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immigration and customs enforcement
Understanding MAGA's Plot to Rig the Midterms and Destroy Democracy
Here is a list of the plot’s main elements to help you stay informed, connected, and, above all, engaged.
Mar 12, 2026
The ongoing Trumpian plot to rig the midterms and end democracy is getting crazier and more dangerous by the day. The plot is also becoming increasingly layered and will likely continue all the way to next January 3, when newly elected members of the Senate and every member of the House will be sworn into office.
Keeping abreast of all the twists and turns as the scheme unfolds can be exhausting and overwhelming, and that’s exactly how our narcissist-in-chief and his assorted obergruppenführers want you to feel. But don’t give in. The plot is inherently flawed and, although we can never be certain, it will ultimately fail in the face of the president’s plummeting poll numbers, the deepening affordability crisis, and the growing popular resistance movement.
In the meantime, here is a list of the plot’s main elements to help you stay informed, connected, and, above all, engaged.
Nationalizing Elections by Executive Order, Declaring a National Emergency, and Going to War
In a February 2 appearance on former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino’s podcast, President Donald Trump called on Republicans to “take over“ and “nationalize“ voting in at least 15 states. As if on cue, the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a conservative Washington, DC think tank, convened an “election integrity summit” on February 19. The confab was highlighted by a 30-person roundtable discussion on the need to persuade Trump to issue a new executive order that would give him unprecedented control over how federal elections are run.
There is nothing more dangerous than an autocrat afraid of losing power, and there is no autocrat on the world stage today more fearful and paranoid than Donald Trump.
A who’s who of high-profile election deniers attended the summit, including Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser; attorney Cleta Mitchell, who directs the aptly misnamed Election Integrity Network; and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Also in attendance, according to ProPublica, was Kurt Olsen, a White House lawyer who is reinvestigating the 2020 election, along with other administration officials.Initially drafted in 2025 and currently being updated, the proposed order totals 17 pages. It would authorize Trump to declare an emergency under the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to counter alleged foreign interference in elections by requiring strict voter ID procedures, accelerating voting roll purges, banning mail-in ballots, and getting rid of voting machines in favor of hand-counting all votes.
The order doesn’t specify which countries have meddled in our elections. But Trump has targeted China in the past, and is currently accusing Iran, complaining in a 1:35 am Truth Social rant on February 28 that Iran interfered in the “2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States.” This serves the dual purpose of adding another justification for the war and, as election lawyer Marc Elias has noted, another rationale for Trump’s midterm power grab.
Like the executive order on voting rights Trump issued in March 2025, the new proposed order should be overturned by the courts, but only after costly and protracted litigation. Under Article I of the Constitution, the states determine the “times, places, and manner of holding elections.” Congress can pass legislation to regulate state voting procedures, but the president has no independent authority to do so.
Still, there is considerable peril ahead. No court rulings can prevent red states from voluntarily complying with Trump’s demands and affecting down-ballot races that might favor Democrats. Thus far, at least 10 states, including Texas, have handed over their full voter files to the Department of Justice, and the DOJ has sued more than 20 states that have refused to do the same. Even worse, on January 28., the FBI seized voting records from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger rebuffed the administration’s records request. The specter of similar raids in noncomplying states looms as the midterms approach.
The SAVE Act and Its Successors
Realizing the limitations of unilateral executive action, Trump loyalists have introduced legislation to accomplish what his executive orders cannot.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act passed in the House on April 10 and is pending before the Senate. If enacted, it would require all Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport, or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or re-register to vote, and require each state to ensure that only US citizens are registered to vote and to remove noncitizens from their voter lists. It would also create a private right of action, after the fashion of the Texas antiabortion law, to allow disgruntled individuals to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship and establish criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.
Fortunately, the act has stalled in the Senate, blocked at least temporarily by the filibuster rule that requires a 60-vote majority to advance legislation. However, two new bills—an amended version of the SAVE Act and the Make Elections Great Again Act—have been introduced in the House with strong backing from Trump, who claimed in his recent State of the Union address that “cheating [by Democrats in elections] is rampant.” Should any of the bills reach the Resolute Desk, the courts will be hard-pressed to block them, although legal challenges will no doubt be filed. And in yet another Truth Social rant posted in the early hours of March 8, Trump threatened not to sign any legislation until the act passes the Senate.
Mid-Decade Gerrymandering
Every 10 years, after the census, the Constitution requires the states to redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts to reflect population changes in a process known as reapportionment, or redistricting. If done fairly, the process provides equal representation for all voters regardless of race, gender, or party affiliation, guided by the ideal of “one person, one vote.”
