June 03, 2025 · View in browser

Every Sunday, newspapers are full of ads for tech jobs that aren't really looking for applicants. They reveal an aspect of U.S. immigration law that hurts both domestic and foreign workers — yet has endured for decades.

Have you seen ProPublica reporters Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester on a TV news show lately? So far, they’ve appeared on MSNBC, the BBC’s “World News America” and more speaking about their recent investigation into the fallout of the Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign aid. Their story, based on exclusive State Department records, reveals how the vacuum left after the U.S. abandoned its aid commitments has destabilized some of the most fragile places in the world and thrown refugee camps further into unrest:

• In Malawi, U.S. funding cuts to the United Nation’s World Food Programme have “yielded a sharp increase in criminality, sexual violence, and instances of human trafficking” within a large refugee camp, U.S. embassy officials told the State Department in April.
• Refugees in Kenya have died at food distribution centers, officials noted, including a pregnant woman who was crushed to death during a stampede. Aid workers said they expected more people to get hurt “as vulnerable households become increasingly desperate.”
• The U.S. embassy in Nigeria described how stop-work orders had put U.S. resources at risk of being diverted to criminals or terrorists. And U.S. officials said the Kenyan government “faces an impending humanitarian crisis for over 730,000 refugees.”

A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica, “It is grossly misleading to blame unrest and violence around the world on America.”

In 2022, ProPublica reporter Heather Vogell led an investigation into RealPage, a property management program that helps landlords determine rent prices through algorithms. The investigation found landlords were using the software to raise rents — potentially in violation of laws against collusion. A RealPage representative told Vogell that the company “uses aggregated market data from a variety of sources in a legally compliant manner.” Nonetheless, some cities moved to ban such pricing algorithms. 

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that House Republicans are seeking to “muzzle” those local efforts through a provision buried in a massive tax bill. The provision would bar state and local governments from regulating AI and “automated decision systems” like RealPage for a decade, according to the paper. Vogell wrote on Bluesky about what the provision means. 

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