Came out swinging
Today we have a story about how ICE check-ins have become an abusive and maddening catch-22 for immigrants. They can either continue to show up and risk being detained or stay away and end up being detained for that anyway.
These cruel motherfuckers I swear to God.
Also today a reminder how awful Andrew Cuomo was as a governor from one of the many people whose lives he put at risk during the height of Covid.
First here's the energy we're kicking off today's newsletter with courtesy of Dan Campbell and Philly's finest:
"I gotta say protect trans youth. I gotta say fuck ICE. And with my whole fucking chest, I gotta say free Palestine. Anybody watching at home, anybody walking by, you wanna know who said it, you tell em it's the motherfucking Wonder Years from Philadelphia."
Go Birds baby! Unless they're playing the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Which probably isn't going to happen again any time soon so fine... Go Birds!
The Wonder Years are one of the best punk bands of the past 20 years if you don't know them. God this song makes me want to run through a brick wall. Came out swinging indeed.
I wrote about them for Pitchfork a while back if you care to read it.
As much as the Wonder Years’ five previous albums followed the broad tenets of modern pop-punk—nostalgia for a youth they’re too young to realize isn’t even over yet, the melancholy of the middle-distance tour schedule—a specificity of place has distinguished their music from all the soundalikes. Frontman Dan Campbell is a Philly Springsteen in an extra-medium hoodie, filling his lyrics with diners, basements, bowling alleys, and parks that delight local kids and make the songs come alive for people who’ve never set foot in his city. But every successful band eventually outgrows its hometown, and it’s clear on the Wonder Years’ sixth album, Sister Cities, that they’re struggling with where they fit in as citizens of the world.
I just remembered I asked Campbell – as well as Riley from Thrice, Keith from Every Time I Die, Geoff from Thursday and others – to tell me about some of their lowest moments of being in a band a few years ago.
Luke O’Neil
Lots of bands say that’s the type of stuff you have to go through. The bands that say that are people who actually make it through that stuff though. There are tens of thousands of bands who probably quit at that moment.
It definitely tests your mettle. I think the biggest thing is, the things you learn from being in band are, well, problem solving is close to the top of that list. What are you going to do if you’re stranded in Germany? What are you going to do when your battery dies on the van and you’re in the middle of the West Texas desert and you have to get to the show the next day? I think without times like that you don’t learn those lessons and you break down. But we just kind of leaned on each other a little bit and said ok let’s fucking figure it out. We can either quit or figure it out.
While I'm at it here's another punk video that got my teared up this week.
Punk rock kid buskers (‘The Whops’, tiktok) near the Edgware Rd. They run into Paul Simonon, play Death or Glory for him. He asks if they know The Guns of Brixton. They do -
— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T13:13:43.352Z
When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun
Listen I am as sick of hearing about the New York City mayoral race as anyone else. The truth is though that the election does matter. Not in the way that people usually talk about the office being an important national one or any of that shit no but rather because it's a good barometer this time around for whether or not the establishment of the Democratic party has learned one single fucking lesson.
I think we both know the answer to that but one has to hope right?
As predicted almost every single entrenched donor class or big business interest turd and the media who serves their interests have been marshaled to make sure that Zohran Mamdani – the charismatic young candidate and Democratic Socialist who is making a very strong showing thus far – gets nowhere near any kind of power. The New York Times even broke their own new rule about not endorsing candidates to suggest people vote for Cuomo. So too have a bunch of billionaire shit heads like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Ackerman and the type of New York City stereotype landlords and bosses that in a better world would be getting their asses kicked in by Daredevil.
It's reminiscent of how the centrist Democrat antibodies all sprung into action to box out Bernie Sanders. They even wheeled this fucking guy back out to weigh in on a local New York City election for some reason.
Need I remind you Cuomo resigned in disgrace as governor after multiple sexual harassment allegations less than four years ago.
There are a thousand other reasons this dude fucking sucks but another one was his cruel and negligent treatment of nursing home patients during the early days of the Covid outbreak in the city.
The documentary Fire Through Dry Grass documents that period of death and sickness and indifference to suffering from the perspective of the patients at one such facility. The producers of the film – now streaming on PBS – shared this message from one of the patients with Hell World.