Sadly, the process is deeply flawed and often yields to gerrymandering. A portmanteau coined after the salamander-like image that resulted on a map of the voting districts created by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry in 1812, gerrymandering today refers to the abusive practice of drawing electoral boundaries to give an advantage to a dominant party, group, or socioeconomic class.
Until now, states have typically redistricted only once per decade. But last July, under intense pressure from Trump, Texas broke the norm, drafting a new congressional map designed to give the GOP five additional House seats. Since then, other states have followed suit, touching off a mid-decade gerrymandering war that has spread to California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, and soon to other states. On balance, the math slightly favors the Republicans. But the war could easily backfire as a new blue wave appears to be building, and more voters, even in red states, come to realize they have been duped by the con man from Queens.
Deploying ICE at the Polls
In a February 3 podcast, former White House strategist Steve Bannon called on Trump to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to polling sites to prevent noncitizens from voting. Echoing the president’s own oft-repeated conspiracy theory, Bannon said:
We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.
Asked about Bannon’s comments two days later, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November… but what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”
Leavitt’s remarks were anything but reassuring for an administration that thrives on deceit. It is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place. It would not be illegal, however, for ICE to deploy to blue state cities on Election Day in the general vicinity of polling places with the goal of intimidating newly naturalized citizens from voting. In fact, it would be astonishing if ICE stayed home.
January 3, 2027
If all other tactics and any lawsuits the GOP launches fail, Trump and his most die-hard adherents will have one last opportunity to stop the Democrats from taking over the House and possibly the Senate on January 3, 2027, when the next Congress is sworn in.
The 20th Amendment mandates that every new Congress convene at noon on January 3. The first session of each chamber is supposed to be purely ceremonial in nature, just like the joint session of Congress that convenes on January 6 to count Electoral College ballots after a presidential election. But as we saw on January 6, 2021, ceremony can quickly give way to chaos, and even outright insurrection. This is especially true when given a patina of legality, as the 2020 election deniers concocted the theory that Vice President Mike Pence had the discretion to reject swing-state electoral votes cast in favor of Joe Biden.
If anything, there is even more opportunity for disruption and potential chaos on January 3. Each chamber has its own rules for the swearing-in process. In the House, the members elect vote to select a new speaker, who is sworn into office by the dean of the House—the most senior (longest-serving) member, regardless of party. Once sworn in, the new speaker administers the oath to the members elect.
The American people, on the other hand, are waking up and rejecting the neofascist horrors their president is offering them and their children.
But what happens if the dean refuses to swear in a new speaker, alleging election fraud? The current dean of the House is Kentucky Republican Hal Rogers, an election denier who voted against the certification of the 2020 election. If Trump demands, would Rogers delay or decline to swear in a Democratic speaker? Would he defy the president?
In the Senate, each newly elected member is sworn in by the vice president of the United States, who serves as president of the Senate. What happens if JD Vance, following instructions from his boss, refuses to swear in a critical number of Democrats?
Each chamber has procedures for resolving election disputes, but they are rarely invoked, and it remains to be seen how Trump would exploit them.
There is nothing more dangerous than an autocrat afraid of losing power, and there is no autocrat on the world stage today more fearful and paranoid than Donald Trump. He is prepared to do anything he can to stave off defeat, but his age and incompetence have finally caught up with him, and his aura of invincibility has been pierced. The American people, on the other hand, are waking up and rejecting the neofascist horrors their president is offering them and their children. In the end, they will see to it that the plot to rig the midterms and end democracy fails.
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3 Steps for a Just Immigration System: Abolish ICE, Grant Amnesty, End US Imperialism
We need a new system of immigration—one that serves the common good, respects the dignity of all peoples, and aligns with the principles of a democratic society.
Mar 07, 2026
On February 26, federal agents lied to gain access to a residential building. The agents, who local officials said lacked a warrant and wore “fake badges” to impersonate New York police officers, said they were looking for a “missing child.” In reality, they were hunting for Elmina Aghayeva, a Columbia University student who the Department of Homeland Security alleges had her visa terminated “for failing to attend classes.”
Due to the efforts of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Aghayeva has since been released. Still, the incidence speaks volumes to the level of normalized cruelty and injustice inherent in our current system of immigration control and enforcement. Aghayeva is not “the worst of the worst.” Even if we accept DHS’ assessment that she needed to be detained, there was a way of doing this lawfully—one where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents acquire a warrant, clearly identify themselves, respect her rights, and do not further erode public trust in law enforcement.
We need a new system of immigration—one that serves the common good, respects the dignity of all peoples, and aligns with the principles of a democratic society. Here are three steps we can take toward that end.
