Life and death in Tulkarem refugee camp

Life and death in Tulkarem refugee camp

by | Sep 23, 2025 | documentary, Israel, Palestine, Politics and Movements: International, video, west bank

Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank.

Established in 1950, Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank became home to Palestinians driven from their native lands during the 1948 Nakba (“Catastrophe”), which saw over 700,000 people expelled in a campaign of ethnic cleansing to create Israel. Since January of 2025, the camp has been forcibly depopulated by Israel and largely destroyed as part of the IDF’s Operation Iron Wall, which has displaced over 40,000 Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps. In April 2024, before their forced displacement, TRNN was granted access to the Tulkarem refugee camp and spoke to residents about life and death in what was once one of the most densely populated camps in the West Bank.

Credits:

  • Produced by Ross Domoney, Antonis Vradis, Abdalrahman Abdrabboh
  • Filmed and edited by Ross Domoney
Transcript

Narrator:
In April 2024, The Real News Network was granted access to the Tulkarem refugee camp in occupied Palestine. Israeli army raids would happen sporadically without much warning.

To capture these interviews, the crew slipped in and out, forced to leave multiple times by drones and the fear of incoming raids. We wanted to understand how decades of occupation had shaped the residents’ subconscious.

Established in 1950, it became home to Palestinians driven from their native lands during the Nakba, also known as the catastrophe, which saw over 700,000 expelled in a campaign of ethnic cleansing to create Israel.

The refugee camp is located within the city of Tulkarem, it’s one of the most densely populated camps in the West Bank, housing more than 27,000 registered refugees.

At every turn, Israel has added pressure, erasure and violence. The camp’s armed resistance had gone into hiding, but symbols of their influence were everywhere. Every person we spoke to had a traumatic story of what the army had done.

Mu’tasim ‘Abd E-Rraheem, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
My friend Mus’ab was martyred on 11/14/2023. We were happily staying up late at  night like any group of guys. Suddenly, the Israeli Army entered the camp. I was the last one standing among our group of three.

I see Mus’ab a lot in my dreams. Sometimes, I dreamed that we are both walking in the street. Mus’ab came from above, you get me? He was calling for me. He was saying: “You’re not in prison. What brought you up here to me?” He then asked me to take care of his little brother.

Well, surely when the camp is safe, life is great. But when there are raids, martyrs, prisoners, and wounded [people] every day, it’s horrible, especially since the entire camp shares a common ancestry.

Narrator:
Most people we spoke to say they were targeted despite having no ties to armed groups. Like this man who was hunted by a bomb drone.

Ahmad Jamal Ahmad Ghanim, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
It’s not my fault what happened to me.I was just going to work. I had nothing to do with the army, or being wanted, or anything of the sort. I was just going to work. I have to provide for this little girl. How would I do that? Through others’ charity? We just want to work.

I dream about how I was shot and hit. I don’t know… At night I wonder where is my arm. Where is… where is my arm? How would I hold my daughter? How would I work? How would I… How would I work or do anything? There is no… Without an arm or a leg, one cannot dream of work.

Narrator:
As Palestinians resist for their basic rights. Soldiers raid with futuristic weapons. Shooting for fun as if it’s a video game.

Nabeel Muhammad Abdallah ‘Amer, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
So, our sons were around, three of them were standing [here], and probably three to four others were there, watching the three jeeps which were below. Now, there is this… Jeep that is equipped with AI-guided weapons. Once it detected the group of people standing here, it fired one bullet… It penetrated Nabeel’s head. He fell to the ground and the rest hid back.

One of the things I dreamed about while being imprisoned… Apparently, I was in a desert area. While I was asleep, I wasn’t able to see anything. One night… I woke up screaming. Shouting that we’re not in prison. That the situation we’re in has ceased to exist, and that Palestine is liberated.

Narrator:
Since January 2025, the camp has been forcibly depopulated of all its residents. Now much of it sits destroyed and is occupied as part of the IDF Operation Iron Wall, which has displaced over 40,000 Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps.

Residents are allowed back for just 20 minutes, to gather what personal items they can, before being forced out once again.

Nabeel Muhammad Abdallah ‘Amer, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
When I actually woke up and found the barbed wire around me and our life was still under the tents and watchtowers… I fell back into a state of despair and psychological stress.

Closing text slides:
The Israeli army has largely destroyed Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams Refugee camps.

They remain depopulated.

Ever wondered how political stories are crafted from the ground up? Ross Domoney, the filmmaker behind this piece, invites filmmakers, journalists, and activists into his community newsletter, where he unpacks the art and strategy of impactful political storytelling. Sign up and read for free: https://www.shadowgraph.co

Original

‘We’ve got four public prisons and one private prison closed’: CA abolitionist coalition takes on the prison-industrial complex

‘We’ve got four public prisons and one private prison closed’: CA abolitionist coalition takes on the prison-industrial complex

by | Sep 23, 2025 | California, Politics and Movements: US, Prison Industrial Complex, Prisons and Policing, Rattling the Bars, video

After years of pressure from community members and a coalition of over 80 organizations, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has announced plans to close the infamous California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, CA, by the fall of 2026. But organizers say this is just the beginning—they are fighting to close more prisons in California and prevent the government from re-opening shuttered facilities for immigrant detention. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Woods Ervin of the grassroots organization Critical Resistance about California’s prison system and the growing abolitionist movement working to dismantle it.

