*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation Endorses Day of Truth and Freedom January 23, 2026
January 16, 2026
For Immediate Release
Contact: Stacie Balkaran:
stacie@minneapolisunions.org / 971.291.9486
Minneapolis Labor Union Delegation and Local Regional Labor Bodies Endorse January 23: Day of Truth and Freedom—No Work, School, or Shopping
Minneapolis—The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO along with regional bodies throughout the state, including the Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation, the West Area Labor Council, the North East Area Labor Council and the East Central Labor Council, have joined in solidarity to endorse a powerful unified statewide action on January 23: Day of Truth and Freedom. The Minnesota labor movement is united against the violent ICE occupation of our beloved cities that has directly impacted union members, our workplaces and our families.
Workers are essential for our communities to function. Since the ICE campaign of terror began, both immigrant and non-immigrant workers have feared for their safety when going to work, being at work, and coming home from work. Union members and our families are being illegally detained at alarming rates, with workplaces and schools facing increased challenges.
Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, President of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, shared why union federations are joining this call:
“Working people, our schools and our communities are under attack. Union members are being detained commuting to and from work, tearing apart families. Parents are being forced to stay home, students held out of school, fearing for their lives, all while the employer class remains silent. Our labor federations are encouraging everyone to participate on January 23rd. It’s time for every single Minnesotan who loves this state and the notion of truth and freedom to raise their voices and deepen their solidarity for our neighbors and coworkers living under this federal occupation.”
Unions join the demands for the day that call for:
· ICE must leave Minnesota now.
· The agent who killed Renee Good must be held legally accountable.
· No additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming Congressional budget and ICE be investigated for human and constitutional violations of Americans and our neighbors.
· Minnesotan and national companies to become 4th Amendment Businesses—cease economic relations with ICE and refuse ICE entry or using their property for staging grounds.
The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO is the umbrella organization of Minneapolis-area local unions and includes 175+ affiliated unions representing over 80,000 working people across seven Minnesotan counties. www.minneapolisunions.org
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
CALL TO DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST NICK TILSEN BEFORE JANUARY 26, 2026
In 2022, an incident took place where a Native unhoused relative was being harassed and assaulted by Rapid City Police (RCPD) in Rapid City, South Dakota. Nick Tilsen, CEO and Founder of NDN Collective, pulled over to conduct a routine cop watch. One officer accused Nick of assaulting him despite no physical contact being made with the officer. During the interaction, Nick remained in his vehicle because he felt unsafe surrounded by several police cars. Nick communicated with an officer, who then got approval from someone off-site and allowed Nick to leave.
Despite no immediate action being taken at the time, more than a year later, the officer involved accused Nick of attempting to run him over, leading to a complaint and warrant for Tilsen’s arrest being filed on June 30, 2023 – the same day NDN Collective announced they would host a July 4th March Towards Justice.
Nick was originally charged with aggravated assault and obstruction of a police officer. But just a few weeks before the trial date (January 12, 2026), Nick was notified that the Pennington County Grand Jury added a “simple assault” to the list of charges.
Nick is being systematically targeted as local prosecutors intentionally sought out the police officer named in this case and encouraged him to press charges. The charges brought against Nick are false and inflated to criminalize, silence, and ultimately isolate him from his community through imprisonment. Nick is being targeted by RCPD because he has unapologetically stood on his values and has called for accountability and justice for people harmed by police in Rapid City.
NDN Collective has been pushing for a federal investigation into the Rapid City Police Department for over 3 years. This fight is bigger than just Nick Tilsen. It’s about protecting movement leaders, movement organizations, our right to free speech, and to demand justice for those harmed by colonial white supremacist systems and structures.
NDN Collective believes this to be a politically motivated effort to silence a movement leader by criminalizing his actions and misusing the legal system. If found guilty of these charges, Nick could face up to 26 years in prison.
Nick’s trial is set to begin January 26, 2026, at 9 am MT at the Pennington County Courthouse in Rapid City, SD.
As we see continued targeting of movement leaders, including Nick, we need your support to continue fighting these legal battles. Trials are expensive and are tactics used to drain movement resources. We need resources to continue this fight against legal repression and to continue our work.
This fund safeguards our organization against legal attacks aiming to suppress our leaders, imprison our people, and obstruct our movement’s objectives.
DONATE TO NDN LEGAL FUND HERE:
https://ndnlegalfund.org
SIGN PETITION: DROP THE CHARGES:
Support for the charges against Nick to be dropped is clear, with over 16,500 signatures on a petition to the Pennington County State’s Attorney’s office. If you haven’t already, please add your name to our petition:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTdap1GFD-1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
 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 auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Articles
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) Before Urban Raids, Border Patrol Tested Tactics in California Farm Country
Just before President Trump took office, Border Patrol agents led by Gregory Bovino arrested immigrants in Kern County using the same playbook later seen in places like Chicago and Minneapolis. Then a federal judge ordered them to stop.
By Orlando Mayorquín and Jesus JiménezVisuals by Mark Abramson, Jan. 19, 2026
Orlando Mayorquín reported from Kern County and Jesus Jiménez from Los Angeles. Both of them have covered the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Border Patrol agents, including Gregory Bovino, at a gas station in Columbia Heights, Minn., this week. Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
A lawsuit filed against the federal government over its operations in Bakersfield and other parts of Kern County claimed that in some instances, Border Patrol agents had not identified themselves or presented warrants. In others, people were grabbed with force, and their requests to call a lawyer were denied.
And in one case, the lawsuit said, agents stopped a U.S. citizen driving a truck, slashed the tires, blocked the truck with another vehicle, arrested the driver and then released him a few hours later.
The raids last January, in the last days of the Biden administration, initially drew little attention outside the farm country of California’s Central Valley. At the time, the eyes of the world were focused on the two vast wildfires raging in Los Angeles County.
But the Border Patrol’s actions in Kern County, which it called Operation Return to Sender, can be seen as a blueprint for the broader immigration crackdown that was to come. Similar tactics have become part of the agency’s standard playbook in other places, including Minnesota, where federal immigration agents are making hundreds of arrests amid sustained protests from local leaders and residents.
The man who led the Kern County raids, Gregory Bovino, became a star among opponents of illegal immigration. When the Trump administration began an immigration crackdown in Los Angeles in June, Mr. Bovino was tapped to lead operations there, and he was later asked to lead crackdowns in other cities.
“The Kern County operation was a test run, or a pilot project, on Bovino’s part,” Minju Cho, a senior lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview. “We called it his audition for the Trump administration, and unfortunately, it seems to have worked. It really propelled him into the national spotlight, and since then, he’s only gained greater prominence as he’s been leading these operations around the country.”
The Border Patrol promoted the Kern County raids as a success, saying that it had arrested 78 undocumented immigrants during the three-day operation, including some with criminal histories.
But the agency’s tactics also showed opponents that it could be challenged and even stopped.
The A.C.L.U. filed a lawsuit on behalf of United Farm Workers and five Kern County residents that accused the agency of racial profiling and coercing at least 40 arrested immigrants “to accept voluntary departure.”
