Piper French
@psfrench.bsky.social
reporting on prisons, jails, DAs for Bolts. freelance magazine work: NYRB, NYmag, Aperture, Lux, Drift, Nation
piperstrehlowfrench@gmail.com
-> psfrench.com
en/es/fr
piperstrehlowfrench@gmail.com
-> psfrench.com
en/es/fr
This is so cool. I interviewed Calvin Duncan - exoneree, and now Orleans Parish Clerk of Court - back in 2023 about his work as a jailhouse lawyer for the folks on death row in Louisiana. I remember being really struck by his words:
November 16, 2025 at 4:28 PM
This is so cool. I interviewed Calvin Duncan - exoneree, and now Orleans Parish Clerk of Court - back in 2023 about his work as a jailhouse lawyer for the folks on death row in Louisiana. I remember being really struck by his words:
By now, Orgullosa and her children - including her younger son, a US citizen - have been back in Honduras for 4 months. Trump's DOJ is arguing they left the country voluntarily and refusing to bring them back. www.thecut.com/article/fami...
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 PM
By now, Orgullosa and her children - including her younger son, a US citizen - have been back in Honduras for 4 months. Trump's DOJ is arguing they left the country voluntarily and refusing to bring them back. www.thecut.com/article/fami...
Meanwhile, new family separations are occurring both at the border - illegal under the terms of the settlement in the family separation case - and in the interior. www.thecut.com/article/fami...
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Meanwhile, new family separations are occurring both at the border - illegal under the terms of the settlement in the family separation case - and in the interior. www.thecut.com/article/fami...
Over the next two months, ICE subjected this mother and her kids - who have valid humanitarian parole in the US - to a relentless pressure campaign. Their entire world fell apart.
www.thecut.com/article/fami...
www.thecut.com/article/fami...
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Over the next two months, ICE subjected this mother and her kids - who have valid humanitarian parole in the US - to a relentless pressure campaign. Their entire world fell apart.
www.thecut.com/article/fami...
www.thecut.com/article/fami...
Orgullosa & her 5 year old daughter Gloria were separated in 2018. They’ve spent the past 7 years trying to put that trauma behind them. When ICE put an ankle monitor on Orgullosa in front of her kids in May & told her to leave the US, all of that progress was gone in an instant.
November 14, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Orgullosa & her 5 year old daughter Gloria were separated in 2018. They’ve spent the past 7 years trying to put that trauma behind them. When ICE put an ankle monitor on Orgullosa in front of her kids in May & told her to leave the US, all of that progress was gone in an instant.
Any article - editorial or otherwise - that repeats vibes-based platitudes about left-of-center politicians' attitudes toward policing like this and completely fails to mention numbers - ie, that the police did NOT get defunded, on the contrary they got raises - is simply journalistic malpractice
June 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Any article - editorial or otherwise - that repeats vibes-based platitudes about left-of-center politicians' attitudes toward policing like this and completely fails to mention numbers - ie, that the police did NOT get defunded, on the contrary they got raises - is simply journalistic malpractice
www.deseret.com/politics/202... "gaming the system" aka...voting strategically?
June 12, 2025 at 3:38 PM
www.deseret.com/politics/202... "gaming the system" aka...voting strategically?
In Southeast Virginia, a Republican sheriff who calls himself “Detain ’Em Dave” is facing a primary challenge - from the right, by a GOP challenger who wants *more*immigration enforcement.
New from @burness.bsky.social:
boltsmag.org/sheriff-elec...
New from @burness.bsky.social:
boltsmag.org/sheriff-elec...
June 6, 2025 at 4:44 PM
In Southeast Virginia, a Republican sheriff who calls himself “Detain ’Em Dave” is facing a primary challenge - from the right, by a GOP challenger who wants *more*immigration enforcement.
New from @burness.bsky.social:
boltsmag.org/sheriff-elec...
New from @burness.bsky.social:
boltsmag.org/sheriff-elec...
