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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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 Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest. Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitskyhttps://freeboris.infoThe petition is also available on Change.org *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) How ICE Crackdowns Set Off a Resistance in American Cities
In Minneapolis and other cities where federal agents have led immigration crackdowns, residents have formed loose networks to track and protest them.
By Julie Bosman, Jan. 14, 2026
Activists in Minneapolis have been following federal agents as they carry out the Trump administration’s immigration operation. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times
It began in Los Angeles, in Signal chats and strategy sessions on Zoom. Last year, as immigration raids proliferated throughout the city, Latino activists and neighbors began organizing a response, monitoring for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents along sidewalks and in Home Depot parking lots and texting their networks when they spotted an arrest underway.
By late summer, activists in Chicago were trained and ready. Before the Trump administration had announced a crackdown called Operation Midway Blitz, immigrant rights organizations had handed out orange whistles for volunteers to use as a public warning system, formed “rapid-response” groups and advised people to report sightings of ICE agents and memorize their own legal rights. Chicagoans, even many without formal ties to protest groups, showed defiance against ICE with “Hands Off Chicago” signs adorned with the city’s beloved starred-and-striped flag, placed prominently in windows of restaurants and bungalows.
And in recent weeks in Minneapolis, the latest focus for a Trump administration surge of immigration enforcement, a loose but growing network of neighborhood volunteers has shown up near reported arrests, yelling at agents and recording them on iPhone cameras. Some gathered near hotels where agents were believed to be staying, pounding drums and making noise.
President Trump’s sweeping effort to tamp down illegal immigration, using masked federal agents who film their interactions with cellphones and often question American citizens about their legal status, has set off a surge in confrontational activism fueled by both large liberal advocacy groups and hyperlocal neighborhood networks.
In Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, established groups representing labor and immigrant rights have provided funding and organized downtown rallies against the Trump administration. But fierce opposition to ICE and the Border Patrol has also sprung up through block clubs, neighborhood group chats, school Facebook groups and Catholic parishes, stretching beyond the typical Democratic voter base.
Demonstrators have confronted federal agents by yelling and recording them as they attempt to detain people. Some activists have handed out resource cards to advise undocumented immigrants.
Participants say they have been propelled into action with two goals in mind: an urge to protect their neighbors, many of whom are in the country without authorization but have no criminal backgrounds, and also to push back against what they see as a violent and overreaching federal government.
“It’s a lot of people who wouldn’t normally involve themselves in politics, but at the same time don’t like what’s happening in their community,” said Sandra Trevino, a Chicago resident who works in sales but spends her weekends patrolling the city for immigration agents and texting her networks with updates.
Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, has called the actions of such activists dangerous, part of “a coordinated campaign of violence against our law enforcement.”
In Minnesota, where an ICE agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, last week, tensions have mounted since an immigration crackdown began there in early December. Some Minnesota residents have thrown icy snowballs or other objects at agents, called them Nazis and fascists and trailed them in their cars, honking their horns, a practice frequently used in Chicago last year.
“Secretary Noem has been clear: Anyone who obstructs or assaults law enforcement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the department said in a statement on Tuesday.
Federal investigators are looking into Ms. Good’s possible connections to activist groups, and Mr. Trump has described Ms. Good and her wife, Becca Good, as being “professional agitators,” though he offered no evidence to support his claims.
It is not yet clear how deeply the Goods were connected to anti-ICE efforts in Minneapolis. Becca Good was wearing an orange whistle around her neck as she confronted federal agents while filming them with her cellphone, videos show, moments before Renee Good was fatally shot in her car.
In a statement issued to Minnesota Public Radio, Becca Good suggested that the two women had taken part in a protest on the day of the shooting, but their involvement beyond that day is unknown.
“On Wednesday, Jan. 7, we stopped to support our neighbors,” Becca Good said. “We had whistles. They had guns.”
Anti-ICE tactics by volunteers and so-called patrollers who track and follow immigration agents in caravans have only intensified in the Twin Cities in the last week, despite Ms. Good’s death, activists and officials said in interviews.
Some people wondered if Ms. Good’s death would lead to a broader reckoning by organizers about the risks of confronting ICE agents, and the safety of pursuing them in cars. But group chats on WhatsApp have proliferated, as neighbors watched for signs of immigration agents and rushed outside to confront them.
Ashley Lopez, who works in education and lives in the city of West St. Paul, has become active in anti-ICE neighborhood groups only in the week since Ms. Good’s death.
“Because of what happened to Renee, I felt like we had nothing to lose anymore,” said Ms. Lopez, who has joined patrols that blow whistles and set off their own car alarms if they see ICE agents. “Why should she be the only one who put herself in danger?”
Activists have followed federal agents in their vehicles. During tense confrontations, agents have sometimes used tear gas to disperse people who surrounded them.
Tensions between federal agents and Minnesotans are intensifying on sidewalks, in parking lots and on the streets. Some activists said they have also observed increasingly forceful responses by ICE and Border Patrol agents since Ms. Good’s death, with agents chasing patrollers through parking lots and spraying their vehicles with chemical agents.
Dieu Do, an immigrant rights activist, said that before the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, her organization received dozens of emails a day from people asking how they could get involved. That has now grown to hundreds daily.
“People are still showing up and defending their community despite seeing such a violent act,” she said. “They’re calling for justice, even though there is a chance they could be hurt in the process.”
Patrollers in Chicago said this week that they were still roaming around the city looking for ICE agents. But many of their Signal chats and Facebook groups have gone quiet, a sign that the Trump administration’s focus has shifted squarely to Minneapolis — at least for now.
That feels far different from how it did in Chicago last fall, when masked federal agents walked down the Magnificent Mile downtown, startling residents and tourists. As residents began protesting their presence in neighborhoods, agents used aggressive methods to disperse crowds, releasing tear gas and pepper spray along blocks around the city.
“In a way, it really galvanized local support against them everywhere they went,” said Brandon Lee, a coordinator for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “When they release tear gas in a neighborhood, it doesn’t matter if you support ICE or not. You’re going to get tear-gassed.”
Organizers in Chicago said that during Operation Midway Blitz, they had been able to hone practices borrowed from Los Angeles activists as hundreds of Border Patrol and ICE agents made arrests around the Chicago region.
“The Border Patrol and the Trump administration used Chicago as a testing ground, and we in turn used them as a testing ground right back for certain organizing tactics,” said Joanna Klonsky, a media strategist in Chicago.
That included rapid response networks, the tactic of following ICE and C.B.P. vehicles with whistles and being as loud as possible to warn people nearby.
“We’re now at a point where there is a playbook for peaceful, legal opposition,” Ms. Klonsky said.
Organizers in Los Angeles and Chicago said they were watching Minneapolis closely and anticipating where Mr. Trump would plan his next surge of immigration agents. Groups in New York City have passed out thousands of whistles so far, bracing for a high-profile surge of immigration enforcement.
“Folks are realizing that the only way to respond is quickly, and in person,” said Alida Garcia, a political consultant who has been organizing in Los Angeles. “What is interesting about this moment is, if it’s your employee you’re protecting, or your kid’s teacher that you’re protecting, or the street vendor you buy tacos from once a month, that feels very personal.”
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2) Trump Makes Obscene Gesture at Heckler in Ford Factory Tour
A White House spokesman said the president “gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
By Shawn McCreesh, Published Jan. 13, 2026, Updated Jan. 14, 2026
Reporting from the Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich.
President Trump touring a Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday. Kenny Holston/The New York Times
President Trump raised his middle finger at a heckler who accused him of being a “pedophile protector” while touring a Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday afternoon.
It was a fleeting interaction that happened while the president was out of sight of the small group of reporters that travels by his side as part of the press pool. Footage of the moment, which looked like it was filmed on a cellphone, appeared on the celebrity gossip website TMZ shortly after Mr. Trump had left the factory.
The White House’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said in a statement that a “lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
Ford did not immediately respond to questions about the encounter.
It had all been going so nicely until the president was called a pedophile protector. Mr. Trump was walking the factory floor, taking selfies with adoring Ford workers in safety vests as F-150 trucks moved along assembly lines overhead. Ford executives including Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive, accompanied Mr. Trump as he watched the trucks come to life.
The president had traveled to Michigan on Tuesday to talk about his handling of the economy, which his aides have been desperate for him to focus on since Americans’ concerns about affordability seem to be growing more acute. (After the Ford plant, he spoke to a room of business people in Detroit.)
There were, of course, other issues pressing in on the day. On the factory floor, Mr. Trump fielded questions from reporters about his administration’s investigation of Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, and about the crisis in Iran and whether his administration might strike to topple the ayatollah.
For once, one topic that did not come up was the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein.
But as Mr. Trump walked along an upper floor of the factory, one of the men below began to shout that the president was “a pedophile protector.” Mr. Trump looked over in the direction of the shouting and twice mouthed a two-word response. It was difficult to make out what he said in the clip published by TMZ, though it sure looked like something beginning with the letter “F” and it wasn’t “Ford.”
What was a little easier to decipher was what came next. Mr. Trump turned away from the heckler below and took a few more steps, but then seemed to decide he was not done. He looked back, quickly raised his arm and flipped the bird.
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3) Initial Review Finds No Widespread Illegal Voting by Migrants, Puncturing a Trump Claim
Republican election officials welcome the review, which relies on a federal verification tool, but they say they have not discovered a major problem when it comes to noncitizen voters.
By Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti, Jan. 14, 2026
People vote during the 2024 presidential election in Detroit. Mr. Trump and his allies have claimed for the past decade that elections are riddled with illegal votes cast by undocumented immigrants. Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times
It was a common refrain for Donald J. Trump and his allies during the 2024 campaign: The Biden administration was purposely encouraging mass numbers of immigrants to cross the border in order to vote illegally.
As president, Mr. Trump has pushed his administration to address the alleged crimes, including prompting many states to upload tens of millions of voter records through a federal immigration verification tool run out of the Department of Homeland Security.
But with the review underway, the results so far indicate there is no evidence of widespread fraud, according to interviews with government officials and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
Out of 49.5 million voter registrations that have been checked, the department referred around 10,000 cases to Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation of noncitizenship, or roughly .02 percent of the names processed, according to Matthew Tragesser, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the D.H.S. agency that oversees the program. A Justice Department spokeswoman also said the administration believed around 10,000 registered noncitizen voters had been found.
They did not specify how many of those people had voted.
Even that number could be inflated. The verification tool has mistakenly flagged some people who appear to actually be citizens, according to some local election officials.
In Charlotte County, Fla., for instance, the elections supervisor Leah Valenti, an appointee of Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, said she found that just 15 out of 176,000 names she uploaded to D.H.S. came back as noncitizens. Of those, she found that three were people mistakenly added to the rolls who never intended to register to vote; they have since been removed. Two others already sent in documentation to prove their naturalized citizenship, she said.
“We didn’t get a mass onslaught of people,” said Ms. Valenti, who is a proponent of using the D.H.S. system to verify voters’ eligibility. “We have clean voter rolls.”
