Thomas Kennedy
As seen in:
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Immigration, economics, politics, democracy, foreign policy.
Advocacy at Florida Immigrant Coalition. PhD student researching immigration & surveillance. Argentino.
Articles by Thomas Kennedy
Florida City That Willingly Signed Deal With ICE Finds Itself in Crisis
The City of Doral is in crisis. Since Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, the Florida municipality has found itself in the crosshairs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with ongoing raids and targeted operations that seem to be intensifying in recent weeks. Nearly half of Doral’s population is from Venezuela, the largest population of Venezuelans in any city in the United States.
Florida City That Willingly Signed Deal With ICE Finds Itself in Crisis
Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation. The City of Doral is in crisis. Since Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, the Florida municipality has found itself in the crosshairs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with ongoing raids and targeted operations that seem to be intensifying in recent weeks.
Photos: Miami’s immigration court now has lines around the block
The lines begin forming in the remains of the previous night, around 5 a.m., outside a nondescript building in Brickell. By 7 a.m., they can stretch around the block, with hundreds of people spilling onto the sidewalk and, at times, into the street. They are not waiting for a concert or a new restaurant opening. They are waiting to enter Miami’s immigration court for their scheduled hearings.
Opinion: CBP detained and interrogated me at MIA. Then they scrutinized my reading list.
I had been on a plane for 15 hours, finally heading home to Miami after 10 days in Turkey and Egypt, when the biometric passport scanner flagged me at Miami International Airport (MIA). Within moments, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers were at my side. They escorted me away from the arrivals area and into a holding area for what CBP calls a “secondary inspection.” I was a naturalized U.S. citizen returning from a tourist trip. I had done nothing more than get off a plane.
Opinion: Angie Nixon deserves our vote for U.S. Senate
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon visits the Little Havana neighborhood as she campaigns on August 29, 2026 in Miami, Florida. Nixon faces incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) in the November 3rd general election. On a recent Sunday morning, I stumbled upon a horrifying scene while driving in Miami. Masked U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in unmarked cars had completely blocked a thoroughfare, stopping an Uber.
OPINION: Miami leaders can’t stay silent as Haitian TPS ends
Haitian TPS holders face an uncertain future as the Trump administration moves to end their legal protections in the United States. We're in the final stretch of our summer campaign. Our goal is to raise $10,000 to support the journalism our community relies on. Reader support is helping shape the future of local news. Progress to goal $10,000 Videos depicting immigration arrests in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami are already spreading on social media.
ICE must stop detaining immigrants at Miramar facility | Opinion
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Outside the Miramar ICE-ERO building in South Florida, the dysfunctional machinery of the Trump administration’s deportation apparatus operates in full view. For years now, people have lined up for hours under the hot Florida sun for their mandatory immigration check-ins and paperwork appointments. Most of them are immigrants with no criminal history, their only fault being overstaying a visa or crossing the border without authorization.
Floridians Have Made Resistance to Flock and Data Centers Central to State Politics
Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size. Sam Altman, the embattled CEO of the AI technology company OpenAI, vacillates between warning of a labor market doom loop due to the technology his company developed and promising a new golden era for humanity just around the corner.
A ‘tsunami of opposition' is Miami's warning sign. End ICE partnership now | Opinion
Miami Commissioners heard last week what the Miami Herald deemed as a “tsunami of opposition” to the city's 287(g) agreement. It authorizes Miami police officers, under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to perform certain federal immigration enforcement functions, expanding local participation in the federal immigration enforcement system at a time of rapidly growing detention infrastructure.
Florida Shuts Down Alligator Alcatraz After a Year of Lawsuits and Brutality
Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced last week that all persons detained at the Alligator Alcatraz immigration jail were transferred to other facilities, and that the site’s giant tents and cages had been emptied.
OPINION: Alligator Alcatraz was a billion-dollar abuse of emergency powers
While Florida officials have repeatedly insisted Alligator Alcatraz would be temporary, several signs now suggest it might be more than a short-term project. In his 2005 book State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben explores how legal frameworks are suspended during supposed times of crises.
Commentary: Don’t let Florida ban undocumented students from public colleges
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The Florida Legislature rejected a proposal this year to ban undocumented students from public colleges. Senate Bill 1052 died without it even getting heard in its assigned committees, highlighting just how little political support was behind the matter.
