Yesterday's News

Yesterday’s News 2026-10-08

Written by

sauer@technologists.com

in

curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’

Gabriela

Rook T. Winchester:
They tried to break Martin Soto. They underestimated his wife.

…
Martin spent more than eight months in ICE custody. For the first four months, he was held at Delaney Hall in Newark, a private for profit detention facility where the complaints weren’t about uncomfortable mattresses or lousy cafeteria food. Detainees described conditions that eventually drove roughly 300 human beings to refuse both food and labor.

They reported worms in meals, spoiled food, inadequate portions and drinking water that tasted wrong. Senator Andy Kim later said he personally encountered milk that had curdled solid. Detainees described shortages of basic hygiene supplies and inadequate medical treatment. Kim met a man with stage III lung cancer who said he wasn’t receiving the care he needed. He heard from a woman who said she had miscarried inside Delaney and was left to manage the miscarriage without adequate medical care.
…

On May 22, hundreds of detained people stopped eating and stopped working. Martin helped organize them. …

Days later, Martin was transferred out of Delaney. He didn’t go home. He went to a different detention facility. And there, Martin was put in isolation.

Days became weeks. Weeks became months.
…

Outside was Gabriela. She was raising their children while trying to bring their father home. She stood outside detention centers. She spoke to reporters. She worked with attorneys and organizers. She pleaded with officials and confronted people with the power to help. Then she went home without her husband, woke up the next morning and did it again.
…

Martin kept fighting inside. Gabriela kept fighting outside. Attorneys kept filing. Organizers kept organizing. Clergy kept gathering. Journalists kept reporting. Strangers learned Martin’s name and started saying it loudly enough that other people had to learn it too.
…

Then came October 6th. The door opened. Martin Soto walked outside. This time there was no van waiting to take him somewhere worse. No transfer masquerading as freedom. No bureaucratic sleight of hand. Gabriela was there. Their children were there. After more than eight months of being told by locked doors that they could not be a family in the same place, they wrapped themselves around one another.
…

And if you’re exhausted and beginning to wonder whether any of it matters, remember October 5th. Martin Soto was still behind the wall. On October 6th, his children were hugging their father.

There are more people waiting. Let’s go get them.
(Rook T. Winchester   more…)

Neil Abrams @ TNR:
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