FEBRUARY 25, 2026
The Roots of Migration: What U.S. History Tells Us About the Border
Why are people coming to our border? Politicians offer simple answers. The historical record offers a more complicated — and more honest — one.
My latest piece for Real Change traces two centuries of U.S. interventions in Latin America and their direct consequences for the people now fleeing north. From the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to the CIA-orchestrated coup in Guatemala in 1954 to the U.S. Army's School of the Americas — which trained the soldiers responsible for some of the region's worst atrocities — American foreign policy has systematically destabilized the very countries we now expect people to stay in.
I spoke with four people who have lived and documented this history firsthand:
Mary Jo McConahay, an award-winning journalist who covered Central America's wars from the ground, explains how each U.S. intervention creates the conditions for the next wave of migration — and warns that the January 2026 invasion of Venezuela will be no different.
Roy Bourgeois, a Navy veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and Catholic priest who witnessed U.S.-backed violence in Bolivia and El Salvador, founded School of the Americas Watch after the Pentagon's own training manuals confirmed the school taught torture, blackmail, and extortion.
Estela Ortega, executive director of El Centro de la Raza, has been telling this history for decades — and can simply point to the documentation.
And a Salvadoran woman — who asked to remain anonymous because, as she put it, "With Trump, I'm afraid when I go out" — who survived civil war, made the terrifying journey north in a car trunk, built a life here, started a business, bought a home, raised her children, and became a U.S. citizen. She is now navigating a legal immigration process that has stretched more than 14 years just to bring her sister here the "right way."
"People who say get in line and come here legally?" she told me. "I would've been dead by then."
The cycle these stories reveal is not complicated: American interventions destabilize countries. People flee the violence and poverty that result. Then those same people are vilified as threats — justifying ever more authoritarian measures, and potentially, further interventions.
Understanding this history doesn't require excusing anyone. It requires honesty about cause and effect.
Read the full article here: The Roots of Migration: How U.S. Interventions Created Today's 'Border Crisis'
Why are people coming to our border? Politicians offer simple answers. The historical record offers a more complicated — and more honest — one.
My latest piece for Real Change traces two centuries of U.S. interventions in Latin America and their direct consequences for the people now fleeing north. From the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to the CIA-orchestrated coup in Guatemala in 1954 to the U.S. Army's School of the Americas — which trained the soldiers responsible for some of the region's worst atrocities — American foreign policy has systematically destabilized the very countries we now expect people to stay in.
I spoke with four people who have lived and documented this history firsthand:
Mary Jo McConahay, an award-winning journalist who covered Central America's wars from the ground, explains how each U.S. intervention creates the conditions for the next wave of migration — and warns that the January 2026 invasion of Venezuela will be no different.
Roy Bourgeois, a Navy veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and Catholic priest who witnessed U.S.-backed violence in Bolivia and El Salvador, founded School of the Americas Watch after the Pentagon's own training manuals confirmed the school taught torture, blackmail, and extortion.
Estela Ortega, executive director of El Centro de la Raza, has been telling this history for decades — and can simply point to the documentation.
And a Salvadoran woman — who asked to remain anonymous because, as she put it, "With Trump, I'm afraid when I go out" — who survived civil war, made the terrifying journey north in a car trunk, built a life here, started a business, bought a home, raised her children, and became a U.S. citizen. She is now navigating a legal immigration process that has stretched more than 14 years just to bring her sister here the "right way."
"People who say get in line and come here legally?" she told me. "I would've been dead by then."
The cycle these stories reveal is not complicated: American interventions destabilize countries. People flee the violence and poverty that result. Then those same people are vilified as threats — justifying ever more authoritarian measures, and potentially, further interventions.
Understanding this history doesn't require excusing anyone. It requires honesty about cause and effect.
Read the full article here: The Roots of Migration: How U.S. Interventions Created Today's 'Border Crisis'
January 24, 2026
When "Legal" Was Reserved for White People: Understanding Trump's Attack on Birthright Citizenship
"My ancestors came here legally."