In April, Judge Jennifer L. Thurston of U.S. District Court issued a preliminary injunction barring Border Patrol agents from stopping Kern County residents without a reasonable suspicion of illegal presence, as required by the Fourth Amendment.
In the order, she cited evidence that the Border Patrol had violated its own policies by stopping people without reasonable suspicion, and she wrote that its public statements suggested that it would continue with its aggressive practices. She set out specific rules that the Border Patrol would have to follow for future stops.
The Department of Homeland Security has appealed Judge Thurston’s ruling.
In interviews with The New York Times last year, Mr. Bovino dismissed accusations that the Border Patrol was using racial profiling in its stops.
He also said that the Border Patrol had gone to Bakersfield because agency leaders believed that the area was a hub for smugglers. “It certainly opened our eyes to the need for interior enforcement, whether it’s attacking the smuggling networks going to and through Bakersfield or those illegal aliens that were already in Bakersfield,” he said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, was not named as a defendant in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit. ICE was not restricted by the injunction and has maintained a presence in the region.
Ambar Tovar, an immigration lawyer at the United Farm Workers Foundation in Bakersfield, said federal immigration enforcement in Kern County had shifted to ICE agents who target people showing up to court dates or supervisory check-ins.
“These are people who are in active proceedings,” Ms. Tovar said. “ICE knows who they are, where they live, and knows where to find them.”
The Department of Homeland Security said that the Border Patrol had not conducted operations in Kern County since Operation Return to Sender but that Homeland Security continued to enforce the law across the country.
In an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, President Trump said he had directed ICE to ease deportations in the agricultural industry. “They have great people working for them who have been working for them for 25 years,” he said. “They are almost like a member of the family, and I don’t want those people thrown out of the country.”
Still, long after the spectacle of the Border Patrol patrolling the streets has faded in Kern County, immigrant communities there remain shaken and on high alert. The county has two large ICE detention facilities, including one that opened last year, which have loomed large amid the crackdown.
Standing next to his rusty Chevy pickup in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Bakersfield earlier this month, Lazaro Ramirez, a day laborer, recalled the day a year ago when federal agents in green had showed up. Fellow day laborers fled into the street and into the store, he said.
Since then, jobs have become nearly impossible to find. “We never thought that this could happen,” said Mr. Ramirez, a Mexican citizen who has a green card. “This past year, honestly, we have not been well.”
Last week, on the anniversary of the Border Patrol raids in Kern County, Ms. Tovar and members of other immigrant advocacy groups gathered at the U.F.W. Foundation’s office in downtown Bakersfield to reflect on the past year. Some immigrants shared stories of detention and fear, including one woman who said her oldest son had been arrested at an ICE office in October and was still in detention at a facility in California City, in the eastern part of the county.
Leticia Perez, a member of the Kern County Board of Supervisors, said that the Border Patrol’s raids had been unexpected for many. “It was just very clear that Border Patrol was being very creative, very clever and very aggressive,” she said.
Ms. Perez said she had assumed the raids in Kern County would be a singular event. “Certainly in the beginning, I think I was in some denial, hoping that maybe this was to grab headlines and that we would get past it pretty quickly,” she said.
Then in June, Los Angeles became the target of large-scale immigration raids. Mr. Bovino, a Border Patrol chief, was named the commander of the Los Angeles raids, and he later led operations in Chicago, Charlotte and New Orleans. Most recently, Mr. Bovino has been leading the agency’s surge in Minnesota.
Some of those other operations have drawn complaints similar to those in Kern County, including lawsuits claiming that Border Patrol agents targeted people based on the color of their skin or whether they spoke English.
Ms. Cho, the A.C.L.U. lawyer, said that she had noticed the parallels. In several cases that have been filed against the federal government over immigration raids, she said, judges have ruled that the operations have violated the law.
But other cities have not been able to have injunctions put in place the way Kern County did.
“They’re moving faster than courts can,” Ms. Cho said of immigration agents. “So unfortunately, it’s really difficult to hold them accountable.”
Sarah Saldaña, who served as an ICE director during the Obama administration, said she had noticed stark differences between how immigration enforcement was handled while she was with the agency compared with the second Trump administration.
ICE operations, Ms. Saldaña said, have typically required advance preparation and have targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal histories.
The Trump administration is casting a wider net by bringing in the Border Patrol, which uses different tactics. “The agents and the officers, it seems to me from what I can see, are just hitting the streets, as opposed to the targeted operations we did, certainly, under the Obama administration,” Ms. Saldaña said.
On Dec. 31, Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, led a coalition of 17 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the Kern County case, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to keep the injunction in place. The filing describes a sense of fear among residents in the area. It cites examples of attendance drops at churches and reduced business at local stores.
“The unscrupulous tactics used by Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and his team of agents during raids in Kern County, Los Angeles, and across the nation threaten the basic civil liberties afforded to all who call this country home,” Mr. Bonta wrote in the filing.
As the presence of federal immigration agents in cities leads to clashes with protesters, Ms. Saldaña said she is worried about the future.
“This get-them-at-all-costs attitude,” she said, “is just going to continue to cause problems.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Inside Minnesota Hospitals, ICE Agents Unnerve Staff
As federal agents swarm the Twin Cities, their presence has also grown in medical centers. Health care workers are pushing back.
By Jazmine Ulloa, Jazmine Ulloa reported from Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 19, 2026
Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis on Sunday. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
The arrival of thousands of federal immigration agents has altered life in Minneapolis and St. Paul in ways large and small, including in the corridors of hospitals serving the Twin Cities.
The sheer presence of the agents, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in plainclothes, has been enough to unnerve health care workers, who were already straining under conditions some have compared with those of the coronavirus pandemic.
In interviews, nurses, doctors and other health care workers said the crisis conditions brought on by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown are wearing down overworked and understaffed medical institutions, and deteriorating patients’ trust in what are supposed to be safe havens.
“Any medical center or hospital is supposed to be a place of healing,” said Dr. Brian Muthyala, a physician at the hospital systems Hennepin Healthcare and M Health Fairview. “It is a place where people go when they are at their most vulnerable, when they are hurt or scared or in need of care, and any presence that disrupts that environment is harmful.”
Officials with the Homeland Security Department said that they do not conduct operations in hospitals. “We go in if there is an active danger to public safety,” said Tricia McLaughlin, an agency spokeswoman.
Health care workers, however, describe a different reality, saying agents have broken hospital protocol, refused to provide documentation and, in some cases, gotten into shouting matches with doctors and nurses.
Over his 20 years as an emergency medicine physician, Dr. Robert LeFevere said, he had encountered law enforcement officers coming in with shooting victims and other patients.
“But federal agents barging into patient care areas trying to question or detain patients — I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Dr. LeFevere, who works at Regions Hospital, a few blocks from the State Capitol in St. Paul.
Health officials for three of the state’s major health systems, which oversee medical centers and clinics where agents have been spotted, declined to comment on federal activity in their hospitals, but stressed that they do not help enforce immigration laws and that federal officers are expected to follow the law and medical facilities’ safety protocols.
