José Olivares
José Olivares covers how immigration enforcement and incarceration policy play out on the ground, focusing on the people living through detention and the campaigns organized against it. As a politics reporter for the Guardian, he works at the intersection of national policy, local government, and carceral systems, with a particular attention to immigration detention and county jails that contract with federal agencies.
Immigration detention and carceral politics
Olivares concentrates on the political structures that underpin immigration detention, showing how federal enforcement priorities translate into contracts with local jails and private operators. His reporting traces how policy decisions in Washington turn into concrete conditions inside facilities that hold migrants and asylum seekers, including the use of county jails to detain people for immigration reasons. He examines how these arrangements reshape local politics, budgets, and public debate, highlighting the elected officials, sheriffs, and agencies that decide whether to maintain or end detention contracts.
Across this work he stresses the long tail of immigration policy, treating detention as a central arena of contemporary politics rather than a niche legal issue.
Conditions inside ICE jails and the people living there
A defining feature of his coverage is the way it brings forward the voices of people held in immigration custody. In stories about hunger strikes and protests in New Jersey ICE jails, he reports in detail on why detained people organize, what they risk by speaking out, and how jail authorities and federal agencies respond. He documents complaints over food, medical care, sanitation, and retaliation, framing these not as isolated grievances but as evidence of systemic problems in the detention system. Olivares often grounds policy reporting in individual testimony, using interviews with detained migrants, their families, and advocates to show how enforcement and detention policies shape daily life, health, and safety inside these facilities.
Hunger strikes, protests, and grassroots campaigns
Olivares follows protest movements around immigration detention from both inside and outside the jail walls. He covers hunger strikes and collective action by detained people, detailing demands for release, improved conditions, or an end to ICE contracts.
At the same time, he reports on the organizing of local coalitions, faith groups, and legal advocates who rally, march, and pressure county officials to cut ties with ICE-operated or ICE-contracted facilities.
His pieces chart how these campaigns unfold over time, from initial protests to public hearings and contract votes, tracking what changes and what does not. This focus on organizing makes his politics coverage as much about power from below as about decisions from above.
Accountability, transparency, and local decision-making
Accountability is a recurring thread in his reporting. Olivares scrutinizes how sheriffs, county commissioners, and other officials justify maintaining detention agreements in the face of documented abuses or community opposition.
He pays close attention to public records, contract terms, and the financial incentives that can keep controversial detention deals in place.
His stories often pose hard questions about who benefits from these arrangements and who bears the costs, whether in the form of budget dependence on detention revenue or the impact on detained people and their families. By tying facility-level reporting back to political decision-making, he shows readers how immigration enforcement is sustained, contested, and occasionally rolled back at the local level.
4 more politics journalists.
A.D. Quig
A.D. Quig follows money and power through Chicago and Cook County government, showing how political decisions, taxes and public spending affect residents and businesses. At the Chicago Tribune, she covers city and county politics, municipal finance, tax policy, budgets and the structures shaping mayoral and council authority. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after covering politics for Crain’s Chicago Business and The Daily Line. Her work examines council power, ethics rules, police leadership, tax incentives, public agencies and pandemic aid. She has reported on data center tax breaks, property tax errors, federal relief spending and the fiscal effects of major development proposals. Quig combines insider government reporting with public accountability journalism. She uses public records, data and budget documents, follows committees and staff negotiations, and explains complex decisions in plain language with precise numbers and a direct link to everyday consequences.
Adam Daly
Adam Daly covers politics for amNewYork with a focus on the inner workings of city and state government and the low-profile forums where power is exercised and negotiated. He reports on commissions and panels that shape how New York is governed, treating charter reform and government efficiency as central political terrain. His coverage of moves to replace an Adams-era charter commission with a new government efficiency panel foregrounds mandate, authority, and what “efficiency” means in practice for agencies and services. He tracks who gains and loses influence when one commission supplants another and which constituencies are being answered to. Daly explains dense procedural questions in clear, reader-facing terms, using specific institutional details and occasional wordplay to connect jargon-heavy reforms to public spending, service delivery, and mayoral power.
Adam Pack
Adam Pack covers Capitol Hill through power struggles, investigations and ideological fights, focusing on how Congress intersects with Donald Trump’s agenda. He is a politics writer on Fox News Digital’s Capitol Hill team, covering Congress, federal elections, legislative battles, election rules, war powers, primaries and intraparty fights. He previously wrote for the Daily Caller News Foundation. His reporting examines deadlines, vote counts, bill language, campaign spending, court rulings, oversight reports, culture clashes and emerging issues such as AI-backed political groups. He has covered FISA reauthorization, defense spending, the SAVE America Act, housing policy, redistricting, candidate absences, primary spending and disputes over sex, gender, religion and race-based caucuses. He reports primarily through news features and investigative-style pieces built around documents, committee reports, court records, unearthed video and specific legislative details. He often co-writes complex Capitol Hill stories and publishes “FIRST ON FOX” exclusives.
Adam Sullivan
Adam Sullivan is a veteran politics reporter for WCAX who connects elections and party disputes to everyday life. He covers statewide races, party primaries, federal representation, political rhetoric, extremism, and accountability across the Upper Valley and neighboring states. His reporting includes Becca Balint’s victory over Molly Gray in the Democratic U.S. House primary to replace Congressman Peter Welch. He also reports when political controversies affect public safety, political culture, towns, and institutions, including a New Hampshire Libertarian Party post endorsing violence against elected Democrats. Sullivan follows cultural stories with civic consequences, such as Noah Kahan’s appeal to fans to stop stealing a Strafford road sign linked to his music. He writes straight news centered on concrete events, official reactions, political context, community impact, and what comes next.