Gaby Del Valle is a policy reporter at The Verge, where she covers privacy, the Department of Homeland Security, and the tech-right. “The most surveilled place in America,” her report on border technology in the Arizona borderlands, was a finalist for the 2023 Livingston Award for National Reporting. Have a tip? Contact her at gaby@theverge.com or via Signal at gabydvj.26
One federal judge certainly thinks so. District Judge Leo Sorokin struck down Trump’s H-1B fee increase, ruling that the “substance and application” of the policy “reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Reuters that the administration plans on appealing the ruling.
In a 135-page opinion, Judge John J. McConnell, of Rhode Island vacated four Trump administration policies severely restricting legal immigration, including a visa ban affecting nationals of 39 “high risk” countries.McConnell said that US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles legal immigration, implemented the policy “with pre textual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”
404 Media sued ICE to get documents related to its $2 million contract with the spyware company Paragon. In response, ICE sent back heavily redacted documents that provide little insight into the surveillance tool, which can be used to remotely hack people’s phones without their knowledge — and can even break into their encrypted messaging apps.
ICE has publicly hinted that they need the software to combat international drug cartels. But as with all border security tools, there’s always a chance it’ll be turned inward.
After teasing some kind of alien-related disclosure, the White House rolled out… a map of ICE arrests touting 3.1 million encounters. It’s the same great replacement talking points as always — they’re being imported, elites facilitated the “invasion,” etc. etc. — with some X-Files-esque music playing in the background. And the numbers aren’t even right. I can only imagine the glee with which some groyper vibecoded this.