Guest:

  • Woods Ervin is the National Co-Director of Campaigns and Projects at Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization seeking to build an international movement to end the prison-industrial complex.

Additional links/info:

Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Today we are discussing California’s prison system and the abolition movement working to dismantle it. Joining me today is Woods Ervin. She’s the National Co-Director for Campaigns and Projects at Critical Resistance, an organization founded in the mid 1990s with the mission of ending the use of prisons and police. Woods, thank you so much for joining me today.

Woods Ervin:

Thank you so much for having me today, Mansa. I appreciate it.

Mansa Musa:

Recently the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation announced that the California Rehabilitation Center or CRC in Norco will close in the fall of 2026. Now, CIC is known for the most inhumane conditions as it relate to road infested unsafe drinking water, severe overcrowding, stifling heat and violence at the hands of the staff. Can you walk us through how this came about and were there any unlikely alliances that emerged in the fight to close prisons that people might learn from when building coalitions?

Woods Ervin:

Thank you so much. So that’s a really great question. So just to take us back a little bit to 2020, Critical Resistance joined a campaign, a coalition that was leading a campaign to close 10 prisons by 2025, feeling ambitious, it was 20. And the coalition is actually in an alliance. The California is United for Responsible Budget.

And at the time around 2020, we heard from the legislative analyst office, which is a bipartisan research office within the California state infrastructure that at the very least five prisons could close without impacting the imprison population. Just with all of the work that we’ve been doing to get people out of prison over the last decade, the population had gotten to that point. So we launched this campaign and had moved a few prisons towards closure, but we were focusing on the person who had the decision making power ultimately, which was Governor Newsom. And he was just making choices around whatever prison he saw fit to close, I think in relationship to or talking to CDCR, but not necessarily to us. And so even though we knew that Gut Newsom does have the final say in whether or not our prison closes, we also thought that everyday people should also get a say in how dollars are spent.

So we decided to engage in a site fight just to sort of test our power, our ability to be able to name a prison and then have that prison get shut down. So when we first started the campaign, it was based in what we called the People’s Plan for Prison Closure, which was a research project that Curb did back in 2019 or 2028 where they interviewed hundreds of imprison people across the state. What were the prisons that were most toxic? And given everything you listed initially, clearly CRC Norco was one of the prisons at the top of that list. So we pulled 10 prisons and we were just like between people inside wanting the prison to close. And we had heard that there were pushes from the city council and the mayor to close the prison as well. And we thought that might be good conditions for trying out focusing on CRC Norco to get it to close.

So we did the sort of, I think some of the usual things around grassroots organizing where we, and agitated our base of supporters to send the governor letters for closure or advocating for closure. We did also engage in mobilizations to CRC Norco as direct action and also we organized with interfaith movements. So a bunch of churches from across the state that would mobilize to Norco, they did a pilgrimage of the direct action as well to show their opposition to Norco support for people inside and the desire for it to close. But we didn’t want to stop there. We did some organizing outside of the prison, which looked like what we call parking lot outreach days. So with the goal of organizing the families of people

Mansa Musa:

And not to cut you off and that was onsite at the institutions. When you say pa, alright, go ahead. That’s

Woods Ervin:

Every weekend when folks would visit their family members inside we would have a table with food and water and iceman outside. And so the goal was to one, just generally support family members of people who were in CRC Norco and then also to let them know about the campaign to encourage them to join if they were interested in doing so. And we were hoping to also then set the groundwork so that if we did win the closure of CRC Norco, then we would be prepared to mobilize with family members on that. Right,

Mansa Musa:

Right. And you just described organizing 1 0 1 in terms of going where the people are because as you said, y’all got this strategy to close it. But now we looking at conditions that shifted in this country in the interim of what you just said, the mentality has shifted. Now we have the raise on people, rounding people up, ice rate rounding people up because they’re now United States citizens. So we see that. How are y’all looking at alright, the close of these prisons and not allowing them to become a repurposed for federal detention and ice? Is that a part of y’all plan? Because Governor Gavin Newsome signed AB 1 37 to prevent ICE from acquiring closed facilities. Has this legislation been effective in stopping the federal government from taking over sites like FCI, Dublin and Chaco Walla Valley State Prison?

Woods Ervin:

Right on. So we’re definitely excited to have been able to push for AB 1 37 to get passed and that to include some of the language that would allow for prisons that we get closed to not be able to be sold to the federal government. Just like you were saying, 2020 when we started the campaign, it was a different moment when we knew in the fall of last year when Trump got elected and was spouting all the anti-immigrant rhetoric that we needed to get ahead of the issue with prisons being converted to detention centers. So the legislation AB 1 37 currently says that the state has to name a building as excess to fall into the status of not being sold. And while that is one step forward, that does then bring about a lot of challenges in terms of it’s implemented, right? So what the prisons you were speaking to Chuck Wall Valley State Prison is not currently named as excess. So we’re organizing our base to send letters to the governor to move it into that category. But we’re also thinking about this next legislative cycle. How do we figure out ways to either strengthen the legislation via amendment or if there are ways administratively to figure out some supporting the interpretation of the legislation to a little bit one more automatic, it shouldn’t be that we have to fight for every prison that we get closed to then get named as excess so that we don’t have to worry about it getting sold.

