Christie Thompson

1 month ago | themarshallproject.org | Christie Thompson

In April, the Trump administration cut funding for a program that provided legal aid to immigrants with serious mental health conditions who were detained and facing deportation. The move has left attorneys scrambling to keep serving clients for whom they say legal representation can be a matter of life or death. For one young man, the prospect of navigating immigration court without an attorney while dealing with a mental health crisis felt impossible.

1 month ago | tradeoffs.org | Ryan Levi |Christie Thompson

The Fifth Branch is a special series by Tradeoffs and The Marshall Project that examines what it looks like when one community dramatically changes how it responds to people in crisis. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Episode 1: Convincing the Cops How do you convince police officers that it makes sense to send unarmed mental health workers to some 911 calls? Read the episode transcript. Episode 2: Keeping People SafeHow do you keep crisis responders and the people they're helping safe?

2 months ago | bostonglobe.com | Beth Schwartzapfel |Christie Thompson

Labor leaders say the move is devastating for the bureau, and silences a union representing over 30,000 people at more than 120 federal prisons nationwide. It’s the latest and biggest hit to a workforce that includes many supporters of Trump’s “tough on crime” campaign rhetoric. The Council of Prison Locals, a unit of the larger American Federation of Government Employees, represents federal prison staff in collective bargaining about working conditions.

2 months ago | themarshallproject.org | Beth Schwartzapfel |Christie Thompson

Federal prison employees are bracing themselves for a legal fight, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week to end collective bargaining for most federal employees. The announcement, aimed at unions across dozens of executive branch departments, explicitly included the Bureau of Prisons, creating more confusion at an already struggling agency.

Mar 24, 2025 | commercialappeal.com | Daphne Duret |Daja Henry |Christie Thompson |Lakeidra Chavis |Geoff Hing |Wilbert L. Cooper

One of the Justice Department’s goals under President Joe Biden was to investigate some of the nation’s most troubled police agencies, including the ones responsible for the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tyre Nichols. Two months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the prospect of federal oversight appears likely to disappear in most of those 12 agencies.