Federal immigration officers, like all law enforcement agents, are allowed to enter hospitals, clinics and other medical institutions if they are accompanying a patient in their custody and cannot be restricted from accessing public areas. But hospital officials said they do not allow immigration officers into private spaces, such as patient rooms and care units, without judicial warrants and that security officers escort them and limit their searches to the terms of those warrants.
“To be clear: We do not allow ICE to circulate in our facilities,” said Aimée Jordan, a spokeswoman with Fairview Health Services and M Health Fairview, which oversees about 10 hospitals in Minnesota. “Our clinics and hospitals remain places where people can seek care without fear. Even in uncertain times — especially in uncertain times — that commitment does not change.”
Tensions have been building since December, when federal agents began fanning out across Minnesota. That unease has increased in recent days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Jonathan Ross, shot and killed Renee Good, 37, on Jan 7. The Trump administration has deployed more agents since.
Hospitals have no system in place to track how frequently federal immigration officers enter medical care facilities. But nurses, doctors and local elected officials confirmed that federal agents had increasingly been seen in at least four hospitals in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and surrounding suburbs.
One health official said that over the past week, agents had brought in about two dozen patients to M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital, which is the closest medical center to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, a multiagency facility that includes a holding area for immigrant detainees. Whipple, located near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, has become a key spot for clashes between protesters and federal agents.
Two nurses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care, described witnessing a confrontation between health care workers and federal agents last weekend that devolved into a screaming match in a hallway at Hennepin Healthcare System in Minneapolis.
A crowd of nurses and physicians, many in scrubs and medical gear, tried to stop the agents from shackling a severely injured man to his bedside, they said. Acquaintances in the patient’s neighborhood said they knew little about the man, except that he was a roofer and did not have family in the United States.
Hennepin County lawyers have filed a legal petition on behalf of the patient contesting his confinement by ICE, according to documents filed in a Federal District Court in Minnesota. Jeanette Boerner, the director of Adult Representation Services at Hennepin County, declined to comment on the specifics of the pending litigation.
D.H.S. officials and a lawyer representing the agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the episode or the man’s immigration case. Homeland security officials have until Tuesday to respond to the man’s legal petition.
The patient remains in the hospital, and agents have been rotating in and out of the facility as they keep watch at his side, according to three health care workers who asked not to be named because they did not have permission from their employer to speak on the issue.
About 10 miles to the east, in St. Paul, Dr. LeFevere said there had been at least two instances at Regions Hospital when federal agents entered the emergency department, once through the ambulance bay and another through a back entrance reserved for law enforcement.
In both cases, it appeared that the agents had been trailing people with whom they had interacted with on the streets, but the individuals were not in their custody, Dr. LeFevere said. The agents became argumentative when health care workers requested to see their warrants, but they eventually left the hospital, he said.
Dr. Loren Cobb, a psychiatry resident physician at the University of Minnesota and M Health Fairview, said she has been receiving texts and emails alerting health care workers that federal agents have been attempting to enter facilities on their grounds, including a children’s hospital. In at least one instance, the agents entered with someone in their custody, but in another, they were searching for a patient, she said. Staff and health teams have been reminded to follow proper hospital protocols, including not give away patient information.
“I am just worried it is going to escalate even more,” she said, adding that sometimes it is only herself and a handful of doctors on staff who are responsible for overseeing entire floors. “What happens if they inappropriately try to push forward? What comes next?”
For many doctors and nurses, federal immigration officers’ mission can, and often has, collided with their own ethical vows, they said. The Hippocratic oath, taken by doctors, and the Nightingale Pledge, by nurses, guide health care workers to provide patients with treatment and support, regardless of who they are, what they did or where they came from. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, establishes strict national standards to protect patients’ privacy and health information.
Jeffrey Lunde, who serves as a Hennepin County commissioner and chairman of the hospital board of the Hennepin Healthcare System, said there were recent instances at Hennepin Healthcare in which hospital staff had asked federal agents to produce documentation as to why they were present in a private area or in a patient’s private room. Agents were not able to provide it.
“And that is where things get murky and difficult,” he said.
Nurses, doctors and other health care professionals across the Twin Cities had prepared for precisely such situations as they watched immigration crackdowns unfold in other cities over the past six months.
Jamey Sharp, a health care worker who is also a community organizer with the nonprofit Unidos MN, said his organization had trained more than 300 health care workers since March on patient privacy and knowing their rights. The group, which advocates social justice, said it had also helped to connect health care workers through Signal chat groups in hopes of tracking the activity of federal agents inside their facilities and ensure that rules were being followed.
But the reality has gone beyond the scope of their training. Many said they have been shocked, both by the actions of agents inside their hospitals, as well as the injuries that have required treatment as a result of confrontations on the streets. Some health care workers are holding news conferences to denounce the tactics. Dozens flooded a Hennepin Healthcare board meeting this month demanding that local officials provide stronger oversight in their facilities.
Health officials say they are limited in how they can respond. Though hospital staff are obligated to protect the rights of their patients, federal officers can argue that the people they are monitoring or questioning inside hospitals are a danger to society. Who prevails in that back and forth has largely been untested in the courts.
The tension is unfolding at the same time that Homeland Security Department officials are also reviewing the citizenship and legal status of staff at some area hospitals and across the country.
Doctors and nurses say the presence and actions of immigration officials are already having an impact.
Aisha Gomez, a Democratic state lawmaker who represents parts of South Minneapolis, said she is worried about deleterious effect.
“I am deeply concerned about the chilling effect it is having on people seeking the care,” Ms. Gomez said.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) Top Catholic Clerics Denounce U.S. Foreign Policy
Citing recent events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland, three cardinals said their statement was inspired by Pope Leo.
By Ruth Graham, Jan. 19, 2026
Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, was one of the clerics who criticized U.S. foreign policy. Credit...Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times
The three highest-ranking Roman Catholic clerics who lead archdioceses in the United States said in a strongly worded statement on Monday that America’s “moral role in confronting evil around the world” is in question for the first time in decades. Their critique of the Trump administration’s principles — while not mentioning President Trump by name — escalates the American Catholic Church’s denunciations of the country’s top leaders.
In 2026, the country has entered “the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War,” read the unusual statement issued by Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington; and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark.
Citing recent events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland as having raised fundamental questions about the use of military force, the cardinals call for a “genuinely moral foreign policy” in which “military action must be seen only as a last resort in extreme situations, not a normal instrument of national policy.”
The cardinals did not delve into policy details, and declined to offer specifics about the countries mentioned in the statement. They specifically frame their statement as a message larger than partisan categories. But the context is clear. The president has threatened to take over Greenland “the hard way.” In Venezuela, the Trump administration has ordered U.S. troops to attack boats it says traffic in narcotics, and U.S. forces captured and extracted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife without authorization by Congress.
