Who Will Care for Your Children?

The war on immigrants will hit millions of homes ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

July 17, 2025

Greetings, Meteor readers,

Ya girl has had a particularly difficult week, but it’s all going to turn around because tomorrow I am getting sushi and pie with my bestie. That may not sound like a classic mix, but trust me, they go together like ramma-lamma-lamma-ka-dingity-da-dinga-dong. (Name that musical!)

In today’s newsletter, we’re connecting the dots on childcare and immigration policy. Plus, remembering John Lewis, and your weekend reading list.

Did you guess correctly,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

If ICE comes knocking, will you still have childcare?: In 2015, when our now-president was campaigning on the promise that he would remove “illegal aliens” from the United States, daytime talk show host Kelly Osbourne asked, “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilets, Donald Trump?” The rebuke was swift for Osbourne’s offensive wording, but there was a larger point buried under the casual racism. And in the era of Trump 2.0, with its brutal immigration policies, the question is: Who will be left to care for our children?

The United States has a long history of outsourcing childcare, dating back to enslavement, and continuing through Reconstruction and into the 21st century. As Angela Garbes explained to The Meteor in 2022, the survival of American capitalism is dependent on “ignored” domestic labor. That labor is now largely being performed by immigrants, and if they’re removed from the country, “our care infrastructure will crumble,” warns the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). Research shows that immigrants comprise up to 26 percent of not just the daycare but also the early-education workforce. In cities like New York and Los Angeles, nearly half of all female educators are immigrants.

But with ICE raids expanding in immigrant communities, and the administration allowing agents to enter child-care centers for the first time since 2011, immigrant providers are under heavy threat. Their livelihoods, already tenuous, are being undermined in other ways, too: The administration is now barring undocumented immigrants from putting their children in Head Start programs—which have long served as a crucial support for the families of care workers—and recent changes to Medicare, SNAP, and child tax credits all make it harder for immigrant workers to make ends meet.

And when child-care workers suffer, everyone suffers. Take the case of Nicolle Orozco Forero, a Colombian immigrant in Washington state who cared for children with disabilities. In June, after a routine monthly immigration meeting, she was detained by ICE and eventually deported. (Her young children, one of whom is gravely ill, were also deported.) The 19th’s Chabeli Carrazana spoke to the families who relied on Orozco Forero for care and writes that they “are now in a free fall…[Nicolle] was the connective tissue that kept families employed. Her loss has rippled across industries.” One mother was forced to quit her job after Orozco Forero was detained because she couldn’t find anyone else to care for her daughter, who has autism and is non-verbal.

Meanwhile, the administration is patting itself on the back for being “pro-family.” After all, it increased both the child tax credit and the child care tax credit via the Big Beautiful Bill; what more could anyone want? A lot: As we’ve written, the BBB does more harm than good to the limited social safety net in America, especially for lower-income families. As Andrea Palus of Child Care for Every Family Network put it to USA Today, “I think the reconciliation bill did almost nothing for child care. And for sure, almost nothing related to the scale of the need.”

There is almost nothing in this country that exists that wasn’t molded by immigrant hands, and that includes our children. And many Americans who assume that their citizenship will shield them from the fallout of anti-immigrant policies may be about to find out that the impact is as close to home as it gets.

AND:

Today marked the fifth anniversary of the passing of John Lewis, the iconic activist who gave decade after decade of his life to securing Americans’ most basic rights. Born in Alabama, where, he later wrote, “unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles…into a nightmare,” he became one of the original Freedom Riders in 1961—and was beaten and jailed as a result. In 1965, he led marchers over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for voting rights—and had his skull fractured in the process. And then he entered politics, ultimately serving as a U.S. Representative from Georgia for three decades. He used that platform to inveigh against war and for equality, and always, always for the “almost sacred” right to vote. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore crucial voting-rights protections that have been hollowed out by right-wing legislators, remains stalled in Congress, but you can urge your rep to live up to Lewis’s example and support it already.