Mr. Tragesser said the program was “doing exactly what it is supposed to do — providing states with an easy-to-use tool to stop aliens from hijacking our elections.”
While the findings affirm that noncitizens do sometimes wind up on the voter rolls, the small numbers so far puncture the claims that Mr. Trump and his allies have made for the past decade that elections are riddled with illegal votes cast by undocumented immigrants. Studies consistently show little if any evidence for such crimes on a large scale.
The review, which is voluntary for states or local election departments, has prompted complaints from officials in Democratic-run states who have declined to participate. They have warned that the system could effectively create a federal database containing personal information on some 200 million people — with a risk of erroneously flagging legal voters and impeding their access to the ballot box.
“We’re talking about a system here that is unproven, untested and therefore unreliable,” said Steve Simon, the Democratic secretary of state in Minnesota and former president of the nonpartisan National Association of Secretaries of State.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, suggested that the newly expanded verification program might identify more noncitizen voters if it were used by Democratic states, many of which have voter ID laws and other voter restrictions that are less strict than those in some Republican states.
“This process takes time, especially given strong opposition from blue states, with notoriously bad voter roll maintenance, that have refused to check their rolls” against the D.H.S. system, Ms. Jackson said.
Election officials in Democratic-run states say they already have effective ways to ensure only citizens are voting in federal elections.
The D.H.S.-run program has long been used primarily to help government officials verify citizenship status for people applying for drivers licenses or trying to gain access to health care or Social Security benefits.
For years, some local election officials have had arrangements with D.H.S. to use the tool to verify the citizenship of voters. But the program, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, was not designed for the mass uploads that would be needed to fully vet voter rolls.
Under the first Trump administration, officials explored the idea of expanding the tool by making it easier for election officials to use. But some homeland security officials worried that doing so would lead to mistakes and could potentially disenfranchise voters based on faulty matches or determinations.
Yet last year, the administration moved to expand the use of the SAVE system for voter records in response to an executive order from Mr. Trump. It began sending invites to state election officials that would allow them to upload voter data on a mass scale — including full name, date of birth and social security numbers — to check for anyone who was not a citizen on their voter rolls. The administration has also, for the first time, brought in data from the Social Security Administration that had previously been kept separate.
At least 14 states — all with Republican secretaries of state — publicly indicated last year that they would use the revamped D.H.S. system to upload voter information, according to an analysis of public statements, records and interviews with people involved.
Eleven Democratic secretaries of state wrote a letter to D.H.S. in December, raising alarms about the potential impact on eligible voters, warning that the expanded version of SAVE “will introduce unnecessary and unwarranted reliability, privacy and security issues into the sensitive voter information data we are entrusted to protect.”
Many Democratic states have also refused to provide similar information to the Department of Justice, which is suing at least 24 states that have refused to turn over data.
Even if the data does not show widespread illegal voting, some Trump allies say that weeding out any cases is worthwhile.
“I would say a single illegal ballot is one too many,” said Jason Snead, who leads the Honest Elections Project, a conservative elections group.
Phil McGrane, the Idaho secretary of state, said in an interview that his spot checks using SAVE had found small numbers of noncitizens on the voter rolls. But he appreciated that D.H.S. had made the tool easier to use.
“The cases are rare, but it can happen and tools make it less burdensome and less work,” Mr. McGrane said. “I think upgrades have been really beneficial to the system overall.”
In some cases, the reviews are identifying voters who appear to be citizens, inviting more confusion, election officials say.
In Missouri, 70 county clerks in December signed a letter sent to state House and Senate leadership describing the system as flawed, saying it regularly included “individuals we know to be U.S. citizens — our neighbors, colleagues and even voters we have personally registered at naturalization ceremonies.”
St. Louis County, Mo., found that around 35 percent of roughly 690 people initially flagged by the SAVE tool were registered at naturalization ceremonies, said Rick Stream, the Republican election director for the county.
A spokeswoman for the Missouri secretary of state’s office said that the state’s review using the SAVE tool was still in the early stages and that it would not be based solely on the tool itself. “Any potential issues identified through this process must be researched, verified and resolved at the local level in accordance with Missouri law and due process,” she said.
In South Carolina, a top election official emailed a wide array of federal agencies, expressing confusion over the tool after seeing preliminary results in July.
“Unfortunately, the information has raised more questions than it answered,” she wrote, according to emails obtained by American Oversight, a watchdog group.
In Louisiana, the system found 403 noncitizens out of 3 million registered voters, or .01 percent, with 83 having voted, according to a November memo obtained by The Times through a public records request. The memo also identified that some of the people were eligible for prosecution. “I want to be clear: Noncitizens illegally registering or voting is not a systemic problem in Louisiana,” Secretary of State Nancy Landry, a Republican, said in a public statement in September.
Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.
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4) Where Did All the American-Born Roofers Go?
The real story of how immigrant labor came to define the construction industry.
By Ronda Kaysen and Robert Gebeloff, Jan. 14, 2026
Ronda Kaysen interviewed 60 laborers, industry leaders and academics, and Robert Gebeloff analyzed current and historical census data.
In 1976, Matthew Moore marched into the roofers’ union hall in Orange County, Calif., signed his card and, at 19, found his calling. Within hours, he put on a pair of hot boots, climbed a ladder and became one of the many union men laying the roofs of tract homes spreading out across Southern California.
Only two years later, Mr. Moore, a native of the state who never went to college, bought a three-bedroom house of his own in Whittier.
“That kind of work suited me right down to my soul,” said Mr. Moore, now 68 and retired. “I worked outside in the sun every day. Nothing better.”
It was also the kind of well-paying blue-collar job that once helped drive a strong middle-class economy, and has largely vanished. It’s work that many Americans want to see restored.
In the decades since Mr. Moore walked into that union hall, an enormous demographic shift has transformed his industry. In the 1970s and 1980s, the share of foreign-born workers in construction was the same as in other industries. But that quickly changed. Today that share is nearly twice as high as in other jobs.
An oft-repeated explanation for this sea change is that immigrants took jobs from Americans while, somewhat paradoxically, Americans no longer wanted to do the backbreaking work required to build a house. But a review of data and historical records, as well as interviews with many people who work in or study construction, tell a different story: First, construction jobs became less desirable, as eroding wages and working conditions diminished the quality and job security of the profession. Only then did immigrants, with the encouragement of the political and business class, fill a gap that was already opening.
Most of those foreign-born workers are not naturalized citizens, and many are undocumented. That leaves an industry of 6.8 million workers particularly vulnerable to President Trump’s mass deportation effort: Builders are reporting labor shortages as some workers are detained or deported and others stay home amid immigration raids.
And without workers, an already strained housing market will only grow more so, driving up historically high home prices and slowing the production of new homes.
‘A pickup truck and a ladder’
When Mr. Moore started his career, unionized construction was a good living, especially for workers without a college degree. In 1973, a quarter of workers were unionized, and in construction it was 40 percent. But those numbers were already starting to decline.
The leaders of some of the country’s largest corporations had recently formed a lobbying group, the Business Roundtable, to push back against the strength of unions and for weaker labor laws. The unions, which were also dealing with internal tensions, were unable to stem a tide that only swelled with the pro-business election of Ronald Reagan.
But Mr. Moore was young and happy to have a good-paying job out in the California sunshine. He spent his 20s laying roofs on houses and driving to the beach after work, a surfboard strapped to the top of his Volkswagen bus.
In Southern California, the national labor fight came to a head in 1983 when the carpenters union went on a four-month strike to block builders from using nonunion labor. The effort largely failed, opening the door to a nonunion work force and marking a tipping of a big domino for California’s construction unions.
“They lost all their power,” said Richard Denger, president of a residential framing company that closed in 2014. His father-in-law, Ray Cook, had negotiated on behalf of the builders in the strike.
After the strike, Mr. Moore started seeing two worker gates: one for the union crews and the other for the nonunion ones. So did Mr. Denger. Across the state, according to reports at the time, builders started bringing in nonunion crews, leaving only commercial work for the union workers.
Mr. Denger, whose company framed tract homes, said that after the strike builders offered him less money for jobs, and that translated to lower wages for his crews. “The builders will only pay you so much, so you go along with it or you’re out of business,” he said. “The prices of houses never went down even though all the wages went down. Somebody made the money.”
What was happening in California was happening across the country, both in states with a strong union presence, like Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, and those that prohibited mandatory union membership — “right to work” states like Arizona, Florida and Texas where the population, and housing production, was booming.
The share of construction workers in a union began to decline precipitously, and even an effort to recruit foreign-born members could not stave off the losses. As of 2024, nine of 10 workers in the construction industry are nonunion.
And with that decline in union strength came a decline in the economic standing for both union and nonunion workers. In 1973, the average union construction worker made $1.71 for every $1 the average American worker earned hourly. Today, unionized construction workers earn $1.15 for every $1 an American worker earns. And nonunion construction workers make just 86 cents for every dollar earned by the average American worker, often without health or retirement benefits.
“By us opening the door to the nonunion sector, basically we shot ourselves in the foot,” said James A. Hadel, international president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers. “All it takes is a pickup truck and a ladder and that’s what we’re competing against.”
‘No other way to survive’
After one week of tearing roofs off houses in San Diego in 1991, Mariano Martinez was so sore he didn’t think he could do the work. “I said, ‘I want to quit; I don’t think I’m going to make it,’” Mr. Martinez, now 54, recalled. Then 19 years old and originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, he spoke almost no English and knew nothing about construction.
After three months, he learned how to lay a roof, and his pay jumped to $100 a day in cash, without benefits. Mr. Martinez never looked for a union job. He’d heard that the pay was better but that you weren’t always sure when you would have work. He stayed so busy that by 1999, he bought a three-bedroom home in Oceanside, for $180,000. After his son joined the army, Mr. Martinez became a citizen in 2024.
Mr. Martinez had arrived in the United States on the cusp of a major immigration boom. Workers interviewed for this article who crossed illegally during that period described a southern border that was more porous, even as barriers were going up. With the help of smugglers, many managed to get across on foot or in vehicles. In a common practice that continues today, builders avoided knowingly hiring undocumented workers by keeping laborers off their payrolls and instead hiring subcontractors or labor brokers who employed the workers.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, residential construction was booming in places like Atlanta, Phoenix and Houston. Many immigrants, often from Mexico, slipped across the border and headed straight to those fast-growing cities as demand for workers soared. While the number of American-born construction workers rose, the number of immigrant workers increased much more — all against the backdrop of falling union membership.
In Orange County, Mr. Moore began to see his generation of American-born unionized roofers leave the industry. “They all just disappeared,” he said. One day in 2000, he looked out at his job site and realized he was the only worker on the roof who wasn’t an immigrant.
By then, the high demand for housing and fewer worker protections had led to tough working conditions. For Mario, 47, who first came to the United States in 1997 from Morelia, Mexico, as a teenager, roofing paid better than picking cucumbers and bell peppers, but it wasn’t easy. Mario was an adult by the time he started roofing, but many undocumented roofers are minors, doing one of the deadliest jobs in the country usually without health insurance.
