Dara Lind
@daralind.bsky.social
39K followers 470 following 6.1K posts
Former journalist, currently employed at @immcouncil.org (all posts here VERY MUCH my own), forever immigration explainer. Because the public has a right and a duty to know what its government is doing in its name. Signal: daralind.18
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daralind.bsky.social
Anyway, this is your regular reminder that my Signal is available in my bio, and that if you have something you want publicly known I'm happy to chat with you about it and come up with a plan.

Not so that I can break it -- breaking news isn't my profession anymore! -- but so it can get out there.
daralind.bsky.social
I mean, among high-info anti-Trump folks, for SURE for sure. We’re all rooting for your clergy.
daralind.bsky.social
It does wear down resistance, though. Hard to keep showing up day in day out if no one knows to tell you you’re doing a good job.

It hasn’t been a problem re Guard but re feds, IDK. ICE has made a couple of grabs in Petworth in recent weeks in view of schoolchildren.
daralind.bsky.social
I will say that as limited as state capacity is, the attention economy may be even more limited. I’ve recently realized most people don’t know feds and Guard are still surged in DC, because attention moved to Chicago and Portland.
daralind.bsky.social
Not to steal @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social’s shtick but this is simply Saturn Devouring His Son
razzball.bsky.social
If I send you this, know I’ve lost my shit
Sal Frelick
Reposted by Dara Lind
juliagelatt.bsky.social
USCIS processing data for April-June 2025 show a HUGE drop in U visa applications submitted. (Or maybe in U visa applications that USCIS bothered to open & enter in the system?) Just 68(!) applications were received & entered, compared to 12,000 in Oct-Dec, and 11,000 in Jan-Mar.
www.uscis.gov
daralind.bsky.social
daralind.bsky.social
PS, corollary to 2) the people who are getting hired in the current OBBBA-funded hiring surge are people who, by definition, look at an ICE doing this stuff and are willing to say “sign me up.”

And we know from experience that hiring surges mean less basic supervision from experienced agents.
daralind.bsky.social
PS, corollary to 2) the people who are getting hired in the current OBBBA-funded hiring surge are people who, by definition, look at an ICE doing this stuff and are willing to say “sign me up.”

And we know from experience that hiring surges mean less basic supervision from experienced agents.
daralind.bsky.social
+3 cont) the use of profiling, in particular, is both a from-the-top policy choice and possibly _the only heuristic_ that some random ATFer on immigration duty even has.

And of course they’re not making it easy to tell who’s ICE and who’s just externing.
daralind.bsky.social
+2 cont) of course, no group is a monolith and some ICE agents were probably eager to do raids, and that may be correlated with the people doing the most aggro stuff.

3) THIS ISN’T JUST ICE. The use of FBI, DEA, etc for basic imm enforcement is new. These dudes aren’t trained in imm at all. +
daralind.bsky.social
2) historically, ICE field agents have _not wanted to do community raids_ when avoidable. Effort to reward ratio too high, and danger to officers greater than zero (which is what it is when you pick someone up from jail).

The WH has overridden this preference this time. +
daralind.bsky.social
Broadly agree. A couple other big pieces:

1) to the extent there were stories like this they mostly happened in 2017. As border numbers went up, they no longer had resources to maintain aggro interior enforcement.

If that happens again, OBBBA $ means they may not have to choose.
daralind.bsky.social
Absolutely elite pairing
daralind.bsky.social
I am not nearly a confident enough cook to work without a net
daralind.bsky.social
My household’s own personal Shazaam is that we both distinctly remember a time when I made wax beans with chorizo — highly relevant, bc wtf does one do with wax beans?? — but we have scoured the Internet and cannot find a dish that seems at all correct.
daralind.bsky.social
Extremely ironic to receive this criticism from Walmart Donald Duck
daralind.bsky.social
OH MY GOD THEY PULLED HIM FOR FINNEGAN? As a Nats fan ZOMG I AM SO SORRY
daralind.bsky.social
I’m happy for Victor Robles
daralind.bsky.social
I’m so sorry. But I have enjoyed this so much.
daralind.bsky.social
My household has been agonizing over watching this, a game where we legit don’t care who wins, over GBBO, which we have been waiting for all week.

Then @blanksslate.bsky.social said “this is why we watch baseball” and now we’re all in
byzantienne.bsky.social
In the ABQ airport watching the Tigers-Mariners game, which is in the bottom of the 14th. Good lord.

Baseball! 😍
daralind.bsky.social
I truly don’t know why you think that a cliche for “conservative men talking about young women” in the 1990s, being voiced by a not-very-online conservative man about young women in 2025, somehow doesn’t come from that but from a thing very-online men started saying more recently. But ok g’night!
daralind.bsky.social
I literally saw these things first as cliches about people talking shit about the youth in young-adult novels.

Mass media existed even though social media didn’t. The jerks had platforms. Rush Limbaugh was a massive cultural influence, to give just one example.
daralind.bsky.social
@blanksslate.bsky.social, shown this post : “I was unaware @jayjaffe.bsky.social was on Bluesky! I have missed @jayjaffe.bsky.social !”
daralind.bsky.social
Seriously, I am telling you, that was being used by the jerks as a code word in the 90s.