LEWIS IN 1964 AT A PROTEST WHEN HE WAS NATIONAL CHAIRMAN OF THE STUDENT NON-VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Last year, Brett Hankinson was convicted of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights when he used excessive force and fired several shots into her Louisville, Kentucky home in 2020. He will be sentenced next week and is facing a maximum of life.—but today, in an unconscionable move, the Justice Department has asked that Hankinson only be sentenced to one day in jail.
In this week’s edition of Bullshit the GOP Wants You to Believe, we have a doozy: there are fetal remains in the water supply. To be clear: There’s no evidence of that! But that’s the implication of a bill introduced in Congress last month that would criminalize abortion providers for disposing of fetal remains via a “publicly owned water system” or, as writer Jessica Valenti so aptly called it, “flushing abortions.” Please note that if you are suffering from a spontaneous miscarriage at home and are unsure whether you can legally flush your own uterine lining down your own toilet (!), most doctors recommend calling 911for help. If you are self-managing an abortion, check here or speak directly to your provider for guidance.
In a difficult year for journalists, an especially hearty congratulations to this year’s winners of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Awards, Yousra Elbagir, Maritza L. Félix, Juliana Dal Piva and Sana Atef (a reporter who writes under a pseudonym for Afghanistan’s Zan Times).
The Portland Fire have returned (almost).

A FAN TAKES IN THE VIEW WITH A SICK T-SHIRT DURING THIS MONTH'S PORTLAND FIRE LAUNCH EVENT IN OREGON. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

If all the news of the day has you stressed, here’s a little something to smooth the wrinkles of your brain, courtesy of Queen Papaya.

WEEKEND READING 📚

On island life: Huda has spoken. (Call Her Daddy)

On being eternally hot: Millennials are redefining what it looks like to enter midlife. Spoiler: we’re making midlife sexy again. (Elle)

On centering victims: It’s been a long week of Epstein news, but Julie K. Brown, who broke many of the big Epstein stories, is keeping her focus on what matters: the women at the heart of the case. (Radio Atlantic; listen to the very end)

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"Trying to Break Us Won't Work"

June 10, 2025

Greetings, Meteor readers,

It was a long weekend, especially for these two. Let’s jump right in.

In today’s newsletter, The Meteor’s Angie Jaime writes to us from the West Coast to share what the last few days (and months) have been like in Los Angeles. Plus, the return of our better-news series, Tell Me Somethin’ Good.

xoxo,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

Dispatch from Los Angeles: To hear national news tell it, the protests resisting immigration raids in L.A. are the product of ICE’s recent violent overreach, but the truth for those of us who live here is much more complex: The block has been hot, so to speak, for months. ICE has been roving the streets of Los Angeles actively since at least February, just weeks after historic wildfires had devastated the city, effectively kicking the community while we were already down. In my own Highland Park on the eastern side of town, ICE began appearing in my neighborhood about six weeks after the fires that forced us to evacuate; the agents began installing street blockades near schools and doing random door-to-door investigations, setting the community on edge. Then, last weekend, ICE activity roiled to a boil, when agents conducted raids at multiple Los Angeles-area locations Friday, arresting upwards of 200 people per day, sparking protests that drew thousands to the streets.

But it isn’t the protests that are sending my city into disarray. My neighbors and I are distressed because of the terrorizing actions of ICE and local police, made worse by Trump’s decision to send in the National Guard and now the Marines over our own state’s objections. A cynical—and, let’s be real, accurate—assessment would be that this is occurring by design, that the military presence is an attempt by the Trump administration to break a wounded city into factions that would turn on its most vulnerable. But that’s clearly a strategy of someone with a grudge against California, who does not know or understand Los Angeles in all her complexity, massive and minuscule.

WHO DOESN'T LOVE A GOOD(VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Trying to break us won’t work. In the face of both ICE and its unasked-for armed backup, community members have risen up to resist on behalf of those targeted. Protesters of all intersecting identities, young and old, of all genders and races, from across the county, have put their bodies on the line for their fellow citizens, for their families, for people they may never meet., Many community organizers who had previously mobilized around wildfire recovery, Palestinian free speech in the entertainment industry, and other urgent causes have quickly pivoted to protests against ICE—showing that in a time of need, Angelenos have one another’s backs.

And by the way, L.A. is not a war zone. In Highland Park this weekend, the cookouts continued apace, the park where I took my six-month-old was teeming with laughing children, and the neighborhood shops were as filled as they are on any other Sunday. The fear, the horror, the agitation do not come from whatever actions protesters might take in expressing themselves. The fear looms because my neighbors may be snatched from their homes at any moment, because the government continues to escalate force against its own people in the pursuit of white supremacy, because regardless of status, being Brown means that nothing precludes you from having your family torn apart by ICE.