I've heard this refrain countless in immigration debates. But what does "legally" actually mean when the law itself was designed to exclude people based on race? When for 162 years, only "free white persons" could become citizens?
In my latest piece for Real Change, I trace the hidden history behind President Trump's executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship. This isn't just another policy battle — it's the latest chapter in a 235-year struggle over who gets to be American, a struggle that has always been about race.
The article examines what "legal immigration" really meant for Europeans (spoiler: the Homestead Act gave them free land and wealth-building opportunities explicitly denied to nonwhites), how the 14th Amendment was designed to overturn one of the Supreme Court's most shameful decisions, and why this birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court threatens to unravel constitutional protections that took a civil war to secure.
Read the full article here: "'My ancestors came here legally:' The hidden history behind Trump's attack on birthright citizenship"
"My ancestors came here legally."
I've heard this refrain countless in immigration debates. But what does "legally" actually mean when the law itself was designed to exclude people based on race? When for 162 years, only "free white persons" could become citizens?
In my latest piece for Real Change, I trace the hidden history behind President Trump's executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship. This isn't just another policy battle — it's the latest chapter in a 235-year struggle over who gets to be American, a struggle that has always been about race.
The article examines what "legal immigration" really meant for Europeans (spoiler: the Homestead Act gave them free land and wealth-building opportunities explicitly denied to nonwhites), how the 14th Amendment was designed to overturn one of the Supreme Court's most shameful decisions, and why this birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court threatens to unravel constitutional protections that took a civil war to secure.
Read the full article here: "'My ancestors came here legally:' The hidden history behind Trump's attack on birthright citizenship"
November 19, 2025
The Law Is Clear. Federal Agents Are Breaking It. Communities Are Fighting Back.
Laws are only as strong as the communities willing to defend them.
Washington State passed the Keep Washington Working Act in 2019 and the Courts Open to All Act in 2020 to protect nearly one million immigrant residents -- one in seven Washingtonians. These laws were carefully crafted to balance constitutional principles: the federal government can enforce immigration law, but it cannot force states to do its work.
The laws are clear. Federal agents are breaking them anyway.
My latest investigation for Real Change examines the widening gap between legal protections and enforcement reality. ICE agents photograph defendants in Yakima courtrooms and federal authorities access Washington's driver database in violation of state law.
This story follows the grassroots organizations fighting back: Unidos Nueva Alianza Foundation, which was founded after ICE tore apart founder Marichuy Alvízar's family twice; La Resistencia, organizing with detained people inside Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center; and the ACLU attorneys defending constitutional principles against federal intimidation.
The question isn't whether Washington's immigrant protection laws are constitutional -- they are. The question is whether we have the collective will to enforce them when federal agents break our laws with impunity.
Read the full article here: "Federal agents are breaking the law. Immigrant families are fighting back"
Laws are only as strong as the communities willing to defend them.
Washington State passed the Keep Washington Working Act in 2019 and the Courts Open to All Act in 2020 to protect nearly one million immigrant residents -- one in seven Washingtonians. These laws were carefully crafted to balance constitutional principles: the federal government can enforce immigration law, but it cannot force states to do its work.
The laws are clear. Federal agents are breaking them anyway.
My latest investigation for Real Change examines the widening gap between legal protections and enforcement reality. ICE agents photograph defendants in Yakima courtrooms and federal authorities access Washington's driver database in violation of state law.
This story follows the grassroots organizations fighting back: Unidos Nueva Alianza Foundation, which was founded after ICE tore apart founder Marichuy Alvízar's family twice; La Resistencia, organizing with detained people inside Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center; and the ACLU attorneys defending constitutional principles against federal intimidation.
The question isn't whether Washington's immigrant protection laws are constitutional -- they are. The question is whether we have the collective will to enforce them when federal agents break our laws with impunity.
