You Can Live Here, Until You Can’t

April 10, 2025

Plus: a doll for dudes ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

April 10, 2025

Greetings, Meteor readers,

I never want to hear, read, or write about tariffs ever again. The whiplash is exhausting.

In today’s newsletter, we connect the dots on the administration’s attacks against immigrants. Plus, the SAVE Act shows signs of life.

He’s coming for our cheese,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

Who gets to live here?: “I don’t understand why you’re so worried—you can’t be deported,” is a statement I’ve heard from several people since I started covering Trump’s mass deportation plans—plans which have seen more than 300 student visas revoked, about a dozen legal U.S. residents imprisoned, at least seven U.S. citizens detained (one apparently for legally representing a student protester), and one Maryland man deported. In the city where I live, ICE has carried out raids that have led to veterans being arrested without cause.

And now, just two days ago, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Trump administration is looking into policies that would allow for the deportation of incarcerated U.S. citizens. This would be, of course, utterly illegal because of the Eighth Amendment; as one expert told Truthout, “There’s not even a hint of a possible way to do it under any circumstances whatsoever.”

MEMBERS OF THE HISPANIC CAUCUS HOLD UP IMAGES OF KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA, THE MARYLAND WHO WAS “MISTAKENLY” DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

But it was also illegal to deny due process, until it wasn’t. It was illegal to detain someone without a warrant and probable cause, until it wasn’t. There’s one thing you can say about the Trump administration: They’re resourceful. Whether by hook, crook, executive order, skirting the courts, or resurrecting wartime laws, this administration has proven it won’t be deterred by the legal process. Ostensibly, the judicial system should be able to protect the vulnerable—and some have been spared—but it simply isn’t happening fast enough for those currently sitting behind bars in Louisiana, Goshen, New York City, and El Salvador.

In other words, this fear is not baseless. What I see in front of me is not a collection of disconnected arrests and deportations; I see the slow, carefully curated removal of people of color—especially outspoken ones—from the United States. People like my late father and my brothers who would meet Trump’s stated criteria for detention (criteria I will not specify because I’m not a snitch). People like my best friend, a woman well-known for speaking up for Palestinians on social media. People like my neighbors, many of whom are immigrants.

What good is anyone’s perceived safety if the people who make living here worth it aren’t safe as well? The administration is making clear that it wants to paint protestors and people of color as an enemy—they’re literally deporting people under the Alien Enemies Act—but you’re the one who gets to decide who your enemies are and it’s not the protestor, or the Venezuelan dad, or the troubled teen. It’s probably just Deb, in accounting.

AND:

Today, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require everyone registering to vote and those updating their registration to provide proof of citizenship in person. But 21 million U.S. citizens don’t have access to those kinds of documents, and about 69 million married women who elected to change their surnames would have difficulty proving their identity because the bill doesn’t specify which documents would be acceptable. (House Republicans rejected an amendment that would have explicitly protected married women.) The bill passed (with support from four Democrats), and while it. isn’t likely to pass the Senate, it poses a grave threat to voting rights, and should have never been allowed to get this far in the first place.
You may have heard that MeToo is dead, but luckily no one told the New York State jury which just awarded a whopping (and well-deserved) $1.68 billion to 40 women who had accused filmmaker James Toback of sexual assault, false imprisonment and more. “This will be his legacy, absolutely,” Mary Monahan, one of the plaintiffs, said to the Los Angeles Times, which had first investigated Toback’s crimes eight years ago. “It won’t be ‘Bugsy.’ And that is immensely validating. A jury heard us and a jury believed us.”
Diana Greene Foster—creator of the landmark Turnaway Study, which examined the effects of being denied an abortion even before the fall of Roe—was six months into her work on a follow-up study. Then she learned that her funding for what was supposed to be a five-year grant was pulled. Here’s how a letter from the NIH dismissed her work: “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.” According to The 19th, Foster’s new study would have shed light on who is still able to access abortion in a post-Roe America. She is “madly fundraising to replace these canceled funds,” she wrote in an email to the outlet.
Basketball star LeBron James is now Just Ken. Literally. Mattel announced it would be turning James into a Ken doll, making him the company’s first Kenbassador. So now, when you hear anyone say boys don’t play with dolls, you can just direct them to all of the hypebeasts who will be purchasing this very cool toy for themselves.

I AM SO GLAD MY HUSBAND IS NOT A LEBRON FAN BECAUSE I’M NOT SPENDING $75 ON THIS. LOOKS GREAT THOUGH. (VIA MATTELL)

The state of Maine is suing the Trump administration after being hit with a federal funding freeze for school lunches. Why are Maine schoolchildren not getting their lunch money anymore? Because, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Maine schools are “requiring girls to compete against boys in sports.” Let us translate the transphobia for you: Maine did not fall in line with Trump’s “two-sex” executive order and is now being accused of violating Title IX. While Maine sorts this out in the courtroom, you can go to All for Lunch to help schools across the country eliminate lunch debt so children can do the apparently controversial act of eating a meal.
We trust you’ve heard about the all-female flight to space that Jeff Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sanchez organized, but in case you haven’t: Sanchez, Katy Perry, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, and Kerianne Flynn will soon be beamed into space for 11 minutes aboard a ship owned by Blue Origin, Bezos’ private space company. The journey—promoted in a fluffy Elle article wherein Perry declares that “space is going to finally be glam” and that they’re there to “put the ‘ass’ in astronaut”—has been skewered across the internet as the nadir of vacuous girl power. Influencer Blakely Thornton might have said it best: “You cannot rebrand oligarchy as feminism.”
In more dignified news, today is Chicana labor leader, feminist, and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta’s 95th birthday. With César Chávez, she founded what would eventually become the United Farm Workers, and served as its president for more than 30 years. She tirelessly advocated for workers’ rights, including helping to organize the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott in 1965. She’s also credited for coming up with the rallying cry “Sí, se puede.” Feliz cumpleaños, Dolores ✊🏽

DOLORES HUERTA AND PRESIDENT OF THE AMAZON LABOR UNION CHRISTIAN SMALLS AT THE METEOR’S 22 FOR ’22: VISIONS FOR A FEMINIST FUTURE. (VIA GETTY)

WEEKEND READING 📚

On girls’ rights: School-aged girls across East Africa are being kicked out of school after forced pregnancy tests. (Teen Vogue)

On being untethered: What would a woman’s life look like disconnected from the relationships that so often define it? Novelists are trying to imagine. (The Atlantic)

On co-opting feminism: How the French far-right uses the language of women’s rights to demonize immigrants. (The Baffler)