@pmingram.tucsonsentinel.com
Senior Reporter with the Tucson Sentinel covering politics, border & immigration issues, environment, etc. Overeducated coyote; swears in church; "probably rabid." Member NPPA, IRE, NAHJ, Arizona Press Club. “Resist, much love”
Tricia McLaughlin earned a reputation for extraordinary, shameless lying.
To mark the occasion of her departure, here are five of the most heinous lies McLaughlin told during her tenure at DHS.
My latest for @thebulwark.com:
www.thebulwark.com/p/tricia-mcl...
Oh but tell me again about welfare queens
I have solid plans for my own Moon base, with hookers and blackjack.
Now in Maine: ICE watchers say federal agents are coming to their house to threaten and intimidate them.
www.pressherald.com/2026/01/23/i...
I've been sent video from the end of the ICE raid at the Zipps on 32nd and Shea.
It shows protesters -- on the sidewalk, impeding no one -- getting drive-by maced by an ICE agent from a truck as it rolls away down the road.
Hard to see how such tactics are justifiable.
Amazingly, ICE just told me it couldn't figure out how to conduct a search for records about how it trained agents on how to use the facial recognition app Mobile Fortify.
How do you show you don’t understand U.S. immigration law?
Exhibit A: Saying “apply for refugee status” inside the U.S.
That’s not a thing.
If people are already here, the lawful tool is asylum or TPS. So reopen TPS, don’t invent procedures. #refugeestatus #noem
Happy New Year!
Here’s an excellent chance to support local journalism. If you donate before midnight tonight, your dollars are doubled by NewsMatch:
www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/repo...
As it happens, I have experience with high-level government demands to stop an explosive, accurate story from running, and I also have experience with 60 Minutes spiking a story I was involved in, so I have thoughts about the travesty at CBS. If you want some journalism anecdotes, here are a lot:
“Despite being the highest-profile supposedly “worst of the worst” deportees during the Trump administration, none of the CECOT deportees appear in the DHS “worst” arrests database” www.cato.org/blog/dhs-doe...
An Apache girl comes of age in a traditional ceremony.
The Post followed 11-year-old Lozen through her Sunrise Dance ceremony, possibly the last at Oak Flat in Arizona before the area is reopened to copper mining.
“.. The US lost an average of 4k private-sector jobs per month over the last 3 months (ADP data), the first 3-month decline since the 2020 recession.”
- Bilello
Weekly measles cases in the U.S. CDC data plotted by NBC News
The magnitude of the change over time is striking.
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
USCIS @USCIS X.com Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols. The protections and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission. 10:04 PM • 11/26/25 • 2.1K Views
It didn’t even take 6 hours.
Yikes.
(via @steverattner.bsky.social)
This is called “chain refoulment” and it’s illegal under both U.S. and international law. And the State Department and ICE know very well what Ghana is doing and simply don’t care.
“.. This is X in 2025: Potentially fake accounts crying at other potentially fake accounts that they aren’t real, all while refusing to acknowledge that they themselves aren’t who they say they are — a Russian nesting doll of bullshit.”
@cwarzel.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Senator Kelly’s remarks in the video are “a 100% accurate representation of what the law says."
“No American citizen should have to deal with this type of preposterous investigation.”
- Professor Eugene Fidell, leading military justice expert in Wall Street Journal
www.wsj.com/politics/mar...
This is heartbreakingly cruel and hypocritical. The same admin that has redefined refugee status to cover white South Africans is now going to drown thousands of refugees already approved for their status in red tape, potentially even seeking to strip some of their status and deport them.
Trump Admin planning a rule to re-decide whether *every* refugee who entered under Biden meets their criteria for a refugee. That’s 230,000 people! And no appeals!
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
New — I wrote about the myriad ways journalism’s moral rot manifests, and how our crumbling institutions have created the conditions for it to fester:
Kristi Noem sits on a horse wearing a cowboy hat. In the background is Mount Rushmore.
NEW: We’ve uncovered the first known example of taxpayer money flowing from DHS to businesses controlled by Kristi Noem’s allies and friends.
It’s part of a money trail that’s been shrouded in secrecy—and involves $220 million, a mysterious Delaware LLC & a horse named Gill.
The Trump administration makes it official:
The refugee cap for this year will be 7,500.
As we reported earlier this month, a bulk of the limited slots will be for white Afrikaners from South Africa and others facing “unjust discrimination.:
public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19752.pdf
Folks outside of Idaho, the Wilder raid is a big deal
This is an archived government report that found that “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists.”
It existed yesterday and is gone today.
“With federal officials changing up COVID-19 vaccination protocols, Pima County residents are facing hurdles as they try to get the new shot this year.
And Arizona health officials are warning that more changes may lie ahead as an influential CDC vaccine advisory panel is scheduled to meet.”
by my count, this makes seven confirmed no true bills from grand juries, plus three other felony cases dismissed (two gun cases, one assault of a federal officer), plus two cases downgraded from felony assault on federal officers to misdemeanor
The entire global economy is currently so over-leveraged on "AI" that if we don't find a credible use case for it, and fast, we're likely to tumble into an economic meltdown of 2008 proportions, so please, your corporate overlords beg you, use "AI" to write that fucking email