Miami Police Have Become a Show-Me-Your-Papers Patrol Despite Public Opposition
Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size. South Florida has emerged as a hotspot in immigration enforcement nationwide. A recent analysis by The New York Times found that Florida is outpacing other states in immigration arrests, with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Miami averaging about 120 arrests a day.
Miami funds FIFA while ignoring risk to immigrants | Opinion
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The FIFA World Cup is running into some serious turbulence. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced plans to have the state’s public transit agency charge upwards of 40,000 attendees $150 to get to MetLife Stadium, where eight matches will be held. Sherrill contends that this is necessary due to FIFA putting zero dollars toward transportation costs related to the World Cup.
OPINION: Miami’s ICE Agreement Was Optional and It’s Time to End It
Miami did not have to sign a 287(g) deal with ICE. Legal clarity and voter backlash make ending it both possible and necessary. By Thomas KennedyFebruary 16, 2026 Miami never had a legal obligation to join ICE’s 287(g) program. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement photo via Flickr In June of 2025, I wrote an op-ed for the New Times, arguing that elected officials across Florida were obeying in advance when signing into 287(g) agreements, which establish police-ICE collaboration.
Florida universities should end ICE cooperation | Opinion
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Did you know that Florida is the only state in the nation where multiple public university police departments are partnering with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to assist in immigration enforcement? It’s happening through 287(g) agreements, which are partnerships with federal immigration authorities, deputizing campus cops to question, detain and assist in the deportation of students.
Commentary: Salazar’s Dignity Act is not an answer for illegal immigration Original
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is attempting to sell her Dignity Act through the oxymoronic tagline, “dignity, not citizenship,” a proposal that serves for her to speak out of both sides of her mouth. In a video uploaded to social media, Salazar goes over the legislation after superimposing Trump’s voice over one of his erratic tweets using artificial intelligence, detailing how the farm lobby is frustrated that their workers are being deported.
Taking the mask off of ICE | Opinion
“ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence … In all our history, we have never tolerated an armed secret police.” These aren’t the words of liberal activists or immigration advocates, but of U.S. District Judge William G. Young, appointed in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan. A new bill filed in the Florida Legislature by state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando and state Rep.
DHS Plans More State-Run Extrajudicial Black Sites Like “Alligator Alcatraz”
Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size. In late August, the sister of Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez posted a tearful video on TikTok in which she announced that her brother had died while detained at the “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant jail in Florida.
Commentary: Police forces don’t have to cooperate in ICE raids
Despite hundreds of residents packing Miami City Hall this past June, and dozens testifying in opposition to an agreement deputizing police officers with immigration enforcement powers, commissioners there decided to move forward in signing a 287g agreement that will in fact, turn their police force into a cooperating arm of the immigration crackdown we are seeing not just in our state but across the country.
Waste, fraud, abuse and Florida’s immigration prisons | Opinion
A new, flippantly named immigration detention center has been opened in north Florida, deemed “Deportation Depot” by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the unelected attorney general, James Uthmeier, whom DeSantis appointed to carry forward his agenda.
Experts Say Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz Migrant Camp May Be Illegal
What the state of Florida is doing in the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp is illegal, point blank. U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2018, issued the order as part of an ongoing .
DeSantis Races to Open Immigrant Detention Camp in Swamp Amid Hurricane Season
DeSantis Races to Open Immigrant Detention Camp in Swamp Amid Hurricane Season Even before “Alligator Alcatraz,” Ron DeSantis had defined his political legacy by gleeful cruelty against immigrants. By Thomas Kennedy & Will Mann , Truthout Published July 3, 2025 President President Donald Trump, alongside Florida Gov.
Authoritarian Creep: Florida Officials “Obey in Advance” on Immigration Enforcement
Florida has become a hub for the proliferation of 287(g) agreements, partnerships between local law enforcement municipalities and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since 2019, an array of state laws has made Florida an increasingly hostile place for immigrants. Entities ranging from counties like Miami-Dade, cities like Tallahassee, and even universities are signing these agreements that effectively deputize law enforcement officials to serve as immigration agents.
Authoritarian Creep: Florida Officials “Obey in Advance” on Immigration Enforcement
Florida has become a hub for the proliferation of 287(g) agreements, partnerships between local law enforcement municipalities and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since 2019, an array of state laws has made Florida an increasingly hostile place for immigrants. Entities ranging from counties like Miami-Dade, cities like Tallahassee, and even universities are signing these agreements that effectively deputize law enforcement officials to serve as immigration agents.