Mario, who requested to use only his first name and not to disclose his employer because he is in the country under temporary protected status, worked from dawn to dusk, sometimes seven days a week. He was earning $800 a week, not much more than what Mr. Martinez had earned a decade earlier. But he had recently moved in with his girlfriend (now his wife) and wanted to start a family. “There was no other way to survive,” Mario said in Spanish.
Unlike Mr. Martinez, who owns a home and has U.S. citizenship, Mario still rents and has a precarious legal status. Mario and Mr. Martinez were lucky enough to keep working through the Great Recession. From 2008 to 2011, the industry lost 1.7 million jobs, or a quarter of its work force.
Mario, who by then had two children, saw his income fall by a third. Mr. Martinez watched friends lose their jobs and their homes, but as a foreman who had been with the same company for years, he had enough work to weather the downturn. Mr. Moore, who had sustained several serious injuries from falls, including a broken back and pelvis, retired, like thousands of other American-born workers of his generation. “My back finally blew out,” he said. But thanks to his decades spent working union jobs, “I had more than enough hours for a pension.”
Immigrants who held onto their jobs say they have seen no meaningful wage gains in decades, and are still making today what they made before the Great Recession.
A shortage of workers and houses
The share of immigrants in the construction sector was last as high as it is today in the 1920s, when there were strong anti-immigrant policies.
The Great Depression followed, accelerating the labor movement that would transform American work for half a century. Critics of permissive immigration policies argue that the supply of underpaid workers suppresses wages. But unlike in America after the Great Depression, it’s unclear who would fill the gap in the construction industry should those workers leave.
Today, the industry is short 300,000 workers, according to the National Association of Homebuilders. Estimates put the national housing shortage somewhere between 1.5 million and five million homes. Without enough workers, building and repairing homes could take longer and cost more, driving up prices for home buyers and owners. A mass deportation policy that isn’t paired with a way to expand the domestic work force, or to make the jobs appealing again to American-born workers, could leave the industry hollowed out.
Adam Cook, who owns the roofing company in San Diego where Mr. Martinez works, says American-born workers, including the grown children of his longtime immigrant employees, may spend a summer or a few days roofing for extra money, but generally do not stay on the job long, often leaving for college or other opportunities.
Decades ago, strong unions trained generations of workers through on-the-job apprentice programs that provided young workers with job security and benefits. With unions decimated, there are far fewer apprenticeships available, and builders have not filled the void with a robust alternative. Instead, young Americans have increasingly gone to college, moving into white-collar jobs. And among those without a degree, millions fewer are working in manufacturing and construction, and more are working in service and sales jobs.
Supporters of stricter immigration policies argue that deportations would open up new jobs for Americans, and drive up wages. But research has shown that aggressive deportation policies don’t increase jobs for citizens, but instead lead to fewer construction jobs across the industry, simply because work slows as fewer homes are built.
“The idea that there are American workers waiting in the wings means you don’t understand the demographics of the construction workers,” said Natasha Iskander, a professor of urban planning and public service at N.Y.U.
As immigration crackdowns expand, builders and workers are feeling the pressure. Immigrants interviewed for this article, including Mario, said some workers are skipping work, fearing a raid. Without a full crew, projects are taking longer to complete, he said. Mr. Cook, 54, said some of his workers, regardless of their immigration status, refuse to take jobs near the Mexican border, fearing being detained, and his safety training sessions focus on immigration raids. “They’re basically moving targets,” he said.
A survey conducted last summer by the Associated General Contractors of America, a trade group, found that labor shortages are the leading cause of construction delays and that the overwhelming majority of contractors were struggling to find qualified workers.
Mr. Cook’s customers, mainly San Diego homeowners, have been paying more for their roofs since the pandemic drove up the cost of materials. A labor shortage could continue that trend. A roof that costs $19,000 this year might cost $21,000 next year, he said. “It’s just going to keep going up and up.”
Additional graphics work by Ani Matevosian. Ana Facio-Krajcer and Miriam Jordan contributed reporting.
Methodology
To assess the characteristics of construction workers in the U.S. through history, The Times analyzed anonymized individual census records obtained from IPUMS.
The Times included only workers who were currently employed when surveyed, worked in the construction industry and practiced a construction-related occupation, like a roofer or cement mason. They were considered U.S.-born unless the census record indicated they were foreign-born naturalized citizens or noncitizens.
For statistics on union membership and wages, The Times incorporated census figures compiled by Barry Hirsch, David Macpherson and William Even, available at unionstats.com.
Those figures include all workers in the private sector of the construction industry regardless of occupation. The Times’s analysis compares, by year, average hourly wages for these construction workers (union and nonunion) with the overall average wage of all workers.
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5) Supreme Court Backs Police Entry Without Warrant in Emergencies
Montana officials defended the actions of law enforcement officers who did not have a warrant when they responded to a possibly suicidal Army veteran.
By Ann E. Marimow, Reporting from Washington, Jan. 14, 2026
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and provides protections for a person’s home by generally prohibiting law enforcement from entering without a warrant. Janie Osborne for The New York Times
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said law enforcement officials had flexibility to enter a home without a warrant based on reports that someone inside might need emergency help, a decision with implications for police tactics and the expectation of privacy in one’s home.
In a unanimous decision, the justices said that the police in Montana had acted appropriately when they entered an Army veteran’s home without a warrant because they had an “‘objectively reasonable basis for believing’ that a homeowner intended to take his own life and, indeed, may already have shot himself,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and provides protections for a person’s home by generally prohibiting law enforcement from entering without a warrant.
The Supreme Court has carved out several exceptions, including for when police believe an occupant is seriously injured or facing an imminent threat of injury.
The question in the Montana case was what level of certainty police must have that an emergency is underway before they can enter a home without a warrant.
Police were called to the home of William Trevor Case in September 2021 by his ex-girlfriend, who feared he was suicidal. The Army veteran had a loaded handgun, she told police, and he had previously threatened to kill himself.
Mr. Case was well known to law enforcement officers who went to check on him at his home near Butte, Mont. Mr. Case had “tried this suicide by cop” stuff before, one of the officers said, using profanity, according to a body-cam recording of the police response.
The offices knocked on Mr. Case’s door, yelled and shined flashlights through the windows. They could see empty beer cans, an empty handgun holster and a notepad with handwriting, which the officers thought was a possible suicide note, court records show. After about 40 minutes, they entered through the unlocked front door without a warrant.
When Mr. Case suddenly emerged from a closet, he stretched out his arm with what appeared to be a gun, and an officer shot him in the abdomen. The veteran, who survived, was convicted of assaulting the officer.
He appealed that conviction, arguing that a gun and other evidence from his home should not have been allowed to be presented at trial because the officers had violated the Fourth Amendment by coming into his home without a warrant.
Mr. Case’s lawyer told the court that police should have met a high bar of “probable cause” for the intrusion — a standard his lawyer said would provide “a level of certainty that avoids needless and dangerous confrontations, and enables police and emergency medical workers to provide aid when occupants urgently need it.”
But the court on Wednesday declined to adopt that higher standard, which would have been borrowed from the criminal context. Instead, it reaffirmed a 2006 decision: that it is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment when the police make a warrantless entry, if officers have an “objectively reasonable” basis to believe that an occupant is “seriously injured or threatened with such injury.”
The court said it was reasonable for the police to believe Mr. Case needed emergency aid, based on the phone call with Mr. Case’s ex-girlfriend and what the officers could observe at the Army veteran’s home.
“If Case had already shot himself, he could have been severely injured and in need of immediate medical care. And if he had not, the risk of suicide remained acute, given all the facts then known to the officers,” Justice Kagan wrote.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil M. Gorsuch joined the majority but wrote separately, with Justice Sotomayor cautioning that it may not always be “objectively reasonable” for police responding to a mental health crisis to make a warrantless entry.
She cited studies showing that people with serious mental health conditions were disproportionately likely to be injured and killed during police interactions compared to the general population. The justice also warned that the presence of law enforcement could escalate such situations, “putting both the occupant and the officers in danger.”
The “objectively reasonable basis” test affirmed by the court, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “demands careful attention to the case-specific risks that attend mental health crises, and requires officers to act reasonably in response.”
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6) Tense protests in Minneapolis followed a shooting by a federal agent.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Mitch Smith and Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reported from Minneapolis. January 14, 2026
A federal agent shot and injured a man in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening, federal officials said, an incident that touched off hours of clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers and that came just one week after an immigration agent killed a woman in the city.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that federal agents were trying to arrest a man from Venezuela who was in the country illegally in a “targeted traffic stop” at around 6:50 p.m. She said that he fled from agents.
When the officer caught up to him, Ms. McLaughlin said he “began to resist and violently assault the officer.” She said two people came out of a nearby building and, along with the man being sought, attacked the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle.
The officer feared for his life and fired shots, striking the man whom agents were seeking in the leg, Ms. McLaughlin said. The agent and the man who was shot were in the hospital, she added, and the other two people she accused of attacking the agent were in custody.
The federal government’s narrative could not immediately be verified. City officials said the person who was shot had “apparent non-life-threatening injuries.” The agent’s condition was not immediately clear.
Minneapolis residents have protested repeatedly in the week since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot an American woman, Renee Nicole Good, on the south side of Minneapolis.
City officials said the latest shooting occurred on the city’s north side, in the 600 block of 24th Avenue North. At a news conference, Brian O’Hara, the city’s police chief, said his understanding was that a 911 call appeared to have been made from a house. He said the caller reported that the man was running from immigration agents and was driving toward the residence.
Neighbors said they saw federal agents ordering people inside the house to come out with their hands up, and that several people, including children, walked out.
Mayor Jacob Frey said after the shooting that “there’s still a lot that we don’t know” but that “this is not sustainable.” He reiterated his call for ICE to leave.
“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in,” Mr. Frey said. “And at the same time, we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order.”
As word of the latest shooting spread, at least 200 protesters gathered near the apparent scene on Wednesday night. A group of them yelled at Minneapolis police officers who had blocked the street to traffic, telling the local officers that the federal agents should be arrested.
Chief O’Hara said the crowd at the scene was “engaging in unlawful acts.” He and the mayor urged people to leave the area near the shooting.
“They have thrown fireworks at police officers and at multiple times, gas has been deployed,” Chief O’Hara said.
Several heavily armed Border Patrol agents arrived in a large, military-style vehicle outside of the crime scene tape. Protesters swarmed the vehicle and yelled and threw snowballs at agents who had gotten out. The agents eventually retreated, and as they left, they fired at least two canisters of gas that made a loud bang and made it difficult for some to breathe.
A few minutes later, at least two ICE agents arrived in an unmarked S.U.V. and sprayed chemical agents in the faces of protesters who approached them, causing one protester to say that he could not see. At one point, a protester fired several fireworks toward retreating ICE agents and their cars.
Chemical agents were used against protesters, and two people were detained and later released. Protesters damaged an unmarked vehicle with police lights.
A Minneapolis police officer who identified himself as a supervisor to several protesters told them he did not know exactly what happened. “It’s not like they’re talking to us,” he said, referring to the federal agents on scene.