Pope Leo XIV has emphasized Venezuela’s “sovereignty” and has called for dialogue over violence. He has also repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, and said President Trump’s peace plan would bring a “huge change” in the alliance between Europe and the United States.
In interviews and in their statement, the American cardinals expressed concern about the rise of a global order based on force and domination rather than one based on peace and freedom.
“The post-World War II consensus of dialogue among nations, the sovereign rights of countries, the refusal to use war to pursue questions of national dominance and national gain — that consensus is shifting away now,” Cardinal McElroy said in an interview. He was appointed by Pope Francis to the influential role of archbishop of Washington just weeks before President Trump’s second inauguration in 2025.
The cardinals’ statement was inspired in part by conversations the three men had earlier this month in Rome, at a closed-door gathering to which Pope Leo had summoned all cardinals around the world.
In discussions there with fellow cardinals, the three Americans were struck by “a sense of alarm about the way things were going in the world, and some of the actions that were being taken here in the United States,” Cardinal Cupich said in an interview. Their colleagues’ distresses included the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, a decision that shut off streams of foreign assistance to the world’s poorest countries.
Soon after meeting with the cardinals, Pope Leo delivered an address to the diplomatic corps to the Vatican in early January, a speech that essentially serves as the pope’s annual foreign policy statement. In the address, the American-born pope condemned “a diplomacy based on force” and a “zeal for war” without mentioning any world leaders by name.
Leo succeeded Pope Francis in May, and is seen by many observers as more reserved than his freewheeling predecessor, but generally dedicated to similar priorities of solidarity with the weak and the oppressed. In his eight months leading the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo has frequently called for peace and dialogue in thorny international conflicts, and has rebuked political leaders for what he has described as unjust treatment of migrants, the poor and the exploited.
Leo has so far avoided direct confrontations with President Trump, but his approach to the turbulent political landscape of his home country has been closely watched here and abroad. In October, as Mr. Trump escalated his deportation campaign in Leo’s hometown, Chicago, the pope urged U.S. bishops to strongly support immigrants. He later encouraged Catholics and others to read a statement by America’s bishops rebuking the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.
The new statement by the three American cardinals is framed as an interpretation of Leo’s emerging vision for international relations as an “enduring ethical compass for establishing the pathway for American foreign policy in the coming years.”
“The sovereign rights of nations to self-determination appear all too fragile in a world of ever greater conflagrations,” the cardinals wrote. “The building of just and sustainable peace, so crucial to humanity’s well-being now and in the future, is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies.”
The statement also refers to abortion and euthanasia as impediments to the right to life, which it describes as the foundation of other human rights. And it criticizes cuts to foreign aid and “increasing violations of conscience and religious freedom in the name of an ideological or religious purity that crushes freedom itself.”
The three cardinals lead dioceses that together include almost four million Catholics, more than 550 parishes and hundreds of Catholic schools.
President Trump told The New York Times this month that his decisions as commander in chief are constrained only by his “own morality.”
“I don’t need international law,” he said. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”
Cardinal Tobin said in an interview that he had been struck by voices in the Trump administration who seemed to be advancing a moral framework that he described as “almost a Darwinian calculus that the powerful survive and the weak don’t deserve to.”
He added, “I would say that’s less than human.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) Donald Trump’s Middle Finger
By Frank Bruni, Jan. 19, 2026
Ben Wiseman
We define most presidents by their biggest moments: the agonizing judgment calls, the signature legislation, speeches that shape public sentiment, treaties that reshape the world.
But it’s the little gestures that tell the truth of President Trump, like the middle finger that he raised to a heckler during his tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich., last week.
That one flipped bird showed so many of Trump’s feathers.
For starters, it captured the consistent triumph of his pettiness and puerility over any bearing that fits the old definitions of “presidential.” Trump doesn’t even try for dignity. He has his tantrums in public, and his sycophants peddle those outbursts as authenticity or even boldness; in their telling, he has the confidence and honesty to eschew phony courtesies and be true to his emotions — no mask, no manners. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, responded to Trump’s Michigan meltdown by more or less praising it. He released a statement that said that a “lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
Unambiguous? For sure. Appropriate? Only if you believe in answering ugliness with more ugliness, bile with bile, and only if your conception of leadership is acting no better than anybody else but indulging your snits and staging your fits from a higher pedestal, with a louder megaphone. Only if you believe the antonym of — and antidote to — elitism is vulgarity. That’s what Trump and so many of his abettors seem to think. Or, rather, it’s how they rationalize behaving however they like.
The footage of what happened in Dearborn is crude, but apparently one of the men whom Trump passed while walking through the factory shouted “pedophile protector” at him. Trump reacted not only by gesturing obscenely but also by mouthing something at the man. You needn’t be much of a lip reader to make it out. It’s just two words. Two syllables. The first seems to begin with the letter F.
The F-bomb is Trump’s idea of muscular vocabulary. It’s part of the acronym that accompanied an image that the White House circulated after the recent capture of Nicolás Maduro. Trump, looking suspiciously young and slim, strides toward the camera; below his knees, it says, “FAFO.” If you’re unfamiliar with that threat, the first letter stands for a verb that rhymes with muck, the second is for “around,” and the final two are for “find out.” Add a missing “and” in the middle, and you have Trump’s message to the world — not a summons to freedom but a command to obey.
Trump’s middle finger is the exclamation point punctuating his inability to tolerate any dissent, receive any criticism, shrug off any insult. Coupled with that defensiveness is an insatiable need for affirmation and adulation. He complained so publicly and frequently about not being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize that its most recent recipient, María Corina Machado, presented him with hers during a visit to the White House on Thursday. There, there, Mr. President. Stop your sobbing. You can share mine!
Nobel officials saw that ridiculousness coming and felt compelled to speak up and clarify that Machado didn’t have the authority to pay the medal forward or split it in two. But that didn’t end Trump’s pouting, nor did it shame him into politely declining Machado’s munificence. He posed for a picture with her that commemorated her theatrical but meaningless transfer of the honor. How utterly mortifying. How quintessentially Trump.
I’ve read that he doesn’t actually type his splenetic social media posts, but if he did, it would clearly be with his middle finger only. He rants at and curses his opponents, even on the holidays. His 2023 Christmas musings included these tidings for the “SICK thugs” who accused him of wrongdoing: “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.” He channeled the same generous spirit last month. “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country,” he wrote. Grab some eggnog and a loved one. The president has holiday-season reflections for you.
Many of his predecessors at least performed a pantomime of concern for the Americans who hadn’t voted for them. Those presidents claimed to understand that they represented the whole of the country and owed everyone a measure of respect. They issued pleas for unity and spoke of common ground. Empty words, perhaps, but important nonetheless — they recognized an ideal.
Trump rejects it. “I hate my opponent,” he said in September at a memorial for Charlie Kirk. A month later, in response to the nationwide No Kings demonstrations, he posted an A.I.-generated video in which he wore a crown, piloted a fighter jet with the words “King Trump” emblazoned on it, flew over American cities and dumped rivers of feces on the protesters below. He’s a scatological spin on Marie Antoinette. Let them eat excrement.