The Kafkaesque Case of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez Is a Warning to Us All
For almost a decade now, Florida has served as a laboratory for hardline immigration policies that are later exported to other state legislatures across the country. The recent arrest of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S.-born citizen who was mistakenly detained under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold in Leon County, shows the threat that these persecutory laws pose for the civil rights of all people, regardless of immigration status. Since 2019, state lawmakers, at Gov.
Gutting child labor laws to replace immigrant workers who fled Florida | Opinion
About one month ago, I wrote an article making the argument that bills pushing a stricter E-verify framework in the state, which is a software system used to check the eligibility of workers in the United States, would exacerbate worker shortages. The low labor participation rate is acknowledged by the state’s own Office of Economic and Demographic Research.
Stricter immigration policy hastens Florida labor shortage
There's a lot of talk in the Florida Legislature right now about cracking down on unauthorized workers in the state. It's not the first time either. In the last few years, multiple iterations of E-Verify, a software system used to check the eligibility of workers in the United States, have been enacted by lawmakers. Why are there multiple iterations of E-Verify?
Ending in-state tuition for undocumented children is cruelty for cruelty’s sake | Opinion
The Florida legislative process can feel a bit like “Groundhog Day.” Not only did we just have another special session in the span of a few weeks, in which the increasing frequency that they are being called upon perhaps renders them not so special anymore, but it was a special session to pass yet another anti-immigrant bill.
The skewed priorities of special session | Opinion
Gov. Ron DeSantis stunned the Florida Legislature by holding a press conference announcing his intention to call for a special legislative session to focus on a volley of issues that include immigration and condo reform.
Spain's approach shows weakness in U.S. immigration policy
If you are from the United States and reading recent headlines from Spain, you might feel like you are living on a different planet. The country's foreign minister has announced that for the next three years, over 300,000 undocumented immigrants living there will be granted residency and work permits.
The implications and roadblocks of Trump’s mass deportation plan | Opinion
After Helene and Milton, an urgent need for legislative action on condos | Opinion
Proof that far-right austerity is economic terrorism
Welcome to a Sunday evening edition of Progress Report. We’re living in an era of unparalleled economic inequality in the United States, the result of 40 years of scammy trickle down economics, periodic austerity, and special interests’ stranglehold on public policy. The GOP owns much of the blame for the destructive policies and paradigm shift over the years, yet it has largely avoided public comeuppance thanks to the frequency with which the party sheds its skin.
Florida Ban on Protections for Outdoor Workers Goes Into Effect Amid Record Heat
The same interests lobbying against heat protection for workers also pushed to roll back child labor protections. By Thomas Kennedy , Truthout Published June 30, 2024 Marta Gaspar, a farm worker, covers guava fruits from pests with plastic bags at a farm on November 2, 2023, in Homestead, Florida.Eva Marie Uzcategui / The Washington Post via Getty Images Florida just saw the hottest May ever recorded in Miami — the heat index was “off the charts” according to the Miami Herald.
Biden Opposed Trump’s Asylum Ban in 2018. Now, He’s Implementing It.
Biden Opposed Trump’s Asylum Ban in 2018. Now, He’s Implementing It. If Biden hopes to bolster his lackluster campaign with this desperate turn to the right, he is bound to be disappointed. By Thomas Kennedy , Truthout Published June 11, 2024 President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2024.Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2024.
Tarring of Mariel arrivals parallels demonization of present-day migrants
Commentary: As we honor teachers, we must do better for students
Tarring of Mariel arrivals parallels demonization of present-day migrants | Opinion
If you grew up in Florida, you probably have heard of the Mariel boatlift. In 1979, some Cuban dissidents decided to seek asylum at the embassies of South American countries. The situation at the Peruvian embassy quickly spiraled out of control when larger-than-expected crowds, numbering in the thousands, showed up.
Florida needs immigrants — even Florida government says so | Opinion
Florida state reports say that immigrants are not only not a burden on the state, they are essential for its economic well-being. If you find that confusing considering the harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric stemming from most state officials and the barrage of nativist legislation from the Florida Legislature, I don’t blame you.
