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Isabela Dias

@isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social
15K followers 168 following 126 posts

Reporter at Mother Jones covering immigration, Latin America, and more. Falo português.

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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Twenty-five years is not temporary—25 years is a lifetime." The struggle of Salvadorans fleeing the country’s civil war was a determining factor behind the legislative framework for TPS. Now, that protection is under threat. My latest for @motherjones.com:
motherjones.com
"A sword of Damocles": Salvadoran TPS holders are in limbo as DHS does nothing
They fought for protected status. Now they could lose it.
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Kiera Butler @kieraevebutler.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
This new one from me has been a long time coming: Pete Hegseth’s spiritual advisor wants an America dominated by “biblical masculinity.” I went over to his house for brunch. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Pete Hegseth dreams of holy war. Meet his spiritual adviser.
Doug Wilson preaches iron discipline and male dominance. One of his disciples runs the Pentagon.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
A staggering 55 people have died in ICE custody since Trump's return to office. But the agency's official death toll record-keeping doesn't account for people like Prisciliano, whose health deteriorated in detention but died shortly after the agency released him from custody to be hospitalized.
motherjones.com
The Deaths ICE Doesn’t Count
Prisciliano Trejo Ricano passed away in the hospital days after being released from detention.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 06/08/2026
The tragedy traces back to an ICE stop and deportation of Nixon Giovanni Pérez Paz. A year later, amid acute struggle, his wife, Glendy, decided to "self-deport." Weeks after reuniting, the couple was found dead in a field. “If my brother hadn’t been deported…Both of them might still be alive.”
motherjones.com
She followed ICE’s advice to self-deport. Five weeks later, she was dead.
A St. Louis mother took her three daughters to reunite with her deported husband in Guatemala. Neighbors found the couple bound and shot in a sugarcane field.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
More than 60 people protected under a landmark settlement agreement for families who were separated at the border have been detained and at least 16 have been deported by the Trump administration. "The perpetuation of forcible separation upon this group is never ending," one lawyer told me.
motherjones.com
Separated at the border, torn apart again
Years after being split up and reunited, a family gets caught in Trump’s immigration dragnet.
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Abby Vesoulis @abbyvesoulis.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Read my July 18 story for the original reporting that the New York Times didn’t link to... www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Assault, misogyny, verbal threats: Records detail new allegations against Rep. Max Miller
Police reports and filings in a bitter custody dispute raise new questions about the conduct of an Ohio Republican as he campaigns for a third term.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
After the family separation crisis of 2018, many impacted families earned legal status in the United States through a settlement agreement. Years later, some of them are being detained and deported by the Trump administration. This week on @revealnews.org, one mother relives her worst nightmare.
motherjones.com
Children are being left behind as ICE detains parents across the country
Six miles from Mar-a-Lago, Guatemalan families are being ripped apart. Kids are left to fend for themselves as ICE detains their parents.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 25/07/2026
Mirsy Alva López was separated from her 3-year-old son in 2018. Then last year, she was deported despite having legal protection. On this week’s @revealnews.org, how the Trump administration is violating a settlement agreement for separated families.
motherjones.com
Children are being left behind as ICE detains parents across the country
Six miles from Mar-a-Lago, Guatemalan families are being ripped apart. Kids are left to fend for themselves as ICE detains their parents.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
In 2018, Mirsy Alva López arrived at the US-Mexico border with her 3-year-old son Ederson. Then border patrol agents ripped him from her arms and took him away. [1]
motherjones.com
Separated at the Border, Torn Apart Again
Years after being split up and reunited, a family gets caught in Trump’s immigration dragnet.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
“We never went far enough to repair the original sin of the separations at the border. And now we’re perpetrating that same harm all over again.” I wrote about how the Trump administration is violating a landmark settlement agreement for families who were separated at the border years ago.
motherjones.com
Separated at the Border, Torn Apart Again
Years after being split up and reunited, a family gets caught in Trump’s immigration dragnet.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The DOJ filed the first-ever application with an “alien terrorist” removal court dormant since its creation in 1996. “The fact that the government had never previously used this process…speaks to the discomfort that just about everyone who’s ever looked carefully at the statute has come away with.”
motherjones.com
The Trump administration is trying to revive a “Zombie” deportation court
"It's like getting into a car that came out of the factory 30 years ago but has never been started."