And yet, Los Angeles is my home and will remain so, in no small part because of the people who make up its foundations. As a philosopher-poet once said, “It wouldn't be L.A. without Mexicans/It’s Black love, Brown pride in the sets again.”

—Angie Jaime

So how can you help? Volunteering with legal aid services, sharing resources, and financially supporting local aid funds all work (and, of course, urge your members of Congress to raise their voices—this is not normal).⁠

AND:

You may have willed yourself to forget about it, but the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni rages on—and Lively just won a meaningful round. On Monday, a judge dismissed Baldoni’s defamation and extortion countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, their publicist, and The New York Times. In a social media post, Lively called the suit “retaliatory” and said she was “more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman's right to have a voice in protecting themselves.” Given the prevalence with which men use defamation suits to strike back against accusers—to quote Mother Jones, “She Said, He Sued”—this decision could actually have an impact. In any event, the two will see each other in court next March.
The Madleen, a ship carrying humanitarian activists (including Greta Thunberg) and aid for Gaza, was intercepted by Israeli forces over the weekend. Those on board were taken to Israel and held in a detention facility before being deported to their respective countries. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which organized the journey, claims that the ship was “unlawfully boarded” and the supplies meant for Gazans confiscated. Rima Hassan, a Palestinian member of the French parliament, is among those still in detention. Thunberg, who was seen exiting an airport in Paris, described the ordeal as “being kidnapped in international waters…but that is not the real story here”—it’s that “there is a genocide going on in Gaza.”
ICYMI: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is a group of people whose job is to craft medically sound vaccine policies for the CDC. The reasoning? RFK, Jr., who has undermined public confidence in vaccines for years, said, “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.” The outcry from public-health officials has been swift; as the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics said, “Families and children will be the ones to pay the price for this decision.” Wondering where you can go for accurate vaccine information if the U.S. government isn’t doing its job? Bookmark this and this.
You may have read that the political gender gap is widening among young people, with young men swinging increasingly to the right. Now, a new Gallup poll has found that there’s a 20-point difference in how women and men view abortion: 61 percent of women consider themselves pro-choice, while only 41 percent of men do—the widest margin since Gallup started tracking public opinion on abortion two decades ago. Talk to your men!!
There was a massive ChatGPT outage today, which was probably very stressful for all of the people who have developed “intense obsessions” with the bot. This is exactly how Her ended, just saying.

TELL ME SOMETHIN' GOOD 🎶

Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print, a documentary about the iconic magazine, is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival tonight, as you read this! (Transparency: The Meteor’s Cindi Leive is an executive producer.) If you’re looking for something to do later this week, there are still a few tickets left to see the film before it heads to HBO next month.
Amanda Montei and Tracy Clark Flory (who coined the useful term “hetero-exceptionalism”) have teamed up for a new podcast, Dire Straights, a “feminist critique of heterosexual love, sex, politics, and culture.” Finally, someone’s going to help the heteros heal themselves. Good luck, ladies!
Incredible news for the K-pop girlies: BTS is getting back together this month! After taking a break to complete their military service, the last three members of the group (Jimin, Jung Kook, and Suga) are set to be discharged soon and already have plans to reunite with their veteran bandmates.

RM (L) AND V (R) WERE DISCHARGED FROM SERVICE THIS WEEK AND WERE MET BY A CROWD OF FANS IN CHUNCHEON, SOUTH KOREA. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

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A Plea for the "Disappeared" at the Statue of Liberty

June 3, 2025

Greetings, Meteor readers,

I want to extend the happiest of Happy Prides to all the organizers and participants of a historic sporting event that took place in Oslo on Sunday, the Ruck You Match. The event was a rugby game with a team of cis gender women scrapping against a team of trans women. It was organized as a big ruck you to a spate of bans on transgender women in sports. (If you’re curious, the final score was 34-7 with the cis women’s team coming out on top.)

In today’s newsletter, we talk to filmmaker and activist Paola Mendoza about uplifting the stories of disappeared Venezuelans. Plus, a little good news for the girls and the gays, and a rundown of big upcoming Supreme Court decisions.

🏳️‍🌈♥️,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

Yearning to breathe free: Last Sunday, a group of strangers dressed in white sat, screamed, and held hands at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Before them stood filmmaker and activist Paola Mendoza, reading the names of the 238 Venezuelan men who have been “disappeared” by the Trump administration and sent to the El Salvadoran mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). The demonstration, spearheaded by Mendoza, was a re-enactment of the now-infamous images of detained Venezuelan men being brought into CECOT, where they’ve been cut off from their families, along with any shred of due process.

