Karen Pickell
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karenpickell.bsky.social
Karen Pickell
@karenpickell.bsky.social
Author of AN ADOPTEE LEXICON. Founder @AdopteeReading.bsky.social Budding genealogist/family historian. #adoptee #AdopteeVoices #cnf #genealogy #FamilyHistory -- karenpickell.com
Pinned
Here's a well-written letter you can send to your reps. Easy via text.
🖋️ “Abolish ICE, No More Deaths, Uphold the Constitution” hit 2,000 signers!

💬 Text SIGN PQLTBV to 50409
Abolish ICE, No More Deaths, Uphold the Constitution
Text SIGN PQLTBV to 50409 — A government that cannot protect the lives and rights of people within its borders—citizens and non-citizens alike—has lost its claim to legitimacy. That is the reality Americans are confronting after the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent, and after years of mounting evidence that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has become an unaccountable, aggressive, and poorly supervised force operating far beyond its original mandate. Renee Good was an American citizen, a mother, and a legal observer. Her death is tragic, but it is not isolated. In 2025 alone, dozens of people died while in ICE custody or during ICE operations. Many had asked for medical help. Some were elderly. Some were ill. Others died violently. These are not the hallmarks of a professional law-enforcement agency operating with discipline and restraint. They are warning signs of systemic failure. This is not a question of being “pro-immigration” or “anti-immigration.” It is a question of whether the federal government is bound by the Constitution it claims to defend. Due process is not optional. Oversight is not optional. Accountability is not optional. An agency that routinely denies medical care, obstructs congressional oversight, escalates encounters, and responds to public scrutiny with secrecy and propaganda is an agency that cannot be trusted with expanded power. ICE did not exist before 2003. The United States enforced immigration law for generations without it. Congress created ICE, and Congress has the authority—and responsibility—to dismantle it when it becomes dangerous. Reorganizing or abolishing a failed bureaucracy is not radical; it is conservative governance at its best. Many Americans who believe in law and order also believe that law enforcement must be disciplined, professional, and subject to civilian control. A force that relies on fear, intimidation, and overwhelming presence undermines respect for the law rather than strengthening it. Flooding cities with heavily armed federal agents, while restricting congressional oversight and expanding recruitment through “wartime” rhetoric, is not strength. It is instability. I urge you to take the following actions: • Introduce and support legislation to dismantle ICE and redistribute any necessary functions under agencies with clear limits, transparent rules, and real oversight. • Freeze funding for ICE expansion and mass recruitment until Congress completes a full investigation into use-of-force policies, medical care failures, and detainee deaths. • Hold public hearings to restore congressional authority and reaffirm that no federal agency operates above the law. • Reassert that constitutional protections apply to all people on U.S. soil, because once rights become conditional, no one’s rights are safe. Strong nations are not built by unaccountable force. They are built by law, restraint, and respect for human dignity. Congress must act now—before more lives are lost.
resist.bot
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Breaking:

The special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta field office was forced out this month after questioning the Trump Justice Department's renewed push to probe Fulton County's role in the 2020 election, two people familiar with the matter told MS NOW. www.ms.now/news/atlanta...
Atlanta FBI boss ousted after balking at 2020 election probe
Special Agent in Charge Paul Brown refused to execute search warrants over Trump’s long-running fraud claims, sources tell MS NOW.
www.ms.now
January 30, 2026 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
January 30, 2026 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
The First Amendment is a foundational promise to every American: Each of us has the freedom to speak, to report, and to hold those in power accountable without fear of retribution or retaliation.
January 30, 2026 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
👀 Every Senate Democrat + Collins and Murkowski just voted for the Bernie Sanders amendment to repeal the $75 billion in additional ICE funding under Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” The measure failed 49-51.
January 30, 2026 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
High school students marching against ICE this afternoon in Detroit, Michigan
January 30, 2026 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Walked into a big NYC march of what look like high schoolers against ICE and Trump in NYC. The kids are alright!
January 30, 2026 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
January 31, 2026 at 1:11 AM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
"Texas A&M University said on Friday that it would end its women’s and gender studies program, and that the syllabuses for hundreds of courses had been altered under new policies limiting how race and gender ideology may be discussed in classrooms" (gift article)
Texas A&M Ends Women’s Studies and Overhauls Classes Over Race and Gender
www.nytimes.com
January 30, 2026 at 7:31 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Journalist Georgia Fort has been released from custody (video @fox9mn.bsky.social)
January 30, 2026 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
CNN in Minneapolis: We are seeing thousands and thousands of people, we've been standing on the corner here for the past ten minutes. This this crowd has not let up. It's just continuous.
January 30, 2026 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
January 30, 2026 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Trump’s deployments of troops to US cities cost taxpayers $496 million. "Over the second half of 2025, the Trump admin. deployed the National Guard [or] Marines to six US cities: Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Portland Oregon, Chicago, and New Orleans." breakingdefense.com/2026/01/nati...
National Guard deployments to US cities cost almost half a billion dollars, says CBO - Breaking Defense
The Trump administration has already spent nearly $500 million on domestic National Guard deployments, with monthly costs being further broken down by the CBO.
breakingdefense.com
January 30, 2026 at 1:42 AM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Don Lemon speaks outside of the courtroom after release: "I have spent my entire life covering the news. I will not stop now ... I will not be silenced."
January 30, 2026 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
🚨BREAKING: A federal judge Friday permanently blocked key portions of the sweeping anti-voting executive order that President Donald Trump signed last year. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
In major rebuke, federal judge blocks key parts of Trump’s anti-voting order
“Our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures,” the judge wrote.
www.democracydocket.com
January 30, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Thousands of people filled the streets of downtown Minneapolis in protest of federal immigration enforcement for the second consecutive Friday.

📷️: Aaron Lavinsky
January 30, 2026 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Brutal column in the Kansas City Star about a local real estate company trying to avoid public scrutiny for selling ICE a property for a massive prison camp:

www.kansascity.com/opinion/arti...
January 30, 2026 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Downtown Minneapolis today! ✊
January 30, 2026 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
January 31, 2026 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
This isn’t about convicting Don Lemon. It’s unlikely that will happen. It’s about intimidating journalists & making them censure themselves out of fear of consequences. It’s about eroding the free press because the administration can’t afford the criticism.
This just in: "Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards," Lemon's attorney Abbe Lowell says.
January 30, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
Independent journalist Georgia Fort was also arrested by federal agents earlier for reporting on the church protest in Minneapolis. She was live streaming when agents arrived to take her into custody.
January 30, 2026 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
January 29, 2026 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
These kids should be going to school. Playing with their friends. Eating dinner with their families.

Detaining them is cruel and inhumane.
January 30, 2026 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
I visited hotels all over Minneapolis, went into back rooms & talked to the staff.

They're afraid.

One told me she resents how her undocumented coworkers spend their days cleaning the rooms of agents who are “hunting down their family members.”

@notus.com:

www.notus.org/immigration/...
Minneapolis’ Hotel Workers Are on Edge
Staff across the city told NOTUS how their lives have changed since the start of the federal immigration operation. “It's frightening,” one said.
www.notus.org
January 30, 2026 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Karen Pickell
This is, quite frankly, complete bullshit. I’ve received more criticism, harassment, and — at one point — calls for my death in the past six months of criticizing this administration than I did in an entire FBI career of investigations, operations, and arrests. And I never wore a goddamn mask.
Tillis says he opposes ICE being barred from wearing masks: "I've seen people dox me. I've seen people take pictures and identify law enforcement officers and then put their families at risk. So, I think that's a step too far."
January 28, 2026 at 11:45 PM