

The “Great Plan” and the reality Americans are living

Trump’s one-pager includes themes like “lower drug prices,” “lower premiums,” “price transparency,” and “holding big insurance accountable.” Most Americans would support those goals — I certainly do.

But here’s the problem: slogans don’t pay for insulin. Bullet points don’t cover chemotherapy. Branding doesn’t guarantee prenatal care. And vague “standards” don’t stop people from losing coverage in January.

Some ideas listed — like pushing for lower prescription drug prices and better transparency — are not inherently wrong. But without legislative text, funding mechanisms, enforcement details, and implementation timelines, they are not a plan. They are a political document.

And it is morally wrong to present a one-page outline as a “great plan” while families are already losing coverage.

This is what political cowardice looks like

There is a pattern in Washington right now, and Americans should name it clearly: incompetence and irresponsibility are being normalized.

We are in the hands of people who refuse to do the right thing unless it is personally approved by President Trump — even when the stakes are measured in human lives.

That is not governance. That is not leadership. That is not what democracy requires.

A country cannot be strong when people are one diagnosis away from financial ruin. A nation cannot claim greatness when it treats healthcare like a negotiating chip. And Congress cannot pretend to represent the people while sacrificing them to protect political power.

A country this powerful can do better — and must

We can disagree about policy. We can debate the best approach. But we should all agree on one thing: the United States should never accept a reality where millions lose coverage overnight because politicians blocked stability and replaced it with a one-page performance.

Americans deserve healthcare policy that is serious, detailed, and humane.

Not headlines. Not branding. Not theatrics.

We need leaders who treat healthcare as what it is: a matter of dignity, survival, and national responsibility.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about Trump.

It’s about the American people — and whether our government still believes their lives are worth protecting.

Midterms are coming.

For those unaware, yesterday the Senate blocked a bipartisan extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, leaving millions of families without affordable coverage or paying multiples of what they paid in 2025. Republicans, bowing to Trump, claim another deal is in negotiation, but the delay leaves countless families exposed. In a parallel move, the same Republicans blocked the War Powers Resolution, which would have ensured congressional approval before any military action against Venezuela—or any nation—because international stability, not unilateral escalation, is at stake.

Additionally, a positive note: House Republicans failed to pass a bill that would have excluded training hours from paid work, thanks to Democratic efforts. This shows that despite 2026 being an election year, the fight for workers’ rights continues.

Also, yesterday, an ICE agent shot a Venezuelan immigrant while trying to arrest him in Minneapolis. DHS said that it happened after the immigrant attacked them with “shovels”.

This is the full list of countries where Trump is suspending immigrant visas processing: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Myanmar, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. Venezuela immigrants benefits processing are also indefinitely suspended.

We’re also waiting on the Supreme Court’s decision regarding tariffs. Meanwhile, tensions with Iran are escalating, and yesterday’s meetings with Greenland and Denmark at the White House left our allies visibly concerned. The need for thoughtful and common sense leadership is urgent—our democracy and global stability depend on it.

Epstein Files release is still at 1%. 27 days overdue.

Don’t ever forget: In the end, this is about all of us. The more we stand together, the stronger we are in confronting authoritarianism, human rights abuses, and threats to democracy. We each have a role—whether with colleagues, neighbors, or family—and that role often starts with something simple but powerful: speaking up, spreading facts, and fighting disinformation wherever we see it. Each of us must contribute from our own capacity and possibilities, in whatever ways we can. I’m proud to be part of this nation, and together, we can protect its values. Let’s keep going.

Venezuela is one of those stories.

To many Americans, Venezuela appears only in fragments: a political crisis, a dictator, an oil-rich country, the illegality of a military operation, a distant drama that flares up when it affects U.S. politics and then disappears again. But for millions of Venezuelans — inside Venezuela and across the diaspora — it is not a headline. It is daily survival. It is grief. It is exile. It is fear. It is waiting.

And today, more than ever, we need to talk about Venezuela with clarity and honesty — because several truths can be true at the same time.

Several truths can be true at the same time

Venezuelans can feel relief when justice finally catches up with the individuals who inflicted so much suffering, as it happened with dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife — and still insist that decisions of this magnitude must follow the rule of law and respect due process.

