Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest
Trump’s Latest Deportation Tactic: Targeting Immigrants With Minor Family Court Cases
The post Trump’s Latest Deportation Tactic: Targeting Immigrants With Minor Family Court Cases appeared first on ProPublica.
Should a person be deported because once, a decade and a half ago, they left their toddlers home alone for a half hour to buy them pajamas at Walmart? That’s what the Trump administration is arguing in a little-noticed federal appeals court case being decided in California, with sweeping implications for both the immigration and child welfare systems. A ruling is expected in the coming months. In 2010, Sotero Mendoza-Rivera, an undocumented farmworker who’d immigrated from Mexico 10 years earlier, made a fateful decision. He drove with his girlfriend, Angelica Ortega-Vasquez, to their local Walmart in McMinnville, Oregon, according to a police report. The store was seven minutes from their apartment. In addition to the pajamas, they purchased motor oil and brake fluid for their car. When they got back to the apartment, their 2-year-old son, who’d been in bed asleep when they’d left, had woken up and somehow gotten out the door. A bystander found him by the street outside the complex, baby bottle in hand, and called the police. The responding officer issued Mendoza-Rivera and Ortega-Vasquez a misdemeanor citation, which they resolved with a guilty plea, a fine and probation. The officer stated in his report that the little boy and his 3-year-old sister were healthy and clean, that the apartment was well-kept and stocked with food, and that a neighbor said that the mother was usually home with the kids. The Obama administration then opened deportation proceedings against Mendoza-Rivera, but did not keep him in detention. He appealed, and the case wound its way slowly through the legal system before hitting a backlog at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where some immigration matters from nearly a decade ago are still being decided. But in August, amid the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mendoza-Rivera and locked him up in another state. And the Department of Justice is now arguing that what he did in 2010 (the current case is against him only) is a crime deserving of immediate removal from the country. A DOJ lawyer argued before a panel of the 9th Circuit in Pasadena, California, last month that it doesn’t matter if no harm to children occurred, saying an immigrant parent should still get deported if their parenting decision involved a “substantial” deviation from a “normal” standard of care for kids. Child welfare officials and experts told ProPublica they are deeply concerned by the case, as well as several others like it that have been making their way through the courts and are now reaching a decisive point. “Imagine what a weapon it would be in ICE’s hands if child welfare is added to all the other areas where a conviction for the most minor offense means deportation,” said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, an advocacy group. Indeed, if Attorney General Pam Bondi’s team wins this case, thousands of immigrant moms and dads could be exposed to deportation for minor involvement in the juvenile court system, a new realm for President Donald Trump’s deportation regime. There aren’t exact numbers as to how many immigrants are accused of low-level parental negligence in juvenile courts. But as ProPublica has previously reported, millions of parents are accused of child neglect every year in this country, in many instances for reasons stemming from poverty like a lack of child care or food in the fridge, rather than physical or sexual abuse. Immigrant parents are no more likely than U.S.-born parents to abuse children. But undocumented parents may be more likely to be accused of certain low-level forms of neglect, according to legal aid attorneys. For one thing, due to their lack of legal status, they sometimes avoid interactions with officials at schools and hospitals, leading to potential allegations against them for neglecting their kids’ health or education. They also disproportionately work long and unpredictable hours, sometimes having their older children look after their younger ones, which in the U.S. can be deemed inadequate supervision. Differing cultural norms regarding how much hands-on supervision is necessary also play a role. There is no evidence yet that ICE has been actively looking for cases like these to identify parents to deport, according to interviews with over a dozen federal and state child welfare officials. But data on specific child welfare cases is reported from states to the federal government annually, via the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. (The data contain identifiers for children but not their names, though state agencies have those.) “The million or so reports in NCANDS would be a gold mine for Noem and Miller,” said Andy Barclay, a longtime child welfare statistician, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller. The first Trump administration did not seek to use such data for deportations, according to Jerry Milner, who was appointed to oversee the U.S. child welfare system as head of the federal Children’s Bureau from 2017 to 2021. “I never had any of those discussions around the data,” Milner told ProPublica. “I can’t guarantee that others did not, but they never made it to me.” But, he said, “things are different now.” “I would have strong concerns if any of the data are used for purposes other than what they were intended for,” Milner said. Medicaid data, for instance, is now reportedly being shared with the Department of Homeland Security, and those files can have more identifying information than NCANDS does on families with child welfare cases. DHS has also accessed Office of Refugee Resettlement data on migrant children, which can be used to identify young people’s locations and the (sometimes undocumented) adults taking care of them. Indeed, DHS and FBI agents have visited migrant kids at the homes of their caretakers, ostensibly to perform “welfare checks.” The White House declined to answer questions for this article. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. A Justice Department spokesperson in an email accused the Biden administration of letting Mendoza-Rivera’s case languish and said that “as part of this Administration’s commitment to making America safe again, the Attorney General will continue to defend efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens, especially those convicted of offenses which place children in situations likely to endanger their health or welfare.” The Trump administration’s view, according to the Justice Department’s filings in Mendoza-Rivera’s case, is that undocumented parents convicted of even the most minor forms of parental negligence should be ineligible for a type of legal relief called “cancellation of removal.” (Mendoza-Rivera sought this relief during his initial deportation proceedings, which is part of what spurred the current appeals case.) It’s an off-ramp from deportation that until now has been available to such moms and dads if they’ve been in the U.S. for 10 or more years, they have “good moral character,” and their deportation would cause extreme hardship to their U.S. citizen children. This would apply to Mendoza-Rivera and Ortega-Vasquez’s kids, who are American citizens. One of the main federal laws that the Trump administration has been relying on in its effort to deport millions of people comes from the Bill Clinton era. In 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act overhauled immigration enforcement in part by stating that noncitizens, even lawful permanent residents, must be expeditiously deported if they’ve been convicted of certain offenses, including aggravated felonies, crimes of “moral turpitude,” drug crimes or domestic violence, or a “crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment.” The motivation for including this sort of language, at the time, was clear. Amid the violent crime wave of the ’90s, the law’s co-author, Bob Dole, said on the Senate floor that the crimes he wanted to make deportable included “vicious acts of stalking, child abuse and sexual abuse.” Yet over the three decades since, societal norms around what constitutes bad — and even criminal — parenting have come to include all sorts of nonviolent and even harmless behavior. A range of parenting practices that were considered normal for most of the 20th century are now investigated and prosecuted as child maltreatment in many states; letting your kids play at the park and walk home alone could be “neglect,” especially if you’re poor and a person of color. So could leaving them in their car seats briefly with the windows cracked and the car alarm on while you run into a store to buy diapers, or failing to properly secure their bedroom windows at night. Some rulings by other courts have blocked deportations for people with these sorts of alleged parenting lapses, while the federal Board of Immigration Appeals has offered changing guidance on the issue. Immigration advocates fear that the current appeals court proceeding, which groups together several similar cases including Mendoza-Rivera’s, could become hugely influential across the legal system — and with much higher stakes now given the present administration’s enforcement focus. Although the Obama and Biden administrations took similar positions to the Trump administration on this point, in general they didn’t pursue deportations as aggressively. “There was some discretion being exercised,” said David Zimmer, Mendoza-Rivera’s appellate attorney. “So it was at least possible, in a given case, that they might have decided not to pursue removal if the parent hadn’t done anything meaningfully wrong.” That’s no longer the case in a regime that is seeking any reason to expel an immigrant, Zimmer said. This case could be heard by the full 9th Circuit next and then head to the U.S. Supreme Court, if the justices choose to take it up. Much of the debate rests on the question of whether it matters if immigrant parents meant to harm their children, given that intention is part of the definition of most crimes. If the parent both didn’t harm and wasn’t aware they might harm their child, advocates argue, it shouldn’t qualify as a “crime” worthy of deportation. The Oregon misdemeanor negligence statute under which Mendoza-Rivera was convicted doesn’t require proving any intent to harm a child, any actual harm to a child or even exposure of a child to any harm, acknowledged Justice Department lawyer Imran Zaidi at a 9th Circuit hearing in January. But negligence is still a “culpable mental state” deserving of deportation, he said, because it is “incompatible with a proper regard for consequences.” Jed Rakoff, a New York federal district judge serving as a visiting member of the 9th Circuit panel, responded that he’s been hearing this argument since “my first year of torts class.” Negligence, he said, is by definition unconscious; otherwise it would be “recklessness,” which is a different, more serious act involving consciously disregarding potential harm. In the context of these family court cases, it is often just conduct that’s a small deviation from some middle-class “reasonable person’s” — a neighbor’s, a caseworker’s — subjective opinion of what “good” parenting looks like. “I’m talking about the term ‘crime’: What did Congress mean by that single word?” Rakoff said, referring to the 1996 law’s description of a “crime” of “child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment.” Lawmakers clearly meant something more serious than briefly leaving kids unattended, Rakoff continued. After all, the consequence they were prescribing — deportation — was so much more severe than any other possible consequence for any similar misdemeanor. Zaidi, the Justice Department lawyer, responded that if many state laws say that something is a crime of child neglect, then it is a crime of child neglect, and Congress said that a crime of child neglect is deportable. The two judges other than Rakoff seemed more open to this argument. The fundamental question that the appeals court is considering, then, is whether these essentially harmless parental “crimes” alleged by increasingly hands-on local child welfare authorities are the same category of crime that the U.S. Congress was talking about when it passed a law on immigrants committing violent crime, domestic violence and terrorism. Josh Gupta-Kagan, founder and director of the Columbia Law School Family Defense Clinic, said that it appears Mendoza-Rivera and Ortega-Vasquez “were not a safety threat to their children, let alone to anyone else,” even if they showed bad judgment by leaving toddlers alone for a half hour. So it is “fair to question,” he said, how pursuing either of their deportations serves the Trump administration’s “stated interest in public safety.” McMinnville, Oregon, where Mendoza-Rivera and Ortega-Vasquez bought those pajamas at Walmart, is where they’ve lived for nearly a quarter century and where they had their two children, who are now teenagers. It’s also where Mendoza-Rivera spent all those years picking and packaging produce. But he has now been locked up for months in a detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and his family has in turn lost much of its income. His kids are without him. And if the Trump administration gets to use a law against him that was intended to protect children, they will lose their dad to a foreign country for good. The post Trump’s Latest Deportation Tactic: Targeting Immigrants With Minor Family Court Cases appeared first on ProPublica.
U.S. Forest Service Stops Issuing Firefighter Pants That Contain PFAS, Following ProPublica’s Reporting
The post U.S. Forest Service Stops Issuing Firefighter Pants That Contain PFAS, Following ProPublica’s Reporting appeared first on ProPublica.
Following a ProPublica article revealing that the U.S. Forest Service had for years issued clothing to wildland firefighters that it knew contained potentially dangerous “forever chemicals,” the agency has stopped distributing those garments. It also says that it will instruct its equipment manufacturers to avoid using PFAS in the future. This month, ProPublica reported that until at least 2023 one of the Forest Service’s suppliers, TenCate, used finishing products made with a PFAS compound on a Kevlar-blend pant fabric. According to emails from the supplier, the finishes were used to repel gasoline and water. Despite knowing about the use of PFAS, officials with the Forest Service had not previously informed wildland firefighters about it. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have long been used in protective gear to repel substances like fuels. But many municipal fire departments have moved away from the chemicals as researchers revealed more about health risks associated with them. Firefighters in multiple states have filed class-action lawsuits against manufacturers alleging they were harmed by PFAS in the gear they wore. Research specific to wildland firefighters has lagged, and wildland firefighting agencies have been slower to publicly address the issue. On Feb. 11, one day after ProPublica published its article, a Forest Service cache manager — an official who oversees a gear repository — wrote in an email that he asked colleagues to distribute widely, “I received notice from the Washington Office Cache Management staff late last night that we are to place a hold on issuing” the pants. But the agency didn’t immediately clarify further. A wildland firefighter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their employment said last week that incident management teams had been asking the agency for advice about the pants. “As of right now, our logistics folks haven’t gotten any guidance at all from higher-ups,” the firefighter said. On Friday, the Forest Service issued a statement to ProPublica: “PFAS in protective gear is a complex, industry-wide issue and any suggestion that the agency has sought to obscure information does not reflect the extensive work to expand testing and improve long-term occupational health protections for firefighters. Firefighter pants manufactured with PFAS water repellent fabric treatments have been removed from available stock in the National Interagency Support Caches.” TenCate has not responded to repeated inquiries, but in an email reviewed by ProPublica, it told the Forest Service that a PFAS-free finish was available in January 2023. On Friday, the Forest Service sent an email to its staff saying that its supplier had switched to a PFAS-free finish that year. In the same email, the Forest Service wrote that anyone with the older pants “should discontinue use and replace” them. The agency also said that it was updating its requirements “to specify that fabric treatments and fabrics will not contain PFAS.” Read More Firefighters Wore Gear Containing “Forever Chemicals.” The Forest Service Knew and Stayed Silent for Years. Fire departments typically adhere to safety standards set by the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit that gathers input from expert committees including firefighters and representatives from companies that supply them with equipment. While the association is not a certifying body, its standards are used by government agencies including the Forest Service. Last year, an NFPA technical committee updated its standards for municipal firefighters to restrict levels of certain PFAS chemicals in protective gear. But the organization has not yet made a parallel update to its standard for wildland firefighters. Rick Swan, an NFPA committee member, said the lag reflects a long and deliberative process for developing standards, but he added that a restriction on PFAS chemicals in wildland gear is all but inevitable. “I think it’s a no-brainer,” Swan said. In an email, a spokesperson for the NFPA wrote that the committee overseeing the wildland firefighting standard “will likely consider this issue again.” Experts can’t say for certain what risks PFAS in gear pose to the health of wildland firefighters and agree more research is needed. Jeff Burgess, a professor and researcher at the University of Arizona who is leading a series of long-term studies of firefighter health, said smoke inhalation and the accumulation of soot on gear are primary ways wildland firefighters encounter carcinogens. Understanding of wildland firefighters’ exposures to PFAS has lagged behind understanding of exposure in municipal fire departments. Historically, researchers have had less access to wildland crews, and in recent years they have focused on studying risks related to smoke. The post U.S. Forest Service Stops Issuing Firefighter Pants That Contain PFAS, Following ProPublica’s Reporting appeared first on ProPublica.