First Step: Abolish ICE
What was once a fringe position is now supported by the majority (76%) of Democrats and a plurality of US adults (46%).
While the Trump administration’s disregard for the rule of law has made ICE’s injustices more blatant, it has ultimately only exposed what the agency has been since its inception.
Given recent events, this turn is unsurprising. In the last year alone, ICE agents have: broken into people’s cars (Mahdi Khanbabazadeh and Marilu Mendez), used explosives to break into people’s homes (Jorge Sierra-Hernandez), pressed their knees into people’s necks (Tatiana Martinez and George Retes), kidnapped people (Kilmar Ábrego Garcia and Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda), detained hundreds of children including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, detained over 170 US citizens including Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez and Dulce Consuelo Díaz Morales, shot people (Carlitos Ricardo Parias and Jose Garcia-Sorto), permanently maimed people (Kaden Rummler), and killed people (Silverio Villegas González, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti).
In the name of pursuing people who commit fewer crimes than US citizens, actively contribute to the US economy, pay taxes for public services they cannot access, and culturally enrich our communities, ICE acts with reckless abandonment.
And let’s be clear: While the Trump administration’s disregard for the rule of law has made ICE’s injustices more blatant, it has ultimately only exposed what the agency has been since its inception: a lawless, bloated policing and surveillance behemoth with virtually no oversight. It was a mistake created in the frenzy following 9/11. For the good of the nation, it must be abolished (and DHS too).
Second Step: Grant Amnesty
Rather than mass deportation, we should offer amnesty for all undocumented immigrants currently living in the US who have not committed any violent crimes.
The problems with ICE stem from its basic mission: to find and deport the over 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. Since the vast majority are law-abiding and legal status is not an observable trait, ICE agents resort to more invasive, discriminatory, and militant measures. Any alternative to ICE tasked with the same mission will likely replicate its problems.
The irony here is that deporting all undocumented immigrants would only harm the US. According to the Center for Migration Studies, Trump’s mass deportation plan “could cost over $500 billion to implement and would sacrifice billions in tax revenue per year. It also would lead to labor shortages and reduce the GDP by $5.1 trillion over the next 10 years.” By contrast, providing undocumented immigrants with amnesty would contribute $1.2 trillion to the US economy over 10 years and $184 billion per year in federal, state, and local taxes.
We cannot continue to indiscriminately violate international law and then complain when America’s victims come here seeking a better life.
That money could be used to improve the lives of millions by funding Medicare For All, tuition-free public colleges, city-owned grocery stores, and SNAP and other welfare programs, as well as building public housing and improving our crumbling infrastructure. Instead, we are actively engaging in an absurd policy of national self-harm where the only benefactors are the politicians who continuously scapegoat immigrants as well as corporations who benefit from surveilling, imprisoning, and exploiting their labor.
Beyond economic considerations, amnesty safeguards our democracy and protects human rights. The current immigration regime perpetuates racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, while ICE agents terrorize our communities and threaten all our lives.
Trump’s mass deportation agenda calls for separating undocumented immigrants from their friends, families, and communities. This includes 86 DACA recipients that ICE deported last year. Those people had lived in the US for most of their lives, respected its laws, and considered it their home. Now, they are being sent to an unfamiliar country—one where they may not know the language, culture, or anyone living there.
What’s more, many immigrants come to the US fleeing violence and persecution abroad. Deportation often entails purposely putting people’s lives at risk. As Farah Larrieux, a 46-year-old Haitian currently on Temporary Protected Status (TPS), said: “All these people are here because they were forced to come. […] They came to save their lives. For many, returning to Haiti now is, in practice, a death sentence, making them vulnerable to extortion and kidnapping.” If DHS succeeds in terminating TPS for Haitians, our tax dollars would go toward effectively funding her execution.
Third Step: End American Imperialism
Whether it's Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Gaza, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, or so many other nations, US interventionist policies fuel political instability abroad.
American imperialism must end. We cannot continue to invade, bomb, and wage wars that fuel the very mass displacement and migration that create the “border crisis.” We cannot continue to indiscriminately violate international law and then complain when America’s victims come here seeking a better life. They are not the “foreign invaders” who infiltrated “our homeland”—America invaded theirs. They have not “destroyed our country”—we destroyed theirs as they built ours. We owe them a debt: Amnesty and humanitarian aid in this context is not a gift, its reparations.
America must fund USAID, not more “forever wars.” We must work alongside foreign nations—as equals—to meaningfully improve economic and political stability around the world.
For the people who are already here, abiding by our laws and contributing to our communities, this is their home. Hunting and deporting them is not justice. It endangers everyone while diverting billions of dollars away from programs and policies that would benefit everyone.