Biden's Proposed Border Policies Sure Look A Lot Like Trump's
Five years later, Democratic politicians sound increasingly like Trump when debating immigration. After a military aid package to Ukraine faced Republican obstruction, the Biden administration decided to play four-dimensional chess and proposed combining it into so-called border security. Since Republicans have tied so much of their political identity to curtailing immigration into the country, this political play would be the sweetener that would dislodge military aid from legislative gridlock.
Democrats Are Embracing Border Policies They Repeatedly Condemned Under Trump
In 2019, I stood outside a for-profit child migrant jail in the city of Homestead, Florida. I was watching then-presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris speak out against the facility, initially opened under the Obama administration and reopened under former President Donald Trump. “It’s a human rights abuse being committed by the United States government,” Harris said at the time, flanked by fellow Democratic candidates Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg and Kirsten Gillibrand.
DeSantis Ditches Presidential Campaign to Resume Campaign of Wreckage in Florida
The worst presidential campaign in recent history has come to a completely predictable end. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his quixotic run for the White House two days before the New Hampshire primary and just a week after failing to win any of the 99 counties in Iowa, losing to Donald Trump by over 30 points. He announced it on social media and quickly endorsed Trump.
I Resigned From the DNC in Protest of Biden’s Backing of Palestinian Slaughter
In 2020, I ran to be a Florida delegate to the Democratic National Committee after helping co-found the Miami-Dade Democratic Progressive Caucus in early 2017. I had just wrapped up a stint in the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and in spite of the tension created by the primary, volunteers and former staffers decided to continue to engage with the structures of the Democratic Party in order to democratize the party and push it in a more progressive direction.
Democrats Are Prepared to Destroy Immigrant Rights to Fund Israel’s War on Gaza
Democrats Are Prepared to Destroy Immigrant Rights to Fund Israel’s War on Gaza Biden and Democrats are looking to resurrect — and in some cases expand — the Trump administration’s worst policies.
No war funding on the backs of immigrants | Opinion
President Joe Biden and some Democrats in Congress are trying to make one hell of a bad deal. Last week, a vote for emergency military funding that would have traded extremist demands from the Republican Party on immigration for billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine failed in the Senate.
New anti-corruption Miami commissioners should start by ousting city attorney | Opinion
Voters in Miami just delivered seismic change by ousting two incumbents from office. Activist and financial advisor Damian Pardo defeated sitting Commissioner Sabina Covo, and Miguel Gabela defeated perennial politician Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who technically was not an incumbent after being recently removed from office by Gov. Ron Desantis due to Diaz de la Portilla’s arrest for charges that included money laundering, criminal conspiracy and bribery.
DeSantis stomps on freedom of information
The First Amendment has sought to protect advocacy journalism in the United States since its establishment, and while that right hasn’t always been honored, it sets a standard that protects journalists and activists from government censorship. Unfortunately for press freedom, Florida Gov.
Funding military assistance to Israel is a mistake
At the heels of the horrific airstrike at Gaza’s Al Ahli Arab hospital, President Joe Biden’s request for $10 billion in weapons to Israel mimics President George W. Bush’s call for a blank check for the War on Terror. We rushed to act and left empty-handed. The post-9/11 war spending exceeded over $8 trillion, 900,000 direct deaths, and more than 4.5 million indirect deaths, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute’s Cost of War project.
In Upcoming Election, Argentina Is on the Verge of Electing Its Own Trump
Argentine hard right libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei, like former President Donald Trump, is a creature created by the media. Milei has disgraced and lowered political discourse on Argentine television for years as a frequent guest of political talk shows. Initially dismissed as a buffoonish character, he made a name for himself by insulting and screaming during broadcast debates and with idiotic stunts like taking a bat to a piñata representing the Argentine central bank.
Steering clear of Gaza’s imminent humanitarian crisis through tenacious diplomacy | Opinion
Already in a distressed condition, Gaza now teeters on a humanitarian crisis as the possibility of a mass evacuation looms overhead, projecting an ominous shadow upon the region. The proposition by the Israeli government, lacking detail and clarity, pushes this area to the brink of catastrophe, with over two million Gazans stuck in a dangerous limbo.
I filed an ethics complaint against Miami’s mayor. Here’s why | Opinion
I have lived in Miami since 2015, and I grow increasingly frustrated and saddened by what an absolute disaster it has become due to lackluster leadership from our elected officials. Aside from the evergreen issues of chronic flooding, lack of public transportation, skyrocketing housing costs and rampant corruption, the city is being consumed by nonstop scandals.
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