The post The Victims Who Fought Back appeared first on ProPublica.
Lisa Rae Moss — serving a life sentence for her involvement in the 1990 murder of her husband, Mike Moss — sat in the witness box in a courtroom in Seminole, Oklahoma, on a frigid January morning in 2025, her hands knotted in her lap. Moss, who is 60, was asked to recount what she endured in her 20s, during her marriage to a volatile man a dozen years her senior. Her long silver hair and prison-issued glasses accentuated the years between her and the younger self she was describing. “Did Mike ever use a gun on you in the bedroom?” her lawyer, Colleen McCarty, asked. “He had a gun that usually lay on top of the chest of drawers at night,” Moss said quietly. She explained that her husband would place it there before they went to bed. “There were a number of occasions where he took the gun — and I wasn’t in the mood to have sex and I didn’t want to have sex — and he would move the gun up and down my inner thigh and then lay it on the pillow next to the bed.” She stopped to correct herself: “Next to my head, I’m sorry.” Under her lawyer’s questioning, Moss described a pattern of abuse that began six months after their wedding, when her husband grabbed her by the throat and threw her against the fireplace. She recalled how, during an argument, he tried to shove a tennis ball into her mouth. How she was knocked unconscious when he once slammed her head against their refrigerator so hard that it left a dent. How he repeatedly punched her in the stomach when she was pregnant with their son. How he raped her multiple times, once with a curling iron — an assault that caused lasting injuries. “I bled every day for five years until I finally had a hysterectomy,” she said. When her 4-year-old daughter from a previous marriage complained that Mike had done something to make her bottom hurt, Moss feared he was sexually abusing her little girl, too. “Were you afraid for your life?” McCarty said. Moss nodded. “Absolutely.” Her testimony put her at the center of an extraordinary legal experiment unfolding in Oklahoma, where a new state law, the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, passed in 2024, offers prisoners like her a chance at freedom. Under the law, a domestic-violence victim who is serving time can petition for a reduced sentence, which the law mandates if a judge decides that the abuse she endured was a “substantial contributing factor” to her crime. Moss was the first to get her day in court and test whether the law could deliver on its promise. Unlike most other defendants in cases the statute was intended to remedy, Moss did not carry out the violence herself. She was not present when her older brother, Richard Wright, shot her husband. But at her 1990 trial, prosecutors argued that she had solicited and helped orchestrate the killing, introducing testimony that she once asked an acquaintance to “get rid of” her husband in exchange for an initial payment of $500. She was convicted of first-degree murder and lesser charges and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. (Her brother is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.) <img decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman wearing a blue blouse sits on a wooden bench encircled by foliage and pink flowers." class="wp-image-68287" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg 1875w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wright.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Lisa Wright, formerly Lisa Moss, was released from prison last year under the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act. She had been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times The question before the court that morning in Seminole was not one of guilt or innocence; it was whether Moss’ punishment failed to account for the role that years of physical and sexual abuse played in her crime. McCarty called Margaret Black, a licensed counselor specializing in domestic violence, to the stand. Black, who had evaluated Moss, explained that each time Moss tried to leave her husband, the violence escalated. Black described a lethality assessment she had conducted to measure the risk Moss faced of being killed or seriously injured. “Eighteen and above is what’s called extreme danger,” Black said. In Moss’ case, her review of the evidence led her to assign a score of 24. “This was a very, very dangerous situation for Lisa and her children.” That afternoon, District Judge C. Steven Kessinger announced that he had reached a decision. “The court finds that the defendant has provided clear and convincing evidence that she was a survivor of domestic violence, having endured physical, sexual and psychological abuse,” he told the crowded courtroom. “The court further finds that such violence and abuse was a substantial contributing factor in causing the defendant to commit the offenses for which she is presently incarcerated.” Under the statute, this finding made her eligible for a sentence of 30 years or fewer — and because she had already served more than that, the judge ordered her to be freed that day. The exultation that broke out inside the courtroom as Moss embraced her grown daughter, who was 5 when Moss was incarcerated, soon reached Mabel Bassett Correctional Center. The prison, a low sprawl of concrete and razor wire that sits on the outskirts of the small town McLoud, was where Moss had spent virtually all her adult life. One of Moss’ oldest friends there, April Wilkens, was bent over the tablet that connected her with the outside world when she received a text message with the news of the judge’s ruling. She leaped off her bunk and ran out of her cell, shouting, “Lisa’s going home!” The prison’s day room erupted at the news of Moss’ release. The outpouring of joy was about more than one woman’s walking free. Moss’ lawyer, McCarty, had identified dozens of other prisoners at Mabel Bassett, including Wilkens, who she believed would qualify for relief under the new law, and the hearing suggested they had reason to hope. “The feeling was electric — pure elation,” Wilkens told me. “Our survivor exodus had begun.” When Wilkens returned to her tablet, she saw a text from McCarty: “You’re next!” Wilkens first met McCarty when the lawyer came to visit her at Mabel Bassett, Oklahoma’s largest women’s prison, in the summer of 2022. Wilkens was serving a life sentence for shooting and killing her ex-fiancé after years of abuse and stalking and indifference from the police. She had already spent 24 years behind bars. McCarty had just founded the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, and in Wilkens’ case, she saw an opportunity to compel the justice system to do what it rarely did: revisit harsh punishments that the criminal-justice system had long treated as final. For years, only a handful of states had tried to grapple with cases like Moss’ and Wilkens’, and even then, survivors faced steep barriers to having their sentences reconsidered. That began to change in 2019, when New York passed a law empowering judges to reduce sentences when they found that abuse had been a “significant contributing factor” to a defendant’s crime. Accompanying McCarty that day was Leslie Briggs, another lawyer who would later become the center’s legal director. Briggs had learned of Wilkens’ case from Wilkens’ niece, who had collected boxes and boxes of records related to her aunt’s conviction. The two lawyers had reviewed the transcripts of the long-forgotten case and saw Wilkens’ prosecution as a stark example of a justice system that often fails to stop abusers but proves swift to punish those who fight back. The case had particular resonance for McCarty. One of her earliest memories was of her teenage sister sitting at the kitchen table one morning with a bruised eye and split lip, having been thrown down a flight of stairs by a boyfriend. McCarty’s mother had escaped an abusive relationship only to be victimized again by a different partner before McCarty graduated from high school. The lawyers wanted to pass legislation modeled on New York’s law, the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. They thought that calling attention to Wilkens’ case, in which the abuse was both extensive and thoroughly documented, might be the way to do it. But first McCarty needed a sense of how many women were imprisoned at Mabel Bassett for crimes tied to their own abuse — a phenomenon that sentencing-reform advocates call criminalized survivorship. Though there was no system to identify these women within the prison, Wilkens came up with a solution: She wrote an informal questionnaire aimed at survivors of domestic violence. A friend of hers inside the penitentiary managed to type up and print hundreds of copies, and that September, Wilkens and her contacts in other parts of the prison began circulating them. (“It certainly helps to have friends in low places,” Wilkens told me.) The questionnaire asked each respondent to provide the length of her sentence, the county of her conviction and an account of her crime, and to mail the responses to Appleseed’s office in Tulsa. One hundred and fifty-six questionnaires arrived over the course of several weeks in the fall of 2022. Each envelope held a harrowing narrative, some in polite, looping script, some in block letters. The respondents were Black and white, Native American and Hispanic, young and old, from big cities and small towns. “I kept begging for a divorce, and he’d threaten to kill my children.” “His wife before me had her nose broken twice.” “Whenever I didn’t want to have sex with him, he would twist my wrists as far as he could until I gave in to him.” Another woman recounted the feeling of liberation she felt behind bars, where her partner could no longer hurt her: “I was in a very abusive, sick relationship,” she wrote. “I am FREE now.” A few were vague about their crimes. Others were blunt: “One night just snapped, shot & killed husband.” Oklahoma consistently ranks among the states with the highest rates of domestic violence; it also has one of the highest rates of female imprisonment. McCarty believed the two were connected, and the surveys seemed to bear that out. Some respondents claimed to have participated in robberies or other crimes under the threat of violence from their abusers. More had been convicted under Oklahoma’s “failure to protect” law, punished for not doing enough to shield their children from the brutality of their partners, often while enduring that violence themselves. But the women serving the longest sentences were typically those who had struck back at their abusers. McCarty began talking to lawmakers about these findings, and in 2023, an early version of a domestic violence survivors’ bill was introduced. <img decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman wearing a pantsuit sits on a red velvet chair with two books perched on her lap." class="wp-image-68310" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg 1875w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-mccarty.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> The lawyer Colleen McCarty advocated for the passage of the Survivors’ Act. She saw it as a corrective to a justice system that punishes domestic-violence survivors who fight back. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times Nothing might seem to have longer odds in deep-red Oklahoma than an effort to lessen punishments for violent crimes, but overcrowded prisons and rising costs were already forcing a rethinking of harsh, decades-old sentencing laws. In 2016, voters approved a landmark ballot initiative reducing penalties for certain low-level drug and property crimes; three years later, lawmakers made those changes retroactive, leading to one of the largest single-day prisoner releases in American history. McCarty hoped to build on that momentum. Wilkens advocated for the bill from prison, writing an opinion piece in The Oklahoman and telling her story on a local TV-news program, and she became the focus of a social media campaign, #FreeAprilWilkens. Not everyone in Oklahoma supported the proposed law for domestic-abuse survivors. Prosecutors warned that the statute encouraged exaggerated or bad-faith claims that would be difficult to disprove years after the fact. The law, they argued, opened a Pandora’s box — one in which potentially anyone who had suffered violence could seek a lesser punishment. Arguing that the bill took too broad a view of who should be eligible for resentencing, the Tulsa County district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, wrote in a 2024 email to a lawmaker that the legislation “presents a risk to public safety.” He went on to cite an infamous case, which he had prosecuted, to make his point: “The Bever brothers, who slaughtered their family in Broken Arrow, would be eligible for sentence modification under this bill in its present form.” The case, from 2015, fell well outside the law’s scope. Robert and Michael Bever had killed their parents, who a surviving sister testified were not physically abusive, and three younger siblings. The proposed legislation required that any claims of abuse be corroborated with some kind of documentary evidence — evidence that case did not have. Kunzweiler had given voice to a broader concern among prosecutors: that undeserving and dangerous defendants could exploit the law to seek reduced sentences. Pushback from elected district attorneys led to changes in the bill; cases involving death sentences were excluded. It would take two legislative sessions and a sustained effort by a bipartisan coalition to pass a version lawmakers could agree on. The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act was signed into law in May 2024. But its passage did not quiet criticism from the state’s district attorneys. They would play a central role in how the law was applied, because they had the authority to oppose any applications they believed were unfounded. Prosecutors could challenge a survivor’s account of abuse or argue that it played no meaningful role in the crime. A judge would make the final determination, but the law’s promise of sentence reduction would depend, in part, on the discretion of prosecutors. New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act offered a glimpse of the challenges that lay ahead in Oklahoma. The act had produced sharply different results from county to county. In a 2025 article for The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Alexandra Harrington, a law professor at the University at Buffalo, found that whether a defendant had her sentence reduced or not largely depended on the local district attorney. When prosecutors supported an application for resentencing, judges frequently granted relief. When prosecutors opposed an application, only a fraction succeeded. Opposition from district attorneys was most common when the crime was seen as too egregious; or when the defendant had a criminal history or a substance abuse problem, or was perceived as aggressive or otherwise viewed as unsympathetic; or when the applicant had previously received a plea deal in the case. “In some jurisdictions, the D.A.’s office has served almost entirely to obstruct the path to relief,” Harrington wrote. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?w=752" alt="A man wearing a suit and a striped tie standing in a library of legal books." class="wp-image-68311" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg 2250w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-kunzweiler.jpg?resize=2000,2667 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Tulsa County’s district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, opposed Wilkens’ application for resentencing. He and other Oklahoma prosecutors have expressed concern that bad-faith applicants can exploit the Survivors’ Act. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times McCarty was clear-eyed when we first spoke last spring about the challenges ahead. Many of the resentencing cases she was working on — including Wilkens’ — were in Tulsa, where Kunzweiler was the top prosecutor, and they had very different visions of what justice looked like. McCarty, animated and intense, with large brown eyes that widened as she talked, spoke passionately about the possibility of second chances for those the system had failed. Kunzweiler, a phlegmatic, gray-haired career prosecutor a generation older, prized the finality of a jury verdict — and the punishment that went with it. Signaling just how seriously he took Wilkens’ request for resentencing, he had chosen to represent the state along with one of his best prosecutors, and he had repeatedly asked for more time to prepare. After numerous delays, there was still no hearing set, and McCarty was growing impatient. “We wrote this law with April in mind,” she said. Wilkens had filed her application for resentencing on Aug. 29, 2024 — the day the law took effect — and she had expected to lead the way. But Moss was the first to receive a hearing, and in the wake of her release, four other women at Mabel Bassett were given court dates, the first of which was in July 2025. Wilkens would have to wait. Wilkens grew up in the 1970s and early ’80s in Kellyville, a no-stoplight town, where her father’s moodiness and brute discipline dominated the household. Wilkens says he whipped her with a belt or switch for minor infractions and once punched her square in the mouth. Wilkens cultivated a sunny, high-energy persona: cheerleader, honor student, the kind of girl untouched by turmoil. She propelled herself out of Kellyville by excelling academically, graduating from high school two years early. She attended Oklahoma State University and completed a graduate program in prosthetics at Northwestern University’s medical school in Chicago. An early marriage to her college sweetheart produced a little boy, Hunter, but ended after four years. In 1995, when she was 25, she was newly divorced, running her own prosthetics business in Tulsa and ready for a new chapter. She began dating again. Tall and willowy, with long chestnut hair and a bright smile, she drew attention. That fall, she met Terry Carlton, who was 12 years older and the son of a prominent auto dealer. Handsome and magnetic, with an impulsive streak, he flew them first class to Dallas and hired a chauffeured limousine for their first date. He proposed two months later, on Christmas Eve, when he slipped a $25,000 engagement ring onto her finger. She did not yet know that he had both a drug problem and a history of violence with women. Two of his previous romantic partners had gone to the police to report abuse; one of them, citing repeated chokings and “severe emotional trauma,” secured a protective order against him. Four months into Wilkens’ engagement to Carlton, he grabbed her by the throat during an argument. Afterward, he swore to her that he would never hurt her again. But over the next two years, during their on-again-off-again relationship, Wilkens called 911 at least 10 times to plead for help. She was granted three emergency protective orders and sought medical attention for injuries sustained during a rape and multiple beatings. Police reports, medical records and trial testimony document what Wilkens endured — sometimes in full view of witnesses. A neighbor once watched as Carlton chased her down the driveway, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her, screaming, back toward her house. The same neighbor also saw him, on another occasion, pounding on Wilkens’ back door with what looked like a metal pipe. A doctor who lived across the street from Carlton discovered Wilkens in her car, bleeding, after Carlton smashed her driver-side window and grabbed her keys so she couldn’t leave. Yet Carlton — whose family wielded influence in Tulsa — seemed untouchable. “When the police were called, his timing was impeccable,” a neighbor, Glenda McCarley, testified at Wilkens’ 1999 trial. “He could be in his car and gone just as they rounded the corner.” Officers responded but rarely intervened. Their attitude toward Wilkens was typified by one officer whom McCarley remembered as “put out, impatient, in a hurry.” Carlton, whose sports car was often seen idling outside Wilkens’ house at odd hours of the night, was arrested only once, after the police found him at her home in February 1998, with a loaded 9-millimeter pistol and a stun gun. He faced no meaningful consequences: Rather than pursue assault or stalking charges — both felonies — the authorities cited him for a misdemeanor weapons violation. When he skipped his court date, a warrant was issued for his arrest, but the Tulsa police never enforced it. His relentless harassment left Wilkens in a fragile state of mind; twice that spring, she was involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals. Her unraveling was further accelerated by a growing dependence on drugs. She would later testify that Carlton had introduced her first to cocaine, then to meth, taken intravenously. As his erratic behavior intensified, so did her drug abuse. By the time she appeared on his doorstep at around 3 a.m. on April 28 — on the day that she killed him — she was a shadow of the vibrant young woman she was when they first met. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman with long brown hair sits on a wooden table while wearing an all-orange outfit in front of a white, painted cinder block wall." class="wp-image-68312" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg 1875w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-wilkens-seated.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> April Wilkens’ case was the impetus for the passage of the Survivors’ Act. Tulsa prosecutors have advocated to keep her in prison. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times In less than three years, she had lost everything: her business, which went under as her focus drifted; her family and friends, from whom Carlton kept her isolated; and her son, now in her ex-husband’s sole custody. She would later testify that she went to Carlton’s house in the middle of the night with a singular, desperate purpose: to beg him to leave her alone for good. Facing him directly, she would later say, seemed like the only way she could reclaim some measure of control. But the encounter quickly turned violent. She said that after she refused to have sex with him, he raped her and threatened to kill her. Eventually, she managed to grab his .22 handgun, and when he came toward her, enraged, she fired. She kept firing — eight shots in all. After undergoing questioning and a sexual-assault exam that documented vaginal tearing, Wilkens was jailed and charged with first-degree murder. “When in trouble, cry rape,” District Attorney Tim Harris said in closing arguments at her 1999 trial, in which prosecutors cast her as a manipulative, mentally unstable, meth-crazed fabulist who went to Carlton’s home looking for drugs and revenge. Though Wilkens’ attorney argued that she acted in self-defense because she feared for her life, Harris suggested that she and Carlton had a mutually destructive relationship, in which Wilkens — who weighed 107 pounds at the time of the murder — met Carlton’s abuse with her own aggression. “There is no doubt he physically abused her,” Harris told the jury. “But is there not some doubt that she also abused him? He abused her, she abused him, I file a protective order, I cry rape, now I’m back, let’s get high, I hate you, I love you, you owe me money. Man, what a dysfunctional life.” Harris blamed her for resorting to violence: “If April Wilkens had really been serious about her fear of Terry Carlton, she could have allowed the system to come to her aid.” Wilkens was found guilty and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="660" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman with long brown hair is escorted by a female police officer with a videographer recording their movement in the background." class="wp-image-68315" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg 2507w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=300,263 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=768,674 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=1024,899 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=1536,1348 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=2048,1797 2048w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=863,757 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=422,370 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=552,484 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=558,490 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=527,462 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=752,660 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=1149,1008 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=1823,1600 1823w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=400,351 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=800,702 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=1200,1053 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=1600,1404 1600w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-ok-justice-wilkins-archive.jpg?resize=2000,1755 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Wilkens being brought to the Tulsa Police Department in 1998, for questioning in the killing of her former fiancé Mike Simons/Tulsa World Harris was succeeded 16 years later, in 2015, by Kunzweiler, who had been one of his top lieutenants. As district attorney, Kunzweiler took the same hard line on Wilkens’ case, repeatedly opposing her bids for parole. In 2022, the district attorney’s office stated in a letter to the parole board that her sentence reflected the gravity of her crime and that she should remain in prison. “She presents a risk to the safety of the public,” the letter read. Wilkens was denied parole once again. McCarty emphasized this to lawmakers when she fought for passage of the Survivors’ Act; without a new law, Wilkens faced the prospect of remaining locked up for the rest of her life. In June, after nearly a year of delays, a Tulsa judge scheduled Wilkens’ resentencing hearing for September. She, and the three other women who would have their hearings first, were part of the loose-knit group at Mabel Bassett that Wilkens called the “survivor sisterhood.” Erica Harrison, the unofficial den mother to the young women in her housing unit, was serving a 20-year sentence for having shot and killed a family friend after he raped her in 2013. Norma Jane Lumpkin, whose long hair hung past her waist, was four decades into a life sentence for her role in the 1981 bludgeoning death of her husband. Tyesha Long, who is 27 — the youngest of the group and a former rodeo competitor in barrel racing — had a 27-year sentence for shooting her abusive on-again-off-again boyfriend to death in 2020. “Jane and I have both been locked up longer than Tyesha has been alive,” Wilkens told me. Aside from minor driving infractions, none of the women had been in trouble with the law before their arrests, and Wilkens saw their crimes, like hers, as aberrations, acts she believed were inseparable from the abuse each woman had endured. Before they were led out of Mabel Bassett in handcuffs and leg irons, to face their resentencing hearings in the county courts where they were convicted, Wilkens tried to prepare them. She quoted her favorite passage from Ecclesiastes, reminding them that there is power in numbers. She urged them to listen carefully to each question when they were on the stand and to take a breath before responding. And she advised them on how to prepare for their processing photos. Don’t grimace, she told them. Your mug shot is going to be all over the local news. Moss, the only woman who had been freed under the Survivors’ Act, attended the hearings that summer. She deliberately positioned herself where she could be seen by whichever woman from Mabel Bassett was sitting at the defense table, and she met the defendant’s gaze, offering reassurance that she was there and that she remembered exactly what this moment felt like. She made a point of looking her best, knowing that she embodied the promise of the freedom that might lie ahead. Wearing bright colors and simple but elegant jewelry, she looked polished, with her hair blown out, her nails lacquered, her lipstick fresh. After 35 years behind bars, she was not going to keep her head down. “Freedom looks good on her,” Wilkens later told me. But it soon became clear that not everyone’s resentencing hearing would unfold the way Moss’ did in Seminole, under a different district attorney. Harrison, the first in the sisterhood to go before a judge that summer, testified in a Tulsa court in July. “I was going through a terrible divorce,” Harrison said, recalling a period when she was on her own with three children and a totaled car. “I had just left the domestic-violence shelter and moved into a little, small, no-name apartment.” Harrison had a drink with a family friend, Calvin Anderson, and passed out. She woke to find him on top of her, and after he sodomized her, she managed to fight him off. In the hours that followed, he loitered around her apartment complex, and when her eventual calls to 911 did not bring a timely response, she shot him in the parking lot. Prosecutors challenged her account, emphasizing that elements of her story had changed since she was first questioned by the police in 2013; they capitalized on the fact that she did not call 911 right after the assault, suggesting the danger she claimed to feel afterward was invented. “At what point did he magically become a threat?” Assistant District Attorney Meghan Hilborn asked. The judge in Harrison’s case said she would hand down a ruling later that summer. The oldest of the group, Lumpkin, appeared in court the following week. Her crime — committed with a neighbor who was also charged in connection with the killing — had been particularly gruesome. Her husband was beaten to death, his body later found in the trunk of her car. Yet it did not seem inconceivable that she might be granted some measure of leniency, because she was 75 and had been incarcerated for the past 44 years. But as Lumpkin sat at the defense table, the victim’s family delivered searing statements that undercut her long-standing claims of abuse, portraying her instead as a calculating, coldblooded killer. Lumpkin’s daughter, Alisha Keeney, who was 12 when her father was bludgeoned to death, told the court her mother had not served enough time for the brutal slaying. “That’s the only resentencing she deserves, is jail forever,” Keeney said. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman with very long brown hair reaching the ground wearing an all-orange outfit sits on a black metal chair in front of a white, painted cinder block wall." class="wp-image-68318" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg 1875w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-lumpkin.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Norma Jane Lumpkin is serving a life sentence in connection with the murder of her husband, who she says abused her. She has been behind bars since 1981. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times Again, no immediate ruling came down from the bench. Eleven days later, Tyesha Long settled into the witness box in an Oklahoma City courtroom and recounted how a local businessman named Ray Brown began pursuing her when she was 17. Brown, who was in his early 50s, had been the subject of protective orders obtained by multiple women. The first time he was violent with her, she testified, he sucker-punched her in the mouth. He went on to stalk her, choke her, threaten her life and push her down a flight of stairs, causing her to have a miscarriage, she said. After he chased her in his car and rammed her vehicle, she received a protective order against him. But their relationship never completely ended. During one heated argument, she said, he reached for her throat — and Long, who said Brown had strangled her before, thought she was going to die. “I pulled out my gun and I shot him,” she testified. The problem Long faced at her trial, when she argued that she acted in self-defense, was that she shot Brown in the back. This was at odds with how she remembered it, with Brown advancing toward her. Experts on domestic violence say that cases in which survivors kill their abusers often look different from typical self-defense cases, which hinge on an obvious, imminent danger, like a drawn weapon. For a survivor who has been repeatedly and continuously terrorized, the perception of being in mortal danger does not come into focus in a single, dramatic moment. She may be moved to fight back not when being attacked but in the lull between violent episodes, when the abuser is momentarily disengaged. To a jury, it may be hard to see the imminent threat in such a scenario — as when Brown turned and walked away from Long. That gap, between how the law traditionally understands self-defense and how domestic-violence victims experience danger, is one the Survivors’ Act sought to address. Violence within intimate relationships is understood to be part of what researchers call “coercive control”: a sustained pattern of domination enforced through intimidation, threats, surveillance and social isolation. Research has shown that living under such conditions can alter threat perception and decision-making, narrowing a survivor’s perceived options when danger feels imminent. To a victim who has learned that such a moment of calm could be the prelude to the next round of violence, it may feel like her last opportunity to act before she is assaulted again. Long had another challenge, which was that her descriptions of Brown’s abuse had varied over her police interview, her trial and now the hearing. Trauma “impacts the way our brain stores memory,” the defense’s expert witness Angela Beatty, a social worker and vice president at YWCA Oklahoma City whose work focuses on survivors of domestic violence, explained at the hearing. Such experiences, Beatty said, can fracture memory, leaving recollections fragmented rather than organized and chronological. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman with her hair in a top knot wearing an all-orange outfit stands against a white, painted cinder block wall." class="wp-image-68319" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg 1875w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-long.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Tyesha Long is serving a 27-year sentence for killing a man she had a protective order against. The Oklahoma County district attorney’s office opposed her application for resentencing. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times But Assistant District Attorney Madeline Coffey seized on those inconsistencies to argue that Long wasn’t credible. Long seemed to fold in on herself, her shoulders drawn tight and her voice barely audible, as Coffey dissected each claim: How many times, exactly, was Long strangled to the point of unconsciousness? Wasn’t the sex sometimes consensual? What was the precise number of punches Brown dealt her? “Is that testimony at trial — that he only punched you one time — different than your testimony today, that he punched you probably two times?” Coffey pressed. Again, there was no ruling from the bench, but the mood among Long’s supporters was grim. She had remained on the stand for nearly five hours. Word of the grueling cross-examinations quickly got back to Wilkens, who was busy preparing for her upcoming hearing. Prosecutors had warned that these hearings could retraumatize victims’ families, but she could see that the hearings had also traumatized the defendants themselves. Testifying at her own trial had been an excruciating exercise, Wilkens told me, not only because describing the abuse meant reliving it. Her cross-examination — with its rapid-fire accusations, caustic tone and presumption of dishonesty — had felt eerily familiar after years of verbal abuse. It had also proved to be an impossible test. “I would challenge anyone to sit on the stand and just be berated and asked the same question 20 different times in 20 different ways,” she said. “On top of that, you’ve got an audience. It’s very public. Your whole life is laid bare for everyone to see.” Every seat in the courtroom was taken when Wilkens’ resentencing hearing got underway in Tulsa one morning in September. Members of her family sat shoulder to shoulder with women Wilkens once served time with. Next to a group of law students who had come to observe the proceedings was Wilkens’ niece, Amanda Ross, who years earlier had first brought her aunt’s case to McCarty’s attention. Ross, who was 7 when Wilkens was arrested, had corresponded with her aunt since elementary school. Growing up, she knew only the vague outlines of Wilkens’ case; the crime had never squared with the woman she knew. After college, Ross became a librarian and put her skills to work, trying to understand, as she traced her aunt’s odyssey through the courts, how Wilkens ended up with a life sentence. By the time of the hearing, Ross had spent nearly a decade trying to chase down every relevant document and public record. Having long since run out of space to store her growing archive, she stashed boxes of legal papers in the trunk of her Toyota Corolla. Wilkens sat at the defense table, taking in the room; she wore no makeup, and her hair, streaked with gray, hung loose past her shoulders. She had been warned by a sheriff’s deputy not to speak to anyone, but when she spotted Lisa Rae Moss sitting in the gallery, she caught Moss’ eye and smiled. Kunzweiler was representing the state that day alongside Meghan Hilborn, the assistant district attorney who had conducted the bruising cross-examination of Erica Harrison in July. The judge in that case announced five days earlier that she was denying Harrison relief. Though Lumpkin and Long were still awaiting rulings, there was little reason to believe they would fare differently. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1003" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?w=752" alt="A woman holding a cardboard box filled with manila envelopes and papers in a grassy park." class="wp-image-68320" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg 1875w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=225,300 225w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=768,1024 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=1152,1536 1152w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=1536,2048 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=863,1151 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=422,563 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=552,736 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=558,744 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=527,703 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=752,1003 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=1149,1532 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=1200,1600 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=400,533 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=800,1067 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/20260218-coloff-drake-ok-justice-ross.jpg?resize=1600,2133 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> Amanda Ross was 7 when her aunt April Wilkens was arrested. Her research helped bring attention to Wilkens’ case. Carolyn Drake/Magnum, for The New York Times In Kunzweiler’s brief opening statement, he made clear that he saw no reason for a renewed debate over Wilkens’ punishment. “Twelve men and women sat in a courtroom very much like this,” Kunzweiler said. “They saw all the evidence.” It was a pointed reminder that a jury had already weighed much of what the court was now being asked to reconsider. Invoking her “extreme methamphetamine use,” he emphasized that Wilkens sought out Terry Carlton on the morning she shot him, arriving at his house unannounced. Kunzweiler gestured toward the defense table, where Wilkens sat in a striped orange jail jumpsuit, her handcuffs padlocked to a heavy chain at her waist, her ankles shackled together in leg irons. “She sits here as a convicted murderer,” Kunzweiler said. Despite Kunzweiler’s initial comments to the court, there was a piece of evidence that jurors at her 1999 trial had not been given to consider — a tape recording Wilkens made of a phone call between her and Carlton, in which he angrily admitted to raping, beating and choking her, while blaming her for provoking him. Now, at the hearing, it was entered into the record when the defense called a federal judge, Judge Claire Eagan of the Northern District of Oklahoma, to the stand. Eagan had an unexpected personal connection to the case; as a lawyer in private practice in 1996, she helped Wilkens obtain an emergency protective order. She testified that when Wilkens came to her office, she had injuries that included black eyes and bruises on her face and arms. A few days later, Wilkens brought the tape recording with her and played it for Eagan. Wilkens later failed to come to court to extend the protective order, too frightened to see Carlton in person. Because she did not appear, the order was dismissed — a moment Eagan said she still remembered. “Mr. Carlton was there with his attorney,” she said. “He looked at me when it was dismissed and smiled.” The recording was given to the court — along with police reports, protective orders and medical records — to show that Wilkens was abused by the man she killed. Wilkens, however, would not be taking the stand. After the summer’s punishing cross-examinations of the other women, Wilkens’ lawyers — Colleen McCarty and a veteran of the public defender’s office, Abby Gore — had made the difficult decision, along with Wilkens, that she should not testify. Their appraisal underscored the challenges the Survivors’ Act was encountering in the courtroom. Its most visible and articulate champion in Mabel Bassett would go unheard. The strategic calculation was made to ensure that an aggressive cross-examination did not overshadow the well-documented evidence of abuse at the heart of Wilkens’ case. The remaining question was whether Carlton’s abuse was a substantial contributing factor, under the statute, when Wilkens killed him — a point the defense sought to establish through Angela Beatty, the social worker who previously testified at Tyesha Long’s hearing. Beatty, who had interviewed Wilkens and reviewed her medical records, said that the “coercive control” exerted by abusers like Carlton can impair survivors’ ability to weigh options and make reasoned decisions, narrowing their focus to survival. “Ms. Wilkens shared that Mr. Carlton did threaten her life that night,” Beatty said, adding that Wilkens believed she was going to die. “He told her he would kill her.” On cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Hilborn pressed Beatty. “Can you ever tell if you’re being deceived by a victim?” she asked. “Would you agree that April Wilkens has a good reason to say certain things to you for a sentence modification?” Having cast doubt on Beatty’s objectivity, Hilborn then made the case that Wilkens’ fear may have stemmed from something other than abuse. She returned again and again to Wilkens’ substance use, emphasizing that Wilkens had used meth intravenously. “When you’re talking about her being paranoid that somebody is stalking her, are you able to tell the court that is definitively from domestic violence?” Hilborn asked. “Or can it also be caused by methamphetamine use?” On the second day of the hearing, the state called its own witness, Jarrod Steffan, a forensic psychologist it had hired. Steffan had evaluated Wilkens and found her to be psychologically well adjusted. But her decades-old medical records, he testified, showed “she was experiencing severe mental-health issues, such as hallucinations and delusions, leading up to Mr. Carlton’s death.” He played down the impact that ongoing physical and sexual abuse may have had on her mental state: “Her actions in Mr. Carlton’s death were not due to domestic violence,” he said. “It was her mental illness and heavy meth use that led to Mr. Carlton’s death.” A rebuttal witness called by Wilkens’ lawyers, Dr. Reagan Gill, a forensic psychiatrist, questioned Steffan’s methodology, saying that his characterization of Wilkens’ past behavior — which Steffan described in a written report as “nefarious” and “irrational” — had no place in a clinical assessment. “These are not words we use,” Gill said. Judge David Guten did not wait to hand down a ruling. “There was more than sufficient evidence that there was violence in this relationship,” he said from the bench that afternoon. But he concluded that the defense had failed to meet the second requirement of the Oklahoma Survivor’s Act: to show, “by clear and convincing evidence,” that the abuse substantially contributed to the crime itself. Guten singled out the defense’s witness, Beatty, as too biased to render an impartial assessment, characterizing the social worker’s testimony as advocacy, not an expert opinion. “I could not give her testimony any weight,” he said. Moments later, Guten pronounced the proceedings over: “I am going to deny the request for a sentence modification.” The morning after the hearing, I met Lisa Rae Moss in a downtown Tulsa coffee shop. Eight months had passed since she walked out of the Seminole County Courthouse. In that time, she had met her grandchildren and relearned how to drive. She had found joy in walking barefoot, and picking out produce at the grocery store, and sitting alone in silence. She had legally changed her name back to her maiden name, Wright. She was living with Vicki Thorp, a lay pastor who visited her throughout her years in prison, and Thorp’s husband in their spacious home outside Oklahoma City, which afforded her the kind of privacy she never had at Mabel Bassett. Most mornings, she listened to the birds outside her bedroom window, sometimes studying them through a pair of binoculars. Evenings, she went out to the Thorps’ deck to stare up at the stars. Now Moss looked tired and uncertain. Those small freedoms were shadowed by what had happened to Wilkens. “I feel such, such — guilt,” she said, almost choking on the word. “How can I be sitting here and April has to go back to prison?” More losses followed. In October, Lumpkin and Long were each denied relief, and in early December, a judge declined to reduce the life sentence of another woman at Mabel Bassett, Kimberley Perigo, who shot and killed her ex-husband in 2001. Perigo, who had taken the stand to recount years of physical and sexual abuse and stalking, was the fifth applicant to be denied since Moss’ release. The string of denials gave rise to questions inside Mabel Bassett: Had Moss been the only one to walk free in Oklahoma because she wasn’t at the scene of the crime? Was it because her case originated in a county where the district attorney did not try to discredit her accounts of abuse? Or was it simply the luck of having the first hearing at a time when the law was animated by rare bipartisan support? Among advocates for domestic-violence victims, much of their anger was directed at the district attorney’s office, which had spent more than $16,000 on expert witness testimony in Wilkens’ case alone. Kunzweiler, who is up for reelection this year, made clear to me that he believed he had a duty to rigorously probe applicants’ claims, including through cross-examination. “Aren’t we all trying to get to the truth?” he said. “That’s our obligation: to find the truth and then seek justice.” When I asked what he thought justice looked like in Wilkens’ case, he said that the system had worked as it should; she had been afforded a trial and the opportunity to challenge her conviction through her appeals. The jury’s verdict had been upheld each time, Kunzweiler noted, and when Guten later considered her request for resentencing, he saw no reason to modify her punishment. “She has the right to appeal the finding of this judge,” Kunzweiler said. “But the process is here for a reason.” McCarty asked Guten to reconsider his decision in the Wilkens case on the grounds that he misinterpreted the Survivors’ Act by relying so heavily on expert testimony. The facts of the case alone should guide him, she argued, and those facts — which included police reports, medical records, protective orders and witness testimony — pointed to only one conclusion. In late November, Guten denied the motion to reconsider. Wilkens and her lawyers, he stated in a written order, “are requesting this court to accept evidence of abuse while completely discarding all other factors surrounding the homicide.” Guten continued, “This court declines to view the evidence with tunnel vision.” He lauded the jury in Wilkens’ trial, which “appropriately weighed evidence of substance abuse and mental health.” He dismissed the claim “with prejudice,” foreclosing any further reconsideration of it in his court. McCarty believed institutional resistance had stacked the deck against Wilkens. As evidence, she pointed to text messages of Kunzweiler’s she obtained through a public records request, including one he sent to several state employees after Wilkens’ hearing. “Sorry about just now getting back with you,” it read. “I was busy keeping April Wilkens in prison.” More text messages McCarty uncovered showed that Guten texted the district attorney in September asking if he had seen a letter The Tulsa World had just published, written by one of the jurors at Wilkens’ 1990 trial; the juror claimed Wilkens’ sentence had been fair and her claims of self-defense were “a fabrication.” To McCarty, the texts reflected just how determined the system’s gatekeepers were to preserve the status quo, despite the new law. On Jan. 29, she announced that she would be running for district attorney, challenging Kunzweiler in the Republican primary. Wilkens is appealing her case to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, where the court’s review of Guten’s ruling will help determine how judges will apply the Survivors’ Act moving forward. As more states — most recently Georgia — enact survivor-justice laws, it remains to be seen if the criminal-justice system is capable of perceiving someone like Wilkens not just as a perpetrator who must be punished but also as a victim deserving of mercy. The Oklahoma Court of Appeals will wrestle with what the Survivors’ Act means when it asks judges to evaluate whether domestic abuse was a substantial contributing factor in a crime. That appeal will be led not by McCarty but by a lawyer whom she asked to take the case: Garrard Beeney, at the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, who won the first appellate court ruling under New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act in 2021. Appellate courts move slowly, however, and it may be years before the court hands down a ruling. All Wilkens can do in the meantime is wait. After I visited her at Mabel Bassett last summer, she wrote to me about a tree that she planted when she first arrived there. “It was just a scrawny little thing back then, barely waist-high,” Wilkens said. It now towers over her, its branches reaching toward the sky. The post The Victims Who Fought Back appeared first on ProPublica.