And since the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, he has done nothing to acknowledge so many Americans’ horror over what happened, to persuade them that he’ll get to the truth of the matter, to calm the unrest. He has chided those critics for disobedience, cast them as enemies of the state and threatened to use ever more force to subdue them.
He can’t extend his right hand in fellowship. One of the fingers on it is otherwise occupied.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) Federal Agents Blind Two California Protesters Shot in Face With ‘Less-Lethal’ Munitions
By Roque Planas/Guardian UK, January 19, 2026
Kaden Rummler at his home in California. He said he cannot cough or sneeze ‘because it’s dangerous’. (photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP)
Two protesters have been blinded by so-called “less-lethal” munitions deployed by federal officers during an anti-ICE protest last week in Santa Ana, California, according to reports.
The blindings come amid rising scrutiny of federal authorities’ use-of-force policies, after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer set off nationwide protests.
Widely seen video recorded at the Santa Ana protest showed a homeland security agent shoot Kaden Rummler, 21, in the face with a less-lethal munition at a distance of only a few feet. Doctors found glass shards and plastic fragments in his skull and a fragment of metal lodged just shy of his carotid artery.
Video also showed the federal officer drag Rummler several yards across the pavement and into a federal building after shooting him. The shooting left him blind in his left eye.
“I can’t sneeze or cough because it’s dangerous,” Rummler told KTLA. “They pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye.”
“They said it was a miracle I survived,” he added.
Rummler is 5ft 1in tall and weighs 102lbs, he said.
A second person, 31-year-old Britain Rodriguez, described taking a similar close-range shot to the face with a less-lethal round at the same protest, saying it felt like his “eye exploded in my head”, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published on Friday.
The shooting appeared to take place at roughly the same time as the one that blinded Rummler.
Homeland security use-of-force policies describe “uses of impact weapons to strike the neck or head” as a form of “deadly force”.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment about the Santa Ana incidents.
But a DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, has described the protesters as a “a mob”, accusing them of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at federal officers. Local police and media reports, however, said protesters threw only traffic cones. There is no evidence of anything being thrown at officers in the video of Rummler being shot.
About 150 people gathered last week for a procession and vigil honoring Rene Good at which the shootings took place. The event culminated with a demonstration in front of a federal building used by ICE.
Orange county supervisor Vicente Sarmiento described the event as “very peaceful”. Attendees included local elected officials and “many parents with strollers”, he said.
A handful of homeland security officers stood at the top of the steps to the federal building during the protest. When protesters moved closer to them, the officers confronted them, according to Sarmiento. Videos of the shooting that blinded Rummler show him approaching the officers with a bullhorn after they grabbed another protester and dragged them up the stairs to detain them.
“I feel just outraged that some of our federal delegation and others are considering continuing to fund these federal agencies that have now gone rogue and are no longer protecting us, but are putting people in critical harm – killing people and maiming people,” Sarmiento said. “I’m just really, really distressed.”
Crowd control is not a typical function for homeland security. It is not clear why the federal officer chose to engage with protesters who were not the target of immigration enforcement and who appeared to be demonstrating on public property, outside the federal building.
Arizona State University criminologist Edward Maguire, who has studied crowd control, did not observe the Santa Ana protest, but said he had noted recent DHS actions elsewhere “appear inconsistent with basic principles of crowd management and de-escalation”.
“Decades of research show that when law enforcement responds to crowds and protests in this way, it tends to escalate tension and conflict and increases the risk of harm to both officers and civilians,” Maguire wrote in an email.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Trump Heckles Europe Before Heading to Davos
As European leaders try to engage with the American president over Greenland and the future of Ukraine, he is mocking them as weak.
By Michael D. Shear and Jeanna Smialek, Jan. 20, 2026
President Trump and his entourage will be in Europe this week. And they are showing their contempt.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, already hobnobbing with elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, had a sharp retort when reporters asked him about European leaders’ efforts to block Mr. Trump from seizing Greenland.
“I imagine they will form the dreaded European working group,” Mr. Bessent said, calling it their “most forceful weapon.”
It is no secret that the president and his aides view Europe as a weak, ineffectual collection of nations dominated by liberal leaders and tangled in bureaucracy. His administration’s official national security strategy, released last month, said Europe had lost its “civilizational self-confidence” amid a “failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”
But rarely has the mocking been so overt.
Early on Tuesday morning, as Europe’s leaders continued to wring their hands over the president’s latest threats to Greenland, Mr. Trump posted an apparently A.I.-generated meme that showed him hoisting an American flag while standing on the island.
“Greenland. U.S. Territory. Est. 2026,” the meme read.
Mr. Trump had not even arrived in Switzerland yet. But as he prepared to speak there on Wednesday, he continued to heap dismissive scorn on the leaders he was about to greet.
When reporters told Mr. Trump that President Emmanuel Macron of France was not going to join the American-led “Board of Peace” overseeing Gaza, Mr. Trump waved aside Mr. Macron’s opinions as irrelevant, saying he would be “out of office in a few months.”
“I’ll put a 200 percent tariff on his wines and Champagnes, and he’ll join, but he doesn’t have to join,” the president said, flexing the power of the American market and underscoring France’s vulnerability to his whims.
He also posted flattering messages from Mr. Macron and Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, on Truth Social — showing just how much European leaders are heaping praise on Mr. Trump in what appears to be an attempt to keep him engaged.
“I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work,” Mr. Rutte wrote in the message that Mr. Trump shared.
“Let us try to build great things,” Mr. Macron said, though he also noted: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.”
Mr. Trump also targeted Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, giving him his signature all-caps treatment as he complained that the United Kingdom had decided to give up sovereignty of Diego Garcia and the other Chagos Islands, while retaining control of a U.K.- and U.S.-operated military base there.
In 2024, the United Kingdom relinquished control of the islands, a remote archipelago it had held since the colonial era, to Mauritius. At the time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the deal, which came after years of negotiations, and after a court found that Britain had acted unlawfully by detaching the archipelago from Mauritius in 1965.
“Our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia,” the president wrote on his social media site, accusing Britain of doing so “FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.”
He added that international powers “only recognize STRENGTH” and that giving away the island was an “act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”
Mr. Trump’s heckling has troubled European leaders, many of whom are hoping to communicate with him on the sidelines of the Davos meetings. Leaders from across the 27-nation European Union will also gather in Brussels on Thursday evening to discuss how to respond to his latest threats on Greenland.
As the United States looks like a more and more volatile ally — and a hugely unpredictable one — European leaders are saying the continent must move away from its tight ties to America.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, said during a speech at Davos on Tuesday morning that the old way of doing things was over.
“Nostalgia will not bring back the old order,” she said, arguing against “playing for time — and hoping for things to revert soon.”
She added, “If this change is permanent, then Europe must change permanently too.”
But so far, Europe has mainly been trying to accommodate Mr. Trump and keep him at the table — worried that he’ll pull back needed American support from NATO or Ukraine — even as he mocks them as weak.
Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, called global leaders “pathetic” on Tuesday for failing to stand up to Mr. Trump, saying that Europeans needed to have a “backbone.”
“I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders,” he told reporters in Davos. “I mean, handing out crowns — I mean, this is pathetic — the Nobel Prizes that are being given away. It’s just pathetic.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) To Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers
Cubans had long benefited from legal privileges unavailable to immigrants from other countries. President Trump has changed that.
By Patricia Mazzei, Reporting from Miami, Published Jan. 19, 2026, Updated Jan. 20, 2026
Cubans had long benefited from legal privileges unavailable to immigrants from other countries. President Trump has changed that.
Heidy Sánchez took her 17-month-old daughter to a routine check-in last April with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa, Fla. During the appointment, federal authorities told her that she was being detained and that her husband should pick up their daughter, who was still breastfeeding.
Two days later, Ms. Sánchez, 44, who worked as a home health aide, was deported.
Ms. Sánchez’s story quickly spread across social media, in part because she is Cuban, a group that had long been treated differently than other immigrants, even when they entered the country illegally.
That has changed under President Trump.
He has repatriated more than 1,600 Cubans in 2025, according to the Cuban government. That is about double the number of Cubans who were repatriated in 2024. And in the years that Mr. Trump has been president, he has sent more Cubans back than his three predecessors.
Those numbers are greater for Cubans who were deported by land into Mexico. Some of them had been in the United States for decades and built families and businesses, but were removed because of an old criminal conviction — say, from Miami’s infamous cocaine cowboys days in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Nowhere has the shock of treating Cubans like other migrants been felt more than in Florida, which was shaped in modern times by exiles of the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
Families, businesses and communities that once felt removed from or immune to immigration enforcement now must face it head-on. Some Floridians worry that these deportations could stain the state’s proud Cuban identity, turning older immigrants against newer ones.
Under Mr. Trump, many other countries saw similar increases in repatriation. The difference is that Cubans had not previously been targeted as aggressively for removal. Regular deportation flights to Cuba began in January 2017, under President Barack Obama, paused during the coronavirus pandemic and restarted in 2023.
Many Cubans have also been detained for weeks or months in a facility in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” At another nearby detention facility, Cuban detainees protested last June by writing “SOS Cuba” on their shirts and spelling out “SOS” with their bodies in the recreation yard.
Legal immigration has also been all but cut out. Mr. Trump enacted a travel ban on 19 countries, including Cuba, and ended a family reunification program. U.S. officials are rejecting visa applications, which can take years to complete. Last month, the Trump administration paused all Cuban immigration cases, including pending naturalization, residency and asylum applications.
“It’s the most sweeping rollback of Cuban migration channels since the Cold War,” said María José Espinosa, the executive director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas, a nonprofit strategy organization based in Washington.
Polls suggest that most Cuban American registered voters, who tend to be Republican, continue to support Mr. Trump, said Michael J. Bustamante, an associate history professor and director of Cuban studies at the University of Miami who studies Cuban American political culture. But he said that he had noticed “a growing amount of unease” throughout the community.
As a senator, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Trump administration’s most prominent Cuban American, often criticized Cuban immigrants who received government benefits like food stamps and Medicaid, and frequently returned to the island. Over the summer, Mr. Rubio said in a video commemorating huge anti-Communist protests in 2021 that many Cubans had found it “easier” to “abandon” the island than stay and fight the regime.
Immigration enforcement in South Florida has not involved a mass federal operation, as in Los Angeles or Chicago, and previous administrations had made changes that started to erode Cubans’ immigration privileges. Still, Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration campaign has shaken some Cubans unused to feeling at risk in the United States.
“I am scared of everything,” said Javier González, a 36-year-old salesman in the heavily Cuban city of Hialeah, northwest of Miami.
Mr. González and his family crossed the United States-Mexico border in February 2022, fleeing what he described as a threat to his life in Cuba, where he was a political dissident.
Mr. González and his wife, like hundreds of thousands of recent Cubans migrants, were released under what is known as conditional parole. That does not allow them to apply for residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a law that Congress passed in 1966, and leaves them vulnerable to deportation.
But Mr. González and his wife legally obtained Social Security numbers, work permits and driver’s licenses. He applied for political asylum and has a pending court date in 2028. He found work as an HVAC technician. Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to deport criminals seemed sound to him.
Then early last year, ICE officers, during regular check-ins in South Florida, started detaining Cubans with conditional parole. Now, to avoid immigration sweeps, Mr. González said he avoided unnecessary car rides and local Hispanic supermarkets. He cannot fathom the repression he might face in Cuba were he to return as a former dissident.
“Sometimes I tell myself, ‘Why do you have to feel as if you were a criminal when you are an upstanding person?’” Mr. González said. But, he added, “They can grab you and do whatever they want.”
Some older Cuban American immigrants are angry over the turnabout in circumstances. Alicia Peláez, 78, arrived in the United States as an unaccompanied minor in 1960, under Operation Pedro Pan, a secret program run by the Catholic Church with help from the State Department that resettled some 14,000 young Cubans.
“We were welcomed into the country,” said Ms. Peláez, who is a registered Republican, but has not voted that way in recent elections. “Now, it’s the complete opposite.”
Ms. Sánchez, who was separated from her baby and husband, remains in Havana, with a pending visa interview that will determine whether she can apply for a waiver to return to Florida.
She came to the United States through the border, presented herself to request asylum, and waited in Mexico. But she missed a hearing because of safety reasons, which resulted in a deportation order and nine months of detention. In the end, she was released in the United States because Cuba at the time did not accept her repatriation.
Once in Florida, Ms. Sánchez studied and became a nursing assistant. She met and married her husband, an American citizen, who petitioned for her residency. She underwent fertility treatments and had their daughter. Three months before her deportation, they had bought a house.
After being returned to Cuba, Ms. Sánchez said she was so upset that she had to see a psychiatrist. Her daughter, in Tampa, was no longer her cheery self.
“She didn’t laugh anymore, which really worried us,” Ms. Sánchez said.
Her husband and daughter visited Ms. Sánchez over Christmas, which lifted their spirits, she said. But she did not know how she would handle more months of separation.
Her daughter, she said, “is our joy, our happiness, our life.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) Volunteers in Minnesota Deliver Groceries So Immigrants Can Hide at Home
Thousands of Minneapolis residents have joined a church-run effort to deliver donated groceries to immigrant families who fear being caught in public by federal agents.
By Orlando Mayorquín, Reporting from Minneapolis, Jan. 20, 2026
Sergio Amezcua, a pastor at Dios Habla Hoy in south Minneapolis, organized the effort by his church to help fearful immigrants remain at home. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Sergio Amezcua arrived at the house carrying two boxes filled with groceries, but the man inside was afraid to come to the door. A blue sedan parked outside seemed suspicious.
“Don’t come out,” Mr. Amezcua, speaking in Spanish, told the man by phone. “Let me check the car first.”
The car was empty, and Mr. Amezcua saw no signs of federal agents in the area. So the man appeared at the door, expressing gratitude for the food, and Mr. Amezcua, a pastor, prayed over him.
