Katya Schwenk is a reporter with the Lever based in Phoenix, Arizona.
A new influence network of PACs, rich donors, and consultants is taking advantage of increasingly threadbare campaign finance law to pour millions into Democratic campaigns, aiming to elect leaders committed to returning the party to the “moderate” middle.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has now inked a $12.2 million contract for an artificial intelligence tool that purportedly maps out immigrants’ daily routines, habits, and real-time locations and categorizes them as potential threats.
Ascendant DC think tank Searchlight Institute, pushing Democrats to the center, has ties to megadonor Simone Coxe, whose Nvidia-linked money could boost AI-backed efforts to defend data center build-outs and limit AI regulation.
The Trump administration is considering purchasing a number of private immigrant detention centers across the US. Doing so may allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to bypass state laws geared at curbing abuses in the facilities.
A new Trump administration contracting clause would require AI companies like Anthropic to make their technology available to federal agencies “for any lawful government purpose” — even for uses their systems are designed to prevent.
As the US attacks Iran, Donald Trump is following a blueprint laid out by a long-standing force in US foreign policy: the neocons who backed the Iraq War more than 20 years ago.
Kristi Noem, just fired from her job as secretary of DHS amid allegations of self-dealing, staffed the department’s AI division with leadership taken directly from a tech company under contract with DHS to develop its biometric surveillance system.
Democrats are pushing a resolution to block Donald Trump from taking further military action in Iran without congressional approval. But the effort is facing opposition from three lawmakers from their own party backed by the Israel lobby.
Claiming to be working to stop corporate landlords from buying up single-family homes, an industry-backed GOP senator is circulating legislation that could block states from regulating the institutional investors purchasing hundreds of thousands of homes.
Data analytics company Palantir’s abrupt announcement that it is moving to Florida comes just after the state’s lawmakers boosted corporations’ legal power to prevent workers from leaving for competitors.
When the Department of Homeland Security was first created, Congress established a civil-rights watchdog office for DHS and its various arms, including ICE. Amid mounting concerns about DHS’s rights violations, Trump has been erasing the oversight office.
Lucrative deals selling empty warehouses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the Trump administration’s mass deportation machine are being quietly facilitated by a handful of powerful real estate brokers.
Three years after the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, the railroad, lawyers, and myriad companies involved in a $600 million class action settlement have all been paid — while many residents have yet to receive anything.
To reduce ICE misconduct, Democratic legislators propose that its agents be required to wear body cameras. Evidence of body camera efficacy is remarkably thin, but weapons technology companies are set to make millions from the “reform.”
Wall Street and the crypto industry are engaged in a legislative battle over which business interests will get to fleece more of their customers’ money, with big banks hoping to close a loophole that allows cryptocurrencies to pay interest to investors.
A variety of shadowy private security and weapons firms have been tapped to provide firearms and combat training to ICE agents. They are among the many private entities lining up for their cut of the Trump administration’s deportation spending blitz.
A former X executive behind Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot, now serving as US Patent Office chief AI officer, has received a “highly unusual” carveout that allows him to retain company shares while influencing AI policy.
The Trump administration is working to privatize a legal defense program for tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children, opening the door for a for-profit ICE technology contractor to take over in partnership with Angelina Jolie’s NGO.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed a $30 million contract last week that moves to convert vacant warehouses into mega detention centers, increasing capacity in the Trump administration’s push to supercharge deportations.
In addition to the extensive technology at its disposal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is devising plans for a bounty-hunting program that would enlist private contractors to help carry out Donald Trump’s mass deportations.