Federal Bureau of Prisons officers were seen carrying out crowd-control duties alongside state troopers. Chief O’Hara said he had asked the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate the shooting, and its agents were also at the scene. That agency was excluded from the F.B.I. inquiry into Ms. Good’s death.
Some 3,000 federal immigration agents have flooded the Minneapolis area in recent weeks, angering residents and local officials. The Trump administration has defended the deployment as necessary to cracking down on illegal immigration and rooting out fraud.
Shortly before the latest shooting was reported on Wednesday night, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota gave a speech that called on the Trump administration to “end this occupation.”
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, referred to a “Minnesota insurrection” in a social media post after the shooting and accused Mr. Walz and Mr. Frey, both Democrats, of making the situation worse.
Liish Kozlowski, a Democratic state representative, said that Minnesotans should be “enraged” by the report of another ICE-related shooting, adding that “we’ve been raising alarms that they are not here for public safety or for fraud or for the well-being of anybody, but to hunt and harm us.”
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7) Appeals Court Opens the Door to Mahmoud Khalil’s Rearrest
Any new detention would not come immediately, and Mr. Khalil’s lawyers plan to appeal. But the ruling is a major blow to Mr. Khalil, a Columbia graduate and prominent figure in the pro-Palestinian movement.
By Jonah E. Bromwich, Jan. 15, 2026
Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest last year was an early, high-profile example of the Trump White House’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. Credit...Matt Rourke/Associated Press
An appeals court on Thursday reopened the possibility that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian protester jailed for months by the Trump administration, could be detained as the government seeks to deport him.
Mr. Khalil’s rearrest would not come immediately, and his lawyers plan to appeal. Still, the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit marks a major blow to Mr. Khalil, whose case became an early and high-profile example of the White House’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech.
A legal permanent resident whose wife and son are American, Mr. Khalil was the first of a number of students to be arrested after participating in demonstrations on college campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza.
He was arrested in March and detained for more than three months in Louisiana, even as others in similar situations were released by the courts. He was also prevented from being present for the birth of his son.
In a split opinion, two of the three judges on the appeals court, Thomas Hardiman and Stephanos Bibas, found that the New Jersey district judge who oversaw Mr. Khalil’s petition for release was not the proper authority to have ruled on it. The matter should have initially been addressed by an immigration court, the majority said.
But a third circuit judge, Arianna J. Freeman, disagreed, saying that Mr. Khalil had claimed that the government violated his fundamental rights and proved that he was irreparably injured during his detention.
Judge Hardiman was appointed by President George W. Bush, Judge Bibas by President Trump during his first term and Judge Freeman by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Baher Azmy, a lawyer for Mr. Khalil, said: “We are disappointed with and strongly disagree with the majority opinion, but take heart in the very powerful and persuasive dissenting opinion. We’ll continue to fight with all available legal options.”
Immigration courts are part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch, and are overseen by the Justice Department. Those courts are the first to address deportation proceedings, which were initiated when Mr. Khalil was first detained.
But Mr. Khalil’s lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus — a legal action for challenging incarceration — with a district judge seeking his release and the prevention of those proceedings.
On Thursday, the circuit judges found that the New Jersey district judge, Michael E. Farbiarz, lacked what is known as subject-matter jurisdiction, or the power to oversee certain types of matters. They ordered that he dismiss Mr. Khalil’s habeas petition.
The judges said that provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the key law that governs immigration, suggested that Mr. Khalil could not challenge his detention or the government’s attempt to remove him in Judge Farbiarz’s court without first going through the immigration court process.
The ruling, if it were to stand, would have major implications for anyone detained as the Trump administration sought to deport them. It would remove the most effective means that immigration lawyers have for freeing their clients from detention while they are in immigration proceedings. For that reason, Thursday’s decision will almost certainly be reviewed by a full panel of Third Circuit judges.
Mr. Khalil was initially detained on the basis of a determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who argued that Mr. Khalil’s very presence in the United States contributed to the spread of antisemitism. Mr. Rubio cited a rarely used statute as the legal rationale for Mr. Khalil’s deportation.
Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have pointed toward comments Mr. Khalil has made condemning antisemitism, and Mr. Khalil has rejected the idea that protesting against Israel is inherently antisemitic.
Shortly after his detention, once Mr. Khalil’s lawyers had filed the habeas petition in Federal District Court, the administration added a new rationale for his deportation. It said that Mr. Khalil had failed to disclose membership in several organizations when he applied for legal residency in March 2024, a claim that Mr. Khalil’s lawyers said was baseless.
Judge Farbiarz, a former prosecutor, proceeded methodically in addressing Mr. Khalil’s case. But in May, he found the law cited by Mr. Rubio was most likely unconstitutional, and the following month, ordered Mr. Khalil’s release.
In recent months, Mr. Khalil’s lawyers reached an agreement with the Trump administration that his immigration proceedings would be paused. His case was being considered by the Board of Immigration appeals, the appeals level of immigration court.
Thursday’s decision could ultimately mean that the deportation proceedings will continue if Judge Farbiarz dismisses Mr. Khalil’s petition as instructed. But the next step for Mr. Khalil’s lawyers would be to ask a full panel of Third Circuit judges to weigh in, which would pause all proceedings.
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8) Abolish ICE? It’s a Slogan Some Democratic Critics of ICE Would Abolish.
As Democrats grow more alarmed about the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids in American cities, some worry that calls to eliminate the agency will distract from efforts to rein it in.
By Jennifer Medina, Reporting from Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 2026
Some Democrats who are critical of the Trump administration’s immigration raids in cities across the nation are urging the party not to embrace calls to “Abolish ICE.” Credit...Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times
The fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent last week outraged many Democratic officials, who have watched with increasing alarm and anger as federal officers have swooped into cities across the country.
State and local officials in Minnesota and Illinois are suing the Trump administration to try to block the raids, which have sown chaos in their cities. Democratic members of Congress are demanding more oversight over ICE and its tactics, and some are trying to tie their demands to budget talks. A group of House Democrats have called for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
And some Democrats running for Congress in blue districts around the country have revived a phrase from the first Trump administration: “Abolish ICE.”
It is a slogan that many Democrats had hoped to retire.
Immigration has arguably been the most vexing issue for Democrats in the Trump era. The Biden administration’s missteps on the issue — underestimating the scale of migration that their policies would allow and failing to anticipate the political backlash — helped pave the way for President Trump’s election to a second term.
Now, as the crisis in Minneapolis grows and Democrats struggle to effectively rein in tactics that they see as overly aggressive and possibly illegal, some Democrats worry that calls to eliminate the agency are an unwelcome distraction from more pragmatic approaches. They fear that the “Abolish ICE” slogan will age as poorly as “Defund the Police” did.
“Clearly ICE is an absolute problem — they’re out of control, moving way too fast,” said Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona. But Mr. Gallego, who has criticized other members of his party for kowtowing to the left, said that resuming “Abolish ICE” calls would hurt the cause. “The last thing we need to do, again, is to make the same mistake when it comes to ‘Defund the Police’ rhetoric. That ended up not actually helping communicate what people wanted. People want a slimmed-down ICE that is truly focused on security.”
For months, polls have suggested that support for the Trump administration’s immigration policies has been falling, with a majority now saying that the administration is doing “too much” on deportations. A CNN poll released Wednesday found that 51 percent of Americans believed that ICE enforcement actions were making cities less safe.
Now, Democrats believe they have an opportunity to reframe the debate about the administration’s enforcement tactics by casting it as overreach in need of oversight. The shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week refocused national attention on the raids, particularly on the masked federal agents who have moved to expel people who are in the country without legal status even if they do not have criminal backgrounds, questioned American citizens on the streets and clashed with protesters in chaotic scenes.
Democrats grew increasingly concerned after another shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening, where officials said that a federal agent had shot and injured a man at a traffic stop. And they were alarmed by President Trump’s threat on Thursday morning to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests there.
The moment has uncovered a still-simmering tension within the party: Some Democrats are eager to take an even more forceful stance against the administration’s tactics.
Micah Lasher, who is running in a crowded primary to represent a congressional district in Manhattan, posted “Abolish ICE” on X last week and argued in an interview that it was time to do away with the agency, which was established in 2003 as part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
“ICE has become the embodiment of a thugocracy and a growing number of Americans, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum, feel that this is an entity that should be dismantled,” said Mr. Lasher, a state lawmaker who worked in the administrations of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. Kathy Hochul. He described ICE as a “completely unchecked, almost militia-like, organization.”
Representative Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, plans to introduce the “Abolish ICE Act” in the House to dismantle the agency. In Chicago, Patty Garcia has made abolishing it a central part of her campaign for Congress, and on a lighter note the city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, recently voiced his support to officially name a city snowplow “Abolish ICE.” That drew the ire of Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief.
But some Democrats caution that calling for the outright elimination of ICE is a trap that will only help Republicans. Third Way, a centrist Washington-based think tank, released a memo Tuesday urging Democrats not to take up the ‘abolish’ mantel, warning that “when the debate sinks into polarizing slogans that read as anti-law or anti-safety, space for practical reform disappears.”
“Every call to abolish ICE risks squandering one of the clearest opportunities in years to secure meaningful reform of immigration enforcement — while handing Republicans exactly the fight they want,” the authors wrote.
Indeed, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee seemed to relish the idea that more Democrats were embracing the term.
“The radical ‘Abolish ICE’ crusade from far-left Democrats seemed like a relic of the past, but it’s the brand-new litmus test for Democrats who are barely hanging on and begging on their knees to get approval from their socialist base,” the spokesman, Mike Marinella, said in a statement.
Democrats have taken a number of different approaches on the issue.
Representative Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Illinois, has introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary Noem, whom she has called incompetent and a disgrace.
“I definitely know there needs to be a lot of reform, if not complete abolishment,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of people who said they voted for him and they didn’t think this was going to be the result. They thought, yes, murderers and rapists off the street, but I think people feel like he’s overreaching, and going too far.”
But some Democrats believe that the only way to meaningfully change the agency is by eliminating it.
“ICE is acting like a rogue agency, it doesn’t follow American norms and the fact that they basically have impunity in the law is even crazier — they’re just this force of power,” said Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin who supported the earliest calls to abolish ICE. “I think the public is actually leading us to a place where they’re saying this is not America, this is not acceptable. I think that sentiment is significantly different from when I introduced this in the first Trump administration.”
Even some Republicans have begun to publicly caution against the kind of headline-grabbing tactics used in many of the enforcement operations.
“ICE needs to concentrate on what the president promised, which was deportation of the bad hombres,” said Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican who represents Miami. “The overwhelming majority of the illegal population is not that and they have been here for a long time working.”
Ms. Salazar has warned that the administration’s approach puts the gains Republicans have made with Latino voters at serious risk. She has introduced a bill to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to adjust their legal status and in some cases become citizens.
“I don’t want the Hispanic community, my community, to believe or to think that the G.O.P. doesn’t love them,” she added.
