Reporting Finds 500+ U.S. Citizens Illegally Held

Pro Publica Probe Prompts Proposed Legislation

More than 500 U.S. citizens have been detained in warrantless arrests during the second Trump administration, a ProPublica investigation has determined.

The detentions include “More than a hundred Americans held after agents questioned their citizenship. Nearly all were people of color,” Nicole Foy, Ruth Talbot, Cengiz Yar, Liliana Michelena, Bianca Fortis, Mariam Elba and Kahlie Wray reported for ProPublica.

“The Trump administration says none of this is happening.

“ ‘DHS is NOT arresting U.S. citizens by mistake.’ ‘There are no “indiscriminate” stops.’ “Allegations of ‘racial profiling are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.’  ‘The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using force.’ ‘ICE does not zip tie or restrain children.’

“But that is precisely what is happening, and at a far larger scale than previously reported.

“We know because we have once again done what the government hasn’t:

“We have tallied and cataloged every case we can find of an immigration agent holding a citizen during the current administration.

“More than 500 cases. That includes:

“More than a hundred Americans held after agents questioned their citizenship. Nearly all were people of color.

“At least 70 American children and teens detained, some of whom were handcuffed.

“Of the more than 300 Americans we tracked as detained for allegedly assaulting or obstructing agents, we found fewer than half were actually charged in federal court, and many of those cases were dropped or dismissed.

“At least 63 Americans detained while recording.

“36 Americans held for at least a day without being able to contact a lawyer or their family.

“Roughly a dozen citizens deported, mostly children.

“Collectively, these cases show that as the administration has relentlessly pursued immigrants, federal agents have run roughshod over the constitutional rights of citizens too.

“We’re showing you every case — the reality that the administration denies — along with the receipts.”

The investigation, published Oct. 6, has prompted legislation from Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.Mex., and Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., to roll back the protections from lawsuits that agents and the federal government currently have. It would also establish a minimum level of compensation for people who win their suits, and extend the statute of limitations for such cases, Foy reported Monday.

• Hayes Brown, MS NOW: The GOP has found its ‘migrant caravan’ for the 2026 midterms

• Alma Campos, Chicago Sun-Times: “ Fearing ICE, some Chicago immigrants shift work, daily life to nighttime hours

• Adrian Carrasquillo, the Bulwark: ICE’s Cruelty Is Becoming America’s M.O.

• Anna Flagg, Shannon Heffernan and Aaron Sankin, Marshall Project: Tracking Trump’s crackdown on immigrant kids (Aug. 6)

• Molly Redden, Avi Asher-Schapiro, William Turton and Kirsten Berg, ProPublica: How Trump’s FBI Purge Saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn From a Bribery Investigation

In top video, the AI creation shown at Friday’s celebration;  video below, Sharpton joins lawyer Ben Crump and others in August at the National Association of Black Journalists advocating on behalf of the family of Nolan Wells, the Black teenager found dead off the coast of Mississippi. (Credit: YouTube)

In AI Creation, Historic Heroes, Journos Fete Sharpton

Despite some contentions that it is inappropriate for journalists to present awards to their news sources, the New York Association of Black Journalists Friday honored the Rev. Al Sharpton for his work advocating for “media and civil rights.” And thanks to artificial intelligence, a tribute video featured several icons from Black history: Frederick Douglass, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, James Brown, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Black journalism pioneers T. Thomas Fortune and Mary Ann Shadd Cary among them.

The event, “the Sneaker Ball and Awards Ceremony,” drew 170 people to Harlem’s historic Alhambra Ballroom, NYABJ President Cynthia Horner (pictured) said, and Sharpton received a friendly and warm reception.

As previously reported, the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists says, “Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose, explain and seek to lessen the effect of unavoidable conflicts.”

In addition to hosting MS NOW’s weekend “PoliticsNation,” which has had the highest concentration of Black viewers of any program on cable news, Sharpton is president and founder of the National Action Network.

In that role, he is currently in the news as adviser to the family of Nolan Wells, the Black teenager who was found dead off the coast of Mississippi, and spoke in that capacity at the summer convention of the National Association of Black Journalists.

The New York Amsterdam News applauded NYABJ’s choice of Sharpton, editorializing Thursday, “Cheers for Rev. Al Sharpton, who was saluted on his 72nd birthday earlier in October with a rousing speech by Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani at the National Action Network (NAN) House of Justice in Harlem, may resound even louder at Harlem’s historic Alhambra Ballroom on Oct. 23. The NAN founder will have a chance to smell the roses once more.” It also published a profile of Horner.

Here are Sharpton’s remarks, as reported for Journal-isms by Danielle Belton, former editor of the Root and Huff Post, currently editing The Black Snob:

They told me that the New York chapter, they’d be able to give me an award.
I’m supposed to be speaking somewhere,  I said, “No, I’ve got to be there.”

And they said, “It’s Cynthia Horner, who covered me way before it was fashionable.”