Read the full article here: "Federal agents are breaking the law. Immigrant families are fighting back"
October 16, 2025
Supreme Court Decisions Have Real-World Consequences: The Firefighter Arrested While Battling Flames
The Supreme Court's decisions can feel abstract -- legal theories debated in marble halls. But their impact is immediate and devastating for real people.
My October 2025 piece for Real Change newspaper examines what happened when constitutional theory collided with enforcement reality. Just twelve days before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo -- effectively authorizing immigration stops based on ethnic appearance, language, and occupation -- federal agents arrested Oregon firefighter Rigoberto Hernandez. His crime? Fighting the largest wildfire on the Olympic Peninsula since 1951 while appearing Latino.
The Supreme Court ruled via its "shadow docket" -- emergency orders issued without full briefing or oral arguments. Justice Kavanaugh assured us these stops would be "brief," that citizens would be "promptly released." But Hernandez was held on the ground for four hours, denied phone calls for 48 hours, and detained for 27 days total.
This article traces how we got here -- from the Supreme Court's 1975 unanimous decision prohibiting stops based on Mexican ancestry alone, to today's authorization of systematic racial profiling. It examines the dangerous gap between constitutional theory and enforcement reality, where masked agents with reduced training conduct violent raids based on how people look and what jobs they work.
The fight isn't over. As immigrant rights attorneys remind us, this shadow docket ruling isn't the final word. But we need to understand what's at stake when the Fourth and Fifth Amendments no longer protect millions of Americans from stops based solely on their appearance.
Read the full article here: "Twelve days before the Supreme Court approved racial profiling, ICE arrested a firefighter battling an Olympic Peninsula fire"
The Supreme Court's decisions can feel abstract -- legal theories debated in marble halls. But their impact is immediate and devastating for real people.
My October 2025 piece for Real Change newspaper examines what happened when constitutional theory collided with enforcement reality. Just twelve days before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo -- effectively authorizing immigration stops based on ethnic appearance, language, and occupation -- federal agents arrested Oregon firefighter Rigoberto Hernandez. His crime? Fighting the largest wildfire on the Olympic Peninsula since 1951 while appearing Latino.
The Supreme Court ruled via its "shadow docket" -- emergency orders issued without full briefing or oral arguments. Justice Kavanaugh assured us these stops would be "brief," that citizens would be "promptly released." But Hernandez was held on the ground for four hours, denied phone calls for 48 hours, and detained for 27 days total.
This article traces how we got here -- from the Supreme Court's 1975 unanimous decision prohibiting stops based on Mexican ancestry alone, to today's authorization of systematic racial profiling. It examines the dangerous gap between constitutional theory and enforcement reality, where masked agents with reduced training conduct violent raids based on how people look and what jobs they work.
The fight isn't over. As immigrant rights attorneys remind us, this shadow docket ruling isn't the final word. But we need to understand what's at stake when the Fourth and Fifth Amendments no longer protect millions of Americans from stops based solely on their appearance.
Read the full article here: "Twelve days before the Supreme Court approved racial profiling, ICE arrested a firefighter battling an Olympic Peninsula fire"
FEBRUARY 7, 2025
Violet Sees
Bombarded daily with chronicles in the news of constant violence and rampant greed, I thought I’d share the opposite, a story of service and selflessness.
Violet Sees is a nonprofit organization started by the family of Susan Whitford, a childhood friend. After being born blind, Susan’s granddaughter Violet was able to have two surgeries to correct the bilateral cataracts in both of her eyes. Other than needing to wear eye glasses and see her specialist every six months Violet’s parents report: “She’s a happy, healthy, energetic girl.”
Since her diagnosis, Violet’s family have learned that a whopping one in four children are affected with vision issues. Despite that fact less than 20% of children have a comprehensive eye exam by the first grade. The CDC reports that vision disability is the most prevalent disabling condition among children, and over half of learning disabilities are related to vision problems. Amazingly, if caught early enough, vision can be restored. In fact, 80% of blindness is treatable or preventable.