Democrats in Congress are debating whether they should try to hold up funding for the agency at the end of this month as they try to force changes.
“The agency needs to change and it’s going to take a long time for it to regain the trust of the American people,” said Representative Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota who faulted ICE for detaining American citizens and profiling people during raids. “We want law enforcement to conduct their jobs in the right way.”
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9) Nobel Committee Takes Heat at Home as Machado Courts Trump
The Venezuelan opposition leader’s attempts to share her award with the U.S. president have shaken some Norwegians’ faith in their signature soft-power tool.
By Max Bearak and Henrik Pryser Libell, Jan. 15, 2026
Max Bearak reported from Bogotá, Colombia, and Henrik Pryser Libell from Oslo.
Replicas of the prize at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Trump has made it unmistakable how he feels about last year’s Nobel Peace Prize going to a Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, and not him.
“I single-handedly ENDED 8 WARS, and Norway, a NATO Member, foolishly chose not to give me the Noble Peace Prize,” he said on social media last week. Beyond misspelling the award’s name, he also attributed the decision to the entire country of Norway rather than the five-member committee that makes its choices independently of the government in Oslo.
On Thursday, Ms. Machado is expected to meet in Washington with Mr. Trump, with whom she has repeatedly sought to curry favor by proposing to share the award with him. She has cheered the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and remained mum about a bombing campaign against boats Mr. Trump says are smuggling drugs. The American strikes have killed more than 100 people.
The thorny situation is being greeted with scorn across the Atlantic Ocean in Norway, where the prize is regarded not just as prestigious and freighted with symbolism but also the country’s prime soft-power tool. The Nobel Institute, which awards it, has been in serious damage-control mode.
Last Friday, after Ms. Machado floated the idea of sharing the prize with Mr. Trump in a Fox News interview, the institute offered a reminder about what the rules governing the award allow, saying that the facts were “clear and well established.”
“Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others,” the institute wrote. “The decision is final and stands for all time.”
The day before Ms. Machado arrived in Washington, Kristian Harpviken, the director of the institute, who is also the secretary of the committee that chooses award recipients, said he would not be drawn further into the deepening controversy.
“The prize is awarded on the basis of the laureate’s contributions by the time that the committee’s decision is taken,” he said.
That explanation has been insufficient for many Norwegians.
“A Nobel committee can never guard against peace prize laureates committing acts that run counter to the intention of the prize,’’ Lena Lindgren, a columnist for the Norwegian weekly Morgenbladet, said in an interview. “But what is new now is that the prize is being used in a political game, a warlike game.”
It is unclear what Ms. Machado hopes to gain out of her meeting with Mr. Trump. After ousting Mr. Maduro, he declined to install her in power, saying “she’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect” needed to lead the country.
Independently verified vote counts in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election showed that Ms. Machado’s party had beaten Mr. Maduro by a wide margin. The Venezuelan authorities nonetheless declared Mr. Maduro the victor, and his government embarked on a harsh repression campaign against critics of the outcome.
It is far from the first time the Nobel committee has been criticized for its choice, or been accused of abetting violent leaders or governments.
Global outrage followed the choice of President Barack Obama, who at the time was presiding over military engagements on several continents.
And less than a year after receiving the award, Abiy Ahmed, the president of Ethiopia, embarked on a scorched-earth campaign in his country’s Tigray region that left hundreds of thousands dead, wounded and starving. Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ were awarded the prize before a cease-fire to end the Vietnam War broke down, with Mr. Kissinger ultimately trying to return the prize amid a wave of protests. His North Vietnamese counterpart rejected it outright.
What makes the dispute swirling around Ms. Machado unusual, according to Asle Sveen, a former researcher at the Nobel Institute, is Norwegians’ particularly dim view of Mr. Trump.
Ms. Machado “has dedicated her Peace Prize to a highly controversial president, to put it mildly,” he said. “It is nearly universally accepted in Norway that Donald Trump attacks liberal democracy.”
A Norwegian tabloid, Nettavisen, conducted a poll before the announcement of the award that found three-quarters of respondents were against it being bestowed on Mr. Trump, even if he were instrumental in orchestrating a peace agreement in Ukraine or Gaza.
“The Nobel Committee has compromised the prize” by not foreseeing how Ms. Machado and Mr. Trump would use it to justify military intervention in Venezuela, Ms. Lindgren said. “Norway has been politically embarrassed and has failed to manage the symbolic capital.”
Following the 2024 election in Venezuela, Ms. Machado went into hiding for more than a year. In December, she secretly left Venezuela to receive her award in Norway. She missed the award ceremony but appeared in Oslo to greet supporters. Her escape was orchestrated by a company run by U.S. veterans with special operations and intelligence training.
Spokesmen for Ms. Machado did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
American lawmakers, including Marco Rubio, who was then a Republican senator from Florida and is now Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, had written a letter to the Nobel Committee in 2024 advocating that they award Ms. Machado the peace prize.
They noted her “peaceful resistance to tyrants” and her “unwavering moral compass,” and said that her efforts showed the “urgent need for international solidarity in the face of aggressive and expansive authoritarianism.”
There is little doubt that Ms. Machado has long risked her safety to challenge an authoritarian government that jails opponents, tortures critics and censors the press. But she has also embraced Mr. Trump’s military buildup in the Caribbean, repeated debunked claims that Mr. Maduro manipulated U.S. elections and parroted the Trump administration’s claim that Mr. Maduro simultaneously led two drug organizations, despite scant evidence.
Her assertions fueled accusations that she was amplifying misinformation in what, until now, seemed a failed attempt to gain the American president’s support.
Still, not all Norwegians agree that the award to Ms. Machado was a mistake.
If it turned out that she supported the U.S. boat strikes, that would not be the best reflection on a laureate, said Marianne Dahl, research director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. But Ms. Machado was awarded for her pro-democracy work in 2024, Ms. Dahl said. She drew similarities between Ms. Machado and past winners who led popular movements in Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa and Soviet republics, as well as during the so-called Arab Spring.
“It is easy to sit in comfortable Norway and criticize her for talking sweet to Trump,” Ms. Dahl said.
That, she noted, is exactly what many European and even Norwegian leaders have done. “And they don’t have a repressive regime pursuing them, as Machado has had,” she said.
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10) The U.S. Is Pressing Mexico to Allow U.S. Forces to Fight Cartels
The United States is escalating pressure on the Mexican government to permit the U.S. military to target fentanyl labs, according to American officials.
By Maria Abi-Habib, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Tyler Pager, Jan. 15, 2026
Maria Abi-Habib reported from Mexico City. Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Tyler Pager reported from Washington, D.C.
White powder, purportedly finished fentanyl, sitting on a table in a makeshift lab operated by the Sinaloa cartel. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
The United States is intensifying pressure on Mexico to allow U.S. military forces to conduct joint operations to dismantle fentanyl labs inside the country, according to American officials.
The push comes as President Trump presses on the Mexican government to grant the United States a larger role in the battle against drug cartels that produce fentanyl and smuggle it into the United States.
The proposal was first raised early last year and then largely dropped, officials said. But the request was renewed after U.S. forces captured President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela on Jan. 3 and has involved the highest levels of government, including the White House, according to multiple officials.
U.S. officials want American forces — either Special Operation troops or C.I.A. officers — to accompany Mexican soldiers on raids on suspected fentanyl labs, according to American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues and military planning. Such joint operations would be a significant expansion of the United States’ role in Mexico, and one that the Mexican government has so far adamantly opposed.
The country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has repeatedly said that the two nations would work together to fight the cartels but that her government rejected the U.S.’s proposal of sending American troops across the border.
Mr. Trump “generally insists on the participation of U.S. forces,” she said in a news conference shortly after speaking with Mr. Trump on the phone Monday morning. “We always say that it is not necessary,” she said, adding, “he was receptive, listened, gave his opinion, and we agreed to continue working” together.
The White House declined to comment. But last week, Mr. Trump told Fox News that more needed to be done in Mexico to counter the drug cartels.
“We’ve knocked out 97 percent of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels,” he said, specifically those in Mexico.
Instead of joint operations, Mexican officials offered counter proposals this month, including increased information sharing and for the United States to play a greater role inside command centers, according to a person familiar with the matter. U.S. advisers are already in Mexican military command posts, according to American officials, sharing intelligence to help Mexican forces in their antidrug operations.
Mexican officials are under pressure to reach an agreement, as some American officials would like to see the U.S. military or C.I.A. conduct drone strikes against suspected drug labs, a violation of Mexican sovereignty that would significantly weaken the government.
But fentanyl labs are notoriously difficult to find and destroy, U.S. officials say, and Washington is still developing tools to trace the drug as it is being produced. The labs emit less chemical traces than meth labs — which can be detected by drones — and are often cooked in urban areas with the rudimentary tools found in a family kitchen, according to current and former officials. Meth and cocaine labs, however, need much larger spaces, making them easier to detect.
Under the Biden administration, the C.I.A. began carrying out secret drone flights over Mexico to identify possible locations of fentanyl labs, an operation that has expanded since Mr. Trump took office.
The drones are used both to find labs and track precursor chemicals as they arrive in Mexican seaports and then transported to their destinations, according to an American official briefed on the operation.
That intelligence is currently handed off to Mexican military units, many of which have been trained by American Special Operation forces. Mexican troops then plan and execute the raids to take out the labs.
Under Washington’s new proposal, American forces would participate in the raids with Mexican forces in the lead, commanding the mission and making key decisions, according to people familiar with the talks, including American officials. But U.S. forces would be in support, providing intelligence and advice to frontline Mexican troops.
Asked about the planning for Mexico, the Defense Department said in a statement that it “stands ready to execute the orders of the commander-in chief at any time and in any place.”
A spokeswoman for the C.I.A. declined to comment.
The success of this month’s Venezuela raid seems to have emboldened the Trump administration. Soon after that operation, Mr. Trump said regime change in Cuba was next and resurrected demands that Washington take control of Greenland.
While Washington has focused on Mr. Maduro and Venezuela as a main source of the drugs smuggled into the United States, the South American country in fact plays a minor role in the illicit trade. The majority of drugs smuggled into the United States come through the 2,000-mile border it shares with Mexico.
Fentanyl is also responsible for the bulk of overdose deaths in the United States, and is by far the most dangerous street drug.
Last year, the White House designated fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” and several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
The Trump administration started pushing for U.S. forces inside Mexico shortly after coming to power last year, but Mexican officials have consistently rejected those proposals, demanding that Washington respect their sovereignty.
“We have highly trained army units and special forces,” Mexico’s security chief, Omar García Harfuch, said in an interview last month. “What would they be needed for?” he added, referring to U.S. forces. “What we need is information.”
American troops operating inside Mexico is a particularly fraught issue, considering the shared history — the United States has invaded Mexico nearly a dozen times and launched several land grabs that included Texas and California.
That deep distrust has gradually diminished over the last three decades, with Mexico working more closely with American forces and sharing more intelligence, particularly with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr. Harfuch said that fewer than several hundred U.S. security personnel are in Mexico, and that all are unarmed and all are approved by Mexican officials.