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Laura Morel @lauracmorel.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
This week, TPS for Haitians is expected to end. No state will feel the impact more than Florida, home to roughly 350,000 -- many of them healthcare workers. “The workers are suffering, but the patients are going to suffer more.” My latest for @motherjones.com: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Florida's nursing homes are bracing for life without Haitian TPS workers
The Supreme Court ended its legal status. Their patients will pay the price.
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Samantha Michaels @samanthamichaels.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Imagine being a kid and learning both your parents were arrested by ICE. You’ll have to pay rent and survive on your own. I shadowed four siblings—US citizens near Mar-a-Lago—as they try to do that. I'll be thinking about their story for a long time 1/x www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
ICE took Mom and Dad. Now the Perez kids are home alone.
Four American siblings left to fend for themselves—and they're not the only ones.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 15/06/2026
ICE took mom and dad. Now the Perez kids are home alone.
motherjones.com
ICE took Mom and Dad. Now the Perez kids are home alone.
Four American siblings left to fend for themselves—and they're not the only ones.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 09/06/2026
Jared Kushner’s leading role in the bungled negotiations makes him complicit in what, by most accounts, has been a costly and humiliating defeat for the administration—and for the nation. Check out our latest cover story: tinyurl.com/7feeb4hw
Cover of Mother Jones, featuring a baby Jared Kushner swimming after a dollar with the headline Nevermind the Corruption: How nepo baby Jared Kushner is selling America out.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 15/05/2026
Immigrants are dying in ICE detention. A key watchdog office is now gone.
motherjones.com
Immigrants are dying in ICE detention. A key watchdog office is now gone.
"An utter disregard for safety and just humane treatment."
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Deaths in ICE custody have reached a record high; 49 people since January 2025. As many as 29 just in this fiscal year. But the Trump administration is shutting down an independent DHS oversight office that handles complaints about conditions and treatment in detention facilities.
motherjones.com
Immigrants are dying in ICE detention. A key watchdog office is now gone.
"An utter disregard for safety and just humane treatment."
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
“I live in constant fear that I will be subjected to further baseless detentions just for going about my daily life." On May 2, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a Florida-born US citizen, was detained by ICE in Alabama for the third time (!) in the span of a year. And he's suing the federal government.
motherjones.com
ICE keeps detaining the same US citizen again, and again, and again. He’s fighting back.
“I only wish to live my life in peace,” Leonardo Garcia Venegas said in a declaration.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 09/04/2026
A judge ordered her return after a wrongful deportation. Now comes the hard part. “I think a lot of people assume that the story ends when your loved one comes back. But that’s just the beginning of when the healing process starts.”
motherjones.com
A Judge Ordered Her Return After a Wrongful Deportation. Now Comes the Hard Part.
"They failed me once, they made a mistake once, what makes you think it's not going to happen again?"
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
The "justices’ immigration histories span much of the American experience...In each case, these newcomers paved the way for a descendant to reach the privileged pinnacle of the country’s civic life. These nine men and women will now sit in judgment of citizenship for their fellow countrymen."
nytimes.com
In Supreme Court Justices’ Histories, a Story of Immigration in America
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
When the SCOTUS justices hear oral arguments over Trump’s effort to rewrite the Constitution and limit birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara tomorrow, they'll be considering arguments pushed by a handful of controversial legal scholars. @pemalevy.bsky.social and I unpacked their theories here:
motherjones.com
The nonsense case against birthright citizenship
Meet the conservative legal minds telling the Supreme Court to side with Trump.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
NEW: The government is holding Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Sacramento DACA-protected mother deported after her February green card interview, at the San Ysidro port of entry despite an approaching court-ordered deadline to bring her back to the United States, advocates and her legal team say.
motherjones.com
"Flagrant Violation": Judge orders return of mother deported despite DACA
"I followed the rules and trusted the process, and I just want to return to my family and rebuild my life."
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 24/03/2026
“I followed the rules and trusted the process, and I just want to return to my family and rebuild my life.” A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Sacramento mother who was detained at her green card interview and deported to Mexico within 24 hours.
motherjones.com
"Flagrant Violation": Judge orders return of mother deported despite DACA
"I followed the rules and trusted the process, and I just want to return to my family and rebuild my life."
