A few weeks ago, a New Jersey source emailed me: ICE was using a warehouse in Roxbury to hold immigrant detainees.
I'd been to Roxbury earlier this year, when the Department of Homeland Security bought warehouses nationwide to convert into detention facilities. Protests and a lawsuit followed, and the facility was paused pending environmental review.
But over the summer, as ICE arrests skyrocketed, rumors spread: People were being detained and taken to the warehouse.
José A. Alvarado Jr. for NPR
In Dover, some 15 minutes away, the fear was tangible. "I'm scared," said one woman who asked NPR not to name her for fear of retribution. During a Sept. 4 raid, she followed and recorded a car carrying ICE detainees speeding to the warehouse. Two agents circled her, she says, filming her. "But I'm more scared for my community."
Activists called it a smoking gun, but in order to report this story, I was looking to speak to someone who had been held in that warehouse. But there was a terror blanketing Dover, and, for the first time in my career, no one in the immigrant community would speak to me on the record. When photographer Jose Alvarado and I arrived at noon, the streets were mostly empty. As we spoke to a supermarket cashier, a man walked in, made eye contact with me and turned to leave. I told him that we were journalists, not ICE agents, and he returned to his shopping. It was a quick, quiet moment that told me a lot about the mood in town.
I left business cards at every store and asked Dover Council Member Sandra Wittner to connect me with any constituents who'd seen or heard anything.
A week later, WhatsApp messages started coming in. A woman believed her father, taken in the raid, had been at Roxbury. Her friend, taken the same day, had been deported to Honduras. I found him on TikTok. He told me that he and nine other men were held in the Roxbury warehouse parking lot. He asked me not to use his name because he was concerned about his loved ones who were still in the U.S.
I’m burying a major part of this story here: I also interviewed a contractor whose company the Department of Homeland Security approached about converting warehouses into detention centers. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of government retaliation. He says his company suggested a more humane approach, but after speaking with a DHS deputy director, he understood that wasn't what White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller wanted. The contractor says he was told that Miller “did not want the facilities that were comfortable. He did not want facilities that were humane.” He also says that in many years of working with the federal government, he had “never been in that position before."
My last stop was a Mexican diner. A waitress who did not want to be named because of the climate of fear in the town said one of the men picked up was a regular. She nodded to an empty seat. But then again, the whole place was empty.
Like everyone I met in town, she wanted to know: Where were those men taken?
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➡️ Researchers have uncovered the graves of more than 1,000 youth buried across 29 states at reform schools and detention centers. The largest burial site lies near Maryland's former House of Reformation, the South's first juvenile facility for Black children. More than 230 Black boys were discovered in unmarked woodland graves across the street from the facility. Established in 1870 to keep youth out of adult prisons, the institution instead incarcerated children as young as five for non-criminal reasons like homelessness. Behind its doors, young boys faced brutal conditions, forced labor in dangerous broom factories, and systemic exploitation by local farms. Now, as states learn about these burial sites, some lawmakers are beginning to explore restitution options.
➡️ License plate readers like Flock cameras have faced backlash over reports of abuse. Privacy experts warn that these are just the beginning when it comes to police surveillance tools. Across the U.S., police departments are quickly updating their central crime hubs with AI software like Axon's Fusus, creating cloud-based, real-time centers that monitor entire cities. These systems integrate data from body cameras, 911 dispatches, gunshot detectors and private security cameras. Law enforcement praises these tools for locating missing children and assessing dangerous scenes remotely, but privacy advocates warn that all-seeing surveillance sweeps up innocent citizens.
➡️ OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens safeguard feature has failed early safety tests, continuing to expose young users to potential risks, according to a study by watchdog group Common Sense Media. ChatGPT's platform was designed to limit exposure to harmful and inappropriate content, while acting as an effective learning tool for youth. Researchers used adolescent test accounts linked to parental profiles to evaluate its effectiveness. The team presented the AI with scenarios involving self-harm, eating disorders, psychosis and romantic role-play to measure its refusal rates, crisis resource referrals and whether it sent parental alerts. While the chatbot refused some requests, researchers said most safeguards didn't work.
➡️ Tennessee Department of Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada resigned after the botched execution attempt on death row inmate Christa Pike. This isn't the first time something like this has happened under his watch. He oversaw three botched executions in Arizona before taking charge of Tennessee's prisons. Retired federal Judge David Duncan conducted a nearly two-year independent investigation into Strada’s tenure in Arizona. In an exclusive interview with NPR, Duncan explains how he found a pattern of egregious, illegal practices, including the use of improper medical personnel to insert IVs and paying staffers off the books under Strada's leadership.
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