LeVar “Var” Lawrence is a resident of Coler Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center, a public nursing home on Roosevelt Island in New York City. On March 13, 2020, as coronavirus spread through the city, Coler closed its doors and locked in residents, who were confined to the nursing home and its grounds against their will. Later in March, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all New York nursing homes must accept COVID-19 patients, and NYC Health + Hospitals established a shadow hospital within Coler’s walls. As the NYC mayoral primaries approach, Var and other residents are warning New Yorkers not to rank Cuomo.
How do you sleep at night?
by LeVar “Var” Lawrence
No one was even warning us that there was somebody sick in our unit. They had a motherfucker over here in the isolation room and got his door wide open. It started off with just two people sick. The next thing you know it's five people. The next thing you know it's seven people. And it's on both sides of the unit. It was so bad that the nurses in here posted a video asking for help. And my friend Roy, who lived in Coler with me, got Covid and died. He was a good dude.
My roommate got a fever and was coughing nonstop. My immune system is not that good. And this guy's bed was located right behind me. And I'm watching him cough, not cover his mouth, trying my best not to curse nobody out.
I got Covid in May 2020, but I’d been locked down so long I didn’t even know the date anymore. I was moved to the fifth floor for quarantine. One day I started ringing the bell at 9am to get my treatment done. By 12pm, no nurse came and I hadn’t even been washed yet. 2pm and I was still waiting for the nurse.
After I tested negative, the CEO of Coler, Robert Hughes, held a town hall meeting in our courtyard where they gave us cornbread and collard greens. I was tired of this shit. I asked him, “How do you sleep at night, knowing that you’re responsible for so many people dying here?” He wouldn’t answer so I kept asking. “Ain’t this a town hall meeting? How do you sleep at night? Say it right.”
To me, they're all fucking to blame. Whoever's in charge of something or anything, need to be fucking blamed. These motherfuckers got to live their life. And then the shit that I hate, when they always told us, "You know it's bad out there. Y’all are better off being locked down in here?" Fuck you. Because you got to leave here and when you go home, you don't stay in your fucking house. So don't give me that fucking bullshit. Fuck the government. Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Mr. Hughes. Fuck Coler. And fuck Andrew Cuomo.
I wish more people knew that Cuomo’s a fucking asshole. He let them stick people that had Covid in here side by side with us. It led to a lot of people dying. When people liked Cuomo’s press conferences, it felt fucked up for them not to know the truth. There were bodies being carried out of here left and right while people were complimenting this man on doing a good job. He actually did a fucked up job. He could’ve prevented a lot of things from happening the way it did. I want to tell the next mayor not to do the same dumb shit Cuomo did to us and to realize that people in nursing homes matter.
Var and other Coler residents are featured in the documentary Fire Through Dry Grass, co-directed by Alexis Neophytides and Coler resident Andres “Jay” Molina, which reveals what life was actually like inside a nursing home that accepted Covid patients. It is streaming on PBS. If you’re voting in the primary, watch it before you vote.
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ICE Check-Ins Become Catch-22 For Immigrants
Go and be detained … or stay home and be detained
by Sarah Betancourt
Margarita fled Honduras for the United States in 2014, leaving behind gender-based violence from an uncle who stalked her and threatened her physically.
“I was afraid of what he would do to me, and my daughters,” she said. Margarita asked to only use her first name for this story out of fear of repercussions in Honduras if her last name is known.
Since arriving in Boston, she’s had a US-born daughter, now nine, and spends her time working in food preparation and as a janitor in local restaurants. What should be a safe haven for her has become an unsteady reality under the second Trump administration, which is actively searching for immigrants to detain and deport as a part of mass deportation policies.
Margarita reports to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Burlington, Massachusetts for check-ins, a regular occurrence for immigrants across the country. For years, immigrants in removal proceedings have to check-in with ICE at least once per year—if they don’t go, a warrant for their arrest can be issued, and ICE can proceed with deportation.
In March, Margarita went to a check-in and had an electronic monitor attached to her ankle for GPS monitoring—despite having never committed any criminal offense, she says.