And two, so that it’s just broader. So it covers as many of the facilities that get closed as possible. Unfortunately with a case of something like FCI Dublin, which was a federal facility, so it was already federally owned. So AB 1 37 doesn’t cover it, right? Federal property. So there’s no need to exchange hands in terms of ownership,

Mansa Musa:

But there’s always the question, when a prison closed, does it actually mean the conservation, are people being released or are they simply being transferred to another jail or prison? And in that regard, we are looking at the impact of the closure. Talk about the impact of closure when y’all made y’all analysis, how y’all tracking that?

Woods Ervin:

Yes, I can definitely speak to that. So how we’re approaching this is rooted in the answer to your first question because some of our grassroots organizing was not just with people on the outside, it was also on people with people on the inside,

Mansa Musa:

Right?

Woods Ervin:

Okay. We organized with people on the inside about if we were successful in getting Norco name for closure, what would they want to see? How would they want us to approach it? And so really at the top of their desire was for us to move for releases and not transfers. So already a lot of us just wanted to get clarity on we want what’s the highest bar, but then if we don’t have the juice or the capacity to get CR to get our prison system to release everybody what then? And so even though we’ve been continuing to push for releases, not transfers, we’re also realistic about where is there some room beyond that? So what we’ve been trying to do is then also to have, if they are going to be transferring people to try and mitigate the harm as much as possible. So what we’ve looked at is we’ve been trying to push for our process for our prison system to assess eligibility for release and create reentry plans, push for autonomy and choice in the transfer process.

So we know that especially when thinking about programs like programming for folks inside, we’re trying to, there’s a penal code 2030 3.7 in California that should allow for people in prison to choose to be able to continue programming at their next facility. But that will require that the facility that they move to have that program program, right? So we’re pushing for in accordance with law people should be moved to a prison, continue to program and also other things like people should have adequate prep time and in planning and advance the transfer and clearly everything else maintain adequate levels of medical assistant food stocks and space to avoid overcrowding. And so those are some of the things that we are pushing for as part of our ultimate goals release is not

Mansa Musa:

Transferred.

Woods Ervin:

If they’re not going to fully comply with that, we have other demands in addition to that.

Mansa Musa:

I like the strategy because it’s interconnected. You close the prison and you create a transitory environment, then that means that okay, I go from maximum security to medium security to minimum security to pre-release if that’s a system that exists in California. But ultimately I don’t stay in one secure environment. My behavior is now allow me to be able to progress through the system. Whereas though before I’m just, I need a plantation, I need numbers. One of the numbers that need to be on the plantation versus ain’t no more plantations. So we close them. That mean we got to do something with the people and I like that strategy. So that’s all power to the people in that regard. Another factor here is that we had did a story on North Carolina and we found in our study, in our investigation that a lot of prisons in environments where if you got fires, floods when it rains and they don’t have a contingency plan for preparation to move people into a safer environment or close the prison and then have the people move to a more secure environment or process them out. Can you speak to that?

Woods Ervin:

That’s exactly right. I think we saw this back in I think 20 21, 20 22 during the fires, the fire, right? Exactly. In Susanville and we were pushing a closed California correctional center at the time. And at the time, just like CIC Norco, California Correctional Center did not have an emergency plan even though the fire was heading directly towards them. And so we literally had to intervene because family members were calling us and they didn’t know what was going to happen to their loved ones. So because the prison system didn’t have an emergency plan, a contingency plan for that, we were like not only do we need to manage the outside advocates, we have managed this situation when CDCI has all this money to do that, but then also this prison needs to close immediately. Right? Right,

Mansa Musa:

Exactly.

Woods Ervin:

That was a blatant and clear example of the inability for them to keep people inside safe.

Mansa Musa:

It’s only because of the advocacy of families and people much like y’all cells that bring this to national attention. That makes it an issue that has to be dealt with in a more humane manner. Fine. Let’s touch on the broad economic picture. California is basically facing a deficit now. I was looking at how much money in the 20 24, 20 25 fiscal year. They estimated 18.1 billion for that fiscal year. Alright. Talk about perhaps repurposing the facilities. Will it help strengthen the state economy, especially given the outgoing hostility from the Trump administration? So we find ourselves in a situation where you close in prison. Okay. How was this closing and repurposing those facility help strengthen the state’s economy? What’s the economic impact?

Woods Ervin:

I love that question. I let you ask the question. So essentially there are a couple of things. So there is the fact that there’ll be less wasteful spending. So prior to the closure of CRC Norco, California spent 250 million on repairs as we said earlier is in terrible condition. So 250 million on repairing CRC Norco that in a way that wasn’t effective given the state of the prison,

Mansa Musa:

Right? Right, exactly.

Woods Ervin:

We want to stop our prison system, our state from pouring the state’s resources into these dilapidated prisons that need to be closed and have our folks released. So that’s like baseline, right? So also as a result of this continuing trend downward of the population, so the population reductions that have been happening inside of prison, the legislative analyst office shows that California is in a position to close five more prisons and that would save 1.5 billion annual, yeah,

Mansa Musa:

1.5 billion

Woods Ervin:

Foreseeable future. And that can be put towards the deficit, but if as it currently stands, but it can also support some of the gaps in Medi-Cal food services

And other programs, housing exactly. That are being slashed in this moment. There’s also this really interesting opportunity. So as I was saying earlier, the prison system CDCI has no plan whether it be for emergencies or for the prison closure. So what did we do? We came up with a plan and we were like, here’s an example of what we could be doing with as part of prison closures. So we are pushing for the state to not only close prisons permanently and not reopen or sell them, but then to try and transform the conditions of the prison. So that could be tear it down, use it for something else

