• Empowering Users to Discern Fact from Fiction in the Age of AI

    A new project will investigate interventions that enable individuals to effectively harness AI while building the literacy needed to avoid scams and other forms of abuse.

  • We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing

    We found over 40 cases of agents using chokeholds and other moves that can block breathing. We showed former police and immigration officials videos of incidents. They said agents are out of control. One said it’s “the kind of action which should get you fired.” There is a federal ban on chokeholds and similar tactics. But there is no sign of punishment for officers who’ve used them.

  • DOJ’s Dangerous Silence in the Face of Federal Immigration Agents’ Violent Tactics

    The killing in Minneapolis is but the latest in a series of incidents involving federal immigration agents’ use of apparent excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and federal criminal law. Samantha Trepel writes that DOJ has remained disturbingly silent through months of these tactics. “This silence is a dangerous abdication of DOJ’s authority and responsibility.” Unfortunately, DOJ’s current abdication of responsibility “puts communities at needless risk and undermines the rule of law itself.”

  • How a Manhattan Institute Comparison of Immigrant Incarceration Rates Is Rhetorically Misleading

    I compared incarceration rates between Somali immigrants, native-born Americans, all legal immigrants, and all illegal immigrants in the 18–54 age range. The Somali adult (18-54) immigrant incarceration rate in the US in 2023 was slightly below that of native-born Americans, according to American Community Survey.

  • Worried About Surveillance, States Enact Privacy Laws and Restrict License Plate Readers

    As part of its deportation efforts, the Trump administration has made a push for personal data from voter rolls, driver’s license records and programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

  • ICE Killing of Driver in Minneapolis Involved Tactics Many Police Departments Warn Against − but Not ICE Itself

    Debates over deadly force are often contentious, but for the most part there is consensus on one point: Policing should reflect a commitment to valuing human life and prioritizing its protection. One expression of that commitment is the prohibition on shooting at moving vehicles – but ICE’s policy on shooting at moving vehicles lacks a clear instruction for officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles where feasible. It’s an omission at odds with generally recognized best practices in policing.

  • How Many People Have Been Shot in ICE Raids?

    The Trace has identified 16 incidents in which immigration agents opened fire and another 15 incidents in which agents held someone at gunpoint since the crackdown began. At least three people have been shot observing or documenting immigration raids, and five people have been shot while driving away from traffic stops or evading an enforcement action.

  • The Overlooked Psychology of Security Guards

    When people talk about the psychology of security guards, there is an uncomfortable truth that many would rather not discuss: many security guards develop an inferiority complex. This is not the result of personal weakness or an inherent flaw. It stems from the uncertainty the job creates. Guards constantly navigate uncertainty about their authority, their value, their place within the company, and even their standing in society.

  • The “Sacred” Pledge That Will Power the Relaunch of Far-Right Militia Oath Keepers

    Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia, announced in November 2025 that he will relaunch the group after it disbanded following his prison sentence in 2023. Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes committed during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, but President Trump commuted his sentence to time served.

  • Ten Years Later: The Legacy of the Paris Attacks on Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks in the West

    A decade ago, the terrorist attacks in Paris illustrated the risks and challenges posed by complex coordinated terrorist attacks in a Western capital. These marauding attacks, striking multiple scenes in quick succession, were different from the bombing of public transport in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. Western law enforcement response has evolved in order better to deal with such attacks, but the constantly evolving modus operandi used by terrorists requires a strong and constant anticipation effort by law enforcement.

  • There’s Little Evidence Tech Is Much Help Stopping School Shootings

    Different security technologies appeal to institutions struggling to protect their communities, and are marketed aggressively as the future of school shooting prevention. I’m a criminologist who studies mass shootings and school violence. In my research, I’ve found that there’s a lack of evidence to support the effectiveness of these technological interventions.

  • Small Modular Reactors and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

    Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are widely heralded as the next major leap in civilian nuclear energy. Beneath this optimism, however, lies a growing unease within the nuclear policy community relating to the nuclear weapons proliferation and safeguards challenges that SMRs pose to the existing global nuclear governance system.

  • Who Can Start a Nuclear War? Inside U.S. Launch Authority and Reform

    The U.S. president can order a nuclear launch without consulting anyone, including Congress, and U.S. nuclear weapons have been prepared to launch within minutes since the Cold War. While reforms to U.S. retaliation policy seem unlikely, restraining a president’s ability to launch a first strike could be possible. 

  • Afghan Terrorism Is a Small Threat in the United States

    It is still not clear whether Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who murdered a West Virginia National Guard member in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, was a terrorist – but assuming he is a terrorist, it would mean that since 1975, Lakanwal is the only Afghan terrorist to have murdered somebody on U.S. soil in an attack. In other words, the annual chance of being murdered in an Afghan terrorist attack on U.S. soil is about 1 in 14.2 billion per year. The annual chance of being murdered in a normal homicide is about 1 in 14,000 per year, approximately one million times greater.

  • Capturing Rogue Drones

    A new system is capable of repelling and capturing unauthorized drones. The defensive system’s own drones are equipped with an extendable net which snags unruly drones.