Violet’s family thought of the children who are not able to get the treatment they need. “It doesn’t seem right that we had that chance and others don’t," says Violet’s mom. “There are families around the world and right here in America that don't have the medical infrastructure or resources to diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate children just like Violet. Why not try to help others get those same chances?”
Formed in 2016, Violet Sees is “working to eliminate preventable blindness from childhood by helping families connect with programs and services so that all children get the best vision care possible.” This includes funding eye exams and glasses, working to expand early detection and improve vision screening programs, and supporting research working to find the best treatments possible for childhood vision conditions. Thanks to Violet Sees over 300 children have received eye exams and glasses. Five vision screening devices have been placed in schools serving hundreds of preschool and special needs children so that they can receive vision screening easily. Violet Sees have also donated to the Pediatric Ophthalmology Department at the University of Washington to help fund their research to find solutions to combat childhood blindness.
Service and selflessness, the Violet Sees way.
For more information and to give yourself a boost of hopefulness visit their website: www.violetsees.org.
Bombarded daily with chronicles in the news of constant violence and rampant greed, I thought I’d share the opposite, a story of service and selflessness.
Violet Sees is a nonprofit organization started by the family of Susan Whitford, a childhood friend. After being born blind, Susan’s granddaughter Violet was able to have two surgeries to correct the bilateral cataracts in both of her eyes. Other than needing to wear eye glasses and see her specialist every six months Violet’s parents report: “She’s a happy, healthy, energetic girl.”
Since her diagnosis, Violet’s family have learned that a whopping one in four children are affected with vision issues. Despite that fact less than 20% of children have a comprehensive eye exam by the first grade. The CDC reports that vision disability is the most prevalent disabling condition among children, and over half of learning disabilities are related to vision problems. Amazingly, if caught early enough, vision can be restored. In fact, 80% of blindness is treatable or preventable.
Violet’s family thought of the children who are not able to get the treatment they need. “It doesn’t seem right that we had that chance and others don’t," says Violet’s mom. “There are families around the world and right here in America that don't have the medical infrastructure or resources to diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate children just like Violet. Why not try to help others get those same chances?”
Formed in 2016, Violet Sees is “working to eliminate preventable blindness from childhood by helping families connect with programs and services so that all children get the best vision care possible.” This includes funding eye exams and glasses, working to expand early detection and improve vision screening programs, and supporting research working to find the best treatments possible for childhood vision conditions. Thanks to Violet Sees over 300 children have received eye exams and glasses. Five vision screening devices have been placed in schools serving hundreds of preschool and special needs children so that they can receive vision screening easily. Violet Sees have also donated to the Pediatric Ophthalmology Department at the University of Washington to help fund their research to find solutions to combat childhood blindness.
Service and selflessness, the Violet Sees way.
For more information and to give yourself a boost of hopefulness visit their website: www.violetsees.org.
January 19, 2024
Melissa Morales
Melissa Morales is the founder and president of the nonprofit, Somos Votantes (we are voters). Ms. Morales sent me an update to let me know her organization is turning five and that it is now “THE largest independent Latino voter engagement program in the country!” Morales credits her organization’s success to their realization that voters want more than to see political candidates right before an election asking for their votes. Somos Votantes builds lasting relationships to engage continual voter turnout. The organization is present in swing states making sure that voters have accurate information so they can know and fully understand the issues and the candidates. Morales states that they will invest millions in 2024 to further those efforts, including mailers, ads, informative programs and at least three million door knocks in states including Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Just a few of the reasons the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation, which I chair, supports Somos Votantes.
To learn more, visit their website: www.somosvotantes.com.
Melissa Morales is the founder and president of the nonprofit, Somos Votantes (we are voters). Ms. Morales sent me an update to let me know her organization is turning five and that it is now “THE largest independent Latino voter engagement program in the country!” Morales credits her organization’s success to their realization that voters want more than to see political candidates right before an election asking for their votes. Somos Votantes builds lasting relationships to engage continual voter turnout. The organization is present in swing states making sure that voters have accurate information so they can know and fully understand the issues and the candidates. Morales states that they will invest millions in 2024 to further those efforts, including mailers, ads, informative programs and at least three million door knocks in states including Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Just a few of the reasons the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation, which I chair, supports Somos Votantes.