(PHOTO BY KISHA BARI)

When Mendoza conceived of the protest, she chose to center the men’s humanity—to remind everyone of the 238 human beings getting treated like political pawns. “I'm desperately trying to refuse to allow [these disappearances] to become normalized, to allow it to just be the banality of regular life,” she said. “How I do that is by uplifting stories, to say, ‘This is not normal … and we cannot allow it to become normal.’”

One of the names Mendoza read was that of Ysqueibel Peñaloza, who was sent to CECOT in March despite having no criminal record in any country. Peñaloza was in the U.S. legally on a CBP One application, and was with friends shooting a music video when ICE agents raided the home and arrested him and several others. His mother, Ydalis Chirinos, has been vocal about her son’s plight. “Ysqueibel is one of the two greatest treasures that God gave me,” Chirinos tells The Meteor, and yet “I have no knowledge of how my son is being treated.” Chirinos, who is 50 years old and lives in Venezuela, says she waits up nearly all night hoping to hear from her son or his lawyers; the loss of sleep makes it hard to care for her daughter and ailing father.

As she waits for the legal system to run its course, Chirinos appeals to the mercy of those in the United States: “What is happening has no explanation, at least for me, since we are human beings and children of God. We do not leave our country for pleasure, we do it out of necessity…I sincerely ask you to help me.”

THE FIRST GROUP OF MEN SENT TO CECOT IN MARCH. THEIR HEADS WERE SHAVEN UPON ARRIVAL AND THEIR HANDS AND FEET ARE CHAINED TOGETHER. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Mendoza is hopeful that more Americans will hear pleas like Chirinos’. “[Prison abolitionist] Mariame Kaba says that hope is a discipline,” she said. “And this is when we have to be the most disciplined.” She posits that even though all sides generally agree that the immigration system is broken, the entire debate can be boiled down to a “yes” or “no” question: “Do you want to be a place that welcomes immigrants, or do you want to be a place that disappears them?”

Increasingly, the U.S. looks like the latter; an anti-immigrant domino effect has been rolling out since the Obama administration, and with recent decisions from the Supreme Court, the Trump administration is poised to do even more damage. Nonetheless, “if we can figure out a way to get ourselves to the moon, figure out a way to create cell phones and process data and create AI centers,” Mendoza said, “then you got to fucking believe that we also could figure out a way to fix this immigration system. But there isn’t a [political] will or desire to do so and that is the problem, not immigrants.”

Which is why the work of changing public opinion is so essential. Mendoza recounts the advice given to her by Morena Herrera, a former guerilla and reproductive rights activist in El Salvador: “She told me all regimes fall. How long a regime lasts is up to the people.

AND:

The White House continues to go hard at the arts, and especially at the Smithsonian. According to the Washington Post, the White House is requesting new cuts that would completely eliminate funding for the Anacostia Community Museum—whose website says it “offers a platform where diverse voices and cultures can be heard”—and the planned National Museum of the American Latino. The new budget has not been made final but you can always support the Smithsonian by making a donation. And if you’re in New York and hungry for Latine history, El Museo del Barrio is waiting for you.
On Sunday, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition launched a ship, the Madleen, from Sicily, headed towards Gaza. The Madleen is carrying aid supplies and several human-rights activists, including Greta Thunberg, in hopes of reaching Gaza and distributing food and medical supplies. The Madleen and her crew will face an Israeli naval blockade on their journey and odds are low they will accomplish their mission. Just last month a different ship, Conscience, was damaged by a drone attack off the coast of Malta

SOME OF THE MADLEEN'S CREW MEMBERS ON THE DAY THEIR VOYAGE BEGAN. (VIA GETTY AIMGES)

Lawmakers in Missoula, Montana, have made the Pride flag an official city flag after the Montana legislature banned it from being flown in state buildings or public schools under HB819. Several other cities with bans have enacted workarounds for ringing in Pride month in full color, but here’s the beauty of Missoula’s move: HB819 allows for “historically significant” and “official flags” to fly, which allows for other controversial flags like the Confederate flags and the Thin Blue Line flag to exist unbothered. By making the Pride flag “official” to the city, Missoula used conservatives’ own loopholes against them.
In response to the UK Supreme Court’s recent ruling that the legal definition of “woman” is based on biological sex, British pop singer Kate Nash is giving us a new acronym and a new song: GERM. It stands for “girl, exclusionary, regressive, misogynist” and is, in Nash’s opinion, a more appropriate term for TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Nash argues in her song that those people aren’t “rad at all” or even feminists. We love a bop with a message.
If you’re old enough to remember the emotional toil of organizing your MySpace Top 10, we’ve got bad news. Your midlife crisis is on the way.