Together, we can forge a better future—we simply need to take the right steps.
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The Trump Cadaver’s Latest Iran War
An array of special interests realized that they could make use of this blundering cadaver to ensure their ends were met. These special interests were extremely successful.
Mar 06, 2026
When people from abroad ask me what’s going on with President Donald Trump’s second term, I tell them that he is unlike other US presidents who were strongly influenced by special interests and big money. Instead, he is a charismatic cadaver that big moneyed and special interests have harvested, sometimes complementing each other but other times clashing with a base drive for power at the root of the corpse.
The Trump cadaver appears particularly conflicted in its peace rhetoric and its policies of militarism and war. His longtime campaign speeches of wanting to stop wars, to be the “peace candidate,” and his more recent infantile desire and arm-twisting to receive the Nobel Peace Prize stand in stark contrast to his record as president. During his first term, he amplified Barack Obama’s drone war, dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan in 2017, launched strikes on Syria, and had the top IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani assassinated just after New Year’s in 2020. Minus the assassination, this was well within the norm for the late 20th and early 21st century imperial presidency; suffice to say that first term Trump was not a peace president.
In his second term, Trump became a full-blown authoritarian war hawk while still claiming to be anti-war and an enabler of peace. Before the 2024 election, powerful interests, the military-industrial complex, the Israeli lobby, business interests, and the tech monopolists all made plans to harvest inside Trump should he get elected. This array of special interests realized that they could make use of this blundering cadaver to ensure their ends were met. These special interests were extremely successful.
Project 2025 came into being with the goal of tearing away the social safety net for Americans in its target of the “administrative state.” Trump claimed he had no idea about this project during the campaign, but, once in office, he instituted its policies and hired its authors. This project complemented the extremist right’s anti-immigrant agenda led by Stephen Miller. The results have been ugly: While food stamps have been cut and US citizens and residents from abroad were being gunned down in the streets, the military got half a trillion more dollars annually. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the private paramilitary, received eight times what it has historically at just over $80 billion.
There are no adults in the room to constrain cadaver Trump and his policies of internal and external mass violence, piracy, and war.
Some of the more absurd behavior that we’ve seen over the past year speaks to the forces within the Trump cadaver fighting it out within him. The creation of a Board of Peace for administering Gaza is antithetical to peace and justice. Its main goal is to serve the ultra elite in constructing luxury resorts and likely allow only the most obeisant Gazans to remain as servants to the wealthy. The Trump cadaver endlessly complained about not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and then overthrew and kidnapped the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, to essentially loot the country’s oil. Trump deployed ceaseless rhetoric against the neocons but then fulfilling their wet dreams by attacking Iran's nuclear facilities with Israel in 2025 summer. Now, again with Israel, Trump has attacked Iran for no clear reason other than to ensure Israeli regional hegemony and that no country opposes the policies of US empire. In this sense, cadaver Trump has become not just a wannabe dictator of the US, but a wannabe dictator of the world. Clearly, after catering to some anti-war populist campaign rhetoric, the military-industrial complex and pro-Israeli interests took the cadaver by the reins.
As of this writing, there have been 1,230 Iranians killed, including 180 from a girls’ school—a likely war crime. Europe’s most powerful countries, Germany, France, and Great Britain, issued a statement in response to the conflict. Rather than condemning the aggression of an out-of-control empire that no longer chooses to rationalize its mass violence, they condemned the Iranians for responding to the onslaught of Israeli and US attacks. As if Iran should just sit on its knees and get pummeled. It seems as if Trump’s threats of tariffs and taking over Greenland have turned these European leaders into puppets. It calls to mind the “protesters” calling for the shah of Iran to be reinstituted. As if the solution of Iran’s independence and intransigence to the US world order is to have another puppet rule Iran, just like the last one, Reza Pahlavi. It was this last shah who was likely responsible for more deaths of Iranian protesters than recent Iranian government crackdowns.
Today the empire no longer tries to rationalize its wars or pretends to adhere to international law. It is rather an empire gone mad: a strange mix of Viking-era looting and rampage with might-is-right 19th century European colonialism, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio cleverly paid homage to at the Munich Security Conference.
There are no adults in the room to constrain cadaver Trump and his policies of internal and external mass violence, piracy, and war. The leading Democrats in Congress have offered tepid criticism of the latest Iran War only on procedural grounds. That leaves it up to the people, progressives, and burgeoning anti-war sentiment on the right to put an end to these US-generated foreign bloodbaths. And to prevent the continuous rise of inclinations of mass destruction within the Trump cadaver once and for all.
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