Like detoxify the land, give it back to the local communities, right? Give it back to put it into a program for reparations or back to this communities we’ve been working with. So that’s one example of what we could do. We’ve been working with an organization called Designing Justice, designing Spaces that does redesigns for prison facilities that could be turned into lots of other things that are generative for the local economy. And clearly from the funds that gets saved from the prison being closed that would’ve gone to that prison, could go back into the general fund at the state level, but then be set aside for the county to make decisions about their local economy and youth. Norco is a particular case. That county is relatively wealthy and conservative, so they actually don’t need the money to do what they want to do with the prison after it shuts down. So what we’re advocating for in that instance is, or instances like these and in general is that the money that would go to that, there’s money that could go to counties, but there’s also the money that should go to the counties. So there’s the counties that the prison is located in, but then there’s counties where the majority of imprison people come from like LA County and there should be more resources going to where the people who are locked up the most come from,

Mansa Musa:

You can divide that like you say, it is equity, economic equity because you can divide that money up in two places where it can be served the most in terms of advancement of humanity. And that’s a good strategy to counter what the Trump administration is doing. They throwing a lot of money to the states and it’s not being regulated. I’ll give you 1.9 billion or I’ll give you like 1.5 million and you just do this right here for me. And whatever happens in terms of being regulated, if you knock somebody’s brains out, if you put people in thumb locks, it don’t really matter to me as long as you contain that population that I wanted to put in that space for closing first, we want to thank you for coming to the real news and rallying the bars. Tell us about going forward, what you want our listeners and our viewers to be on the lookout for coming out with the critical resistance space.

Woods Ervin:

Yeah, I mean, thanks again so much for having me. And the fight continues. We’ve got four public prisons and one private prison closed. As I said earlier, we’re still going to keep trying to make sure that those prisons that we close don’t get turned into something we don’t want them to get turned into that the money goes where it needs to go. And then we still have five to six additional prisons that we want to get named for closure. And according to legislative analyst office, even though there’s been, as you were saying, the landscape has shifted and there’s more of a sort of tough on crime approach that is gaining popularity in moment, there is still room to close many more prisons in California and just given the amount of people that we’ve been able to get out and that we could potentially still get out and so we’re going to, are going to keep fighting. It would be amazing if we got the 10 prisons, the rest of the name this year. But I definitely think that even if they don’t get named this year, we’re going to fight until we reach our goal.

Mansa Musa:

And I want to close with the immortal words of Bob Marley, get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights. Get up. Stand up. Don’t give up the fight. And I see from what I’m seeing in California, George Jackson say, when the doors open, the real dragon will come out. Well the real dragon is out in the form of critical resistance in the form of curb. The real dragon has come out and make no mistake about y’all are actually showing the nation, when we say abolition, what that look like in terms of the full colony of it. Not just shutting the prison doors but ensuring that the people that’s in prison have a transition. The states and the counties. Well, the counties where the prisons, I have an opportunity to transition from relying on slave labor to looking at expanding your imagination, imagining some other than making money off of people’s sweat and browe.

Woods Ervin:

Thank you so much Mansa for having me. Thank you for being those very big kind words.

Original

EXCLUSIVE: Federal whistleblowers expose how Trump’s HUD is abandoning vulnerable Americans

EXCLUSIVE: Federal whistleblowers expose how Trump’s HUD is abandoning vulnerable Americans

by | Sep 23, 2025 | DC, Economy and Inequality, housing, Politics and Movements: US, video, whistleblower

Federal whistleblowers are going public with an emergency message from within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). According to their formal complaint, under President Trump’s administration, “HUD leadership has already violated the law” and taken actions that “will result in legal violations, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, and present a specific danger to public health and safety.” The complaints were filed by four attorneys and staff workers at HUD’S Office of General Counsel and Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. In their first on-air appearance since going public with their allegations, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with attorneys and federal employees Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan about their whistleblower complaints and the “chaos” at Trump’s HUD.

Guests:

  • Paul Osadebe is an attorney working in the federal government, a shop steward for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) – Local 476, and a member of the Federal Unionists Network. Osadebe is one of the four employees within the Department of Housing and Urban Development who have filed formal whistleblower complaints through the office of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D – Massachusetts).
  • Palmer Heenan is an attorney working in the federal government, a rank-and-file member of AFGE – Local 476, and a member of the Federal Unionists Network. Heenan is one of the four employees within the Department of Housing and Urban Development who have filed formal whistleblower complaints through the office of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D – Massachusetts).

Additional resources:

Credits
Studio Production / Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

Maximillian Alvarez:  Whistleblowers working in the federal government are going public with an emergency alarm message from within the Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to their formal whistleblower complaint — Which they have already filed with Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, who herself will be formally notifying HUD Inspector General Brian D. Harrison and requesting the contained charges be thoroughly investigated.

“HUD leadership has already violated the law and taken actions that will result in legal violations, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, and present a specific danger to public health and safety.” The complaints were filed by four attorneys and staff workers at HUD’s Office of General Counsel and Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.

In their first on-air appearance, we are speaking with two of those four whistleblowers here on The Real News now. They are speaking with us on their own behalf, not on behalf of HUD or any office therein.

Welcome to you both. Thank you so much for being here and for speaking with us. Please, let’s start by introducing yourselves, and give our audience a short summary of the allegations that you have presented to Sen. Warren.