Margarita tried to gain asylum many years ago, but had the case denied, and was only told by her former immigration lawyer more than six months after the denial—which meant she couldn’t appeal. Since then, she’s been in removal proceedings, but hasn’t been given a specific date to self-deport.
With the growing number of check-ins lately, and news of community members being detained and deported, she is fearful.
“I’m scared because the problems that I came here with still exist in Honduras,” she said. Here with my two jobs, I pay for my rent, what we need, food—we don’t have a lot, but we have what is necessary,” she said.
When she goes to the appointments, Margarita said she takes several buses to Burlington, traveling almost 2 hours each way. She waits in a room, often bringing her youngest daughter out of fear of separation, and signs a piece of paper saying she has been compliant by physically presenting herself at the Burlington, Massachusetts Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office. The appointments mean entire days of lost work, since she doesn’t know how long she will be there for.
Patricia Montes is executive director of Centro Presente, a nonprofit immigrant rights organization that has been supporting Margarita. They’ve gone to and plan to go to her ICE check-ins, reached out to elected leaders about her case, and are seeking to meet with Gov. Maura Healey about Margarita’s case, and others like it.
“She’s going to be in a country that is dangerous for women and girls, you know? Honduras has one of the highest levels of femicides,” said Montes.
Margarita is not alone in her apprehension of going to a check-in. Centro Presente has long advised its members to go to their check-ins and be compliant with the law.
“However, because of this political environment, a lot of our clients, women and girls—they are afraid to go to court, they’re afraid to go to the ICE check-ins because they fear that they are going to be detained.”
Montes recounted one specific instance this winter when a Salvadoran mother with a nine-year-old went to an ICE check-in in Burlington. She was detained the same day, and was deported the next day to El Salvador.
The Department of Homeland Security pushed back on the concerns of its ICE agents detaining people at check-in appointments.
“ICE’s ATD- Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) exists to ensure compliance with release conditions. All illegal aliens are afforded due process,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in a message. The unnamed spokesperson said those who are arrested have “executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge,” and will not have complied with self deportation.
“If you are in the country illegally and a judge has ordered you to be removed, that is precisely what will happen,” the statement went on. DHS claims that under the Biden administration, thousands of undocumented immigrants, including “including violent criminals-with final orders of removal were on ATD and allowed to roam our communities.” “ATD” refers to ICE’s “Alternatives to detention” programs—which include the ankle monitor that Margarita has to wear.
Montes said her organization has fielded many calls and messages from immigrant single mothers who have no criminal records, who are worried about being deported and have US citizen children, like Margarita.
“They are terrified. The main concern is family separation. They are afraid to go back to their countries, countries where they don’t feel safe, and they are also afraid to leave their kids,” Montes said. Most, she said, would prefer to be deported with their children, afraid of current laws in the state around guardianship of a suddenly unaccompanied minor.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s office said it has been in touch with Centro Presente and “expressed our support for Margarita’s case.”
“The Congresswoman consistently affirms that our constituents and immigrant families across the nation should be granted due process, a fundamental legal right and ICE’s enforcement tactics are nothing short of terrorizing,” said a spokesperson for the Congresswoman.
With so many immigration policies coming out of the White House directly impacting women and children, Montes said she wants to see the governor take a stand.
“We don’t have a governor having meetings with a lot of people from the community—particularly women and girls,” she said. “There is not an immigration policy at the state level that is protected, that has a gender-focused point of view and a gender-justice view.”
Adam Bejtlich volunteers with the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network and recently started accompanying immigrants to the appointments.
Not long ago, he brought a male individual to the office 30 minutes before his check-in. They went in together, but it became obvious quickly that Bejtlich couldn’t stay since he isn’t an attorney. “There was a small waiting room. And there were signs on the walls in various languages, basically making it pretty clear that I was not allowed to stay,” he said. mentioning that he couldn’t even park in the parking lot.
He said the man had an ankle monitor despite a judge having previously said GPS monitoring wouldn’t be required. Bejtlich said he doesn’t speak a lot of Spanish and he and the man couldn’t communicate much, but they established a connection.
“I’m just a guy who wants to help people when they’re scared because, you know, this isn’t something that people used to be scared about,” Bejtlich added.
