This is The Social Contract Community Issue, our free weekly edition built by and for the readers of The Social Contract. If you have something to share with the community, we’d love to hear from you. Please send it our way at [email protected]. Thank you!
The White House doesn’t want you to know about CECOT, the El Salvadoran prison where it deported hundreds of Venezuelans last spring, without due process. The administration claimed they were all criminals. They were not. 60 Minutes was going to air a piece about CECOT on Sunday night, but Donald Trump ordered CBS’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, to pull the plug 24 hours before it was set to air. So the plug was pulled.
This is the world we’re living in now. The legacy media, institutes of higher learning, multinational corporations—they all bow the knee to Trump.
In this world, what chance does an immigrant have? Imagine facing that kind of power in the form of a masked ICE agent. It’s terrifying. Knowing your rights is meaningless if you can’t recall them under pressure or can’t access them easily. People freeze when they’re scared—whether they’re immigrants or citizens—and rights get trampled in that confusion.
Our new app, PAXIS, is about making rights usable in real conditions: older phones, low bandwidth, WhatsApp, people who’ve never touched AI. Down the road, even offline options, like downloadable models, will be available if the internet goes down. PAXIS is serious emergency infrastructure. It’s exactly what America needs right now to stand up for the Constitutional and human rights of everyone.
Thanks to you, we hit our Stage 1 funding goal to build the brain. Stage 2 will allow us to spread PAXIS to hundreds of thousands of immigrants and allies. The next stages will harden it so it’s there when everything else fails. If you believe rights should work for everyone on U.S. soil—even the most powerless among us—please help us push PAXIS to the next stage.
Gratefully,
Joe
DEFEND OUR IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORS
My Substack Lives are open to all subscribers, unless noted. Please join us this week!
Every day I’m fighting this fascist administration—and I won’t stop until together we restore our social contract in America. If you have the means, please help support my small, fiercely pro-democracy team and me, and keep my independent voice out there. Thank you!
SUBSCRIBE OR UPGRADE NOW!
I believe the cruelty of the Trump Administration will ultimately help defeat MAGA. Most Americans are not cruel. We are spreading the word about ICE’s cruel and unlawful behavior here every week. Please do the same with your own networks, and share any stories and videos you find with us.
 | | LetsGetIntoIt2025 12d A retired couple in MN recounts their experience being threatened by ICE agents.
This should be alarming to everyone in the U.S.
As if what they’re doing to suspected undocumented immigrants isn’t awful enough, I fear there will come a day when their sole purpose will be to police all of us. | |  | | |
|
 | | Qasim Rashid, Esq. 5d We need to sound the alarm 🚨. Today, the House of Representatives passed a barbaric piece of legislation that would subject migrant children to invasive bodily searches, keep them in prison, and refuse to let them be released to their families. It’s disgusting that corporate media is not talking about how this will result in further systemic abuse of migrant children. Support my human rights advocacy… | |  | | |
|
Veronica De La Cruz on Instagram: "Bulgarian Chicago business o…
Americans are fighting back—peacefully and within the law—to protect their neighbors.
Are you ready to fight back, too? Please keep spreading the word about PAXIS, and please give what you can to help us reach our Stage 2 goal!
FIGHT BACK! SUPPORT PAXIS
I’ve never heard anyone call Trump “immature.” Trump is deeply immature. What others learn through life experience from the age of say 9, he never learned. I know this is a throwaway thought in some ways, but why can’t a network host ask, “Are these the actions and thoughts of a mature adult?” —Stephen M.
Good evening. I am not sure if my response will be seen, but I felt compelled to write it nonetheless. I am a Canadian, and I enjoy your writings. I appreciate what you and many others are doing to combat this vile administration.
I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of times in your email, you wrote “Rob Reiner and his wife.” His wife had a name. Her name was Michele. That you failed to say it, to state it out loud, and only referred to her by relation to her husband is not only cruel and unkind, especially under these circumstances, it is always misogynistic.
I am sure that was not your intent. But it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t even name her. Please do better going forward. She was a whole person, with a whole life—not just someone’s wife. Thanks. —Monica
Hey, I want to hear from you! Got some feedback to share? Want to send us a 600+-word op-ed? How about a video clip on how we can mend our frayed social contract? Want to appear with Joe on Substack Live? Just need to vent? Send it our way!
Email our editor at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!
