Notices by Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎 (austinkocher@mastodon.social)

Nearly two weeks after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security designated the city of Las Vegas as a “sanctuary” for undocumented immigrants, which threatens withholding of federal funds, local officials haven’t been told why.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/las-vegas/why-was-las-vegas-on-trumps-sanctuary-list-officials-dont-know-3383490/

I sat down with 285 South to talk about the intense work of studying immigration data under the Trump administration and doing my best to make sense of the chaos of immigration news.

https://285south.com/arrests-are-up-deportations-are-maybe-down-an-expert-helps-us-parse-the-governments-confusing-immigration-numbers/

Border patrol is trying to deport a mother who just gave birth in Arizona, while also blocking her inside the hospital from speaking to an attorney. CBP says: "It is the mother's choice whether the child stays with the mother, or remains in the US."

https://tucson.com/news/local/border/article_b024b264-ab3a-4ab9-b39b-cb2a2ff5e7a7.html

Hey, St. Louis! I'm coming for a few days in the fall (my first time) and looking to connect with immigration folks there, incl attorneys, professors, policy makers, community leaders, students, etc. Who should I talk to? Pls introduce yourselves and others.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPad especially with the keyboard. I just wish Apple would make a device that had a little bit more power, a slightly larger screen, more USB-C ports and a headphone jack, and I would definitely want it to have the keyboard more fully integrated into the hardware itself so that it could open and close on a single hinge in the back. I hope they come out with something like that one day!

The Great Human Rights Cover Up Begins

The State Department is axing key sections of the annual Human Rights Reports, including key information about violence against women and people with disabilities. Bukele and Orban stand to benefit.

https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/the-great-human-rights-cover-up-begins

Trump is entering full-on authoritarian mode. He has defied several court orders. He has invoked powers that prevent constitutional review. He is targeting minorities without evidence of justification of wrong-doing. Democracy has not been this fragile in our lifetimes and may not survive.

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

– Frederick Douglass

We told you it was about whiteness. If it was clear enough before, it’s crystal clear now.

Trump paused the refugee program, but when it comes back online, it will focus on resettling white South Africans (Afrikaners) who are “victims of racial discrimination.” (Camilo/CBS)

America has gone off the rails.

Severe understaffing at the FAA has already killed far more Americans in 2025 than immigrants, trans people, “Antifa”, and DEI has. Once again, misinformation and prejudice put lives at risk.

Guantánamo Bay detention center was created first for immigrants, then repurposed for war on terror. Today Trump signed executive order instructing preparation of facility to house 30,000 immigrants at US naval base in Cuba.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/29/trump-guantanamo-detention-center

Week 1 of the Trump administration was incredibly fast-paced but I stayed on top of the main immigration beats with a daily update of substantive, level-headed, data-driven posts so you can stay informed without losing your mind. Check it out:

🚨 BREAKING! A federal judge in Washington correctly ruled that Donald Trump's attempt to abolish birthright citizenship enshrined in the 14th Amendment is an attempt to rewrite the Constitution from the White House.

"I've been on the bench for over four decades, and I can't remember another case where the question presented was this clear," Judge Coughenour said. "This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?"

Trump issued 10 executive orders directly related to immigration yesterday. I don't know about you, but my brain works better when I can sit down and read them carefully on paper. I cleaned up the EOs so that they are more structured + provided PDFs: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14Y_Dd4H4MxTrK6SGy9WqgLMVih9kKEcv?usp=drive_link

Trump's EOs are a laughable stream-of-consciousness mess of wildly untrue assertions rooted in questionable legal basis and supported by the faintest glimmers of association to well-established legal and historical precedent. The Trump Team learned nothing in the past 4 years.

Remember: stay focused.

The chaos begins: buying Greenland, renaming the Gulf of "America", blaming wildfires on wokeness.

It's a strategy designed to chip away at your sanity. It's on purpose.

Don't give in or give up. And don't panic. Your anxiety isn't saving anyone.

Choose the ground where you know you can fight and hold that ground.

Stay focused.

Four years ago today.

For the last time: The illegal / legal immigrant distinction is a manufactured crisis designed to mask deeper anxieties about white supremacy and generate support for nativist policies.

It never ceases to disappoint me how much of the immigration debate is obsessed with how to prevent people from moving and so little attention on how to build a better world that doesn’t harm people and displace people at such a massive rate. Perspective matters.

It is crucial to understand that immigrants are falsely framed as threats and invaders not because this corresponds to any known reality but because it can be used to justify extra-legal state violence against them as if we are at war. It is not an accident, it is a strategy.