We can support accountability for a criminal regime — and still insist that the roadmap forward be transparent, legal, legitimate, democratic, and centered on people’s lives, not on economic interests.

We can want accountability — and still reject misinformation, dehumanizing narratives, or political opportunism. That is what it means to think like democrats — not as a party label, but as a democratic principle. Democracy is not just about who wins. It’s about how power is exercised, how truth is protected, and how people are treated.

What Venezuela really is today

For more than a decade, Venezuela has experienced one of the most severe humanitarian and institutional collapses in modern history — not caused by a natural disaster, but by deliberate political decisions that fueled corruption and repression, enabled state capture, and dismantled independent institutions and industrial infrastructure.

Venezuela is not “poor.” Venezuela was made poor.

The consequences are staggering. More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country, scattered across Latin America, Europe, and the United States — many of them waiting, quietly and painfully, for the day they can return home once democracy is restored. Millions who remain inside Venezuela live under the weight of deprivation that Americans cannot easily imagine: public hospitals without ANY supplies, daily blackouts and water interruptions, families unable to afford basic food and medicine, and a system where speaking freely will place your life in danger.

This is not only hardship. It is a human rights crisis.

It is also a political tragedy. More than 400 unarmed innocent Venezuelans — including children — were killed during street protests by government forces. And today, approximately 700 political prisoners remain detained, many of them subjected to intimidation, abuse, and denial of due process.

These are not statistics. These are families. These are stolen years. These are people whose only “crime” was believing that their country deserved freedom and justice.

The release of every political prisoner must be non-negotiable. No democratic transition can claim legitimacy while innocent people remain imprisoned for civic participation and political belief.

The truth about the diaspora: Venezuelans did not “choose” this

When Americans see Venezuelan migrants arriving at the border, they are often told a simplified story: that this is just a matter of “illegal immigration,” or that these families should simply “go back.”

But back to what? Back to political persecution? Back to economic collapse? Back to a country without functioning institutions, where survival is uncertain and dissent is punished?

Venezuela is not free yet,not even close. And with freedom not yet restored, the roadmap toward a stable democratic transition remains fragile and uncertain. That uncertainty is not theoretical — it shapes the decisions of families every day. Parents deciding whether to risk the journey north. Young people deciding whether to abandon their elementary and middle education. Grandparents deciding whether to skip medication so their grandchildren can eat.

This is what displacement looks like. It isn’t only movement. It’s the slow dismantling of a life.

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What this crisis looks like in the United States

Here in the United States, Venezuelan families live with their own version of uncertainty. Parents who work, pay taxes, attend church, and raise American children are still forced to ask themselves: Will I be here next month? Will I be detained? Will I lose my work permit? Will my family be separated? Many Venezuelans in the U.S. are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for something deeply American:

fairness. dignity. due process.

They are asking not to be deported into danger while political debate unfolds around them like a spectacle. They are asking not to be reduced to a talking point. Immigrant justice is not separate from Venezuela’s crisis — it is part of it. Because when a dictatorship forces people to flee, the world becomes responsible for how it treats them afterward.

A hard truth: Venezuela cannot be treated as a political prop

This is where Americans must pay attention — because recent U.S. leadership choices have not always reflected the seriousness Venezuela demands.

President Trump has spoken about Venezuela in ways that can sound decisive, even dramatic. But drama is not a strategy, and democracy is not built through rhetoric. Venezuela is not a stage for strongman posturing or “winner takes all” politics. It is a country of 28 million people — and millions more scattered across borders — whose lives depend on legitimacy, stability, and careful decisions.

When the United States acts without clear institutional grounding, without bipartisan durability, and without consistent respect for international norms, it does not only risk backlash abroad — it risks instability for Venezuelans themselves. We’ve seen around the world what happens when leaders are removed but institutions are not rebuilt: uncertainty expands, violence grows, and ordinary people pay the price.

If America truly wants to help Venezuela, it must bring what authoritarians cannot: rule of law, restraint, and democratic credibility.

Venezuelans know what happens when institutions collapse

This is why Venezuelans care so deeply about rule of law — even when emotions are high, even when hope is desperate. Because we’ve lived it. We know what it means when courts are captured. When constitutions are manipulated. When “justice” becomes a weapon. When the police and military are used not to protect citizens, but to crush them.

That’s why we cannot trade legitimacy for shortcuts. The temptation is real — but the cost is always paid by ordinary people.

