U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

The Pathetic Price of Entry to Epstein’s World

PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by

The latest batch of Epstein files—over 3 million documents, only around half of what the Department of Justice reports to have amassed—has unleashed a new cast of characters, a list that includes tech titans, health influencers, litigation rainmakers, university leaders, sports executives, Hollywood moguls and international royalty. None of the those named in the latest tranche of Epstein files strike me as people I ever assumed possessed particularly stellar moral character, and their collective fall from grace doesn’t shock me.

But what does turn my stomach is how pathetically small the price of entry into Epstein’s world appears to have been.

The expressions of regret now surfacing—I am ashamed, this is not who I am!—read less like moral reckonings and more like the lament of those who simply got caught.

The emails reveal a tawdry economy of access: absurd favors, crude jokes, dating advice, shared handwringing about #MeToo, and giddy acceptance of gifts—Apple Watches, Prada bags, monogrammed sweatshirts—that these already powerful figures could easily have bought themselves.

Whether any individual named in the files participated in or witnessed Epstein’s crimes is only part of the story. Just as telling is the desperate desire to remain in his orbit—often long after his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from girls.

That eagerness to maintain proximity, for so little in return, speaks volumes about how power protects itself—and what too many were willing to overlook to stay connected to it.

Who’s American? Whose America? Bad Bunny’s Radical Halftime Message

PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by and

Thirteen minutes is how long it lasted, and global superstar Bad Bunny—full name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio—more than delivered. Set against pulsating Afro-Latin rhythms and brimming with the energetic dancing bodies of Black, Brown and other multicolored peoples, the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show transformed this historic moment of the first all-Spanish musical spectacle into a cultural reset. Now counted among the most watched halftime performances—with close to 130 million views—the Super Bowl was rightfully renamed the “Benito Bowl.”

Bad Bunny’s performance came just one week after he made history as the first artist recording exclusively in Spanish to win the Grammy’s top honor for Album of the Year. It arrived, too, amid escalating violence tied to ICE enforcement and the policing and deportation of Brown and Black communities. At a moment when the U.S. president is railing against diversity, equity and inclusion—and circulating virulently racist content targeting his predecessor and the nation’s first Black president and first lady during Black History Month—the cultural resonance of this halftime show feels all the more potent.

Bad Bunny’s dynamic performance is an affirmation of the same communities currently terrorized by state-sanctioned violence. At rallies and marches, people play Bad Bunny. In moments of grief and passion, people play Bad Bunny. His refusal to be silenced, to be forgotten, is an inspiration of hope and resilience for social movements. His music is music of the revolution, which was spectacularly televised in the middle of a widely watched football game.  

Resistance, From the Red Carpet to the Courts: Grammy Winners Denounce ICE, Immigrant Families Challenge Trump’s Visa Ban

PUBLISHED 2/5/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—For the first time, more Americans support than oppose abolishing ICE.
—Senate Democrats refused to pass a DHS bill that would fund ICE for this fiscal year. Instead they passed a two-week continuing resolution to give them time to negotiate reforms designed to prevent further brutality from ICE and CBP agents. 
—Artists use Grammy acceptance speeches to denounce Trump and ICE: “Our voices matter,” urged Billie Eilish. “We are humans and we are Americans,” said Bad Bunny.
—Organizations raise alarms about Grok AI spreading nonconsensual intimate images on Twitter.
—Virtual reality may be a tool to change opinions about catcalling.
—Access to IVF has led to more unmarried women in their 40s choosing to have babies.

… and more.

War on Women Report: Meta Removes Abortion-Related Accounts; Louisiana Tries to Extradite California Abortion Provider; Fatal ICE Shootings

PUBLISHED 1/30/2026 by

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has tried to remove pro-abortion ads from Mayday Health, an organization that shares information about abortion pills, birth control and gender-affirming care.
—The FDA withdrew a rule requiring cosmetics companies to test their products made with talc for asbestos, alarming public health advocates.
—Two Pennsylvania hospitals told the state they may not provide emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors because of religious objections.
—Some good news out of Wyoming: The state’s supreme court started the new year by striking down Wyoming’s two abortion bans.

… and more.