To learn more, visit their website: www.somosvotantes.com.
JANUARY 9, 2024
All As One
I’m dedicated to writing the inspirational stories of women so let me give a shout out to Deanna Wallace, both an inspiration and a force. She started the nonprofit All As One Children’s Center to help children in Sierra Leone impacted by both their civil war and an ebola epidemic. Orphaned, in a country without the infrastructure to assist, these children faced insurmountable odds. Wallace, whose husband had been with Doctors Without Borders, founded All As One Children’s Center as one possible solution.
Children are provided with a loving home run by adults from Sierra Leone. They have an onsite accredited school and medical clinic. 700 children have been nurtured there in the 23 years the center has existed and another 36,000 have received health care and other services.
I love Wallace’s updates! They always include photos of the children’s beautiful, smiling faces as well as an abundant use of the word gratitude. Her latest update let me know that All As One is caring for 250 children right now. She said that the children are
doing “very well, including two of our kids who had surgeries this month.” She is “extremely happy to report that all of our children who sat for the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) passed it!” That’s incredible, considering that the national
results had a passing rate of 81% for the entire country. The love and support shown to these children is stupendous and inspiring!
To learn more, visit their website: www.allasone.org.
I’m dedicated to writing the inspirational stories of women so let me give a shout out to Deanna Wallace, both an inspiration and a force. She started the nonprofit All As One Children’s Center to help children in Sierra Leone impacted by both their civil war and an ebola epidemic. Orphaned, in a country without the infrastructure to assist, these children faced insurmountable odds. Wallace, whose husband had been with Doctors Without Borders, founded All As One Children’s Center as one possible solution.
Children are provided with a loving home run by adults from Sierra Leone. They have an onsite accredited school and medical clinic. 700 children have been nurtured there in the 23 years the center has existed and another 36,000 have received health care and other services.
I love Wallace’s updates! They always include photos of the children’s beautiful, smiling faces as well as an abundant use of the word gratitude. Her latest update let me know that All As One is caring for 250 children right now. She said that the children are
doing “very well, including two of our kids who had surgeries this month.” She is “extremely happy to report that all of our children who sat for the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) passed it!” That’s incredible, considering that the national
results had a passing rate of 81% for the entire country. The love and support shown to these children is stupendous and inspiring!
To learn more, visit their website: www.allasone.org.
JANUARY 2, 2024
Plus Codes on the Navajo Nation
I just received an email update from Daylene Redhorse stating that her official title with the nonprofit Rural Utah Project is “Addressing Specialist.” As chair of the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation (KABF), whose board gives grants to many great nonprofits, I had to admit I’d never seen that title before–but it makes perfect sense. Ms. Redhorse is a member of the Navajo Nation. She lives in Utah, a state whose government refuses to recognize post office boxes as official residences for purposes of voter registration. Since much of the Navajo reservation lacks street names and everyone uses PO boxes as their given addresses, the Utah law effectively has kept people from registering to vote.
The Rural Utah Project (RUP) was founded in 2017 to organize disenfranchised people in rural Utah. The solution to the PO box problem came from RUP’s partnership with Google. Using satellite images and longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates from Google Maps, Plus Codes was born. Its grid-based system is used to locate homes on the Navajo Nation and these coordinates, known as “Plus Codes” are now accepted by the Utah election offices in determining residency. Success!
Ms. Redhorse explains in her update that, after four years – thanks to her – every home on the Navajo Nation located in Utah now has plus codes. “I’ve driven countless miles down dirt roads, talked to thousands of people, and knocked on 3,113 doors (at least)...Now we, Navajos, have a say in our state: we are Utahns, and we are part of Utah.”