South Carolina Hospitals Aren’t Required to Disclose Measles-Related Admissions. That Leaves Doctors in the Dark.
The post South Carolina Hospitals Aren’t Required to Disclose Measles-Related Admissions. That Leaves Doctors in the Dark. appeared first on ProPublica.
In mid-January, an unassuming man in khakis and a button-down shirt walked to a wooden lectern at a school board meeting in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Most chairs in the audience were empty. The man, Tim Smith, was the only person signed up to speak during public comments. He had five minutes. “I trust that each one of you had a good Christmas and New Year’s,” he began. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing.” His wife is an assistant teacher at a public elementary school in the county, epicenter of the state’s historic measles outbreak, and shortly before winter break she’d received a notice that a child in her classroom had measles. Given his wife is fully vaccinated, he wasn’t worried. Then, she began to get sick. And sicker. She got a measles test and, to their shock, it came back positive. She was apparently among the very rare breakthrough infections. Frightened, they took her to the hospital that night. “My wife was throwing up,” Smith said at the meeting. “She had diarrhea. She couldn’t breathe. All for what? This is — it’s absolute insanity.” Dr. Leigh Bragg, a pediatrician working a county away, wasn’t even aware that anyone in South Carolina had been hospitalized with measles-related illnesses until a short time later when she logged on to Facebook and saw someone relay the distraught husband’s comments. Part of the reason Bragg didn’t know is that South Carolina doesn’t require hospitals to report admissions for measles, potentially obscuring the disease’s severity. In the absence of mandatory reporting rules, she and other doctors are often left to rely on rumors, their grapevines of colleagues, and the fragments of information the state public health agency is able to gather and willing to share. With 973 reported cases, South Carolina’s measles outbreak has ballooned into the nation’s largest since the virus was declared eliminated in the U.S. 25 years ago. Yet, since state health officials first confirmed the outbreak on Oct. 2, the state’s hospitals have reported only 20 measles-related admissions, or about 2% of cases. Some infectious disease experts say that the true number is likely much higher. Hospitalization rates can vary greatly by a measles outbreak’s location and who is getting infected. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 20% of measles cases will result in admissions. “A hospitalization rate at 2% is ludicrous,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an infectious disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who served on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization advisory committee. “It’s vast underreporting,” Offit said. “Measles makes you sick.” Measles is among the most contagious of viruses. In 2026 so far, almost half of states have reported cases. Yet it’s left largely to each state to decide how much infectious disease reporting to require about it. “We don’t think we are getting an accurate picture at all of how these illnesses are impacting our community,” Linda Bell, the South Carolina state epidemiologist, said at a briefing last month. “We’re just not getting a picture of that now with the small number of hospitalizations that are known to us.” Bell said the state Department of Public Health is urging hospitals to report their measles-related admissions, and seven hospitals have done so. (There are at least a dozen acute care hospitals in the Upstate alone.) But the state cannot force them to do so. Bell also said that the agency, which sets infectious disease reporting requirements, hasn’t considered adding hospitalizations to the list because the primary purpose of public health surveillance is to understand disease transmission, frequency and distribution — not to track complications. That leaves doctors like Bragg advising patients, including vaccine-resistant parents, without the benefit of confirmed, real-time data about how many South Carolinians have been hospitalized with measles. Severe complications include pneumonia, dehydration and a potentially life-threatening brain swelling called encephalitis. “It’s a very big disservice to the public not reporting complications we are seeing in hospitals or even ERs,” Bragg said. “Measles isn’t just a cold.” ProPublica contacted state health agencies across the South and found most do not require hospitals to report measles-related admissions. Alabama does. So does Virginia, although it doesn’t release that data to the public. Like South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas don’t require reporting of hospitalizations, but epidemiologists can identify them during case investigations. During the Texas measles outbreak last year, 99 people were hospitalized out of 762 cases. That’s a rate of about 13%. In South Carolina, the reported rate is 2%. Real-time hospitalization data can show where to target resources and help hospitals prepare for an influx of patients. “As vaccine rates decrease, it could also really help us understand the changing epidemiology of measles in this current context,” said Gabriel Benavidez, an epidemiology professor at Baylor University in Texas. When ProPublica asked hospitals across the Upstate, the northwest quadrant of South Carolina where the outbreak is concentrated, if they are reporting their measles-related admissions to the state and how many patients they had treated, few responded. Only Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System shared its total. (As of mid-February, the number was four.) A spokesperson for Prisma Health, a Greenville-based nonprofit that owns eight acute-care hospitals in the Upstate, said its hospitals are “reporting everything we are supposed to report.” She wouldn’t say how many measles patients have been hospitalized at Prisma hospitals or how many the system has reported to the state. Doctors in the Dark Bragg, who is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric infectious disease, works in the region of South Carolina where the outbreak is concentrated. It’s a highly religious expanse with the state’s lowest student vaccination rates. She recently met with a parent questioning the recommended vaccines for a 1-year-old child, which includes a first dose of measles vaccine. “We’re in the middle of a measles outbreak,” Bragg thought. Then she began a 30-minute discussion of the vaccine’s extreme safety and 97% lifetime effectiveness when two doses are given. She explained that 95% of people in South Carolina who have gotten measles were unvaccinated. She rattled off historic risks of measles complications. Yet Bragg couldn’t tell the parent just how severely ill their fellow South Carolinians were getting from the outbreak sickening people around them. She had heard about pneumonia, ICU admissions — and even a case of encephalitis. But she hadn’t been able to confirm it, or find out if it was a child, much less how the patient fared. (Shortly after, Bell announced that the state health agency had learned of encephalitis cases in children, but she didn’t provide the numbers of patients or their outcomes.) As president of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Martha Edwards is connected to physicians across the state. “All I’m hearing about are ‘complications of measles,’” which can mean a lot of different things, she said. Communicating the risks of severe illness is all the more important because few of today’s parents have seen measles up close. Neither have most practicing doctors. Early in his career, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University who focuses on the prevention of infectious diseases, worked with the CDC to implement the measles vaccine. When he tells medical students today that in the 1960s, before the measles vaccine, 400 to 500 kids died of measles and its complications each year, “They’re stunned.” “If the severity of the illness cannot be ascertained — if it can’t be determined — it can’t be appropriately communicated to the public,” Schaffner said. “And the public might get the false impression that measles is milder than it really is.” At a briefing, Dr. Robin LaCroix, a Prisma pediatric infectious disease physician, said the organization’s physicians “have seen the whole gamut of acute and post-measles infections that have afflicted these children. They are sick.” Children have become listless and suffered blotchy rashes, coughing and coughing spasms, dehydration and secondary infections including pneumonias. Measles infections are particularly dangerous for babies who cannot get vaccinated yet and young children who haven’t gotten the second dose. Infections during pregnancy also pose severe risks for mothers who are not vaccinated or immune, including miscarriage and a tenfold increase in death due to pneumonia. Mothers can pass on the virus to their babies, “which can be catastrophic,” said Dr. Kendreia Dickens-Carr, a Prisma OB-GYN. More than 900 confirmed measles cases have been reported across the country already in 2026, compared with 2,281 in all of 2025. Most of this year’s cases are in South Carolina, but Florida has reported 63 cases and neighboring North Carolina 15, including one hospitalization. “We really do need to think about the way in which we report these things, because viruses and bacteria don’t respect state lines,” said Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina. “Public health professionals from one state to another should be comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges.” The most advanced pediatric care in the state is provided at the Medical University of South Carolina’s campus in Charleston, several hours away from the Upstate on the coast. So far, its children’s hospital hasn’t admitted any measles patients, doctors said. Dr. Danielle Scheurer, the chief quality officer at MUSC, celebrated the state’s low hospitalization rate and said she doubted hospitals would object to required reporting of measles-related admissions if the state health agency were to change its rules. “Transparency here is going to help other states,” Scheurer said. “The more transparent we are about all of our statistics, the better off any other state is going to be in preparing.” Political Pressures Across South Carolina, large health care systems have bought up local hospitals and doctors’ practices. With that control, they can exert influence over what those doctors and hospital employees say publicly, especially when it comes to potentially controversial topics like vaccines. At the same time, they face pressure from Republican lawmakers and a growing segment of vaccine-wary patients. The result is often highly controlled information sharing, or a lack thereof. “There’s this level of caution that wasn’t there before,” Edwards said. She understands that hospitals don’t want to offend patients who are dubious of vaccines. Bragg agreed but said given that 93% of the state’s students are vaccinated, she worries the hospitals are “pandering to a small group.” A pending bill, sponsored by several of Spartanburg County’s state representatives, seeks to prevent hospitals and doctors from questioning or interfering “in any manner” with a patient’s right to refuse treatments or vaccines. During COVID-19, the bill contends, federal agencies collaborated with medical organizations and others “to orchestrate a coordinated and coercive propaganda campaign” to shame people who declined COVID-19 vaccines. Doctors and hospitals argue they must balance public health risks with individuals who decline to take vaccines. The state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, and major GOP candidates to replace him have largely framed their responses to the measles outbreak around the concept of medical freedom, particularly when discussing vaccine mandates. Andrews, the pediatrician running for the U.S. Senate, said she’s experienced the “chilling effect” the GOP’s “anti-science movements” have had on health care systems and individual physicians. “If you speak up, you are at risk of being censored,” Andrews said. “If you speak up, you are at risk of losing your job. So everyone is just trying to keep their head down and do what’s best for their patients.” Bragg is among the declining ranks of doctors who run their own independent practices. She has the freedom to post what she wants to on social media and to wear pro-vaccine T-shirts that say things like, “Got polio? Me neither because I got the vaccine.” But one recent day, her 10-year-old son asked why she insisted on wearing the T-shirts. “Even a 10-year-old can tell you how polarizing vaccines have become,” Bragg said. Despite that, she has continued to wear them. The post South Carolina Hospitals Aren’t Required to Disclose Measles-Related Admissions. That Leaves Doctors in the Dark. appeared first on ProPublica.