CHEAT SHEET

What SCOTUS Is About to Do to Our Summer

BY CINDI LEIVE

PROTESTERS GATHERED OUTSIDE OF THE COURT EARLIER LAST MONTH TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATION'S THREATS TO BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Welcome to June, the month when the most legally-obsessed person in your friend group (hi, that’s us) starts compulsively refreshing the Supreme Court opinion site to be first to know what the Robed Ones have planned for our futures. These are the hot summer weeks that, in past years, have made us rejoice, rage, and panic—and 2025 will be a doozy: The justices are expected to rule on a raft of major cases with real-life, national impact before they break for the summer. A taste of what’s ahead:

The trans-rights case. In United States v. Skrmetti, the court will rule on whether the state of Tennessee is violating the Constitution with its ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors. (Here’s Chase Strangio, one of the lawyers representing the three trans teens and their supportive parents, talking about the context of the case last year.)
The LGBTQ+ book case. Mahmoud v. Taylor hinges on whether parents have a religious right to opt their children out of reading material that covers LGBTQ+ themes—like Pride Puppy, about a dog that gets lost at a Pride parade. (If that sounds like a good gift for a five-year-old in your life, you know what to do.)
The voting-rights case. Louisiana v. Callais looks at the state of Louisiana, where more than 30% of the population is Black, but, thanks to maps drawn by the legislature, only one out of the state’s six U.S. Congressional districts was majority-Black. Under pressure, the legislature created a second one—but “non-African-American” voters challenged it, and the court is set to rule on their arguments.
The “reverse discrimination” case. Sensing a theme here? In Ames v. Department of Youth Services, the court will rule on whether it should be as easy for majority-group plaintiffs—like Marlean Ames, who says she was discriminated against for being straight—to argue discrimination suits as it is for minorities to do so. If she wins, “straight, white people everywhere could be filing,” one HR expert told the Washington Post.
The Planned Parenthood case. At issue in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is not whether you can use Medicaid funds to cover an abortion—that’s already illegal in South Carolina. It’s whether the state can keep you from using your Medicaid coverage from getting a mammogram, Pap smear or any other care at Planned Parenthood. Arguing for the state are your old friends the Alliance Defending Freedom, who helped bring down Roe v. Wade. Fun!
And finally, the birthright citizenship case, in which the justices are weighing not just Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to some children born in the United States (which flies in the face of 150 years of legal precedent and practice), but also the practice of nationwide injunctions. Lower courts have used injunctions to halt roughly two dozen Trump policies so far this term.

Exhausted? Same. And that doesn’t even include big cases on pornography, Obamacare, or everything that joins the birthright case on the “emergency docket”—which is bulging lately given the steady stream of challenges to legally nonsensical White House orders.

Stay tuned for more as the decisions roll out. And give thanks for the three queens of SCOTUS sanity, Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan, who continue to stand for the law and our rights through all of it.

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by The Meteor

You Can Live Here, Until You Can't

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)

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by The Meteor

Are Protests Now "Terrorism?"

It will be for some ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 11, 2025

The weather is absolutely gorgeous in New Jersey, which means it is officially hiking season for me and my mini. We’re packin’ snacks, makin’ tracks, and yelling “dog” every time we see one.

And speaking of sunny optimism, thanks to all of you who turned out for our International Women’s Day event at the Brooklyn Museum last Saturday! We loved seeing every one of you almost as much as Aurora James loved seeing Diane von Furstenberg.

ALL LOVE! (PHOTO BY REDENS DESROSIERS)

In today’s newsletter, we look at the larger impact of a student arrest, plus a frightening report on who exactly is in our state legislatures. Plus, the second annual Meteor Madness bracket group is now open.