As thousands of federal agents have flooded streets in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to round up and deport undocumented immigrants, Mr. Amezcua, 46, has mobilized his church and organized free grocery deliveries to help people stay safely inside their homes.
An effort that started with a couple of hundred deliveries a week quickly swelled into a vast operation involving thousands of volunteers, who have signed up at the church to pack boxes with donated grocery items and make deliveries.
Mr. Amezcua said that, so far, the church had received almost 25,000 requests for grocery deliveries through an online request form. Since the program started, he said, there have been 14,000 deliveries.
Mr. Amezcua’s church, Dios Habla Hoy in south Minneapolis, offers services in English and Spanish to roughly 500 members. It organized a similar effort during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but that was smaller in scale.
“To us, as Latinos in Minnesota, this is worse than Covid,” he said of the enforcement surge. “This is a bigger pandemic.”
“Our community is traumatized,” he added. “People that are born here are traumatized.”
Falling snow and freezing temperatures on Friday afternoon seemed to do little to slow the busy scene in the church’s parking lot.
A steady stream of volunteer drivers rolled into the lot, where their cars were loaded with grocery boxes that had been stacked on shipping pallets. Other people arrived to drop off donations.
Inside the church lobby, dozens of volunteers filled cardboard boxes with chicken, milk, fruit, paper towels, potatoes, flowers and, in some cases, hygiene products. A human chain snaked out the church doors to move the boxes to the staging area in the parking lot.
More volunteers crammed into the church sanctuary, waiting in lines to sign up to make deliveries. Some had their children in tow.
Mr. Amezcua said that volunteers were vetted to make sure they had driver’s licenses and to try to prevent infiltration by federal agents. Once they are registered, volunteers are given an orientation on how to make deliveries and what to do if they encounter the authorities.
Germaine Grueneberg, a Minneapolis resident, was standing in line at the volunteer sign-up on Friday afternoon.
“I think the desperation is palpable right now, and we need to do something,” Ms. Grueneberg said. “I’m lucky enough to have the privilege of a comfortable home, being able to buy my own food and go out and feel somewhat safe, for the most part, and it’s about time that we support our neighbors.”
Molly Kenny, a recent retiree, started volunteering last month to make deliveries, and she eventually took on a bigger role helping Mr. Amezcua run the program.
“We’re literally building this as we go, and every day is a little bit different, so it really requires all of us to be super fluid and patient,” Ms. Kenny said.
Much of the food is packed off-site and supplied to the church by food bank organizations. Some of it is packed at the church.
The need is greater than the church can meet, Mr. Amezcua said, so he is focusing on expanding the effort and hopes to open up more food delivery hubs in other parts of the city. With no end to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in sight, he said, the organizers are preparing for a long haul.
The pastor’s cellphone has been buzzing relentlessly since the federal surge began. He gets texts and calls from his staff about people showing up at the church to donate money or help out — and, just as often, he said, from church members alerting him about close calls with ICE or seeking information about sightings.
When the pastor was out making deliveries on Friday, a church member called him for help getting his car registration renewed because he was afraid to go to the Department of Driver and Vehicle Services office to do it in person.
Mr. Amezcua, who immigrated to the United States from the state of Sinaloa in Mexico, described himself as a conservative and said that when he first heard that ICE was coming to Minneapolis, he was not concerned. Agents would target people with criminal records, he thought, and then they would be gone after a couple of weeks.
But the firsthand accounts he started hearing from community members about ICE’s aggressive tactics and its apparent targeting of nonwhite people changed his view, he said. Businesses, especially those serving or employing immigrants, have been decimated, he said.
“This is literally racism in the name of patriotism — and a conservative guy is telling you that,” he said. “I feel betrayed by Donald Trump.”
Trump administration officials have denied that agents target people based on their race.
Tensions have run high around the city, he said. Community observers patrol the streets and stand near businesses, keeping watch for any unmarked vehicle that might be carrying federal agents.
The pastor, who drives a lifted pickup truck with tinted windows, said he himself had been mistaken for a federal agent while on the road.
“This is where they showed me the finger,” he said, as he drove by a shopping center filled with Latino businesses on Friday. “They thought I was an ICE agent.”
So when he drove back to the church grounds and saw two women peering into his truck from a stopped car, he got out to reassure them that he was the church’s pastor.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) What to Know About Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza
Numerous countries say they have been invited to join President Trump’s newly minted organization, which critics say could undermine the United Nations.
By Aaron Boxerman and Isabel Kershner, Reporting from Jerusalem, Published Jan. 19, 2026, Updated Jan. 20, 2026
Gaza City in December. Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
When President Trump said he planned to establish and lead a “Board of Peace” to oversee the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, many did not know what to make of it.
On Friday, letters went out asking countries to join the newly minted body, among them U.S. allies like Canada, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia. But Russia and Belarus, hardly allies, were also on the list.
And a review of the body’s charter — which governments received alongside their invitations — suggested that Mr. Trump hoped the Board of Peace could get involved in all kinds of global conflicts, not just the one in the Gaza Strip.
Critics reacted furiously, saying the Trump administration appeared to be setting up the board as a potential American-dominated rival to the United Nations, which Mr. Trump has long accused of liberal bias and waste.
As chairman, Mr. Trump would have considerable influence over the Board of Peace. With countries being asked to pay more than $1 billion for permanent membership, its budget could be substantial, though it is unclear how much control Mr. Trump would have over how the money is spent.
The presence of Turkey and Qatar on one of the board’s subcommittees also prompted an immediate outcry from Israel, which has been at odds with the Turkish government, particularly over the war in Gaza.
Here’s what we know so far about the Board of Peace.
What is its mission?
Initially, the board appeared to be part of Mr. Trump’s vision for postwar Gaza.
His plan called the board a “new international transitional body” that would help supervise the rebuilding of the Palestinian enclave. The board’s members would include world leaders, with Mr. Trump sitting at the head of the table.
The United Nations Security Council later formally backed the board in a U.S.-drafted resolution in November, giving it the force of international legitimacy.
The resolution gave the board a mandate to work with governments to recruit international peacekeepers for Gaza. It was to carry out Mr. Trump’s plan in Gaza until the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority conducted reforms, the resolution said.
But after the United States circulated the board’s charter on Friday, it became clear that Mr. Trump envisioned a much bigger role for the body.
The proposed charter said the Board of Peace would “secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict,” not just Gaza, according to a copy shared with The New York Times. It also called for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body.”
Who’s been invited? Who will join?
The list of invitees includes Britain, Jordan, Russia and others. But so far, only a handful — like the pro-Trump Argentine president, Javier Milei, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary — have said they will join.
Despite overseeing Gaza, neither the Board of Peace nor a Gaza Executive Board underneath it has any Palestinian members as yet.
The board is, however, to oversee the work of a group of Palestinian technocrats charged with administering public services in Gaza. Analysts say they will face a formidable challenge, given that Gaza is still split between areas under Israeli and Hamas control.