New Moms in Wisconsin to Get Extension of Vital Benefits After GOP Powerbroker Ends Holdout
The post New Moms in Wisconsin to Get Extension of Vital Benefits After GOP Powerbroker Ends Holdout appeared first on ProPublica.
For years, Wisconsin’s powerful Assembly speaker refused to allow a bipartisan bill to come to a vote that extends postpartum Medicaid coverage for new moms. Finally, this week, he relented. “Go out and take your victory lap,” Republican Robin Vos told caucus members late Wednesday, according to one lawmaker. “You won,” Vos added. On Thursday, the Assembly agreed 95-1 to opt in to a federal program that provides free health insurance to low-income mothers for a year after giving birth, up from 60 days. Vos was among those voting yes. The legislation, which had already been adopted by the Senate, now goes to Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. He has openly supported such legislation for years and is expected to sign it. Every other state in the nation, except Arkansas, has already taken the step. The vote represented a rare capitulation for Wisconsin’s longest-serving Assembly speaker — a man who controls the legislative agenda, provides campaign cash to those he favors and punishes those who antagonize him. ProPublica wrote about Vos’ opposition to the bill last fall. The turnaround came on a day of surprises involving Vos. Earlier, at the start of the session, he announced that he would retire at year’s end, revealing that he’d had a slight heart attack in the fall and needed to reduce his stress. “To my leadership team and my caucus colleagues, thank you for your trust, thank you for your candor and your willingness to carry responsibility when it is heavy,” he said. Rep. Patrick Snyder, a Republican and the lead sponsor on the postpartum bill, threatened to not pursue reelection if he did not succeed in getting the measure passed — a legislative goal he had promised constituents he would deliver. That would have left an open GOP seat in a swing district. Typically, incumbents have an advantage in elections. “I just said if we can’t get this thing passed, I just don’t feel I can come back,” Snyder said he told the speaker. “It was that important of a bill.” Vos has long opposed extending Medicaid coverage for new moms, explaining that he opposes spending more money on welfare in Wisconsin. The state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated that, once fully phased in, the 12-month policy would cost the state about $9.4 million, with the federal government paying an additional $14.1 million. All sides have felt a sense of urgency as the Legislature, controlled by Republicans, intends to wrap up the session soon to hit the campaign trail for the remainder of the year. On Wednesday, Democrats moved aggressively on the postpartum extension issue, proposing amendments that attached the Medicaid change to bill after bill, creating a bit of legislative havoc as Republicans repeatedly ruled the matter not germane to the legislation under consideration. (Democrats did the same for another stalled bipartisan bill on insurance coverage for breast cancer screenings, a measure that also passed Thursday.) Snyder said the Democrats’ tactic nearly derailed GOP efforts to convince Vos to let both bills advance. In a press conference, a dismayed Snyder likened it to someone tripping him as he made a dash for the finish line. “I guess maybe they just didn’t think I could get it done,” he later told ProPublica. “And now we did.” In recent weeks, seven other GOP members joined Snyder to push Vos to reconsider his stance. In a letter to Vos dated Feb. 3, the group told the speaker the legislation aligns with core Republican priorities, including safeguarding infants by ensuring they have healthy mothers. The eight lawmakers are all in competitive districts. This week, despite whatever conflict they had with Vos, they still were careful to pay him homage, with one calling the speaker “a tough negotiator” and another publicly thanking Vos for “his understanding.” Read More He Vowed to “Protect the Unborn.” Now He’s Blocking a Bill to Expand Medicaid for Wisconsin’s New Moms. The legislation was backed by hospitals and medical groups as well as anti-abortion advocates, who favor robust support for pregnant women and new moms. Research has shown that the year after birth can be a dangerous time for women, who can face postpartum depression, blood clots, hypertension, cardiovascular ailments and other long-term health issues. Kate Duffy, a Wisconsin mom who amplifies political issues on social media under the moniker Motherhood for Good, has fought for the extended postpartum coverage and challenged Vos on the topic for about a year. She’s grown a sizable audience, especially among Wisconsin women, many of whom responded to the call to urge lawmakers to act. She credited the bill’s passage to “good old-fashioned organizing and relentless persistence.” Said Duffy: “We just would not shut up about this.” The post New Moms in Wisconsin to Get Extension of Vital Benefits After GOP Powerbroker Ends Holdout appeared first on ProPublica.
Insurer Agrees to Pay Millions for Failing to Fix Errors That Made It Harder for Customers to Get Mental Health Care
The post Insurer Agrees to Pay Millions for Failing to Fix Errors That Made It Harder for Customers to Get Mental Health Care appeared first on ProPublica.
One of New York’s largest health insurers is set to pay a multimillion-dollar fine for failing to fix a series of errors that made it harder for its customers to get mental health care. EmblemHealth this week agreed to a $2.5 million settlement with the New York attorney general’s office because of the large number of inaccuracies in its listings of in-network mental health providers, a problem that has persisted for years. The fine is the biggest secured by the state attorney general’s office in its yearslong quest to clamp down on the chronic problem of provider directory errors, also known as ghost networks. It’s an issue that has led customers to postpone treatment, forgo care and pay for more expensive out-of-network providers. The office found that EmblemHealth overstated the availability of in-network mental health providers and failed to comply with state and federal laws requiring that insurers make mental health care as available as other kinds of medical care. “Health insurers cannot mislead consumers with inaccurate provider directories while families are left without care,” Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, said in a statement. EmblemHealth did not answer ProPublica’s questions. In a statement, a spokesperson said the insurer does “not admit” to the state attorney general’s findings but agreed to the settlement “to avoid time-consuming litigation.” The spokesperson added that the insurer has “focused on taking immediate steps to further support our members’ access to care.” ProPublica’s 2024 series “America’s Mental Barrier” examined the ways that ghost networks can limit patients’ access to mental health care. Our reporting showed that the investigation by the state attorney general’s office into the ghost networks was one of the rare instances nationwide where health insurers faced consequences from elected officials. Between 2018 and 2024, more than 360 EmblemHealth customers complained to either the insurer, a subcontractor that administered mental health benefits for the insurer or the attorney general’s office about such errors, the settlement said. But EmblemHealth failed to address the issue, the settlement said, even though the insurer had promised to do so as part of a settlement agreement reached in 2011. A report from the office published in 2023 found that EmblemHealth and another dozen insurers had failed to keep their listings of mental health providers free of extensive errors. The office had contacted a sample of providers — nearly 400 listed in the 13 insurers’ directories — and most of them were “unreachable, not in-network, or not accepting new patients,” according to the report. The report found that 82% of the providers in EmblemHealth’s directory that were called were not available for an appointment. This week’s settlement noted that EmblemHealth’s own investigations into the accuracy of its directory listings “have produced results similar to” those found by James’ office. Read More They Couldn’t Access Mental Health Care When They Needed It. Now They’re Suing Their Insurer. The insurer, which covers more than 3 million people in New York and in surrounding states, has now agreed to compensate customers who paid out of pocket for mental health care because they couldn’t secure an appointment with a provider listed as being in-network. EmblemHealth also has pledged as part of the settlement to take additional steps to fix the errors in its listings. The insurer promised to correct inaccurate listings within two business days of being made aware of an error and to check every 90 days that each listing is accurate. The settlement further calls for an independent monitor to oversee EmblemHealth’s progress to ensure that it complies with the settlement’s terms. EmblemHealth is also the subject of a lawsuit filed in December by employees of the city of New York, who alleged that the errors in the insurer’s directory left them with a “deceptive” and “misleading” impression about the size of the company’s provider network. A spokesperson for EmblemHealth recently told ProPublica that the insurer does not comment on pending litigation. The post Insurer Agrees to Pay Millions for Failing to Fix Errors That Made It Harder for Customers to Get Mental Health Care appeared first on ProPublica.
Amid Mass ICE Arrests, Trump Pardon Recipient Juan Orlando Hernández Given Special Treatment
The post Amid Mass ICE Arrests, Trump Pardon Recipient Juan Orlando Hernández Given Special Treatment appeared first on ProPublica.
For months, President Donald Trump has railed against Latin American narcoterrorists flooding the United States with “lethal poison.” He has used the scourge of drug trafficking as a rationale for dozens of military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which have left more than 140 people dead. Last month, Trump cheered a military assault by U.S. forces that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to the U.S. to face charges related to cocaine trafficking. Maduro, Trump said, led a “vicious cartel” that “flooded our nation with lethal poison responsible for the deaths of countless Americans.” But when it comes to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was tried and convicted in the U.S. in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years in prison for taking bribes and allowing traffickers to export more than 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S., Trump has taken a decidedly softer tone. Hernández, he said, has been “treated very harshly and unfairly” — so unfairly that on Dec. 1, Trump pardoned the former president after he served less than four of those 45 years. But the federal government’s magnanimity did not end there. On the day he was to be released, records show, Hernández had an immigration detainer — a request for law enforcement agencies to hold noncitizens for pickup by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — in place. Here, too, the Trump’s administration’s treatment of Hernández differed from its public objectives. Other noncitizens caught up in recent immigration sweeps — the vast majority of whom do not have criminal records — have faced swift efforts to deport them, even to countries where they may face threats. But in Hernández’s case, the Federal Bureau of Prisons scrambled to get his detainer removed so he could walk free. And Hernández did not just walk out of the prison. Despite persistent budget and staffing shortages, prison officials paid a specialized tactical team overtime to drive Hernández from a high-security facility in West Virginia to the famed five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, according to records and three people familiar with the situation. Before he left, Hernández was allowed to use the captain’s government phone to talk to the federal prison system’s deputy director, Joshua Smith, who was convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy before Trump pardoned him in 2021. “The [prisons bureau] administration rolled out the red carpet for him,” said Joe Rojas, a retired prison worker and former union leader who has been speaking to the media on behalf of staff who fear reprisals for doing so since bureau leaders stopped recognizing the union last year. “The staff are disgusted.” Renato Stabile, the court-appointed lawyer representing Hernández — who has long maintained his innocence — said his client’s treatment was appropriate. “It would be particularly cruel to grant somebody a pardon and have them released from prison — only to have them immediately shipped back to a place like Honduras where they would’ve immediately arrested him or he would’ve been killed on sight by criminal elements that wanted to do him harm,” Stabile told ProPublica. Through his attorney, Hernández declined to comment. ICE referred all questions to the White House, which responded with a link to a November social media post announcing the President’s intent to pardon Hernández. Smith didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment. A BOP spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the bureau does not discuss conditions of confinement or security procedures and that employee standards of conduct prohibit staff from giving any prisoners preferential treatment. “Violators may be subject to disciplinary actions, including removal from federal service and criminal prosecution,” the statement said. The investigation that ultimately ensnared Hernández stretched across several U.S. presidencies. Despite looming legal trouble stateside and widespread allegations of corruption in his country, Hernández — often known by his initials, JOH — was seen as a key U.S. ally under the Obama and first Trump administrations, ostensibly because of his apparent willingness to help tackle drug trafficking and migration issues. In 2012, as president of Honduras’ National Congress, he famously pushed through a legal change allowing for the extradition of accused criminals to the U.S. — a reform that his attorney pointed out was ironically later used to extradite him. But in 2018, less than halfway through Hernández’s second term as president, the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested his younger brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernández, in Miami for a series of weapons and drug trafficking charges. A jury found him guilty the following year at a Manhattan federal trial in which Emil Bove — the federal prosecutor who would later become Trump’s personal defense lawyer — gave a closing argument replete with allegations implicating the Honduran president in criminal schemes. (Bove could not be reached for comment.) Although the sprawling criminal case focused on narcotrafficking concerns, Juan Orlando Hernández’s political career was fraught in other ways. Dana Frank, a University of California, Santa Cruz history professor who studies Honduras, described him as a “repressive criminal on multiple fronts.” While in congress in 2012, he led a “technical coup” in overthrowing the supreme court, she said. Then, he ran for reelection to the presidency in 2017 “in complete violation of the constitution,” she said. Amid the resulting protests, security forces shot and killed at least 16 people, including two children, among other human rights abuses, a United Nations report found. Hernández has said little publicly, but his government told the U.N. it would look into those cases. His party has tweeted that it has an “unwavering commitment to democracy and freedom.” Weeks after Hernández left office in 2022, he was arrested at his home in Honduras and extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. Prosecutors said he funded his political career with millions of dollars he received from “violent drug-trafficking organizations” in exchange for allowing them to “move mountains of cocaine” out of the country. Stabile told ProPublica the case against his client was always a weak one, relying heavily on the word of unreliable drug traffickers with outlandish stories and little in the way of hard evidence. Still, the government’s case was enough to convince a jury to convict Hernández after just over eight hours of deliberations, and in June 2024 he was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. Afterward, Stabile and his client began working on an appeal, which at that point appeared to be Hernández’s only shot at freedom. Early last year, prison officials transferred Hernández out of the federal detention center in Brooklyn, which largely holds pretrial detainees, and sent him to the high-security Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia. Dubbed “Misery Mountain,” the notoriously violent prison is the same facility where mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was beaten to death in his cell hours after his arrival in 2018. Yet prison sources said Hernández seemed to do his time quietly, eventually landing in the coveted housing unit set aside for a