Andrea Morrell

As the federal government deputizes these federal, state, and local agencies to partake in ICE’s work, it remakes existing infrastructure and political relationships in ICE’s image: remakes them, that is, toward fascism.

The US’s sprawling carceral infrastructure — built up across the land over decades, and designed from the start to dehumanize — enables the capture and deportation of increasing numbers of people.

factories, and the streets of big cities and small towns. The extent to which this expanding federal police state relies on a vast network of jails, prisons, and local police to do its brutal work is often overlooked.

and arbitrarily detain whomever it wants. Created in 2003, ICE is now poised to become the highest-funded federal police force in US history. But in addition to — and in coordination with — ICE, officers from numerous other agencies are working to abduct people from farms,

ICE in Harlan County | Jack Norton and Judah Schept More and bigger detention infrastructure follows a strict logic of “if you build it, they will fill it.” Larger county jails not only enable the incarceration of more people by local police; they also...

Going back to this great piece by Jack Norton and Judah Schept in N + 1 on ICE expansion and US carceral architecture: www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/pol...
"ICE is of course a worthy target for resistance. It is a federal law enforcement agency that increasingly resembles a secret police force

ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment ICE halted payments in October, and the situation will persist for at least several more months

I’ve been writing Popular Information for 8 years, and this is one of the most important stories I’ve ever published. This is a humanitarian crisis that has gone unreported.

I'm excited to announce that I have been asked to join the Mamdani Transition Team to work on community safety issues. A New Era for NYC.

I have taught this book a number of times in my community college classes. It is gorgeous and clear!

SAVE 40% with code 6AS25 at nebraskapress.unl.edu

My book is out now with University of Nebraska Press!

Is your class reading my book, or chapters of it? Invite me to class!

Graph showing that the U.S. incarcerates women at a rate more than 3x any other founding NATO country

🚨NEW REPORT: The U.S. incarcerates women at a higher rate than almost any other country in the world

So much for the “land of the free” 🧵

I was there, heard the booing, did some booing myself. It was a beautiful moment.

Oh this is so good.

Let me know what you think after you read it!

Excerpt: Prison Town Andrea R. Morrell is an associate professor of anthropology at Guttman Community College, City University of New York. Her book Prison Town: Making the Carceral State in Elmira, New York (Nebraska, 2025) was published last month. In Prison Town Andrea R. Morrell illustrates the converging and shifting fault lines of race and class through a portrait of a prison town undergoing deindustrialization as it chooses the path of prison expansion.

Excerpt: PRISON TOWN by @andreamorrell.bsky.social‬

PRISON TOWN shows that despite the barriers aimed at separating incarcerated and free residents of Elmira, NY, the town’s two prisons extended beyond their walls, intricately connecting the two populations.

Thank you @craiggilmore.bsky.social 🥹🤓

this just arrived & looks incredible::

Thanks!

Thanks so much! I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Columbia Disciplines Students Who Occupied Campus Building Last Year Sanctions for the Hamilton Hall occupation include expulsions and suspensions.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms any university that would sacrifice its own students to the demands of an authoritarian government.

This is absolute cowardice & capitulation to an administration hellbent on the destruction of American higher education.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/n...

Protesters from Jewish Voice For Peace occupy Trump Tower to protest the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil. (via @btnewsroom.bsky.social)

The only scientific research fascists want pursued is work they control, that serves their interests, and reinforces their narratives. Everything else, they seek to destroy. Knowledge that doesn't serve them is a threat, just as the truth is a threat.

Release Mahmoud Khalil & Protect All Student Activists Write to Columbia University and the Department of Homeland Security! Over the past two days, we have seen a deliberate and dangerous escalation in the suppression of free speech targeting our moveme...

We will not allow this to become normal.
The Trump regime is trying to crush dissent beginning with those who speak out for Palestinian freedom. This is a threat to all who believe in justice. Tell Congress to protect students & demand Mahmoud’s release: bit.ly/freemahmoudnow

my grandfather died of covid in an upstate NY nursing home, alone

I miss him desperately. That damn virus should've never got into his living place, the place where he was supposed to be safe

Same with the hand sanitizer at the Columbia Presbyterian NICU— the smell follows me everywhere

NY’s Prison Guard Strike Has Roots in Decades of Racialized Deindustrialization The guards’ demand for impunity is about the maintenance of violence at the core of the system, says Andrea R. Morrell.

On the prison guards strike in NYS with Jarrod Shanahan truthout.org/articles/nys...

Some of what Trump is attempting to do is unlawful, but some of his shadier maneuvers will likely be supported by the courts. SCOTUS is on his side. I don't say this to discourage people, but as a reminder that the law cannot be our bottom line. Our obligation is to each other, not the law.