From the trail,

Shannon Melero

WHAT'S GOING ON

A green card didn’t save him: On Saturday, Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia University in New York and a vocal member of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus, was arrested by Department of Homeland Security officers in the lobby of his university-owned apartment building. According to Khalil’s attorney, who spoke to NPR, he was told by the arresting officers that he was being apprehended because his student visa had been canceled. When Khalil, who is Palestinian, told officers that he was a legal permanent resident with a green card, they said that his green card had been revoked, too. He was arrested without a warrant, and for several hours, his lawyers and his wife could not find him. He is now in a detention center in Louisiana—although attempts to deport him were temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Monday morning.

A little context: Khalil’s arrest comes on the heels of an executive order issued by Donald Trump which promised to detain and deport “Hamas sympathizers on college campuses” and any non-citizen who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity.” (There is no evidence he has committed a “criminal offense,” The Atlantic reported. ) But Trump is still taking a twisted victory lap, posting on Truth Social: “This is the first arrest of many to come,” he wrote, calling protesters “paid agitators” and “terrorist sympathizers.”

Khalil has not been charged with a crime, nor is there proof that he’s a “paid agitator.” There’s no evidence that he’s said anything threatening or violent. He was, however, a very visible protester of the genocide in Gaza. He’s a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition demanding the school’s divestment from Israel. A quick search of Khalil will turn up photos of him at protests, sit-ins, rallies, and encampments. But those activities—per the Constitution!—are not crimes. So let’s be clear: Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner, punished for exercising his First Amendment rights.

A lot of us are rightly up in arms about Khalil’s arrest—an arrest that feels ironic because Mahmoud Khalil is what the state would normally consider a “model minority.” He has a master’s degree from a prestigious institution, he’s a husband and soon-to-be father, and he presented a green card at the time of his arrest. But none of that saved him—all because he expressed views the government disagreed with.

PROTESTORS GATHERING ON KHALIL'S BEHALF IN NEW YORK CITY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

So as social-media users have been asking: If basic human rights are not extended to people like Khalil, who is protected? If you can disappear someone with a green card, who can’t you disappear? These are fair questions. It’s also worth a reminder that other vulnerable people’s rights were taken away recently with far less outcry. In January, the bipartisan Laken Riley Act rendered due process a thing of the past for undocumented immigrants; the bill is apparently a driving force in the increase in targeted ICE raids. Just last month, more than 100 Venezuelans —some of whom had no criminal charges against them—were also “disappeared” after being detained in Guantanamo Bay. What’s being done to Khalil is egregious, but it’s not isolated. Like many immigrants, Khalil sensed he could become a target and reached out for help, only for it to fall on deaf ears.

When the president of the United States promised months ago that he was coming for everyone who was against him, we should have believed him—and not waited until he came for someone with a green card.

AND:

A new report from the National Women’s Defense League found that there have been approximately 400 allegations of sexual harassment filed against 145 sitting state lawmakers between 2013 and 2024. (A note in the report clarifies that the number of actual incidents is likely three times higher.) Now, are these the same people we task with writing laws meant to protect victims from assault or??? (They are.)
Elizabeth Oyer, a pardon attorney with the Department of Justice, was fired last week—just one day after she refused to grant an unusual request: to restore Mel Gibson’s right to own a gun. Oyer was part of a working group that had been given a list of names to consider for gun-rights restoration. She was later told by her superiors to add Gibson, who pleaded no contest to domestic abuse in 2011. Normally, those convicted of homicide, domestic abuse, or armed robbery are not eligible for gun rights restoration; even the very pro-gun Supreme Court agrees with that policy. So, following that well-established precedent, Oyer denied the request. “There are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms,” she told the New York Times. But after her denial, she was pressured to reconsider her recommendation, given what a senior Justice Department official called Gibson’s “personal relationship with the president” and his recent appointment to a special position. She was fired on Friday. (No word yet on if or when Gibson will get what he wants.)
Today the Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit brought by 19 Republican attorneys general seeking to block climate change lawsuits in their respective states. The states in question are allowing their own courts to hear cases against fossil fuel companies for lying to the public about their products’ impacts on the environment. In the lawsuit, Republicans ~~whined~~ argued that largely blue states are trying to manipulate energy policy. Cry me a polluted river, dude 🙄.
Basketball sistren and bracket babes, lend me your ears! Selection Sunday for the NCAA March Madness tournament is THIS weekend, and your favorite brackmaster has already set up the group for my early birds. You can join the Meteor Madness bracket challenge by clicking here. If you competed with us last year, here's one small update: We are operating on the “upset scoring” system to make things more exciting, but just like last year, first place will be getting a sweet Meteor tote.