June 4, 2025 at 2:09 PM
"Qué más necesita para actuar?" New York Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes asks the state legislature & Gov Hochul. "What more do you need to act?" Presser supporting 2 anti-ICE/law enforcement collaboration bills downtown today, near where NYPD recently abetted ICE detentions by arresting protesters:
June 2, 2025 at 8:40 PM
"Qué más necesita para actuar?" New York Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes asks the state legislature & Gov Hochul. "What more do you need to act?" Presser supporting 2 anti-ICE/law enforcement collaboration bills downtown today, near where NYPD recently abetted ICE detentions by arresting protesters:
"We don't want people in the federal government who feel like it's their pet project to go persecute police departments," the division's new head told Glenn Beck recently:
May 22, 2025 at 7:40 PM
"We don't want people in the federal government who feel like it's their pet project to go persecute police departments," the division's new head told Glenn Beck recently:
For the new issue of @thedrift-mag.bsky.social I wrote about whatever the hell is going on with the DOJ - especially the civil rights division, which is being repurposed to torpedo our civil liberties:
May 22, 2025 at 7:40 PM
For the new issue of @thedrift-mag.bsky.social I wrote about whatever the hell is going on with the DOJ - especially the civil rights division, which is being repurposed to torpedo our civil liberties:
sorry to be morbid but it's really giving september 1, 1939 right about now
poets.org/poem/septemb...
poets.org/poem/septemb...
March 17, 2025 at 7:21 PM
sorry to be morbid but it's really giving september 1, 1939 right about now
poets.org/poem/septemb...
poets.org/poem/septemb...
This is Jessie Hoffman. Louisiana plans to execute him tomorrow using nitrogen hypoxia, a profoundly experimental method that has only been used 4x in the US (or anywhere). In plainer language, this means the state will gas him to death.
March 17, 2025 at 7:14 PM
This is Jessie Hoffman. Louisiana plans to execute him tomorrow using nitrogen hypoxia, a profoundly experimental method that has only been used 4x in the US (or anywhere). In plainer language, this means the state will gas him to death.
A Lebanese doctor, professor at Brown, and h1b visa holder was just detained at Logan for 36 hours and then deported. This is the work she does:
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/u...
March 17, 2025 at 6:33 PM
A Lebanese doctor, professor at Brown, and h1b visa holder was just detained at Logan for 36 hours and then deported. This is the work she does:
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/u...
NYT referencing the "Columbia Jewish Alumni Association" to both-sides Khalil's detention like it's some long-standing org that represents all Jewish alums - not a group created post-10/7 that has called for expulsion of all student protestors &cheered Trump admin's threats to revoke Khalil's status
March 11, 2025 at 11:35 AM
NYT referencing the "Columbia Jewish Alumni Association" to both-sides Khalil's detention like it's some long-standing org that represents all Jewish alums - not a group created post-10/7 that has called for expulsion of all student protestors &cheered Trump admin's threats to revoke Khalil's status
February 11, 2025 at 3:01 PM
quite the quote www.politico.com/newsletters/...
February 7, 2025 at 4:19 PM
quite the quote www.politico.com/newsletters/...
Scenes from the Vermont statehouse protest today. All of 10 degrees out. Spotted: "No Trump Tower in Gaza" & "Defund the Oligarchy" signs, and at least 1 Canadian flag
February 6, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Scenes from the Vermont statehouse protest today. All of 10 degrees out. Spotted: "No Trump Tower in Gaza" & "Defund the Oligarchy" signs, and at least 1 Canadian flag
February 5, 2025 at 10:47 PM
For advocates who have been working on this from the beginning, the predicament these families have been left in is extraordinarily frustrating:
December 13, 2024 at 6:36 PM
For advocates who have been working on this from the beginning, the predicament these families have been left in is extraordinarily frustrating:
At the end of the day, these families are asylum seekers, subject to many of the same vicissitudes and delays and unfair burdens of that process. And some of them still haven't been reunited, after all this time.
December 13, 2024 at 6:36 PM
At the end of the day, these families are asylum seekers, subject to many of the same vicissitudes and delays and unfair burdens of that process. And some of them still haven't been reunited, after all this time.