Paul Osadebe:  Sure. So I’m Paul Osadebe. I’m a trial attorney in the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of General Counsel, Fair Housing, and I’m also a steward with AFGE Local 476, and an organizer with the Federal Unionists Network.

To put it simply, we work on housing. We make sure that people have safe and affordable and equal housing in this country, that everyone has the chance to achieve the American dream and have a roof over their head. And that’s what we came to HUD to work on.

But every avenue that we have to do that crucial work is being dismantled piece by piece from political interference, and going as far as to remove complaints that have already been investigated and where we’ve already found that someone discriminated against an American, or removing settlements.

We’re talking about political interference when it comes to gag orders, restricting our ability to talk with complainants or other parts of HUD or other federal agencies. We’re talking about restricting our ability to make sure that federal funding is spent without facilitating discrimination or allowing discrimination to happen.

Every way that someone could come to us and get help for free and see that someone is speaking with the voice of the American people and with the government, all of that is being dismantled.

And we knew that as that was happening, we couldn’t just stay silent and allow that to happen. And we knew that by coming forward there was going to be some risk to us, of course, but people fought and marched and bled and died for these rights that we enforce. That’s our job. And as part of that job, we took an oath to the American people to defend the Constitution, to defend them.

And in that moment I think that required us to organize, to talk with each other as coworkers, as union members, and to say, this is wrong. The law has to be enforced. People need equal access to housing, period, and it’s our job to make sure that they get it.

And what that meant in this moment was going public to tell the American people, to tell Congress and the inspector general what is being broken under Secretary Scott Turner’s watch. And we had to do it. There was no other choice.

Palmer Heenan:  Thanks, Paul, and thanks, Max, for having us. We really appreciate it. My name is Palmer Heenan. I’m also a trial attorney in the Office of General Counsel, Fair Housing Enforcement. Also, I’m a member of the AFGE 476 union as well.

Paul mentioned that when we came to the federal government, we took oath, and that is absolutely true. And part of that oath was to ensure that the law is faithfully executed. That is particularly true in our office. We are one of the only federal agencies that is charged and, in fact, required by Congress to investigate and prosecute discrimination across the country. Our investigators wear badges, they are law enforcement agencies. That is what Congress has charged them with. And that is the oath that we took when we decided to take these positions.

And the frank fact of the matter is that right now discrimination is not being prosecuted. Fair housing laws are not being enforced. And what that means is that every American is less able to secure safe and stable housing. And that’s why we decided to go public because our mission — And not just our mission, but the oath that we swore was to make that happen for our fellow Americans, and that’s not what we’re being allowed. And so we felt that we had no choice but to go public despite, as Paul said, possible risk to ourselves.

Maximillian Alvarez:  It’s a real shame that our history is forgotten so quickly. And folks may be hearing this wondering, well, what’s the point of civil rights law enforcement at HUD? And I’m here sitting in Baltimore, the home of redlining, where racial segregation in housing was perfected and exported around the rest of the country. So if you’ve forgotten that part of our history, you should really pick up a book and educate yourself.

Let’s take a quick step back and make sure that people watching have the necessary inside context that they need to understand the weight, scope, and impact of what we’re talking about here. Can you tell us more about the jobs that you do, the day-to-day work that those jobs entail, and the functions of the offices within HUD that you work at?

Paul Osadebe:  Sure. So, like I said before, what we do is enforce fair housing. We make sure that everyone has the backing of the government so that when someone discriminates against them or restricts housing, the government is there to say, that’s wrong and you have to stop.

So, we do that in a bunch of different ways. We prosecute complaints; we investigate complaints; we help people settle complaints without going through the entire litigation process; we help write regulations; we advise Congress on when they pass a law that might implicate civil rights, we tell them what effect that’s going to have; and when the federal government parcels out money to build housing or rebuild housing after a natural disaster, we make sure that that’s done in compliance with all civil rights requirements; and when the government itself provides housing through vouchers or public housing, we make sure that those housing providers are not discriminating, they’re not restricting people and kicking them out of housing, or they’re not building housing so inaccessible that parts of the population can’t even use that housing. That’s what we do.

And every element that I just talked about is something that we are now being restricted from doing. And that’s a real tragedy for the American people because there is no private sector version of a lot of the things that we do. There’s no law firm or nonprofit that can speak with the power of the government and has the resources and authority that we have.

So, when people lose that, they’re losing something fundamental to the American dream, to the economy, to their lives. And it has a real, concrete impact. It’s not just abstract. It impacts not just your housing, your employment, your healthcare, your education, your physical safety, everything is tied back to that. And that’s why it’s so important that we’re allowed to do what we do. And sadly, right now we’re not.

Palmer Heenan:  Paul’s absolutely right. Year in, year out, decade in, decade out, through Republican administrations and Democratic administrations, no matter who was in charge, people saw the importance, until now, of enforcing these fair housing laws.

And when we talk about fair housing law enforcement, I think people have an abstract notion of what that means. So, I just want to take a second to talk about the kinds of cases that our office investigates because Paul said it: This doesn’t just affect housing, but this whole set of other concerns. Stable housing, safe housing is one of the strongest correlates with childhood health outcomes in existence. It affects the whole kit and caboodle.

The cases we investigate are things like lending discrimination, where a lender might just decide, well, that area, there are too many people who are Black, and so we’re going to charge more to get a mortgage in that area. And that means that if you want to live in that area, that’s an extra $100, $200, $500 out of your pocketbook. Those are cases that we investigate that we’re not investigating now.