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
"What the government’s really trying to do here is muddy the waters enough so that we won’t notice that it is rewriting the clear text of the Constitution itself." I talked to Cody Wofsy, ACLU lawyer in the SCOTUS birthright citizenship case, about Trump's push to upend the 14th Amendment.
motherjones.com
The case that could upend who gets to be an American is back at the Supreme Court
A long-settled Constitutional right faces a familiar legal assault.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
On February 18, Damaris Bello accompanied her mother to a green card interview in downtown Sacramento. By the next morning, Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez had been deported to Mexico, where she hasn't lived in 27 years and despite having valid DACA status.
motherjones.com
“I feel like I’m grieving my mother”
Damaris Bello’s mother attended a green card interview—and was deported less than 24 hours later.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
SCOOP: In a January letter to Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), DHS says 270 DACA recipients have been arrested from January to September 2025. In addition, 174 DACA applicants have been deported, according to ICE records. Those numbers differ from what was shared with Sen. Dick Durbin in February.
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Schuyler Mitchell @schuylermitchell.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
My dispatch from the Jersey suburbs: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
"How am I going to sell my house with this crap in my backyard?"
ICE wants to turn warehouses into detention centers. The suburbs are fighting back.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Immigrants are successfully challenging the Trump administration's mass detention policy and winning release from ICE custody—thanks to a centuries-old legal principle and constitutional right. My latest for @motherjones.com:
motherjones.com
24,403 lawsuits and counting: How habeas corpus became the front line of immigration defense
"We have to kick the door down."
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 25/02/2026
ICE took their papers—and won’t give them back
motherjones.com
ICE took their papers—and won’t give them back
Immigrants are being released from detention without documents proving their status.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Steven Tendo is a pastor and asylum seeker from Uganda who has survived unimaginable harm and persecution back home. He has been fighting his case for years and reporting to ICE regularly. Yesterday, he was taken into custody—days before a scheduled check-in—and moved from Vermont to New Hampshire.
motherjones.com
The (almost) unbelievable tortures of Steven Tendo
A snake pit. Severed fingers. COVID. A US immigration judge.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
“It’s not at all surprising that this is happening with these ICE [removal] officers being sent out to basically treat people terribly,” a one-time deputy chief counsel with the agency told me, anticipating more escalation of violence. My latest for @motherjones.com:
motherjones.com
Former members of ICE say recent violence is "by design"
"What has changed is there has been an encouragement from the top to be much more aggressive in enforcement."
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers,” Stephen Miller said in late 2023. But as I wrote here before Trump's re-election, researchers estimated that large-scale deportations would result in fewer jobs for Americans, not more.
motherjones.com
How Trump’s “mass deportation” plan would ruin America
It would be brutal, costly, and likely illegal.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
"We have voted. We have protested. We have been killed. We have been persecuted. We have been imprisoned. We have been tortured. We have done everything in our power to have a path to democracy—and we deserve that opportunity.”
motherjones.com
They fled Maduro and cheered his downfall. But they fear deportations, too.
"Until there is true justice in Venezuela and the economic means to return and rebuild the country, I don't believe Venezuelans can go back."
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
This year felt like a decade. I wanted to highlight some of the immigration reporting I've done over the past 12 months: In January, I wrote about the big money fueling the right's plot to end birthright citizenship.
motherjones.com
The big-money right-wing push to upend the Constitution—and kill birthright citizenship
“We’re in totally uncharted territory.”
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
All asylum decisions paused. Naturalization ceremonies canceled. Green card applications on hold. The Trump administration's blanket restrictions on legal immigration "don’t just disrupt paperwork, they derail lives.” My latest for @motherjones.com:
motherjones.com
Trump Is “basically shutting down the legal immigration system”
In response to the DC shooting, the administration is blocking pathways for rule-following and vulnerable immigrants.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Reporter @dfriedman.bsky.social asked the Pentagon about Pete Hegseth’s mentor. Then the threats began.
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I asked the Pentagon about Pete Hegseth's mentor. Then the threats started.
Journalism in the second Trump administration gets personal.
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Dan Friedman @dfriedman.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
“Asian wife sharing,” Pentagon press policy, and me: Journalism in the second Trump administration gets personal. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
I asked the Pentagon about Pete Hegseth's mentor. Then the threats started.