Misogyny Isn’t Just About Women—and the Killing of Alex Pretti Proves It

PUBLISHED 1/29/2026 by

The Trump administration has made misogyny a governing principle, deploying it not only to control women but to enforce a rigid hierarchy of power that punishes anyone who disrupts it. The killing of Alex Pretti makes that unmistakably clear.

Pretti—a 37-year-old ICU nurse—was not threatening law enforcement. He was doing what the administration endlessly romanticizes and selectively rewards: stepping in to protect a woman who was being shoved and pepper-sprayed by federal agents. For that, he was tackled, disarmed and shot 10 times. The violence that ended his life did not contradict the administration’s worldview—it followed it to its logical conclusion.

Misogyny functions as a system, not a personality trait. It relies on domination masquerading as protection, and it turns lethal when its myths are exposed. Pretti shattered two of them at once: the fantasy of the “good guy with a gun” and the claim that this administration acts as a protector of women. His calm, visible effort to shield someone else left no room for reinterpretation, only denial. When authoritarian power cannot reconcile what we have seen with what it insists we believe, it chooses force. We know what happened in Minneapolis. We know who tried to protect whom. And we should be clear about what kind of politics requires us to look away.

How Misogyny and White Nationalism Converge in ICE Enforcement

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

The brutality we are witnessing in Minnesota, at the hands of thousands of poorly trained, heavily armed and trigger-happy men who have full reign to hunt and harass anyone who is non-white, is nothing short of state-sponsored terror. It is a horrific illustration of what unfettered power does in the hands of leadership that celebrates and demands violence, especially from men. 

As thousands of amped up men are deployed in the streets and taught there are no consequences for killing anyone who refuses to submit to their authority, we should anticipate more violence to come.

After all: The violence is the point.

At Home and Abroad, MAGA’s Politics of Force Try to Reassert White Male Power

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

The connective tissue of Donald Trump’s takeover of Venezuela, his threats to invade Greenland, the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by masked federal agents in Minneapolis, and the EEOC’s encouragement of white men to bring claims of discrimination against them is this: All represent increasingly desperate efforts by Trump and MAGA to forcefully put white men back in charge.

The Cruel and Unusual Killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by | UPDATED 2/2/2026 at 12:53 P.M. PT

Barely two weeks apart, two American citizens have been slain in Minnesota by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the Twin Cities. Their deaths raise important questions—not just about the violation of First Amendment freedoms, but also the trampling of Eighth Amendment protections that bar the government from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishment.” 

A Month of Fear: ICE’s Surge in Minneapolis and the Backlash That Won’t Quit

PUBLISHED 1/17/2026 by

For the people of Minneapolis, it has been another week of startling violence as the Trump administration continues to mobilize ICE officers into the city—shuttering schools and businesses and leaving residents afraid to leave their homes. Still, thousands have taken to the streets to resist.

One such resister’s story came to us through our Ms. community: Skye, a disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran who has been participating in citizen observer efforts to warn neighbors about ICE presence. “This is my duty,” she told Ms. “I took an oath to defend the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. … [ICE agents] are terrorizing our citizens.”

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that people aren’t staying silent. Protests have filled streets in Minneapolis and far beyond. As we honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we’re reminded that racial justice, gender equality, reproductive rights and an end to state violence are intertwined struggles.

Keeping Score: Renee Good Fatally Shot by ICE; Women Work Longer and Are Paid Less Worldwide; N.Y. Fights Back Against Federal Childcare Freeze

PUBLISHED 1/15/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—”We had whistles. They had guns,” said Becca Good, wife of Renee Good, who was killed in Minneapolis by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
—In central Texas, five months after the Sandy Creek flooding, “many are still homeless, and only 36 percent of FEMA claims in our area have been approved,” said survivor Brandy Gerstner. “FEMA must be independent, fully funded and strengthened—because when it fails to function, real families pay the price.”
—Anti-Muslim and anti-South Asian hate increased around the election of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
—The Department of Veterans Affairs announced new abortion bans.
—Meta has removed the social media accounts of dozens of reproductive health and LGBTQ groups.
—Women worldwide earn just a third of what men do when unpaid domestic labor is taken into account.

… and more.