Cases where a power plant or a garbage company decides we’re going to put our garbage dump or our power plant in the backyards of those people over there because they’re disfavored, they’re a member of a protected class, whatever it is. Those are cases where HUD was able to come in and say, hey, no, no, no. Folks don’t want a power plant or a garbage dump in their backyard. You gotta put that elsewhere. Those are cases that we’re not investigating.

Cases where a mom and her three kids are looking for a place to live, and a landlord says, I don’t want kids here. I just don’t want kids here. That’s a case that we investigated, and now we’re not investigating them. So even if that mom is able to find housing — Which is not guaranteed — And her and her three kids might be out on the street, the housing they’re going to find is not going to be as good.

We investigate cases that involve housing providers that just don’t want to build accessible housing. So, the disabled veteran who was injured and maybe doesn’t have use of their legs anymore because of an injury they suffered serving our country, they literally can’t get in the door of that housing. Those are cases that we’re not able to investigate.

And finally, we investigate cases where federal funds themselves are being used. Cases where a county, a city, or an entity might decide they want to use federal dollars to discriminate. And part of our job was to prevent that kind of discrimination, that kind of fraud, that kind of waste, and that kind of abuse. We’re not able to investigate those cases anymore.

That’s what this means for people. It’s not just this idea of civil rights, it’s literally your day-to-day life because housing is your day-to-day life. Where you live is at the center of practically everything.

Maximillian Alvarez:  You mentioned, Paul, earlier that y’all are part of the Federal Unionists Network. And we’ve been interviewing federal workers and agencies across the board over these recent months. And the overwhelming response that we’re getting from folks is it’s chaos. And from people working at the VA, healthcare workers who are having more work piled onto fewer people, to people in the National Park Service having to do the same, to people at the CFPB, being fired en masse, and the NLRB being effectively rendered unfunctional.

So, I wanted to, continuing with that coverage, ask if you, as workers for the federal government, if you could give us an inside view of what you, your coworkers, and your clients have been experiencing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development over the past year. What does this look like for you all on the day-to-day basis? How has your work changed with the transition from the Biden administration to the new Trump administration? Walk us through that timeline and the course of events that led you to file this whistleblower complaint and go public with it.

Paul Osadebe:  It’s been, from day one, an attack from the top through everything that could possibly be used to help people, that was set up to help people, that’s what it’s been. So, from the beginning, there [have] been attacks on probationary employees. There’s been an atmosphere that’s so toxic that people felt the need to leave through the deferred resignation program — And then they did another one because they wanted to cut staffing and harm the ability of the agency to actually help people.

There’s been restrictions on our ability to talk to the public, to help complainants, to give legal advice. We’re lawyers that can’t give legal advice. That makes no sense.

Everything that you could imagine that could be done to slow down certain types of work, especially civil rights work, to disparage, to cause fear, to cause chaos, to have people so scared of what management might do that they’re censoring themselves.

That’s the environment that’s been created, and that does not save anybody any money. That does not improve safety or efficiency for anyone. It only causes harm to you out there who need someone to enforce their rights and to be concerned about everyday Americans and not just landlords and developers and people who can bend the government to their whim. We’re the ones who are here to serve the ordinary person who doesn’t have all that backing and all that money.

And because of that, that’s exactly why we’ve seen the attacks that you just talked about. And that’s exactly why we’ve had to come together in this moment. As much as we’ve been under attack and as much as our work has been restricted, we’ve recommitted to the importance of that work. And we’ve recommitted to each other, we’ve recommitted to our agency, and because of the intensity of the attacks towards us, the level of solidarity among us has increased dramatically.

And that’s what could make a public collective whistleblowing action like this possible. Because we saw that if we didn’t do something, if we were not the ones to speak out, we knew that things would be destroyed in silence and there wouldn’t be anyone to sound the alarm. And we knew that we couldn’t wait for someone else to do it, it had to be the people who were actually responsible for people’s safety and health, which is us — Federal workers, federal union members. It’s us who’s responsible.

And so that’s why we’ve come forward in this way through coming together collectively, thinking collectively, moving collectively, finding all potential connections we have to the community and the people that we serve, building power in that way. That’s what it’s going to take to get things under control. And that’s what we’re doing.

Palmer Heenan:  And just to add on to that, and Paul put it perfectly, that collective action has been necessary because when we came to HUD, we came in order to help people, in order to fulfill this mission that Congress charged us and our office with decades and decades ago.

And the frank fact of the matter is that with the changes to our day-to-day, in a normal day, we might call a complainant, work on a case, interact with a respondent in a case and say, hey, these are the other cases that we’ve tried that look like this. If we move forward, this is the possible end result. Maybe don’t discriminate. Those are all things that we haven’t been able to do. And slowly but surely, every avenue that a person who’s been discriminated against [has] has just been closed off in terms of getting any kind of resources to get assistance.

And again, the Fair Housing Act requires HUD to investigate and prosecute these complaints when a member of the public brings forward a complaint. It’s not optional. There’s a lot of federal agencies where they have some discretion in their ability to investigate and bring these cases. We don’t, and we need the people and we need the resources to be able to fulfill that mission. And we’ve had to come together collectively because we’ve been systematically deprived of those resources and those people to do this critical mission.

Maximillian Alvarez:  I want to dig into some of the specific actions that have led to this result. And y’all mentioned one earlier that I didn’t want listeners to just pass by. You mentioned both here and in the whistleblower complaints a top-down gag order that has been implemented there. Could you say a little more about that and what that alleged gag order entails?

