Tyler McBrien
Managing Editor at Lawfare @lawfaremedia.org
Signal - tylermcbrien.97
Writing in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Slate, Mother Jones, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and more: www.tylermcbrien.com
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- Starting now: FEMA town hall with new acting agency head David Richardson who told staff last week, “Don’t get in my way…I will run right over you.” Stay tuned...
- HAPPENING NOW: Judge Sessions hears arguments on whether ICE gets to impose extra conditions of release on Rümeysa Öztürk, who is already out on bail. Also status conf. (Sessions declined to attach ICE conditions at the time of release, but he said he'd consider a written proposal later). 🧵
- NEW: Rümeysa Öztürk's attorneys ask Judge Sessions to reject all of ICE's proposed additional conditions of release, calling them unjustified and unjustifiable. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...
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- Thrilled to learn from DOJ's argument that the 14th Amendment applied to the "children of former slaves, not illegal immigrants, who didn't exist as a class yet" that modern firearms are not protected by the Second Amendment!
- it really is amazing how easy it is to jangle your keys in front of these people
- HAPPENING NOW: Hearing in the case of Kaseniia Petrova, the Harvard scientist from Russia who was detained by ICE after she failed to declare scientific samples when she returned to the US from France. The hearing is before a federal judge in Vermont. 🧵
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- There was an old tweet that stuck with me: "If you can easily walk to the coffee shop but your barista has a one hour commute, you don't live in a walkable 15 minute city; you live in a theme park"
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- This new Times piece on the last month of American bombing of Yemen has some insane details. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/u...
- Weaponization Czar
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- Our friend @bigcases.bots.law, the little bot @bradheath.bsky.social made many years ago and then @free.law adopted, peaces out from X, makes @bsky.app its official home. The end of an era, the start of a new one. Thank you for your service. 🫡
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- In 2024, Ernst Van Zyl of Afriforum—a White Afrikaner group that has been accused of treason re: Trump’s actions against South Africa—acknowledged that “there is no white genocide” in South Africa. But Trump just used the white genocide myth to justify giving White Afrikaners refugee status. 1/
- NEW: Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo may have to forfeit more than $600,000 in public matching funds, the New York City Campaign Finance Board announced Monday, citing Cuomo’s campaign may had inappropriately coordinated with an outside spending group. www.thecity.nyc/2025/05/12/c...
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- What's really wrong with the Qatar plane deal. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...
- The Afrikaner stunt is the kind of thing that has backfired so far -- it creates legal arguments for other refugees about animus. But holy hell he's not hiding the white sheets.
- It’s actually insane that there’s an argument happening here over whether the plane grift is “corruption” What are we even doing?
- The fact that the attorney general's last job before this one was lobbying for the Qataris is a little on the nose.
- The Mayor of New York City doesn't live in New York City full-time. www.politico.com/newsletters/...
- shameless promoting my own work, but for those wondering how we got here, there is a book for you www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707263...
- It’s especially galling that AG Pam Bondi personally wrote the memo approving the gift of the Qatari airplane. Her last job was as a lobbyist for Qatar! efile.fara.gov/docs/6415-Ex...
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- In case you are wondering, South African media is referring to those white South Africans fleeing to the US thanks to Trump as “refugees” - in scare-quotes - because we are all so confused.
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- Members of Congress were also there, but were not arrested. One reason why? It's literally illegal for DHS to bar any member of Congress from entering an immigration detention facility for the purposes of conducting oversight.
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- Since the FY20 spending bill. Dems had been turned away from ICE facilities during family separation, and made sure that was illegal. It has since been used on a bipartisan basis. Jason Crow (D-CO) has been using it to do oversight of the Aurora facility for years. crow.house.gov/transparency...
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- Short thread (hopefully in plain English) on the nuclear deterrence dynamics in the India-Pakistan relationship and where this goes if escalation continues. <1>
- The Pope at Game 1 of the 2005 World Series. No wonder the White Sox swept the ‘Stros
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- NEW: Rümeysa Öztürk's attorney Mahsa Khanbabai confirms ICE improperly tried to make her wear an ankle monitor: "Despite an 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor, Rümeysa is now free and is excited to return home, free of monitoring or restriction."
- Here's Judge Sessions's written order for Rümeysa Öztürk's release. We haven't yet seen confirmation that she's been released—I'll certainly update you as soon as it appears! storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
- NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey mayor is arrested at ICE detention center where he was protesting its opening, acting US attorney says.
- The mayor has been protesting the opening of the facility throughout this week, saying its operators did not get proper permits
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- They didn’t even include Massieu, the ONE case which has produced caselaw about the law? Weird.
- Pete Hegseth’s culture war hits West Point. Books banned, syllabuses scrubbed, two professors resign in protest, the librarian quit. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/u...
- HAPPENING NOW: Bail hearing for Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts PhD student who remains in detention in Louisiana after she was taken from her home in Massachusetts by masked immigration authorities. The hearing is before a Vermont judge. Ozturk is appearing virtually from Louisiana.