therapeutic program used to treat drug addiction, mental illness and “criminal thinking errors.” But after Trump returned to office last year, a much quicker route to freedom suddenly seemed possible: a pardon. Like Trump, Hernández was a member of his country’s right-wing party. And, like Trump, he believed he’d been targeted by leftist forces. He also had other reasons to be hopeful. During his time in office, Hernández had championed the creation of special economic zones that could set their own taxes and regulations, a move that benefitted the Trump-aligned Silicon Valley titans who invested in them, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. But the law was repealed by his successor, center-left party Libre member Xiomara Castro, putting plans for the zones in jeopardy. (Andreessen responded to a request for comment with a link to a social media post disavowing any involvement in the pardon. Thiel could not be reached for comment, though he has previously said he was not involved either.) Longtime political operative Roger Stone also suggested in a blog post co-authored with conservative activist Shane Trejo in January 2025 that pardoning Hernández could have political benefits for Trump. In the post, Trejo and Stone — who was pardoned by Trump five years ago after he was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russian election interference — urged the president to “crush socialism and save a freedom city in Honduras” with a “well-timed pardon” that “could be the final death blow to [Xiomara] Castro” in the 2025 elections. Eventually, Stone took on a more direct role in advocating for clemency when he gave Trump a four-page letter Hernández had written to the U.S. president, asking for a pardon and making the case that his conviction was a “political persecution” by the Biden administration. In a text message with ProPublica, Stone said he had received the letter from a journalist who’d gotten it from the family. He emphasized repeatedly that he was not compensated for his involvement. “I read the letter and then did my own research and elected to send the letter to President Trump,” Stone wrote. “I actually had no contact with JOH or anyone in his family until after the pardon.” On Nov. 28, two days before the Honduran presidential election, Trump announced his intent to pardon Hernández. Stabile said he didn’t learn the news until Ana García Carías, the former president’s wife, called him in tears: “He’s letting him out! Trump’s pardoning Juan Orlando!” She sent Stabile a screenshot from Truth Social, where Trump had written that he would grant him a “Full and Complete Pardon.” The decision met with bipartisan backlash from lawmakers. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, called the unexpected reprieve “disgusting and incomprehensible,” while Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, described it as “horrible optics.” In his post, Trump also urged Hondurans to vote for the National Party candidate, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who was trailing in multiple polls, adding what to observers of Latin American politics was a thinly veiled threat: If Asfura did not win, Trump said, the U.S. would “not be throwing good money after bad” in support of Honduras. The message was obvious, experts said. “That pardon was a clear green light for the National Party to manipulate the vote,” one former high-ranking U.S. diplomat told ProPublica. In the end, Asfura narrowly edged out center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla and handily defeated the incumbent Libre party. But the count was plagued by delays, reports of voter intimidation and allegations of fraud, and Nasralla later formally challenged the outcome. On Dec. 1 — while the votes were still being counted in Honduras — Trump posted again on Truth Social in support of Asfura. “Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay!” The former president’s pardon officially went through that same day. That evening at Hazelton, after the prisoners had already been fed dinner, corrections officers showed up at the housing unit to get Hernández. Smith, the bureau’s deputy director, wanted to speak with him. The newly pardoned inmate was escorted to the captain’s office, where he used the captain’s phone to talk to Smith, his fellow pardon recipient, according to a source familiar with the situation. The move shocked current and former prison staff. Hernández was also allowed to talk with his family, who then phoned Stabile and told him the good news. Within the hour, Stabile said, he got a call from Smith, inquiring about a release plan. “I’m in Manhattan and he’s in West Virginia,” Stabile told Smith. “It would take me six hours to come pick him up. Can you transport him?” Because most inmate releases are done during the daytime, prison staff had to be called back in to handle the paperwork and logistics of freeing an inmate. But there was a problem: Hernández had an immigration hold. When noncitizens are convicted of crimes in the U.S., immigration officials routinely sign detainers asking prisons and jails to turn them over to ICE for possible deportation proceedings following their release date. In Hernández’s case, records show immigration agents sent the prison notice of a detainer in February 2025, two months after he was sentenced in court. For several hours on the night of his release, prison officials scrambled to get the detainer removed so he could walk free, according to several sources familiar with the situation. “It’s definitely special treatment. That’s not normally the way it goes,” said Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “Most people with drug convictions would never get their ICE detainer removed just because the conviction was pardoned.” Records show immigration officials lifted the detainer on Hernández just after 11 p.m. Typically, according to a source familiar with the situation, prisoners who are released from Hazelton when there’s inclement weather or when it’s too late in the day to catch a plane or bus home are put up at the Microtel Inn and Suites at the bottom of the hill. It’s a two-star hotel where a room costs $69 per night. In the morning, they’re given a ticket and sent on their way. But for Hernández, prison officials activated a four-man tactical team, paying at least three of them overtime to drive him to the luxury hotel in Manhattan, according to government records and law enforcement sources. A standard room there costs more than $1,000 per night. Stabile declined to comment on where Hernández stayed but said the government did not pay for it. It was another move that stunned prisons bureau staff. One official called it “absolutely fucking nuts,” adding, “I don’t even think that’s ever been done, not just for a pardoned inmate but for anyone who’s been released.” Another agreed that it was unprecedented: “Usually, they get a shitty bus ride or a cheap plane ticket. They don’t get the carpet rolled out for them.” As of now, the former president’s whereabouts are unknown. A few days after his release, Hernández said in Spanish in a social media post that he had “no intention of returning to Honduras” immediately because he and his family would be in “grave danger given the evident persecution and the weaponization of justice against me.” If Hernández is in the U.S., it’s unclear what his immigration status is. Meanwhile, Honduran officials have issued a warrant for Hernández’s arrest over years-old fraud allegations and, in a social media post, asked Interpol and other international allies to honor it. But a law enforcement official familiar with the situation told ProPublica there is currently no pending Interpol red notice asking for law enforcement to detain him. The only request the network received to issue such a notice, the official said, was declined while Hernández was still in prison. The post Amid Mass ICE Arrests, Trump Pardon Recipient Juan Orlando Hernández Given Special Treatment appeared first on ProPublica.
Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments
The post Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments appeared first on ProPublica.
The warning on the government website was stark. Some products and remedies claiming to treat or cure autism are being marketed deceptively and can be harmful. Among them: chelating agents, hyperbaric oxygen therapies, chlorine dioxide and raw camel milk. Now that advisory is gone. The Food and Drug Administration pulled the page down late last year. The federal Department of Health and Human Services told ProPublica in a statement that it retired the webpage “during a routine clean up of dated content at the end of 2025,” noting the page had not been updated since 2019. (An archived version of the page is still available online.) Some advocates for people with autism don’t understand that decision. “It may be an older page, but those warnings are still necessary,” said Zoe Gross, a director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit policy organization run by and for autistic people. “People are still being preyed on by these alternative treatments like chelation and chlorine dioxide. Those can both kill people.” Chlorine dioxide is a chemical compound that has been used as an industrial disinfectant, a bleaching agent and an ingredient in mouthwash, though with the warning it shouldn’t be swallowed. A ProPublica story examined Sen. Ron Johnson’s endorsement of a new book by Dr. Pierre Kory, which describes the chemical as a “remarkable molecule” that, when diluted and ingested, “works to treat everything from cancer and malaria to autism and COVID.” Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who has amplified anti-scientific claims around COVID-19, supplied a blurb for the cover of the book, “The War on Chlorine Dioxide.” He called it “a gripping tale of corruption and courage that will open eyes and prompt serious questions.” <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="732" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?w=752" alt="" class="wp-image-68182" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg 1692w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=300,292 300w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=768,748 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=1024,997 1024w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=1536,1496 1536w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=863,841 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=422,411 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=552,538 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=558,543 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=527,513 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=752,732 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=1149,1119 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=1643,1600 1643w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=400,390 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=800,779 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=1200,1169 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/InternetArchive2_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000-1.jpg?resize=1600,1558 1600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> A page recently pulled from the Food and Drug Administration’s website gave examples of “false claims” about treatments for autism and its symptoms. Internet Archive The lack of clear warning from the government on questionable autism treatments is in line with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rejection of conventional science on autism and vaccine safety. Last spring, Kennedy brought into the agency a vaccine critic who’d promoted treating autistic children with the puberty-blocking drug Lupron. And in January, Kennedy recast an advisory panel on autism, appointing people who have championed the use of pressurized chambers to deliver pure oxygen to children, as well as some who support infusions to draw out heavy metals, a process known as chelation. Kennedy has embraced various unconventional measures in his fight against what he views as a government system corrupted by special interests. In October 2024, shortly before Donald Trump won the presidency again, Kennedy vowed on social media that the FDA’s “war on public health” was about to end. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma,” he wrote. At his confirmation hearing, Kennedy praised Trump for his wide search for a COVID-19 remedy in his first term, which Kennedy said included vaccines, various drugs and “even chlorine dioxide.” The FDA, dating back to at least 2010, has urged consumers not to purchase or drink chlorine dioxide, frequently marketed as a Miracle Mineral Solution, because “the solution, when mixed, develops into a dangerous bleach which has caused serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.” The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) has previously reported on the removal of the FDA warnings page. The lack of a warning has also received attention in the Telegram channel Chlorine Dioxide Testimonies. “Don’t forget the FDA quietly removed warnings about Chlorine Dioxide on their website earlier this year,” read a forwarded post in late December, to which over 100 people reacted with an applauding emoji. The contributor added a wish for the future: that Kennedy and the FDA commissioner undertake official studies exploring chlorine dioxide’s effects in battling cancer. There currently are no warnings about chlorine dioxide on a consumer page on the FDA website. And HHS did not answer ProPublica’s questions about whether the agency endorses chlorine dioxide as a treatment for autism. In his book, Kory also expresses optimism about what Kennedy will do. “What I really want is for the FDA to lift its restrictions on studying chlorine dioxide as a therapeutic,” he wrote. “That’s something I’m hoping might finally be possible under this new administration, especially with RFK Jr. as head of Health and Human Services.” Many autism researchers and advocates have been wary of Kennedy due to his long-held stance that vaccines cause autism. Peer-reviewed studies conducted worldwide, published over decades in leading scientific journals, have rejected such a link. Under Kennedy, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overhauled its website on vaccines and autism to assert that studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities. The CDC page retained the headline “Vaccines do not cause Autism” but added an asterisk noting that the phrase remained “due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.” In order to win confirmation to his post, Kennedy had promised Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, that he would not remove the statement. Kennedy’s replacement of 21 members who were part of an interagency coordinating committee on autism provides another glimpse into where he wants to take federal policy. The committee provides advice and recommendations on policies, research and services. It now includes people who have promoted unproven remedies for autism, including suramin, a drug developed to treat sleeping sickness in Africa caused by bites from a tsetse fly; hyperbaric oxygen therapy, typically used for decompression sickness and tissue damage; controversial language techniques; and chelation therapy. A 5-year-old autistic boy died in Pennsylvania in 2005 after a chelation session. Another 5-year-old boy died in Michigan last year in a hyperbaric chamber fire; his parents wanted him treated for an attention disorder. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network published a statement on its website saying that the newly reconfigured HHS autism panel is now “overwhelmingly made up of anti-vaccine advocates and peddlers of dangerous quack autism ‘treatments.’” HHS told ProPublica in an emailed statement that such claims are “false” and that the new members are experienced in research and clinical care. “They are committed to advancing innovation in autism research, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention to align federal policy with current gold-standard science,” HHS said. Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ProPublica that Kennedy’s removal of committee members with solid expertise in favor of people who support alternative medicine shows that the secretary is “perfectly willing to embrace bogus therapies.” Another leading expert, Yale University professor emeritus Dr. Fred Volkmar, who edited the “Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders,” a definitive guide, said early diagnosis and proven treatments have led to dramatic improvements for people with autism. “These days, probably 70% to 75% of children on the autism spectrum will grow up to be fully independent or semi-independent adults.” Sadly, however, he said, some parents fall prey to promises of easy and fast cures, when there are none. One of the dangers, he said, is that children are drawn away from treatments that are shown to be beneficial. “It’s a shame that the federal government is not being more helpful to parents in understanding what does and doesn’t work,” Volkmar said. The post Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments appeared first on ProPublica.