I said, “Anywhere she wants me to be, I’m going to be there.”

She’s [a] better example of Black journalism with excellence.

Give a hand to Cynthia.
(applause)

We are in very precarious times, but we’ve been here before, and it has been the voice of a Black press that spoke for us with no one else would pay us any money.

Sometimes when people get in other platforms called mainstream, they forget that the mainstream was opened up by freedom fighters and by journalists that would not be silenced.

And I want to encourage you to continue that tradition as we deal with the era [of] Trump
We dealt with other [eras] and we prevailed because of your voice.

Don’t ever lose that voice and don’t ever forget the bridges that brought us across.

As I looked at this video, which is — also you have to give me a copy of that — I think that when I looked at that and I thought about how I was blessed in my life, blessed in my life to be under giants.

And they taught me from being a young boy preaching to what I became.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, James Brown and others, it reminded me, James Brown owned three Black-
owned radio stations himself in the ’70s, and Reverend Jackson fought over doors of advertising.

We’ve got to do that again.

And I commit to working with this chapter to do what we need to do to make sure we restore where we should be.

It’s a shame we’re in the city of New York with the biggest city in the world and we no longer
have viable Black media that can pierce the veil of racism in this town.

So we need you. Without a microphone no one will hear us; without the writers no one will read us.
So I encourage you to let us fight to make those of the microphones and those papers and magazines.

I have a one grandson.
My grandson will not know what my mother used to make me do.
She, as I said in the video, raised me by sister after my father left.

But she made me go get the Amsterdam News and be great, and Daily Challenge and other papers.
I used to watch Gil [Noble], on “Like It Is.”.
I used to watch [ “Gus” Heningburg] on Positively Black.
That was the foundation that I came from.
And that’s the foundation [I] stand on.

A tree is not judged by the height it grows.
It’s judged by the roots and the ground that it comes from.
You are the roots and you are the ground.
And let us make it sacred ground.
God bless you. Thank you for this award.
(applause)

• Journal-isms: New York NABJ Chapter to Honor Al Sharpton (Oct. 11)

• Journal-isms: Miffed Sharpton Cancels NABJ Appearance (March 12, 2012)

• Journal-isms: NABJ Eyes Partnerships With Politicians (Sept. 27, 2011)

Blacks, Latinos, Asians Seek News on Social Media

Of those who say they regularly use YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X (Twitter), Blacks, Hispanics and English-speaking Asians far outstrip whites in saying they regularly get their news from those sites. And half of Hispanics who use Facebook list that as their source, according to new data from the Pew Research Center.

Journal-isms asked Pew for a racial breakout of its overall results.

In sum, Pew reported Monday, “Digital devices are by far the most common way Americans get news, although a majority (63%) also get news from television at least sometimes. This includes 31% who say they often get news from TV, a share that has stayed fairly steady over the last few years.

“Americans turn to radio and print publications for news less frequently. As of 2026, 12% of U.S. adults say they often get news from radio, and 6% say the same about printed newspapers or magazines. Both of these shares are roughly the same as last year.”

However, more Hispanics, Blacks and Asians say social media is an important way to keep up with the news.

Addressing other disparities, Pew said the “women are more likely to regularly get news from Facebook and TikTok, while men are more likely to get news from YouTube and X.

“And adults without a college degree are more likely than college graduates to get news from Facebook and TikTok.

“Democrats, including independents who lean toward the Democratic Party, are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to get news from Instagram, TikTok and Reddit, while Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say they get news from Facebook and X. Roughly equal shares of Democrats and Republicans say they regularly get news from YouTube.”

Broadcast Journalist Accused in Opiod Scheme

“An Emmy award-winning broadcaster and three doctors were indicted and accused of helping fuel the nation’s opioid crisis by scheming to illegally obtain oxycodone and other drugs and sell them on the black market, according to unsealed court records obtained by The Detroit News on Oct. 22,” Robert Snell reported Thursday for the Detroit News.

“The broadcaster, Clara Wilkerson, 65, (pictured) formerly of Bloomfield Hills, was indicted alongside three doctors and accused of participating in a scheme that flooded the streets with more than 2.4 million dosage units of drugs — including the pain medications oxymorphone and hydrocodone-acetaminophen — worth more than $14.6 million on the black market.

“The 39-count indictment described a dark side to an anchor and producer who worked for WDIV-TV (Channel 4) and stations in Florida and Washington, D.C., and who produced videos featured on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and PBS.

“Patients were paid $100 or more to visit the clinic and obtain prescriptions for opiate pain medications, the indictment alleged. . . .”

Wilkerson currently works as an executive producer and program creator for “The Chavis Chronicles,” a weekly series for which Benjamin Chavis, president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, is host and executive producer. It claims to reach more than 110 million households.