Palmer Heenan:  Sure. So, we are lawyers. When the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity decides that there’s reasonable cause to believe that discrimination has occurred, our office is the one who prosecutes that complaint. So, they do a neutral investigation with our assistance. We provide them legal advice, we are their lawyers. And then, we are, essentially, the prosecutors of these cases where they’ve completed the investigation. We file them, we litigate them.

And as part of that, we, of course, talk to complainants, the person who’s been discriminated against. We talk to the respondents, essentially the defendant in those lawsuits. And we try to either help conciliate the case or do the things that lawyers need to do to actually bring the case to trial and bring it to a resolution to get some justice for somebody who’s experienced terrible discrimination.

All of those things involve talking to people, whether it’s talking to the person who’s discriminated against, the person who FHEO has determined there’s reasonable cause to believe has engaged in discrimination, or just the court or other federal agencies who we might need to interact with in order to get some information.

We’re not able to do any of those things. Those are all things that, in the past, we’ve been able to do because they were necessary to do the work. We’re not able to do any of those things now, and we haven’t [been] for going on seven months since, essentially, the first days of the administration.

That makes it almost impossible to adequately prosecute these cases. And these are cases that affect real people’s lives. These are people who have been put in physical danger, who have been called terrible racial epithets, who are unhoused because of discriminatory acts that their landlord might’ve undertaken, who can’t get a mortgage because they were charged more than somebody with a different background or a different skin color. These are people who deserve justice. And whether or not they deserve it, by statute, the federal government is required to give them justice. That’s what the Fair Housing Act requires. And we’re not able to do that if we’re told you can’t talk to anybody. We’re the ones prosecuting the cases, and yet we can’t talk to anyone at all.

Paul Osadebe:  And of course, it’s not everyone that has those restrictions. Other parts of the office can talk freely. For example, the parts of the office that defend the agency’s actions or that defend personnel actions, those parts of the agency can talk freely. It’s the parts that help people, the parts that help your average American out there, those are the parts that are restricted.

And that’s really sad because it drastically limits the effectiveness of the government when it comes to enforcing people’s rights. And we were given these responsibilities for a reason. This system was set up for a reason because it was known from the beginning that without the government’s expertise and without the government’s authority, landlords, banks, developers, states, and cities will discriminate freely.

And you need someone who has that experience and the ability to speak with that voice to actually make sure that people’s rights are protected. That’s what we are supposed to be doing. That’s [why] I’m doing this, to be allowed to do again. And this is the only way that I saw to be able to do that.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Let’s talk specifically about the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, the role that HUD has played, traditionally, in protecting survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and human trafficking, and the charges made in your whistleblower complaint that these top-down administrative changes will, and I quote, “place survivors in greater danger of suffering additional trauma, physical violence, and even death.”

Paul Osadebe:  Yes. This is what has me truly angry and sad for people out there because they need help urgently, urgently. We are talking about cases where people are on the street and the only housing available for miles is government-provided housing that HUD provides. We fund the housing, we build the housing. The only way that someone will have a roof above their head and for their kids is if they are allowed in the housing, but for some reason, a landlord does not want to allow someone with a history of domestic violence, or they have a partner or a spouse or stalker that is abusing them and the landlord doesn’t want to allow them in.

We are the only ones who enforce the law and stop that from happening. The only ones. The attorneys in this office, including me, I am on the Violence Against Women Act team. I am one of the people who actually protects women.

This administration has issued executive orders and made a lot of pretty statements about defending women, and yet they take away the team that actually defends women, that makes sure that people are physically safe. That’s what our job is supposed to be, and we’re not being allowed to do it.

And that means that people who need emergency transfers to get out of a dangerous situation, physical danger, people who are unhoused, people with kids who need a safe place to stay, that is what we’re supposed to help with. And we’re being stopped from doing that.

The team that is supposed to investigate those cases, that was trained to have the ability to actually talk to people in a trauma-informed way, to be able to put people at ease, to get all the information that they need, to analyze it, to know what they’re even looking at, because this stuff is not intuitive. You need specialized training to understand all the dynamics of abuse, of public housing, of vouchers, all of this. You need specialized training. That entire team has been destroyed under this administration. It was just made, and they destroyed it. That is not protecting women. And someone has to say something about that. That’s what I’m doing right now.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Well, and another bombshell allegation in your whistleblower complaint states that HUD leadership has actually intercepted and rescinded referrals to the Department of Justice concerning at least 115 “major investigations and cases concerning alleged housing discrimination and segregation, including some where the agency already found civil rights violations.”

So, can you guys break this down for us? Because this seems even more egregious than just the internal gag order that we were just talking about.

Palmer Heenan:  Absolutely. I have worked on a number of cases where the referral of the charge has been rescinded or, in some cases, the case itself has been dismissed. One case in particular involved a large HOA in Texas that HUD found had engaged in systemic racial discrimination.

And I spoke to many of the complainants involved in the investigation. It was actually more than 50 separate cases involving more than 150 people that were impacted. And many of them experienced horrific racial discrimination. They were harassed, called racial epithets. Some of them told us that they were physically threatened, all with the idea of driving them out from this community. And FHEO found reasonable cause to believe that discrimination had occurred after a years-long, thorough investigation.