How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention
The post How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention appeared first on ProPublica.
This week, ProPublica published a story I wrote based in part on interviews with parents and children being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas. I had asked some of the parents to see if their children would be willing to write to me about their experiences inside. More than three dozen did. One of those letters came from 9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya from Colombia. Her letter was written on a piece of notebook paper. She decorated it with rainbows and hearts. And she drew a portrait of herself and her mom wearing their detention uniforms and government-issued ID badges. I had initially met Maria a few weeks earlier, when I managed to get inside the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. It’s just south of San Antonio. Maria Antonia, her mother and more than 3,500 people, half of them minors, had cycled through there since the Trump administration reopened it early last year. I went in mid-January, before the facility burst into public view when Liam Conejo Ramos — the 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat detained with his father in Minneapolis — was sent there, with the aim of hearing about the conditions in which children were being held, from the children themselves. After signing in, I passed through a metal detector and a series of locked doors to get to the visitation room. Maria Antonia and another girl her age were quietly playing fast-moving hand games, when her mother, Maria Alejandra Montoya, called her over to introduce me. Maria Antonia, wearing her long brown hair in a ponytail, didn’t hesitate. She scooted forward to the front edge of her chair, pushed her thick white-framed glasses up on her nose and dove right in. I asked her how she and her mom had ended up there. Well, she said, we had a plan to go to “Disneylandia” but instead ended up in “Dilleylandia.” Then she told me the story. She lived in Colombia with her grandmother and regularly traveled back and forth to the United States to visit her mother, who had been in the U.S. since 2018. (Maria Alejandra had overstayed a visa but since married a U.S. citizen and was applying for a green card.) In August, the whole family had vacationed together in Disney World. It was so fun, Maria Antonia said, that she begged her mom to go back for the park’s annual Halloween celebration. They booked tickets for a 10-day vacation during her school holidays. She lit up telling me about how she had planned out a “101 Dalmatians” costume — she would be Cruella de Vil and her mom and stepdad the spotted dogs. The whole getup was so bulky it basically filled her entire suitcase. But everything started going wrong as soon as she arrived at the Miami International Airport on Oct. 2. She was supposed to be dropped off with her mom by the flight attendant accompanying her. But she said was intercepted by immigration officers who took her into a room to be interrogated while her mother was taken to be questioned in a separate room. They were asking me all kinds of questions I had absolutely no idea how to answer, I recall her telling me (I was not allowed any notebooks or voice recorders inside the detention facility). I kept just saying over and over again: “I can tell you my name and my birthday and my mom’s name and her birthday and that I am from Colombia. That’s about it.” I didn’t know what else to tell them. After what they both said were hours of questioning, they were put in a cold room together. Maria Alejandra’s phone was confiscated. They had no way to contact her stepdad, who was waiting for them in the airport. Maria Antonia said they had no idea why they were being detained if her mother was applying for a green card and she had a valid tourist visa. Maria Antonia had learned English at her private school in Medellin. She overheard one immigration officer tell another that if she had been 10 years old, they would have been able to keep her separated from her mom. That, she said, is when the real fear set in. Then it was 42 hours of waiting in the airport holding rooms. Eventually they were put on a plane — then a minivan — to the facility in Texas. Maria Antonia said she didn’t really understand where they were going until they saw the center out the window. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="1018" width="752" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?w=752" alt="A drawing on lined paper of an unsmiling woman and a girl wearing gray sweatshirts with long hair. The woman wears blue pants and the girl wears gray pants. Handwriting appears above and next to the drawing in Spanish: “No me dan mi dieta yo soy vegetariana, no como bien, no hay buena educacion y extraño a mi mejor amiga julieta y a mi abuela y a mi escuela ya quiero llegar a mi casa. Yo en dilei [Dilley] no estoy feliz por favor saquenme de aquí a colombia. Antonia.”" class="wp-image-67817" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg 2216w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=222,300 222w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=768,1040 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=756,1024 756w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1135,1536 1135w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1513,2048 1513w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=863,1168 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=422,571 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=552,747 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=558,755 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=527,713 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=752,1018 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1149,1556 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1182,1600 1182w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=400,542 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=800,1083 800w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1200,1625 1200w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1600,2166 1600w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-ice-kids-dilley-letter-06_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=2000,2708 2000w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px" /> A page from Maria Antonia’s letter to reporter Mica Rosenberg: “They don’t give me my diet I am vegetarian, I don’t eat well, there is no good education and I miss my best friend julieta and my grandmother and my school I already want to get to my house. Me in dilei [Dilley] am not happy please get me out of here to colombia.” Obtained by ProPublica By the time I met them, they had been detained for nearly four months. I asked Maria Antonia what being stuck in Dilley was like. She told me she had fainted two times since she got there; she is vegetarian and said she ate mostly beans. She felt like she had nothing to do all day and she missed her school, echoing concerns of many of the other kids I spoke with over the course of my reporting. She said she had made some new friends inside Dilley, but it was hard. She and her mom had been detained for so long that new people she met would often leave when they were released or deported. Her mother, Maria Alejandra, had told me in long, vivid emails about some of more serious concerns about her and her daughter’s deteriorating mental and physical health during their prolonged detention. She said Maria Antonia would wake up in the middle of the night crying, fearful she would never leave detention or alternatively that she would be separated from her mom. Read More The Children of Dilley I asked the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which DHS oversees, about what Maria Alejandra and Maria Antonia told me. In an email, they said Maria Alejandra overstayed her tourist visa and had been previously arrested for theft, a charge that according to court documents was dismissed. DHS said that during her time in detention, Maria Antonia was seen by medical professionals twice and also had weekly check-ins with mental health professionals, “where she stated she was calm and well-nourished.” DHS said everyone held at the facility is “provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries” and “certified dieticians evaluate meals.” DHS also said “children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling” and no one is denied medical care. CoreCivic, which operates the facility, said it is subject to multiple layers of oversight and that health and safety are top priorities. Soon we all said goodbye. But I remained in touch with her mother and stepdad and attorneys following the case. They shared documentation about what happened to them and their legal pleas to be released. I learned an immigration judge had granted them “voluntary departure” on Jan. 6, allowing Maria Alejandra to pay their own way back to Colombia, avoid having a formal deportation order on her record and continue her green card application from abroad. But it wasn’t until Feb. 6 that they were finally sent back to Colombia. A few days after they returned, her mother told me the first thing Maria Antonia wanted to do was throw out the government-issued sweatsuit she had been wearing for months. Then I received a video. It showed Maria Antonia, wearing pink leggings and a T-shirt with a teddy bear on it, running to embrace her teachers one by one outside her school. One of the teachers leads her by the hand into her classroom: “Look who I brought you!” the teacher says. Another young girl, Maria Antonia’s best friend, leaps out of her desk to wrap her arms around her. Another friend rushes to join the hug. She was finally home. The post How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention appeared first on ProPublica.
What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia
The post What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia appeared first on ProPublica.
The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden. Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed last year as U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, has had multiple meetings set up with top administration lawyers to discuss election integrity. At those meetings was Ed Martin, a Justice Department lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described as the department’s “weaponization” against him and his allies, according to a source familiar with the meetings who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, also was directed to join at least one of the meetings, according to the source. Both Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims about the reliability of voting machines in Arizona. The meetings reveal new details about the length of the preparations for, and people involved in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and legal experts told ProPublica was a significant escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide, even though his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t involve election law or election-related cases. The meetings with Martin, Olsen and other lawyers for the Justice Department were described by the source as being about “election integrity,” a term the Trump administration has used to describe investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged. Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to answer questions about the meetings and other detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House and the Justice Department also did not respond to questions. The meetings came at a particularly crucial time. Martin’s efforts to obtain election materials from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding that a Fulton County judge allow him to access tens of thousands of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice,” but he had reportedly received no reply. Martin explained to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired around the time of the meetings that although the White House had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a couple of others have been working also on the same topic” — including getting the Fulton County ballots. But Martin described progress as a “challenge.” Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, asked why Martin didn’t just “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots. Martin suggested it was easier said than done, but agreed: “Look, we’ve got to get” the ballots. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" js-autosizes height="753" width="527" src="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?w=527" alt="Two men wearing dark suits stand in a room with a blue carpet, white walls and a picture of President Donald Trump in the background." class="wp-image-67652" srcset="https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg 1178w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=210,300 210w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=768,1098 768w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=716,1024 716w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1074,1536 1074w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=863,1234 863w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=422,603 422w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=552,789 552w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=558,798 558w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=527,753 527w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=752,1075 752w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1149,1643 1149w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=1119,1600 1119w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=400,572 400w, https://www.propublica.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/EdMartinTwitter_maxHeight_3000_maxWidth_3000.jpg?resize=800,1144 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 527px) 100vw, 527px" /> Ed Martin posted a photo from his meeting with Thomas Albus in Washington, D.C., on social media. Via X Before long, Albus and Olsen were interviewing witnesses for their case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, told ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a couple of times, both together and separately, around the turn of the year. He identified himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a judge to sign off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists believe may have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported. Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss. Just a few weeks after those interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the government attorney on the search warrant that authorized the seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material in Georgia, far outside of Albus’ usual jurisdiction. Former U.S. attorneys from both parties said it was rare for a federal prosecutor from one region to take on cases in other states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given. Under Trump, senior roles across the White House, DOJ and FBI have increasingly been filled by a small, interconnected group of Missouri lawyers with longstanding ties to one another. Another top federal official in the meetings was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Before joining the Justice Department, Osete worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, where he represented the state in at least five lawsuits against the Biden administration regarding vaccine mandates, immigration and other policies. Osete did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions. When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election center, Andrew Bailey, another lawyer from the same political circles, was in charge. Before joining the FBI as deputy director, he had used his position as Missouri’s attorney general to pursue high-profile cases against prominent Democrats and said he supported all efforts to investigate Biden, his family and his administration. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to answer detailed questions about Bailey. Last year, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ office, was brought in to help prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the original career prosecutors on the case were replaced by political appointees. After a judge dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James again, and Keller returned to Missouri. Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, previously served as Missouri’s solicitor general under state attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus brief supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution. Albus’ connection to the other Missouri lawyers goes back decades. Unlike some of the others, though, he has never held elected office or had a high public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. Instead, he spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor and as a judge in a Missouri state circuit court. Emails show Albus exchanging brief messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis and Martin was chief of staff to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails were part of records from the Blunt administration that became public after being released under Missouri’s Sunshine Law. In the email exchange, Albus put in a good word for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court judgeship, and Blunt ultimately selected that candidate. Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 until Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court judge vacancy in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of the finest prosecutors I have ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. attorney in December. Lawyers who appeared in Albus’ court rated him as well prepared, professional and attentive, according to Missouri judicial performance reviews. They said he followed the evidence, applied the law correctly and gave clear reasons for his rulings. Albus came under more critical scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney last summer. Much of that attention centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took office. Prosecutors alleged that developers in St. Louis falsely claimed to be using minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for city tax breaks, conduct the Justice Department has historically treated as wire fraud. One of the defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi. The developers’ lawyers argued that even if the government’s claims were true, they were legally irrelevant because the Trump administration had taken the position that tax breaks based on race or gender were unlawful. Albus accepted those arguments and dropped the case. As part of the resolution, Albus personally hand-delivered to City Hall a check of about $1 million from one of the developers’ companies as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his office wanted to drop charges and hand-delivered the check “to make sure they got it.” In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats said the dismissal of the St. Louis case and other cases in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s clients raised “significant broader ethical concerns.” In the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving another Brad Bondi client whose charges were dropped, a Justice Department spokesperson said Pam Bondi’s relationship with her brother had “no bearing on the outcome.” A spokesperson for the developers said their lawyers communicated only with the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis about the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He said the dismissal reflected “a recognition that this case should never have been brought in the first place.” Brad Bondi did not respond to a request for comment. Weeks later, around the time of Albus’ meetings about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s office, flanked by a framed photo of Trump and a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters were being manipulated by party elites and the media. Martin posted the photo on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?” The post What Meetings Among Trump Lawyers Reveal About the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia appeared first on ProPublica.