Rise of Flock Cameras Said to Pose Danger to Journos

The news media should join the mounting national concern over Flock surveillance cameras, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The cameras are part of an automatic license plate recognition system that critics say has been abused by some law enforcement agencies.

“Mass surveillance systems threaten privacy and undermine First Amendment rights,“ Caitlin Vogus wrote Tuesday for the foundation. “They also pose a particular danger to a free press, by making it far easier for the government to track journalists and identify their sources or to harass journalists. Flock cameras have already been used to track protesters and activists. Journalists and their sources have plenty of reason to believe that they could be next — or that it’s already happening in secret.

“Leak investigations today often focus on the digital trails that connect journalists to their sources. But the government has also used good old-fashioned physical surveillance against journalists and sources.

“In one shocking example from 1972, the CIA followed columnist Jack Anderson and his staff, including Brit Hume, for months, hoping to uncover their sources for reporting on various Nixon administration foreign policy decisions. Anderson later wrote that 20 ‘CIA heavies,’ armed with ‘binoculars, walkie-talkies, secret cameras and other James Bond paraphernalia, followed him around the country and photographed visitors to his office. He caught on after a source tipped him off. The CIA apparently never found his sources. . . . “

Janet Cooke Scandal Cost Bob Woodward Top Job

The story of Janet Cooke (pictured), the Black reporter at the Washington Post whose fabricated story of a 8-year-old heroin user won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981, only to be returned when the hoax was discovered, is remembered by some as a tale of how a reporter could bamboozle her editors; by others as prompting an unwarranted distrust of Black female journalists by some white editors.

But for Bob Woodward, forever remembered as half of the reporting team that broke the Watergate story and went on to a stellar investigative career, it was also the story that ended hopes of ever becoming the Post’s top editor.

“When I was the editor of the Post’s Metro section, I had made a mistake that insured that I would not succeed Ben Bradlee as executive editor of the Post,” Woodward (pictured below) wrote for the New Yorker as part of a piece headlined “The Danger of Getting Too Close to a Source.”

“One of the reporters under my wing, Janet Cooke, had won a Pulitzer Prize for an article headlined ‘Jimmy’s World,” about an eight-year-old heroin addict, which turned out to have been fabricated. It was a giant mistake on my part, and I took responsibility. The incident reinforced in my mind, and to others at the Post, that I was not cut out to be an editor. It was also a moral failing. If I had tried to save the child first, the fraud would have been identified. . . . .

“One day, Don Graham, the publisher of the paper, took me out to lunch and said, You’ll always have a home here, but you’ll never be executive editor. I understood.”

In 2016, Sager wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that Cooke “is living within the borders of the continental United States, within a family setting, and pursuing a career that does not primarily involve writing.”

Ken Irby on Waiting List for Kidney Transplant

The Rev. Kenneth Irby, veteran newspaper photojournalist who went on to teach at the Poynter Institute, serve as a community liaison for the city of St. Petersburg, Fla., and become a church pastor, “is now seeking support as he undergoes a challenging chapter in his life,” Alexia McKay wrote Tuesday for Tampa Bay’s powerbrokernews.com

“Irby works with the Office of Community Impact for the city of St. Petersburg. He recently transitioned from his role as the 30th senior pastor at Historic Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church,” McKay continued. “In 1991, he was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease (PKD).

“The cysts were discovered during a renal ultrasound exam while testing for hypertension. At the time of this reporting, he decided against dialysis and is starting his third year on the transplant list at Largo Medical Hospital and his second year on the list at Tampa General Hospital. Kidney transplant wait times at Tampa General Hospital range from approximately 23-37 months, depending on the blood type.

“ ‘Without question, the greatest challenge has been the waiting process,’ Irby shared with Power Broker.

“Irby’s diagnosis exposes the kidney crisis that many Black Americans face. Black people are 47% more likely to have chronic kidney disease and 95% more likely to die from it. Additionally, according to the National Kidney Foundation, Black Americans are three times more likely to have kidney failure than whites. . . .”

• American Society of Nephrology: ASN 2026

• Journal-isms: Why Journos Should Learn About Race and Health

• National Kidney Foundation.

Maria Anglin, San Antonio Columnist, Dies at 57

“Maria Anglin, a former San Antonio Express-News columnist, died Wednesday at 57 amid an ongoing battle with kidney disease. Her playful, thought-provoking writing celebrated her Mexican American identity and explored the quirks of everyday life,” Rhyma Castillo reported Oct. 16 for the Express-News.

“Her husband, Greg Anglin, said she was taken to a local hospital after suddenly falling ill. Medical staff tried to revive her but were unable to do so.

“The couple had been married for nearly 23 years and planned to celebrate their anniversary Oct. 25.

Cuban journalist Henri Constantin, shown with his partner, journalist Alejandra García, was sent to a punishment cell for a minimum of 15 days on Oct. 15 after a search in which officers claimed to have found among his belongings a knife that he says was planted there.

In Cuba, Press-Freedom Violations Double in Sept.