He said another individual he’s accompanying to a check-in is “definitely afraid” and not certain of whether they will be detained for potential deportation that day.
The number of people that ICE agents must detain in their regions has increased recently, according to news reports, jumping from around 1,000 immigrants per day to 3,000 per day.
“I think all that really matters is the fear. The randomness, right? It’s like—putting a quota on it just means … it’s just another way to scare people,” Bejtlich said.
“My main motivation is the dehumanization of others has got to stop. We’ve got to start caring about each other,” he said.
Margarita said she has organized her guardianship of her daughter in the event that they have to self-deport, and that she would buy the tickets herself. She said she doesn’t want to be arrested and detained the way she has seen other people in the news get treated—she wants autonomy to go with her daughter.
She’s hoping her effort to stay in the US will be successful because she’s been here a decade. Generally, if an undocumented immigrant in deportation proceedings proves they’ve been in the US for ten years, with no criminal issues, and their deportation would cause extreme hardship to a US citizen, there’s a possibility of staying.
“My daughter when she found out what was going on, she cried, she got really depressed, she didn’t want to go to school, she said she didn’t want to go,” said Margarita, who said she’s told her daughter it’s “in God’s hands” now.
This piece was shared with Hell World by the fine folks at Horizon Mass and the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
Sarah Betancourt is local immigration reporter. She was a reporter for CommonWealth Magazine, and senior immigration reporter for Law360. She's covered politics, immigration, incarceration, and health for the Guardian, DigBoston, the Boston Globe, and NBC. She’s a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Here's some miscellaneous bullshit.
A good one on Defector this week.
Albert Burneko
I was thinking about a lot of different stuff. I was thinking about the phenomenon of small-fry sports-bettor bros with no passion for any serious right-wing politics going big for Donald Trump in 2024 based on a view of their vote as something like a wager, and of Trump as the bold, ambitious choice—risky, but with the bigger potential payout. I was thinking about sophisticated, high-achieving tech-industry types abruptly throwing off all of their (thin, half-cooked, fundamentally dogshit, but still) liberal-libertarian politics to get behind an explicitly authoritarian program and help build its surveillance state. I was thinking about bushy-tailed go-getter types in legacy media who kept their language carefully bland around policing reform, anti-racism, and social justice during those topics' brief heightened salience around the George Floyd protests, and then smoothly pivoted to criticizing the excesses of woke when the winds changed. I was thinking about randos whom Elon Musk would not cross a sidewalk to piss on if they were on fire, who, when Trump invited Musk to gut federal government agencies and programs that benefit their own lives, rushed to tweet GIFs of Musk, like, dunking on somebody's head at his critics. I was thinking about bag culture. And I was thinking about Kevin Roose, serially and with apparent enthusiasm donning each next pair of gigantic clown shoes handed to him by this or that Silicon Valley titan, and dancing in them long past the point when everybody else figured out it was all on behalf of a grift.
Related:
And a good one in Vulture.
Dan Reilly
“Around 50 to 55 percent of the general population has health insurance through their employer. In music, it’s about 19 to 20 percent,” says Theresa Wolters, vice-president of health and human services at MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charitable arm. While acts on the three major labels are eligible to get SAG-AFTRA coverage, the only options for most artists are expensive plans from the Affordable Care Act marketplace, usually with high deductibles and little preventative coverage. “They have health insurance — they just can’t use it because they can’t afford the deductible or the out-of-pocket costs,” Wolters says.
Unlike the salary at a standard job, musicians’ income varies widely from month to month, making it a challenge to keep up with premiums or even make enough to stay insured. “Royalty compensation was an issue even before streaming, and most musicians aren’t getting paid out of an advance,” Kevin Erickson, director of the Future of Music Coalition, says. “Some lower-income musicians fall into that hole where they’re not making enough for a subsidized ACA plan but aren’t eligible for Medicaid in their state. There’s a lot of acute financial anxiety.”
Shout out to Javier Bardem while we're at it. Dude was spitting and they played him off like it was an Oscars speech.
OK let's end on a happy note. Someone shared this the other day and I thought I would be able to put it on without snorting and crying laughing yet another time and I was of course wrong. Jackass is funny – as the fella sang – like the Earth is round.