The woke staff of USA Today published top-of-front-page articles on Wednesday and Thursday critical of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies. The hotter take was the top-left story on Thursday, headlined “Texas mom’s ICE map takes off.”
Reporter Nick Penzenstadler promoted how Laura Berlin built a Google Map titled “Who Is Profiting from ICE?” It took off during the ICE surge in Minneapolis, after the shooting of Renee Good. Among the biggest recipients: "GEO Group and CoreCivic were awarded nearly $1 billion combined by ICE in the first year of the Trump administration’s crackdown in 2025."
Activists found her online database and have used it to organize hundreds of protests across the country against these companies, shaming them into cutting ties with ICE. In one case, an East Coast bank broke with two prominent detention center contractors after account holders – including Jersey City, New Jersey – withdrew more than $350 million.
The U.S. government found her website, too – and labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism, according to a secret intelligence bulletin obtained by USA TODAY. It's the latest example of the Trump administration cracking down on dissent it says could veer into political violence.
“The egregious, dehumanizing rhetoric the administration and its allies have relied on to manufacture support for cruel and ill-advised policies was always going to ripple out and hurt people, including kids, in all kinds of ways,” Berlin said.
USA Today repeatedly pushed that the website is free speech. But they didn't seem to acknowledge that the data could lead to political vandalism and violence, as it did in Minnesota. Liberal media outlets don't tout the First Amendment when "election deniers" are organizing, but "border deniers" are heroes.
To Berlin, her database is an important tool for transparency, protected as free speech.
To DHS, it’s information that could be used by “anarchist extremists.”
That’s according to a secret intelligence bulletin DHS sent to local and federal law enforcement in February, specifically targeting Berlin’s website.
“Anti-ICE threat actors, including local anarchist extremists, may escalate otherwise peaceful direct action by carrying out acts of vandalism, often using spray paint, projectiles, blunt and edged objects and improvised incendiary devices,” the bulletin reads.
DHS used the same alert for Berlin’s website that it reserves for domestic terrorists. In the past, DHS has used this code – HSEC SIN 8, which stands for Homeland Security Standing Information Need 8 – to flag information on Islamic State videos of beheadings and pipe bombs in cities….
The bulletin concedes, in red letters, that “some of this information describes First Amendment-protected activities.”
Most of the quotes in the piece are awarded to Berlin and her fellow leftist activists, who are not labeled as leftists or even as anti-Trump activists.
DHS is targeting “even the mildest anti-ICE dissent as extremism and terrorism,” said Ryan Shapiro, executive director of the open government group Property of the People, which obtained the document.
"This has nothing to do with public safety,” Shapiro said. “It’s about deploying law enforcement as a taxpayer-funded security force for ICE's corporate enablers and profiteers.”
...Berlin said she’s motivated to change the nation into a better place for children like hers, and if the government insists on a bareknuckle approach against political dissent, she said, she has the First Amendment on her side.
PS: The Wednesday cover story was reported by Ignacio Calderon and Veronica Bravo under the headline “Separated by immigration, bound by love: Citizens’ spouses face green card delays.” The reporters sympathetically portrayed lovesick spouses or romantic partners who can't be together in America because of the mean Trump team. Naturally, they kept some sources anonymous, helping to create the notion that Trump officials would punish anyone dissenting from them in the immigration system:
Expanding deportations and the country's immigration enforcement apparatus was a key part of President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. But top officials have also broadened restrictions for legal immigration pathways. Fewer immigration petitions are being approved, federal data shows, and they are taking longer than typical timelines, leaving couples and families in limbo.
USA TODAY spoke with several couples, most on the condition of anonymity fearing it could jeopardize their immigration cases, who described an arduous process taking an emotional and financial toll. Experts said current policies have made it harder for people to obtain visas and green cards.