A democratic transition must be Venezuelan-led — and inclusive

There is no future for Venezuela without the Venezuelan people.

That means any democratic transition must include the democratic opposition and civil society — especially those who have carried the struggle at enormous personal cost. I stand with the Venezuelan democratic opposition, and with the citizens, journalists, students, labor leaders, faith leaders, and independent voices who have refused to surrender their country to fear.

A transition cannot be negotiated in back rooms without the people who earned the trust of Venezuelans. It must be Venezuelan-led, institutionally legitimate, inclusive, and sustainable.

The United States has already recognized the legitimacy expressed in the 2024 election results, and president Biden even welcomed President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia at the White House — a significant signal in defense of democratic legitimacy and the will of voters. That recognition must now translate into consistent support for a lawful transition rooted in human rights and stability. The road ahead requires international unity and bipartisan seriousness.

Venezuela is not an issue that belongs to one political party.

It is a democracy and human rights issue — and it requires bipartisan seriousness in the United States, along with coordinated regional and international support. When policy swings dramatically from one administration to the next, people suffer. Instability is not abstract; it fractures families and communities.

Durable policy must be bipartisan because stability must be durable.

And international and regional support will be critical — not to impose outcomes, but to help ensure that any transition is credible, peaceful, and sustainable. Broad alignment reinforces legitimacy, deters retaliation, and helps protect civilians during fragile moments.

What I want Americans to understand

I want Americans to understand this:

Venezuelans are not a “problem.” Venezuelans are people. People who lost their country to corruption and repression. People who want to go home. People who still believe in the idea of democracy — sometimes more than those who have always had it.

Yes, we can be grateful for pressure against a dictatorship. And yes, we must insist that actions remain grounded in law.

Yes, we must support democratic legitimacy. And yes, we must protect vulnerable families here in the United States.

Several truths can coexist.

What should never be negotiable is this:

Human dignity. Rule of law. And the right of a people to live free, in Venezuela and in the United States.

I am a proud Venezuelan-American citizen, and this is my testimony for you all.

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Hi, I’m Adelys Ferro, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, a project of Latino Victory. On this

Giving Tuesday, I’m reaching out with both humility and urgency. Our community is standing at a crossroads — and the months ahead will define the future of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan families across the United States.

We are entering a critical season: major battles in Congress, a new electoral cycle, and a national political landscape where immigrants — especially Venezuelans — are once again being used as political targets.

At the same time, we are watching growing military threats from the U.S. toward the Maduro dictatorship — threats that create even more fear and instability for Venezuelans living in this country. We don’t know what is being discussed or planned behind closed doors, but we do know that rising tensions abroad often translate into more anxiety, more scapegoating, and more vulnerability for our community here. Venezuelans are human beings and should never be treated as collateral damage in a geopolitical confrontation.

At the center of all this are more than 600,000 Venezuelans protected under TPS, living each day with fear, uncertainty, and the harsh reality of losing the only stability they’ve known since fleeing dictatorship. These are law-abiding individuals and families who work, who contribute, and who have built lives rooted in hope and dignity. They deserve the chance to stay, to thrive, and to be recognized.

But that future is not guaranteed. And that is why I’m writing today.

Our community needs strong, consistent voices advocating for real, humane, and urgent immigration reform — one that includes Venezuelan TPS holders and honors their contributions to this country. At the same time, we are continuing our legal fight in the federal courts, defending rights and protections that have been under relentless attack.

This work requires courage. But it also requires resources.

DONATE

To keep this movement alive — to organize effectively, to advocate at every level of government, to mobilize our people, to show up in court, and to open doors that have remained closed for far too long — we need your support.

Every contribution, big or small, makes a meaningful difference. Every donation brings us one step closer to a future where Venezuelans are not living in fear, but with the stability and dignity they deserve. Every gift fuels the work that ensures our people are protected, represented, and heard.

This Giving Tuesday, I invite you to stand with us.

You will find the link HERE to donate through Latino Victory, directly supporting the work of the Venezuelan American Caucus. Your generosity keeps this fight alive.

Thank you for believing in our mission. Thank you for standing with our community. Let’s keep moving — for our families, for our future, and for a country that honors freedom, dignity, and hope.

With immense gratitude,

Adelys Ferro

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