Our office, as we are required to do by the Fair Housing Act, charged the case, we filed our charge of discrimination, essentially HUD’s version of a lawsuit, and DOJ became involved as part of the Fair Housing Act — Some cases do what’s called electing, where they proceed in federal court through the Department of Justice. And once the case was over at the Department of Justice, we were told that the case, the referral of the case, had been rescinded, and that was it.

And for months and months and months, the case has now just sat, or nothing has been done with it. And those folks who represent survivors of domestic violence, who represent people who experienced horrific discrimination, we had veterans, as I said, survivors of domestic violence, all of whom experienced this horrific treatment, have not been able to get justice through the process that was mandated by statute for we at HUD to engage in.

So, that’s just one example of the many cases where the referrals of the charges have been withdrawn, where the cases themselves have been dismissed, where, essentially, political interference has led to outcomes that contravene, that contradict what it is we’re supposed to be doing under the Fair Housing Act.

Maximillian Alvarez:  This is going to sound like a really naive question: Why? Why do that in a case that seems this transparently awful and egregious, what the hell’s the point of the DOJ or others getting involved and just dropping that?

Palmer Heenan:  Look, I can’t tell you what’s in a person’s heart. I do know that, at his confirmation hearing, Secretary Turner was asked whether he would enforce the Fair Housing laws, and he said yes. If we take him at his word, then things have gone off the rails because the fact is that we are not able to enforce the Fair Housing laws because we have been subject to systematic efforts to prevent us from doing so.

And that’s why we’re going public and why we’re going public now. People deserve justice. And like I said, even if they don’t deserve justice, the statute requires that we get it for them. And right now, we simply can’t.

Maximillian Alvarez:  So what happens now? What can be done, both with this whistleblower complaint and beyond?

Paul Osadebe:  So, that’s a question that people ask a lot in times like these when a lot of people feel hopeless, shocked, they’re not sure what they can actually do to contribute to anything changing. And it’s not easy to answer those questions, but I do know the solution does lie in solidarity and all the people who feel that something has gone wrong and that they want to get involved and do something, now is the time to do it. And you do that through joining your union, making your union better, and finding out ways to build the type of power that can actually hold people to account.

So if you’re a federal worker, for example, a lot of us are facing similar attacks all across the government, and they’re wondering, what can I do in this moment? If you come together with your coworkers and plan and decide that you are committed to your agency and your oath and you use all the resources that you collectively have, your connections, your ability to think, organize, and care, I believe that we all have the power to change what needs to be changed right now.

And that’s what led me to get involved in this in the first place. I wouldn’t be doing it if I believed it had no hope of changing. And even if it didn’t, it’s the right thing to do. Someone has to tell people what’s going on, and I believe that’s all of our roles. That’s what the Constitution calls us to do right now. It’s what our oath calls us to do.

And we don’t have to do it alone. You can do it with your coworkers, and you can join together with all the groups that need your services, that benefit from your services if you’re a federal worker. And if you’re outside the federal government, if you are just a citizen out there that’s concerned, you can join together with federal workers, you can join together with groups that really need the services that the federal government provides. If you’re a veteran, join with veterans groups and workers that actually provide veterans care. If you care about the environment, join with EPA workers and join with environmental groups.

Together, I believe we have more than enough power, but we have to get past the fear right now. We have to get past being paralyzed, demoralized, and apathetic. And I think if we come together in this moment and really move forward on that basis, I think people will feel a lot more sense of power. Despite the fear that I do feel in this moment, I feel a lot better knowing that I am doing the right thing, that I didn’t wait for someone else to tell me what to do.

We just have to all move together in this moment. And I think when people do that, they will feel a sense of power, a sense of agency, and a sense that they can actually solve problems — And not just solve problems, build something better for the future. It’s going to be up to us.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Well, I think Paul really hit on this final question already, but I wanted to give you both the chance to, if you have any final messages that you wanted to share with the American public, with other federal workers, as Paul was just addressing, anything you want to say about why they need to care about this, what they can do to fight back, and what will happen if they don’t?

Paul Osadebe:  I think it’s really important because, in this moment, so many things are happening. There’s a flood of information and a flood of attacks, and it disorients people, and people feel like they can’t really do anything to respond. But the number of people who feel that way, if every one of them was to actually join together with the others who felt that way and just do one thing about something that you care about, I think that we could really turn the tide on a lot of the attacks that are happening right now.

And whether that looks like rallies, whether that looks like union organizing, whether that looks like calling your member of Congress, whether that looks like joining a civil rights group and trying to raise the pressure and the voice of what’s happening right now, I think any of those steps are better than doing nothing. I think as many of those as you can combine, that’s what you should be doing right now.

And you can join us in the Federal Unionists Network and workers in the federal government in general. I think you’ll be seeing more people doing similar things to what we’re doing right now.

It’s not always going to look the same. It’s not going to look the same for federal workers as it does for people who are not in the federal government. But there are people that you can hold accountable, and there are people that you can join with. That’s what you should do.

Palmer Heenan:  And just to add to that, there are so many critical services that the government provides, things that affect your day-to-day life. And my concern is that, as we erode and erode and erode the ability to do that, to fulfill our basic, statutory responsibilities, that that becomes an excuse to make things worse and worse and worse, and it becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, like Paul said, we have to stand together. We have to do what we can where we can, even if it’s just one small thing to make sure that when people are discriminated against, they get justice. That we are able to provide the basic services that we promise in our Constitution and in the laws that Congress has passed and have been on the books for years and decades.

So, like Paul said, please just do something, anything, even if it’s a small thing.

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