Journalism in the second Trump administration gets personal.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Much of the current immigration policymaking—if this rampant clampdown and unleashing of brutalizing force can be called that—seems to be now distilled to a simple modus operandi: we do it because we can. My reflection on a year of hell for immigrants and the Trump administration's casual cruelty:
motherjones.com
A year of hell for immigrants
In the first Trump administration, cruelty was the point. Now, it is the norm.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
After 20 years in the Navy, Buzz Grambo thought he'd spend his retirement playing video games and watching baseball. Instead, he patrols the streets of Baltimore to protect his neighbors from ICE. He even upgraded his scooter to a Segway that reaches 26 mph to keep up with the agents. My latest:
motherjones.com
Meet the veteran who chases ICE on a scooter
Clifford “Buzz” Grambo patrols the streets of Baltimore to keep his neighbors safe—and make federal agents uncomfortable.
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Madison Pauly @msjpauly.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
I’ve spent a lot of the last three years investigating the rise of anti-trans politics. Often, it came back to the controversy over trans women athletes. So I teamed up with @pablo.show to look into the leading figure on the issue: Riley Gaines. www.motherjones.com/politics/202... 1/
motherjones.com
How right-wing superstar Riley Gaines built an anti-trans empire
The swimmer tied a trans woman for fifth. The MAGA industrial complex took care of the rest.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 11/11/2025
Then they came for the Dreamers. Read @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social's heartbreaking look at the fear and chaos the Trump administration has wrought onto the lives of young people brought to the United States. "A real betrayal."
motherjones.com
Then they came for the Dreamers
Immigrants brought here as children were told they wouldn’t be deported. Now, they’re being targeted anyway.
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Noah Lanard @nlanard.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Some background on the absolute monarchy where the Trump administration is now paying to imprison people deported by ICE Story here: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Russ Vought's neighbors have strong feelings about him: "You asked what it is like living near such a man. Frankly, I'd rather not, but this is a wonderful neighborhood and, unlike Mr. Vought himself, we do not want our neighbors (even Mr. Vought) to be traumatized. So we just live with it."
motherjones.com
Russ Vought is Trump’s shutdown hero. His neighbors think his work is "abhorrent."
The people living near Trump's "grim reaper" of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
@isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social wrote what remains the definitive profile of Russel Vought last year. He's going to try and use the shut down to further his dream of an imperial Christian presidency and "traumatizing" federal workers www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
The bureaucrat who could make Trump's authoritarian dreams real
Russ Vought has a plan to take presidential power to new heights.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 30/09/2025
It's the last day of our September fundraiser! Please consider supporting our non-profit newsroom as we double down on fearless reporting—just as corporate media caves to Donald Trump. Your donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Thank you so much!
secure.motherjones.com
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
"It’s a blueprint for authoritarianism wrapped in barbed wire and dressed up as local revival.” ICE has its eyes on an idle Core Civic-owned prison in Walsenburg. Local officials have welcomed the potential influx of money and jobs. But residents are pushing back. My latest for @motherjones.com:
motherjones.com
"Godsend" or "concentration camp"? A lucrative ICE deal divides a Colorado town.
Trump has unleashed a gold rush among private prison companies taking on immigration detention. In cash-strapped cities, residents aren’t sure the money is worth it.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
In another loss in the courts for Trump, a federal judge just blocked the administration from revoking legal status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States. Judge Chen ruled that the termination of TPS exceeded the DHS Secretary’s authority and violated the law.
motherjones.com
Trump is making thousands of rule-abiding immigrants undocumented
Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Today, DHS announced the termination of the 2021 TPS designation for Venezuela, adding to the largest de-legalization push in modern US history: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Trump is making thousands of rule-abiding immigrants undocumented
Inside the largest delegalization campaign in modern US history.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 25/08/2025
“They’re going to kill me here,” Neri Alvarado thought. Alvarado was allegedly targeted by the Trump administration because of his tattoo of an autism awareness ribbon. Now, free from El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, Alvarado wants the world to know what they lived through.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 23/08/2025
Proud to announce that we’ve been nominated for six Online Journalism Awards, including General Excellence in Journalism! Here's a thread of some of our amazing stories that've been recognized this year. 🧵
awards.journalists.org
2025 Online Journalism Awards
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