The Hound | Aug. 12

Hi there,

It’s Wednesday. On July 8, 2025, ICE published a memo expanding its mandatory detention policy to apply not just to immigrants caught crossing the border, but to any undocumented immigrant — and the legal system buckled immediately. A Texas federal judge whose court typically handles 1,500 lawsuits a year had already logged 4,000 cases by May. In one district, immigration habeas cases went from four in all of 2021 to 675 in a single month. Since the policy was implemented, 469 judges have ruled it unlawful — while just 54 have sided with the administration.

🖊️ Sign the petition to call on the media to cover the collapse of the immigration court system not as a capacity or backlog story, but as a deliberate strategy by the Trump administration to make due process unworkable.

This is not a system being overwhelmed by circumstance. It is a system being deliberately crushed. Flooding the courts with legally dubious cases is a feature, not a bug — it denies detainees timely hearings, makes due process practically impossible, and lets ICE move people across state lines before judges can intervene. The public deserves reporting that names the intent behind the chaos — and treats the dismantling of legal rights as the constitutional crisis it is.

In addition, anti-AI and anti-data center populism is reshaping American politics with members of both parties winning on platforms on regulation and construction moratoriums. While in the Oval Office and claiming U.S. kids receive a “soda bottle” worth of vaccines (a lie), Trump again falls asleep during a press conference.

Read about these, and more, with today’s stories:

“All Hands on Deck”: How Trump Is Overwhelming Immigration Courts (The New Republic)

Anti-Data Center Populism is Reshaping American Politics (Mother Jones)

US state department has canceled over 175,000 visas since Trump’s return to office (The Guardian)

Groups sue the Trump administration over its targeting of the International Criminal Court (AP News)

Trump Nods Off After Claiming Kids Get “Soda Bottle” Worth of Vaccines (The New Republic)

Organized Money: Mamdani Marts vs. Big Grocery (The American Prospect)

Until next time,

Harry from The Hound

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