D.E.A. agents in Mexico mostly build cases with Mexican forces, and are barred from participating in antidrug ground operations. But former American officials who have worked with Mexican forces say that if Mr. Trump pushes too far that cooperation could break down.
Ms. Sheinbaum is in a precarious situation. If she accepts Washington’s demands for joint operations with U.S. forces, she could see a revolt within her own political party, a leftist organization that harbors deep suspicion of the United States.
But if the Trump administration decides to launch a unilateral military strike inside Mexico without the Mexican leader’s knowledge, she could rapidly lose support within her ruling party and among Mexican voters.
The proposal for joint operations also runs up against recent Mexican laws that restrict foreign troops on Mexican soil, including a constitutional amendment passed last year.
Soon after the attack in Venezuela, the Mexican Senate delayed its Jan. 5 vote to allow U.S. Navy special forces into Mexico for joint training exercises beginning later this month. The senate is required under the country’s constitution to grant approval for the entry of foreign troops.
Ms. Sheinbaum, who had originally requested the entry of the U.S. troops, denied last week that the delay was related to the Venezuela attack, saying it was because the Senate was not yet in session, but a Mexican senator said the postponement was indeed because of the U.S. action.
Ms. Sheinbaum has tapped Mr. Harfuch to go harder on the cartels since coming to power in late 2024. Since then, Mexico has deployed hundreds of forces to the state of Sinaloa to counter the Sinaloa Cartel, the world’s largest distributor of fentanyl, leading to high-profile arrests and a splintering and weakening of the drug organization.
The government says it is arresting cartel members and destroying drug labs at nearly four times the rate of the previous government.
“We’re not saying the problem is solved,” Mr. Harfuch said. But, he added, “what we’re doing is hitting the criminal structure at the bottom, in the middle and at the top.”
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11) Four More Lawmakers in Video Say Federal Prosecutors Are Investigating Them
The lawmakers, all Democrats who urged military service members not to follow illegal orders, said prosecutors had contacted them. But it is unclear what crime they might have committed.
By Greg Jaffe, Reporting from Washington, Published Jan. 14, 2026, Updated Jan. 15, 2026
Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, one of the lawmakers being investigated, said President Trump was “using his political cronies in the Department of Justice to continue to threaten and intimidate us.” Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Four more Democratic lawmakers said on Wednesday that they were being investigated for their participation in a video urging military service members to resist illegal orders.
Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania all reported that they had received inquiries from Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and a longtime ally of President Trump, requesting an interview with them or their private counsel.
The disclosures follow a similar one this week by Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.
Mr. Trump and other administration officials have described the video, which restates a fundamental principle of military law, as “seditious.” But it is unclear what possible crime the lawmakers are believed to have committed.
The investigations are the latest escalation in a campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to exact retribution on those he views as enemies. They also add to a growing list of high-profile targets who have clashed with Mr. Trump and are now being investigated by Ms. Pirro’s office, including the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell.
A spokesman for Ms. Pirro’s office on Wednesday declined to confirm or deny any investigation.
Ms. Slotkin, who organized the video, served three tours in Iraq with the C.I.A. The other five members who appeared in the video, which was released in November, all served in the U.S. military. All six lawmakers also said they had received an inquiry from the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism division late last year.
Mr. Crow, who served as an Army Ranger and led troops in combat, accused Mr. Trump in a video post to social media of “using his political cronies in the Department of Justice to continue to threaten and intimidate us.”
Ms. Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, said on social media that she and her colleagues were being targeted because they had said something that Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “didn’t want anyone to hear.”
“This investigation is ridiculous on any day but especially so on a day the President is considering launching airstrikes against Iran in retaliation for their crack down on free speech,” she said.
Ms. Goodlander, a Navy veteran, called the Trump administration’s response “sad and telling” in a social media post.
“These threats will not deter, distract, intimidate, or silence me,” she added.
In a video released on Wednesday, Ms. Slotkin disparaged the investigation and Mr. Trump’s attacks on her and her colleagues as “legal intimidation and physical intimidation meant to get you to shut up.” But she vowed that they would not work.
“Right now, speaking out against the abuse of power is the most patriotic thing we can do,” she said.
Last week, Mr. Hegseth announced that the military had started administrative actions against Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona and a retired Navy captain, who also participated in the video. The proceedings could result in a reduction in his rank and military pension.
As a retired naval officer, Mr. Kelly, who flew 39 combat missions as a naval aviator and four spaceflights as an astronaut, is subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and therefore can be recalled to active duty and disciplined. The other Democratic lawmakers in the video did not serve long enough to retire and do not receive a pension or fall under military law.
In a lawsuit filed on Monday, Mr. Kelly called the Pentagon’s efforts to punish him “unlawful and unconstitutional” and asked a federal judge to block them.
Megan Mineiro and Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.
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12) Under Trump, a Shift Toward ‘Absolute Immunity’ for ICE
Since the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, administration officials have defended the use of deadly force, which agency guidelines say should be a last resort.
By Hamed Aleaziz and Nicholas Nehamas, Reporting from Washington, Jan. 15, 2026
Newly recruited Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a training center last year. President Trump and administration officials have given tacit approval for more aggressive tactics by the agency. Audra Melton for The New York Times
The instructions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents explain in clear terms how to defuse dangerous encounters: Use “minimal force” when trying to remove people from cars. Issue commands in “professional,” “firm,” “courteous” voices.
“First step in arresting an occupant of a vehicle is NOT to reach in and grab him, unless there are specific circumstances requiring that action,” reads one internal ICE document providing legal guidance for uses of force during vehicle stops. It was reviewed by The New York Times, along with other training materials. ICE officials will thoroughly investigate any encounter, but “deadly force” is allowed only when agents believe lives are in danger.
The fatal shooting of Renee Good last week by an ICE agent in Minneapolis — and the quick reaction by Trump administration officials to declare the agent a hero and Ms. Good a villain — has put a new focus on whether federal agents enforcing President Trump’s deportation drive have been properly prepared for confrontations on city streets. The response of Mr. Trump and his top lieutenants to the killing has also underscored how they have embraced what is supposed to be a last resort under the written standards: using lethal force in self-defense.
Rather than encourage agents to de-escalate combustible encounters, as the agency guidelines emphasize, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have provided tacit approval for more aggressive tactics.
Several weeks before the shooting, a top ICE official told officers to take “decisive action” if threatened. Immediately after, Mr. Trump and other administration officials said Ms. Good had tried to run the agent over, although a Times video analysis found that she appeared to have turned her vehicle away from him.
“That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vice President JD Vance said last week of the ICE agent who killed Ms. Good, 37. “He was doing his job.”
On Tuesday, the Homeland Security Department reiterated that sentiment to its agents, posting a clip on social media of Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, saying, “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”
Tensions in Minneapolis have boiled over in the days since Ms. Good’s death. On Wednesday night, a federal agent in the city shot and wounded a man who was attacking him, officials said. The episode led to hours of clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said ICE agents were using appropriate tactics.
“The entire Trump administration stands behind our heroic ICE officers who are conducting themselves with the utmost professionalism and integrity, while making American communities safer,” Ms. Jackson said in a statement. “It is not an ‘aggressive tactic’ to defend yourself from an individual using their car as a deadly weapon — ICE officers have a right to self-defense.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a homeland security spokeswoman, said that “ICE law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers” and are “highly trained in de-escalation tactics.”
The Minneapolis shooting has also revealed the risks of Mr. Trump’s decision to send ICE on large-scale sweeps through cities, a move that has thrust agents into confrontations with hostile crowds. Most ICE agents are not trained to handle crowd control, according to a 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office. That is in part because ICE has historically focused on targeted arrests that attract less attention and rarely put its officers in conflict with the public.
Moreover, the agency is rapidly expanding its ranks, already more than doubling its number of law enforcement personnel, after an infusion of $75 billion in new funding over four years. It has expedited its training programs to accommodate the new recruits, including reducing training on how to handle vehicle stops, according to a former official at the federal government’s law enforcement academy who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal homeland security policies.
Ms. McLaughlin said there had been no reduction in training on vehicle stops.
Federal officers do not have “absolute” immunity from prosecution, although the U.S. Constitution makes it difficult for states to prosecute them for actions taken while on duty. They can also face federal charges. But that is unlikely to happen in the Minneapolis case.
In a sign of the administration’s priorities, the Justice Department has decided to investigate Ms. Good’s widow and groups that monitor and protest immigration agents, rather than open a civil rights inquiry into whether the actions of the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, were legal. In a statement, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said there was “no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into the shooting.
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13) Cracks Begin to Appear at the Nation’s Biggest Banks
This week, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo released fraught earnings reports as President Trump’s threatened cap on credit card rates loomed large.
By Rob Copeland, Jan. 15, 2026
Big bank stocks are up strongly over the past 12 months, even after this week’s stumble. Credit...Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For a year, Wall Street’s dominant theme has been the so-called K-shaped economy, in which the well-to-do have powered financial activity despite lower earners’ struggles.
This week, the nation’s largest banks reported a broadly disappointing set of quarterly earnings, marking the first stumble after a yearlong spree of rising markets and softening regulations paid off handsomely for the finance set.
Results at Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo all fell short of expectations and their shares fell. Troubles ranged from delayed merger deals (JPMorgan) to stubborn expenses (Citi) to questions about the efficacy of artificial intelligence tools (Bank of America). Banks that do business largely with rich individuals and corporations, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, fared comparatively better.
Results from major lenders are closely watched because they contain hints about the state of the economy and ordinary American consumers.
Wells Fargo’s chief executive, Charles Scharf, said his organization had not seen a “meaningful” shift among the customer data it collects, including checking account flows, direct deposit amounts, overdraft activity and payments. Another Wells Fargo executive described “very consistent activity.”
Wells Fargo’s quarterly results disappointed for a different reason: Lower-than-expected profits, in part because mortgage lending stayed weak in a slow housing market. The bank’s stock saw its steepest fall in six months.
The Trump effect
For yet another quarter, Trump administration policies loomed large. This time, the banks were asked by reporters and Wall Street analysts about President Trump’s threatened 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates. Although it’s not clear how or if Mr. Trump could unilaterally impose that ceiling, bankers mostly gave identical responses by arguing that charging lower rates would cause them to lend less to riskier borrowers with patchier credit.
And Jeremy Barnum, JPMorgan’s chief financial officer, was candid about what a cap would mean for the bottom line. “It would obviously be bad for us,” he said.
Bank of America stumbles again
Brian Moynihan, Bank of America’s chief executive, kicked off 2025 by being publicly dressed down by Mr. Trump in a Davos, Switzerland, interview, and the lender’s stock lagged its rivals for much of the year.
On Wednesday, Wall Street analysts repeatedly prodded Mr. Moynihan and his chief financial officer during a question-and-answer session about why the bank’s expenses (including head count) remained high despite purported efficiency improvements, as well as its relatively slow pace of growth. Mr. Moynihan eventually conceded in response: “You should expect us to get back on a streak.” Shares dropped anyway.
