Jane Esberg
janeesberg.bsky.social
Jane Esberg
@janeesberg.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Political Science at UPenn. Authoritarianism and conflict, esp in Latin America. Aspiring cat lady. http://janeesberg.com
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to our analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%.

(Published February)
Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.
ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.
www.propublica.org
November 6, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...
October 12, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down. n.pr/3KIfcSn
This 4-year-old's heart is failing. A federal grant that might help him was canceled
A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.
n.pr
October 9, 2025 at 1:02 PM
“Mario Guevara was here legally in the country, yet similarly he was targeted for removal because the government disliked him exercising his First Amendment rights,” Nora Benavidez, senior counsel for the media advocacy group The Free Press, said share.google/hcJkNtpEuva8...
Journalist arrested during summer ICE protests deported to El Salvador
Award-winning Spanish-language journalist Mario Guevara has been deported to El Salvador in what press freedom advocates alleged was done “in retaliation for his reporting.” A leader with the Commi…
share.google
October 4, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...
Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site
As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.
www.miamiherald.com
September 23, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
So they're cancelling cancel culture so they can... (checks notes)... cancel culture?
September 18, 2025 at 6:21 AM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Over the last year, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Joan Scott. It was clear how much the experience of her father -- victim of McCarthyism -- shaped her as a scholar and person. This essay is a powerful testament to that.

www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...
A General Air of Anxiety - Boston Review
The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.
www.bostonreview.net
September 13, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Trump's airstrike on a boat in the Caribbean crossed lines not even the worst War on Terror drone strike did. Never before did the US deliberately hit a nonthreatening target, in an area where the US military freely operates, when arrest was easily doable.
My latest (first in @foreignpolicy.com!!):
Trump’s Speedboat Attack Crossed All the Lines
The killing of 11 people went beyond any strike in the war on terror.
foreignpolicy.com
September 10, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
BREAKING: Supreme Court lets Trump resume immigration raids targeting Latinos, Spanish speakers and certain workers

Apparent 6-3 ruling. Dissenting, Sotomayor says the order is "unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation's constitutional guarantees." @courthousenews.bsky.social
September 8, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
This firefighter arrived in the US at age 4, has been here for 19 years, was on track to legal status, and was on a crew trying to contain a major blaze (in Washington state, vs Oregon, fwiw.)

h/t @joshuajfriedman.com

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Firefighter arrested by US border agents was on track for legal status, lawyers say
Lawyers say arrest of man fighting Bear Gulch fire in Oregon was illegal and demand immediate release from detention
www.theguardian.com
August 30, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Dear journalists:

The President has not fired Lisa Cook. The President is *trying* to illegally fire her.

Your words shape people’s reality. Please be accurate in your reporting.
August 26, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Scientists’ role in defending democracy www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Let's all support this vital need: the ability to tell the truth. 💪

"Those in the science community who are willing & able to be more visible can step up. Acting together will be more impactful than going it alone."
Scientists’ role in defending democracy
The United States’ democratic leadership, commitment to freedom of expression, and investment in the pursuit of knowledge have long enabled its preeminence in science and technology. Yet today we are ...
www.science.org
August 14, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
“…he presented his Texas ID, Social Security card and a wallet-sized birth certificate. The agents refused to believe he was a citizen and took him into custody. “I told them we had rights and asked to make a phone call. But they told us, 'You don't have rights to anything'," Galicia told the paper”
July 14, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
It’s hard not to read this as overtly eliminationist rhetoric and it’s frankly terrifying to me.

I condemn this. I condemn this. I condemn this.

And I condemn everyone who believes in anything like it.
The entire Latino population in the U.S. is 65 million. She means all of us.
July 2, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
This is not about the merits of Iran’s nuclear program. No president has the authority to bomb another country that does not pose an imminent threat to the US without the approval of Congress. This is an unambiguous impeachable offense.
June 22, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Reposted by Jane Esberg
28-year-old Pedro Luis Salazar-Cuervo, who has no known criminal record, was accused by Texas police of being in a Venezuelan gang because they found a photo of him posing with another man with tattoos, his lawyers say.

From ProPublica partner @texastribune.org:
Migrant deported to El Salvador after DPS labeled him a member of Tren de Aragua without evidence, lawyer says
Lawyers for Pedro Luis Salazar-Cuervo deny he is a gang member and say the DPS accusation hinges on a photo they found of him standing next to a man with tattoos.
www.texastribune.org
June 18, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
A Trump administration official has told lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil that the government has no immediate plans to release him, in spite of a judge’s order barring his detention on the grounds for which he was originally arrested. nyti.ms/4465JKP
June 13, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Tanks rolling through the nation's capital.

The president explicitly threatening peaceful, lawful protesters.

On the other coast, the US Marines deployed on US soil against the American people.

Just another Tuesday in Trump's America.
June 10, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
Earlier today ICE agents hit someone with a car and tear gassed a neighborhood, sparking several fires and disrupting businesses.

Immigrants, by contrast, did not.
ICE is a much greater threat to this country than illegal immigrants. The current administration ia by far the greatest threat this country faces. The problem is not st our borders. It is in the White House.
June 8, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
In what feels like a repeat of the Eric Adams situation, namely federal prosecutors resigning rather than going along with a naked effort to weaponize their office, a prosecutor in Tennessee resigns over the Abrego Garcia charges:
abcnews.go.com/Politics/liv...
Abrego Garcia indictment led top federal prosecutor in Tennessee to resign: Sources
abcnews.go.com
June 6, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Jane Esberg
6800 people who already probably have leases for next year, spent years of their lives working to get to where they were now upended because Trump and Noem and Stephen Miller want to crush a major export sector of this economy, oh, and also a source of cures for diseases and knowledge of all sorts.
May 22, 2025 at 7:16 PM