Saturday, September 20, 2025

Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin shows off her spinmeister skills

 
Headline:  New York Times, 9/16/2025

Emma Goldberg reports:
The Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin [shown above, dressed for work], said that suicides in D.H.S. custody were “tragic and rare.” She added, “When there are signs of a detainee being at risk for suicide, staff abides by strict prevention and intervention protocol to ensure the detainee’s health and well-being is protected.” 
But watchdog groups contend that the handful of suicide attempts they have learned about in recent months are almost certainly an undercount. Immigration lawyers worry about clients who are in distress and stuck in facilities that aren’t responding with proper mental health care. 
“I don’t think D.H.S. had or certainly now has good protocols for dealing with people when they express that they’re contemplating suicide,” said Heather Hogan, who previously worked at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and is now a policy and practice counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “I am frankly terrified for detainees right now, particularly for people with any mental health condition.”

According to Merriam-Webster, the first-known use of 'spinmeister', as in SPIN DOCTOR, occurred in 1986.

  1. chat room
  2. cringey
  3. first-year
  4. pain point
  5. sippy cup
  6. sound-bite

Related posts:
August 2025

July 2025
Billboard art in the service of protest:  Donald Trump dubbed the "Swamp King".  (7/10)

No comments: