Emily Ann Milnes

Chief of Staff at the Libertas Council | Immigration Attorney | Friend

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

@SaraPerla8 @MichaelRWear Was there, too, and missed seeing all of you.

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

What an example of faith, hope, and love.

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Providence Magazine @ProvMagazine]

The story of Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term “genocide” to describe Nazi crimes in Europe but also the Armenian Genocide and the Holodomor, deserves to be recognized @eamilnes https://t.co/3uNuu6PTRg

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

On this day in history 25 years ago, the the Trafficking Victims Protection Act passed, giving new tools to stop traffickers and care for survivors. #ForcedLabor #HumanTrafficking #HumanDignity

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

Please join the Libertas Council next week for this meaningful conversation on current events in South Sudan with @joshua_craze, @just1nlynch, Hon. Reath Muoch Tang, Ms. Patricia Rodrigues, and @JohnRichmond1.

Register here: https://t.co/R23qKAOM3p

[Freedom House @freedomhouse]

We are deeply concerned by reports that up to 48 Uyghur men held in Thailand for the last decade are scheduled to be deported to China on Thursday, 2/27.

If returned, they will face torture, imprisonment, and possible death.

We once again call on Thai authorities to halt plans for deportation & work with other govts to resettle the Uyghurs to countries willing to accept them.

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

.@freedomhouse released its Freedom in the World 2025 report today. Out of 195 countries, only 20% of the world's entire population live in a country that is free.

[Freedom House @freedomhouse]

📣 NEW: #FreedomInTheWorld 2025 is now LIVE!

https://t.co/aZbMGkPdXP

Violence and repression around elections, ongoing armed conflicts, and the spread of authoritarian practices contributed to the 19th consecutive year of global freedom in decline.

60 countries saw the deterioration of their political rights and civil liberties in 2024, and only 34 secured improvements. El Salvador, Haiti, Kuwait, and Tunisia were among this year’s largest declines, while Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Syria recorded the largest gains.

During an unprecedented year of elections, many contests were marred by violence and authoritarian efforts to curb the competition. In over 40% of the 66 countries and territories that held national elections last year, candidates were targeted with assassination attempts, polling places were attacked, or postelection protests were suppressed with undue force.

Conflicts spread instability and thwarted democratic progress around the world. Nonstate armed groups—including militias, mercenaries, and criminal organizations—played an outsized role in destabilizing global security and obstructing fundamental rights, in addition to conflicts in Sudan, Gaza, Myanmar, and Ukraine.

Despite the overall global decline in freedom, positive developments demonstrated the potential for democratic breakthrough. New governments in Bangladesh, Senegal, Syria, and elsewhere will now face the difficult task of building and strengthening democratic institutions while also protecting individual rights.

Democratic solidarity will be crucial in the coming year. Global freedom faces serious challenges in 2025, and it is in the vital interest of all those who believe in representative government to invest in democratic institutions at home, call out attacks on rights abroad, work together to promote lasting peace, and support human rights defenders wherever they operate.

Explore this year’s full analysis and our recommendations: https://t.co/aZbMGkPdXP

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

Friends, if you are considering year-end giving, would you please consider giving to the Libertas Council? Whether it is a one-time donation or becoming a monthly donor, your generosity makes this work a reality. Thank you! https://t.co/ZmxXFoobOC

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

.@USCIS just released its FY2024 data, and there were 3,786 survivors of human trafficking who received T visas this past year—the most ever in the T visa's 24-year history. This is a good move in the direction toward justice!

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

@njswanson @JohnRichmond1 Thank you! We are excited, too.

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

Launching the Libertas Council with @JohnRichmond1 and the rest of the amazing team is joy. And one of the greatest honors and privileges. I am so excited about the Libertas Council's mission, and filled with hope for the work that is ahead.
https://t.co/eHA8ALqfsX

[Diane Langberg, PhD @DianeLangberg]

We damage the dignity of others when we refuse to wait for them – whether they need to tie their own shoes or they are struggling to find words for the indescribable. We bestow honor on another when we consider him or her worth waiting for.

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

One of the great heroes of abolition—William Wilberforce—was born on August 24, 1759. I wrote an article for the Libertas Council on Wilberforce and the lessons of incremental wins in the work of justice: https://t.co/eO9HKF5CCQ

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

@JeremyTate41 Huge day for all of you!

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

@HootenWilson Please teach me your ways.

[Pepperdine University @pepperdine]

We spotted President Jim Gash and Chief of Staff Danny DeWalt who are in Uganda doing the work they've been at for decades, partnering with the people of Uganda in the area of criminal justice reform. @PepperdineSGJI https://t.co/vIxiH0i89h

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

@MichaelRWear Not dinner, but excellent for breakfast: https://t.co/ZsLxZO5VIH

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

A wonderful piece to read on this Juneteenth by @CondoleezzaRice: "In some sense, the history of the United States is a story of striving to make their soaring words—We the People—real to every American. It’s the story of becoming what we profess to be."

[Condoleezza Rice @CondoleezzaRice]

On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and freed the last enslaved people in the Confederacy. When we celebrate their freedom, we celebrate America itself.
https://t.co/WqlHIfynKw

[Erik Rostad (Books of Titans) @booksoftitans]

"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts."

~ C.S. Lewis / The Abolition of Man

[Emily Ann Milnes @eamilnes]

@booksoftitans I just picked this book up, too!