Artificial intelligence makes inroads
Banks are not typically seen as on the cutting edge of technology, and Wall Street has been more eager to lend into the A.I. boom than to talk specifics about how it may change their own businesses.
Bank of America said its much-promoted “virtual financial assistant,” nicknamed Erica, was used less than before by customers in the fourth quarter. Executives attempted to argue that this was sign that the bank was doing a better job warding off questions before they even needed to be asked.
Goldman Sachs on Thursday said that it was debuting “a new operating model propelled by artificial intelligence.” A bank spokesman said that included creating a more enjoyable experience for the bank’s staff as the technology automated what he described as mundane tasks.
The sky is not falling
There are reasons for optimism on Wall Street. Investment bank traders took advantage of strong financial markets to bolster profits.
A rise in mergers and acquisitions, exemplified by the $100 billion bidding war between Netflix and Paramount for Warner Bros. Discovery, is also a boon to Wall Street dealmakers.
And for all of this week’s angst, large bank stocks are up strongly over the past 12 months, even after the recent stumble.
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14) For the World’s Food Supply, Federal Funding Cuts Have Long-Term Impacts
The U.S. Agency for International Development has been a major supporter of global agriculture research. Now many studies are being scuttled or scaled back.
By Ted Alcorn, Jan. 15, 2026
Brian Diers was employed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign soybean “innovation lab” before it was shuttered. Now he works with soybean plants on a volunteer basis. Taylor Glascock for The New York Times
Crops and livestock that are essential for feeding the world’s population are constantly threatened by depleted soil, evolving pathogens and erratic weather spurred by a changing climate.
So in laboratories and farms around the world, scientists labor to protect them, breeding more resilient varieties and developing farming practices to stabilize harvests against the swings and shocks of the environment.
But lately, the United States, not nature, has created the biggest uncertainty for global agriculture.
Until last year, when the Trump administration dismantled it, the U.S. Agency for International Development had been a major supporter of global agricultural science, disbursing about $150 million a year to universities, companies and international research centers. That funding was part of the Feed the Future initiative, which was most recently reauthorized in 2023, with broad bipartisan support. Now, around the world, scientists are scuttling or scaling back studies meant to defend the world’s food supply against plant disease outbreaks, and to develop crops and farming practices that will help ensure adequate food in the decades to come.
About a third of Feed the Future’s agricultural science budget went to 17 labs at U.S. universities that study everything from aquaculture and cereals to fruits and tubers. All but one of the labs received stop-work orders early last year when the Trump administration froze development spending and later eliminated it. The soybean “innovation lab” at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for example, had been developing dozens of higher-yielding varieties of soybeans for West African farmers, which Peter Goldsmith, the lab’s director, said would have accelerated local economic growth and created new export markets for U.S. soy farmers. Instead, he had to shutter the lab and lay off 30 staff members. “It was lights-off in an instant,” he said.
Another lab that lost funding, at the University of Florida, was running dozens of studies on how to raise livestock more efficiently and expand access to protein-rich foods sourced from animals, including for children and pregnant women.
J. Scott Angle, a senior vice president of the university who served in the first Trump administration, said U.S.A.I.D. had made some mistakes but Americans had benefited from many of the projects it funded. “They were just as important for the U.S. economy, U.S. farmers, U.S. consumers as it was for overseas,” Dr. Angle said.
Only Kansas State University’s lab for climate-resilient cereals retained its federal funding, albeit on a year-to-year basis, making it difficult to pursue agricultural projects that, by necessity, unfold over multiple growing seasons.
Tim Dalton, an agricultural economist who served as interim director of the Kansas State lab until August, credited Kansas’ Republican senior senator, Jerry Moran, with protecting its budget, but he expressed frustration that such intervention was necessary. “What’s maddening to me as a scientist,” he said, “is that national policy of this importance is now devolved to political favorites, as opposed to a strategic investment for the benefit of the nation.”
The funding cuts landed at a time when global public support for agricultural science was already slackening, as high-income countries grew complacent about their food supply and ceded research to private industry. The falloff has raised concerns among food-industry executives and national security experts, who see the food system as a pillar of global stability.
Vern Long, who directed U.S.A.I.D.’s agricultural research team from 2017 to 2019, said the need to address threats to the global breadbasket was bigger than partisan politics. “These issues transcend national identity,” she said. “These issues are about humanity.”
A pillar of development
Science that improves the resilience and productivity of agriculture is an undervalued driver of development, with outsized implications for health and economic well-being.
Around the world, crops and livestock are routinely felled by new diseases, their yields depressed by changing conditions. Shocks to the food supply can precipitate humanitarian disasters and political crises, since hunger can motivate citizens to topple their governments.
To respond to such emergencies, the United States often sends other countries food aid — American-grown commodities or, more commonly, food vouchers — to stave off famine. But agricultural science offers a more durable solution by seeking to unlock permanent improvements in how local farmers produce food. Among other practices, agronomists and biologists breed crops that are more resistant to disease, select varieties that increase yields and develop farming techniques that improve harvests.
As farmers become more efficient and food grows more abundant, people eat better and incomes rise, particularly in rural areas and among small-scale farmers who account for many of the world’s poorest people. Advances in agricultural productivity reduce poverty more than improvements in any other sector do, according to the World Bank.
Historically, there have been huge gains to make. A review of five decades’ worth of agricultural science found that each dollar of research yielded more than 10 dollars in economic benefits.
According to Keith Fuglie, chief economist of the nonprofit Food Security Leadership Council, “some of the most effective investments that U.S.A.I.D. made over its entire history were in agricultural research and development.”
Unexpected consequences
The federal government, via the aid agency, was also a leading funder of C.G.I.A.R., a network of institutions around the world that draws funding from a variety of public and private philanthropic sources.
Among the most renowned of those institutions is the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, which is based outside Mexico City and known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT. The center has 1300 affiliated employees and manages a seed bank of more than 150,000 genetically unique types of wheat and corn, including nearly every known variety and some decades-old samples that no longer exist beyond its walls.
The withdrawal of U.S. funding opened up a $60 million gap in the center’s budget, according to the executive director, Bram Govaerts.
That has unsettled leaders in the food industry like Matthias Berninger, an executive vice president at Bayer, the world’s largest supplier of seeds and agricultural chemicals since it acquired Monsanto in 2018. Bayer spends nearly $2.5 billion annually on agricultural research, Mr. Berninger said, predominantly on projects it can commercialize. The company depends on organizations like CIMMYT to bring those innovations to small-scale farmers and to conduct open-source research about shared threats.
“If you have a crop disease suddenly appearing in one part of the world, everybody, including us, relies on CIMMYT to catch that early and to help working on remedies,” Mr. Berninger said.
CIMMYT’s budget troubles also appear to have drawn the interest of Chinese officials. China is the world’s largest wheat producer and second-largest corn producer, and the country recently became the leading funder of agricultural research, spending double what the United States does.
Mr. Govaerts, the director, said that throughout last year, the center saw an uptick in visits by Chinese scientists, businesses and government officials. Mexican officials publicly fretted that China might seek to “relocate” CIMMYT closer to China as a condition for its financial support.
Citing these claims, the State Department sent Congress a letter in November warning that this would give China “unprecedented access to a wealth of valuable data and create vulnerabilities for the global food supply.” The agency promised CIMMYT $32 million.
But the money, drawn from a special fund for countering Chinese influence, was a one-time infusion and not a stable source of support, said Francisco Bencosme, who led China policy for U.S.A.I.D. until last year. “Just because they doled out this money doesn’t mean they will again next year,” he said. “This is not a food security funding stream.”
An uncertain future
Whether the United States will revive its funding for international agricultural research remains unclear.
Supporters’ hopes hinge on comments that the White House budget director, Russell T. Vought, made during a hearing last June, asserting that science like that taking place in U.S. labs “will be protected.” But the administration did not unfreeze previously appropriated funds for the labs, and in August it zeroed them out as part of a pocket rescission of billions of dollars of foreign aid.
There were further signs of momentum last weekend, when House and Senate negotiators cemented an agreement on a spending bill for this year that would devote $175 million to agricultural research funding. The House passed the measure on Wednesday.
With U.S.A.I.D. effectively dissolved, the State Department’s office of global food security now has primary oversight. The office’s head, Meghan Hanson, declined to comment on the administration’s plans.
The U.S. cuts are part of a broader slowdown in research on agriculture and food. From 2015 to 2021, the growth rate of global spending on agricultural science fell by a third, according to a recent paper published in the journal Nature.
Governments of high-income countries, in particular, have slowed their investment, whereas China, India and Brazil have risen to be among the world’s largest funders. And as the public sector has wavered, private industry has taken a bigger role, now accounting for more than half of funding.
Philip Pardey, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota and one of the Nature paper’s authors, said the global deceleration was likely to drive up food prices and hamper efforts to reduce malnutrition. It may also increase habitat loss, as farmers enlarge their holdings rather than intensify their use of fields already under cultivation.
Reaping the benefits of agricultural research takes patience, as anyone with a garden can attest. “There are really long lags from when you spend those R&D dollars to when they have their productivity impacts,” Dr. Pardey said. “Cutting back now is casting the die for the productivity performance in the 2030s and 2040s.”
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15) Trump Threatens to Use the Insurrection Act to ‘Put an End’ to Protests in Minneapolis
By Steve Karnowski, Alanna Durkin Richer, Hallie Golden and Aamer Madhani/Associated Press, January 15, 2026
Federal Agents confront protesters in Minneapolis, MN. (photo: Adam Gray/AP)
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration’s massive immigration crackdown.
The president’s threat comes a day after a federal immigration officer shot and wounded a Minneapolis man who had attacked the officer with a shovel and broom handle. That shooting further heightened the fear and anger radiating across the Minnesota city since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a Renee Good in the head.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the rarely used federal law to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.
Presidents have indeed invoked the Insurrection Act more than two dozen times, most recently in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to end unrest in Los Angeles. In that instance, local authorities had asked for the assistance.
The Associated Press has reached out to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for comment.
The Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down. ICE is a DHS agency.
Protests, tear gas and another shooting
In Minneapolis, smoke filled the streets Wednesday night near the site of the latest shooting as federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas into a small crowd. Protesters responded by throwing rocks and shooting fireworks.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference that the gathering was an unlawful assembly and “people need to leave.”
Things later quietened down and by early Thursday only a few demonstrators and law enforcement officers remained at the scene.
Demonstrations have become common on the streets of Minneapolis since the ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Good on Jan. 7. Agents have yanked people from their cars and homes, and have been confronted by angry bystanders demanding that the officers pack up and leave.
“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order,” Frey, the mayor, said.
Frey said the federal force — five times the size of the city’s 600-officer police force — has “invaded” Minneapolis, scaring and angering residents.
Shooting followed a chase
In a statement describing the events that led to Wednesday’s shooting, Homeland Security said federal law enforcement officers stopped a driver from Venezuela who is in the U.S. illegally. The person drove away and crashed into a parked car before taking off on foot, DHS said.
After officers reached the person, two other people arrived from a nearby apartment and all three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said.
The two people who came out of the apartment are in custody, it said.
O’Hara said the man shot was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.
The shooting took place about 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers) north of where Good was killed. O’Hara’s account of what happened largely echoed that of Homeland Security.
During a speech before the latest shooting, Walz described Minnesota as being in chaos, saying what’s happening in the state “defies belief.”
“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
An official says the agent who killed Good was injured
Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed Good, suffered internal bleeding to his torso during the encounter, a Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.
The official spoke to AP on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Ross’ medical condition. The official did not provide details about the severity of the injuries, and the agency did not respond to questions about the extent of the bleeding, exactly how he suffered the injury, when it was diagnosed or his medical treatment.
Good was killed after three ICE officers surrounded her SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from her home.
Bystander video shows one officer ordering Good to open the door and grabbing the handle. As the vehicle begins to move forward, Ross, standing in front, raises his weapon and fires at least three shots at close range. He steps back as the SUV advances and turns.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said Ross was struck by the vehicle and that Good was using her SUV as a weapon — a self-defense claim that has been criticized by Minnesota officials.
Chris Madel, an attorney for Ross, declined to comment.
Good’s family has hired the same law firm that represented George Floyd’s family in a $27 million settlement with Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black, died after a white police officer pinned his neck to the ground in the street in May 2020.
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16) Journalists Confront New Reality in Reporting After FBI Raid
By Sarah Ellison, Patrick Marley and Colby Itkowitz/The Washington Post, January 15, 2026
Yes, its headquarters is a monstrosity—and it should stay in Washington. (photo: Getty)
After the FBI searched a Washington Post reporter’s home Wednesday morning, reporters from multiple outlets said they moved swiftly to secure their phones and laptops, reassure confidential sources and consult newsroom leaders as they worried about the federal government’s seizure of devices containing sensitive information.
Many journalists said they saw the FBI raid as a jarring new step aimed at limiting news organizations’ ability to gather information that the government does not want to be made public.
“It’s incredibly intimidating to be targeted by the government,” said Ted Bridis, a former Washington investigations editor for the Associated Press. His phone records, along with those of his employees, were secretly obtained by the Department of Justice in 2012, during the AP’s reporting into the NYPD’s clandestine surveillance of Muslims in New York City.
After his team won the Pulitzer Prize and news of the Justice Department’s actions became public, “people who used to meet us for coffee refused,” said Bridis, who now teaches journalism, including on the topic of source protection, at the University of Florida. “Our sources were scared to talk to us.”
Under previous administrations, reporters have been subpoenaed for information, and such actions are usually challenged in court. But raiding a reporter’s home early in the morning — a more intrusive step that limits the ability for a court challenge — is exceedingly unusual if not unprecedented, according to Gabe Rottman, an attorney and vice president of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who said he could think of no comparable examples.
The raid on Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home — which involved taking possession of her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch — prompted reporters from a range of outlets, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive sourcing and security matters, to reevaluate how they keep their sources and devices safe.
One reporter who covers national security issues said he turned off facial recognition software on his phone so that he had to use a password to log into it, an action that at least half a dozen reporters said Wednesday they had taken in light of the search of Natanson’s home.
He said he made the change because he believed law enforcement agents easily could use his face to help them access his phone but would have a tougher time compelling him to provide his password. He has also contemplated using burner phones, he said.
One White House reporter said that their first thought, after the initial shock of the raid, was to review how they manage information from sources and go back through internal legal guidance. In the New York Times’s Washington bureau on Wednesday, a regularly scheduled meeting started with an update on security and legal protocols, according to a person who attended. A reporter who covers the Pentagon said one positive outcome of the FBI search was that it snapped journalists into action to protect themselves and their sources.
In a note to The Post’s staff Wednesday, Executive Editor Matt Murray said the publication was informed that neither Natanson nor The Post is the target of the FBI investigation, which was aimed at a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. “Nonetheless, this extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning,” Murray wrote.
He followed up later in the day to say “we are continuing to vigorously defend our journalists and our work.” He added that the publication is working to schedule refresher sessions to reinforce proper source and reporting practices.
“The reports of F.B.I. agents raiding the home of a journalist and seizing her electronic devices are deeply concerning and portray a stark threat to free press rights in this country,” said David McCraw, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for the New York Times. “Actions like this inevitably impede reporters’ ability to gather news in the public interest and as a result make the government less accountable.
“When you’re talking about reporting on the military or the intelligence agencies or foreign affairs or federal law enforcement, it’s often necessary for reporters to rely on assurances of confidentiality to sources in order to get information in the public interest out.”
One veteran reporter who handles sensitive stories has frequently worried about the prospect of an FBI raid. “I have been concerned for a long time — years actually — about exactly this, FBI agents knocking on my door or that of other reporters and seizing our devices,” the reporter said, adding that several of their sources “already were in contact this morning to register their worry about being discovered in a similar way.”
Natanson has spent the past year covering the Trump administration’s effort to fire federal workers and wrote a first-person piece late last year about her experience.
The Post also received a subpoena Wednesday morning seeking information related to the classified materials case.
The FBI declined to answer questions about the search and referred to a statement that Director Kash Patel posted on social media accusing the reporter of “obtaining and reporting classified, sensitive military information from a government contractor — endangering our warfighters and compromising America’s national security. The alleged leaker was arrested this week and is in custody.”
Other reporters and editors who had faced government surveillance and legal action said the case represented a new level of intimidation.
The raid on Natanson’s home “goes way beyond anything that is expected or required under any normal and traditional guidelines covering the way the government deals with the press,” said James Risen, a former investigative reporter for the New York Times, who has described undergoing years of FBI surveillance starting in 2008 as he fought to avoid testifying in a national security leak investigation involving his reporting.
Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who helped Edward Snowden go public with his revelations about government surveillance, called the raid an “outrageous escalation” and a reminder to reporters that they need to take extra precautions when dealing with sensitive subjects and sources. She said she took extreme digital security measures to protect Snowden in 2013 when he disclosed details of secret government surveillance efforts.
“This administration is salivating for an opportunity to incarcerate journalists,” said Martin Baron, a former executive editor of The Post, noting that Trump talked openly about the possibility at rallies in 2022. Baron said the administration’s open disdain for the press indicated that “things are going to get far worse.”
When the Justice Department labeled a Fox News reporter a criminal in 2013 to seize his emails in a leak investigation, the backlash was swift and bipartisan.
Attorney General Eric Holder, accused by Republican lawmakers of misleading Congress, responded by barring prosecutors from falsely portraying reporters as criminals to obtain search warrants — unless they genuinely planned to bring charges.
In 2021, after revelations that Trump’s Justice Department had secretly seized records from reporters at The Post, the New York Times and CNN, Attorney General Merrick Garland went further: He banned using search warrants and subpoenas to obtain journalists’ materials or compel testimony about their sources.
Last year, Attorney General Pam Bondi reversed course, restoring investigators’ ability to target reporters’ information. She reinstated much of Holder’s framework but made one critical change: She eliminated the ban on misrepresenting reporters as criminals to circumvent a decades-old law protecting journalists.
While many journalists have adopted heightened security measures to protect their sources in recent years, including encrypted communications technology, the government has immense power to surveil.
The search warrant serves as a reminder to journalists of the difficult work of protecting sources, said Alex Papachristou, director of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, which provides free legal services to small news organizations around the country. He predicted the warrant would have a “cryogenic effect” on the willingness of sources to disclose information to the press.
“We’re in a time,” he said, “when looking over your shoulder is just about the only way to look.”
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17) UPenn Faculty Condemn Trump Administration’s Demand for ‘Lists of Jews’
By Alice Speri/Guardian UK, January 15, 2026
Students on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia on 8 December 2023. (photo: Michelle Gustafson/Getty)
Several faculty groups have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain information about Jewish professors, staff and students at the University of Pennsylvania – including personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses – as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is demanding the university turn over names and personal information about Jewish members of the Penn community as part of the administration’s stated goal to combat antisemitism on campuses. But some Jewish faculty and staff have condemned the government’s demand as “a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history”, according to a press release put out by the groups’ lawyers.
The EEOC sued Penn in November over the university’s refusal to fully comply with its demands. On Tuesday, the American Association of University Professors’ national and Penn chapters, the university’s Jewish Law Students Association and its Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, and the American Academy of Jewish Research filed a motion in federal court to intervene in the case.
“These requests would require Penn to create and turn over a centralized registry of Jewish students, faculty, and staff – a profoundly invasive and dangerous demand that intrudes deeply into the freedoms of association, religion, speech, and privacy enshrined in the First Amendment,” the groups argued.
“We are entering territory that should shock every single one of us,” said Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund on a press call. The fund is representing the faculty groups along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the firm Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin and Schiller. “That kind of information – however purportedly benign the excuses given for it – can be put to the most dangerous misuse. This is an abuse of government power that drags us back to some of the darkest chapters in our history.”
The EEOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The University of Pennsylvania was among dozens of US universities to come under federal investigation over alleged antisemitism in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. In response, the university established a taskforce to study antisemitism, implemented a series of measures and shared hundreds of pages of documents to comply with government demands.
But the university refused to comply with the EEOC’s July subpoena for personal information of Jewish faculty, students and staff, or those affiliated with Jewish organizations who had not given their consent, as well as the names of individuals who had participated in confidential listening sessions or received a survey by the university’s antisemitism taskforce. A university spokesperson said in November that “violating their privacy and trust is antithetical to ensuring Penn’s Jewish community feels protected and safe”. Instead, the university offered to inform all its employees of the EEOC investigation, inviting those interested to contact the agency directly.
But that was not enough for the commission, which brought the university to court to seek to enforce the subpoena.
“The EEOC remains steadfast in its commitment to combatting workplace antisemitism and seeks to identify employees who may have experienced antisemitic harassment. Unfortunately, the employer continues to refuse to identify members of its workforce who may have been subjected to this unlawful conduct,” the EEOC chair, Andrea Lucas, said in a statement at the time. “An employer’s obstruction of efforts to identify witnesses and victims undermines the EEOC’s ability to investigate harassment.”
The EEOC request prompted widespread alarm and condemnation among Jewish faculty, and earned rebukes from the university’s Hillel and other Jewish groups.
Steven Weitzman, a professor with Penn’s religious studies department who also served on the university’s antisemitism taskforce, said that the mere request for such lists “instills a sense of vulnerability among Jews” and that the government cannot guarantee that the information it collects won’t fall “into the wrong hands or have unintended consequences”.
“Part of what sets off alarm bells for people like me is a history of people using Jewish lists against Jews,” he said . “The Nazi campaign against Jews depended on institutions like universities handing over information about their Jewish members to the authorities.”
“As Jewish study scholars, we know well the dangers of collecting such information,” said Beth Wenger, who teaches Jewish history at Penn.
It’s not the first time the EEOC’s efforts to fight antisemitism have caused alarm among Jewish faculty. Last spring, the commission texted the personal phones of employees of Barnard College, the women’s school affiliated with Columbia University, linking to a survey that asked respondents whether they identified as Jewish or Israeli.
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