The KABF board learned of RUP in 2019. One of our directors reached out to TJ Ellerbeck, RUP’s executive director, asking if RUP could expand their voter registration efforts to Arizona. Since the Navajo Nation covers Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, RUP readily agreed. “On the Navajo Nation, state lines are nearly meaningless, so expanding our existing program into Arizona is simply a matter of having resources to hire additional staff; RUP has already built meaningful relationships with elected officials, Navajo Nation leaders, and other key individuals in Arizona, and these relationships will help us to easily expand our program,” Ellerbeck told us. KABF readily gave a grant to RUP and encouraged other donors to do so.
RUP employees covered close to 70,000 miles in cars, trucks and on horseback, registering close to 6,000 voters in both Arizona and Utah. Political pundits agree that the Navajo Nation delivered Arizona to Joe Biden in 2020.
KABF unanimously voted on December 9, 2023 to give another grant to RUP to support their great work.
To learn more, visit their website: www.ruralutahproject.org
I just received an email update from Daylene Redhorse stating that her official title with the nonprofit Rural Utah Project is “Addressing Specialist.” As chair of the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation (KABF), whose board gives grants to many great nonprofits, I had to admit I’d never seen that title before–but it makes perfect sense. Ms. Redhorse is a member of the Navajo Nation. She lives in Utah, a state whose government refuses to recognize post office boxes as official residences for purposes of voter registration. Since much of the Navajo reservation lacks street names and everyone uses PO boxes as their given addresses, the Utah law effectively has kept people from registering to vote.
The Rural Utah Project (RUP) was founded in 2017 to organize disenfranchised people in rural Utah. The solution to the PO box problem came from RUP’s partnership with Google. Using satellite images and longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates from Google Maps, Plus Codes was born. Its grid-based system is used to locate homes on the Navajo Nation and these coordinates, known as “Plus Codes” are now accepted by the Utah election offices in determining residency. Success!
Ms. Redhorse explains in her update that, after four years – thanks to her – every home on the Navajo Nation located in Utah now has plus codes. “I’ve driven countless miles down dirt roads, talked to thousands of people, and knocked on 3,113 doors (at least)...Now we, Navajos, have a say in our state: we are Utahns, and we are part of Utah.”
The KABF board learned of RUP in 2019. One of our directors reached out to TJ Ellerbeck, RUP’s executive director, asking if RUP could expand their voter registration efforts to Arizona. Since the Navajo Nation covers Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, RUP readily agreed. “On the Navajo Nation, state lines are nearly meaningless, so expanding our existing program into Arizona is simply a matter of having resources to hire additional staff; RUP has already built meaningful relationships with elected officials, Navajo Nation leaders, and other key individuals in Arizona, and these relationships will help us to easily expand our program,” Ellerbeck told us. KABF readily gave a grant to RUP and encouraged other donors to do so.
RUP employees covered close to 70,000 miles in cars, trucks and on horseback, registering close to 6,000 voters in both Arizona and Utah. Political pundits agree that the Navajo Nation delivered Arizona to Joe Biden in 2020.
KABF unanimously voted on December 9, 2023 to give another grant to RUP to support their great work.
To learn more, visit their website: www.ruralutahproject.org
AUGUST 31, 2023
I just finished reading Celeste Ng’s novel, Our Missing Hearts. Set in a fictional U.S., governmental agencies routinely seize the children of anyone who questions its policies. Inspired by real life events, in the Author’s Note section Ng writes, “There is a long history, in the U.S. and elsewhere, of removing children as a means of political control.” I thought of my friend Somany and her life under the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia. Somany and I met in 2003 when I was the director of legal services representing survivors of domestic violence (DV). Somany was my Southeast Asian DV advocate. Like the government in Our Missing Hearts, the Khmer Rouge separated children and teens from their parents, trying hard to indoctrinate the kids, hoping they’d inform on their parents as enemies of the state. Unlike Somany and her siblings, many did.