Some countries appear skeptical. To acquire a permanent seat on the Board of Peace, each would have to pay more than a billion dollars in cash within the first year to fund the body’s operations. (Countries can join for three years free of charge.)
The charter would invest considerable personal power in Mr. Trump as chairman. It says that he will name members of a second “executive board” to carry out the board’s decisions, and that Mr. Trump would wield considerable veto power over its actions. He would also be able to name his own successor.
Mr. Trump would also be permitted to enact “resolutions or other directives” to carry out the board’s mission, and to “create, modify or dissolve subsidiary entities.”
France does not currently intend to join, as the board’s charter raises serious questions about respecting the role of the United Nations, a senior French official said. In response, Mr. Trump threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs on French wine and Champagne if President Emmanuel Macron declined his invitation.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has been invited to join the board as well, Mr. Trump said.
It remains unclear how many countries will pay the fee to become permanent members, as opposed to accepting the optional three-year term free.
How will the board work in Gaza?
It is not exactly clear how much oversight the Board of Peace will exert over Gaza and for how long. But two subcommittees reporting to Mr. Trump’s board have already been set up to carry out his Gaza peace plan.
Last week, the White House named a Gaza Executive Board that includes Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s envoy. The group also has Qatari and Egyptian officials as well as an Israeli businessman.
In a rare public break with Mr. Trump, Israel criticized the makeup of the committee, particularly the presence of Qatar and Turkey. Both countries helped mediate between Israel and Hamas to secure the Gaza cease-fire, but Israeli officials have accused them of being too close to Hamas.
Ségolène Le Stradic and Francesca Regalado contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
10) ‘This Is Trump’s Goon Squad, for Christ’s Sake’
By Thomas B. Edsall, Jan. 20, 2026
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.
Federal agents in camouflage arresting a protester in jeans, who is lying on the ground. Tyrone Siu/Reuters
In theory, Immigration and Customs Enforcement describes itself as “the Department of Homeland Security’s premier law enforcement agency, mitigating transnational threats and safeguarding our nation, communities, lawful immigration, trade, travel and financial systems.”
In practice, the Trump administration has turned legions of ICE agents into a violent and unaccountable domestic police force, empowered by claims of immunity to exercise force against American citizens and immigrants alike.
A 233-page court order issued Nov. 20 by Sara L. Ellis, a federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois, reveals the scope of duplicity, lying and open abuse of power by ICE and Homeland Security officials. She addressed civilian complaints that ICE violated constitutional rights during its pursuit of undocumented immigrants in Chicago, writing,
While defendants argue that they used less lethal force as a de-escalation technique to reduce the risk of harm to both agents and the public, plaintiffs have marshaled ample evidence that agents intended to cause protesters harm and that no legitimate governmental interest justified their actions.
In its efforts to triple the number of ICE agents in the field, the administration has adopted recruitment strategies that appear to be designed to appeal to white nationalists and supremacists, including the use of what amounts to an unofficial anthem of theirs, “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” in a recruitment ad.
According to numerous reports, the Department of Homeland Security has cut back on new employees’ training about abiding by constraints during potentially hazardous confrontations. In addition, the Trump administration, according to court documents, fails to enforce those rules and regulations in places such as Minneapolis.
Instead, the department has shown employees a video of Stephen Miller declaring:
To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. Anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.
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. The Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.
On Jan. 8, Vice President JD Vance took the message a step further, opening the door even wider for ICE agents engaged in violent confrontations, declaring in the wake of the shooting death of Renee Good the day before:
The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That’s a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity.
For his part, President Trump’s initial reaction to the escalation of violence in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the Good’s has been to say that he may invoke the Insurrection Act and send in military forces to enforce the law.
In an email, Deborah Fleischaker, a former assistant director for regulatory affairs and policy and later acting chief of staff at ICE during the Biden administration, disputed the scope of Miller’s and Vance’s claims:
ICE agents have qualified immunity, not absolute immunity. Qualified immunity already provides ICE agents with significant protection against legal action, and the concept of absolute immunity seems to me to be unconstitutional and un-American.
The claim that ICE agents have absolute immunity sends a message, however, that the administration will defend law enforcement actions, regardless of what they might be. Law enforcement agents see that message, which could embolden agents to become more aggressive as a result.
In an article on Jan. 14, “The Trump Administration Can’t Stop Winking at White Nationalists,” Eric Levitz, a senior correspondent at Vox, captured the administration’s explicit appeal to members of the radical right.
“The administration,” he wrote,
opted to associate its immigration agenda with a Nazi slogan: Adolf Hitler’s regime famously advertised its rule with the tagline “One people, one realm, one leader.” Three days after Renee Good’s killing, Trump’s Department of Labor tweeted, “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.”
Under Trump, Levitz went on to say,
the official accounts of federal agencies have repeatedly referenced white nationalist memes and works.
On Jan. 9, the Department of Homeland Security posted, “We’ll have our home again,” a lyric from an anthem adopted by the neofascist group the Proud Boys and other white nationalist organizations. This was accompanied by a link where one could sign up to join ICE.
Last August, D.H.S. shared an ICE recruitment poster beneath the phrase “Which way, American man?” — an apparent reference to the white supremacist tract, “Which Way, Western Man?” which argues that “race consciousness, and discrimination on the basis of race, are absolutely essential to any race’s survival. … That is why the Jews are so fiercely for it for themselves … and fiercely against it for us, because we are their intended victim.”
In October, the U.S. Border Patrol posted a video on its Facebook page of agents loading guns and driving through the desert, as a 13-second clip of Michael Jackson’s song “They Don’t Care About Us" plays — specifically, the lines “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me, kick me, k*ke me.”
Just as the administration is turning ICE into a welcoming home for right-wing extremists, it has eroded the barriers to violence by weakening enforcement of rules and reducing training.
In a recent interview with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker, Fleischaker described these trends. “As somebody who has watched ICE for many, many years,” she told him, “what they’re doing now is unprecedented.” She continued:
And, to the extent that I thought cooperation was important — very important, previously — ICE now doesn’t seem to be following the typical rules of engagement.
And I personally would be less inclined to cooperate in some of these ways that I think are really fundamentally important simply because of the ICE overreach.
Fleischaker noted:
There were always people within ICE who thought that they were being unfairly constrained. And I think that the Trump administration has empowered that line of thinking, and those people, and taken off the shackles.
And so ICE is feeling unconstrained in the way that it conducts enforcement. There are certainly people there now — not new recruits, people who’ve been there for years — who are thrilled with the direction that ICE has been moving in.
How has training changed?
Obviously, just the very idea that they’ve chosen to make the basic training for ICE recruits 47 days because Trump is the 47th president tells you how seriously they take it.
They are just looking to make training easier and faster as the number of agents continues to grow. And I think that that’s a very scary outcome.
What did Fleischaker say scared her?
We’re seeing unconstrained immigration enforcement, and I think that that has a lot of bad outcomes. And I think that it is, to be honest, not in support of public safety. Law-enforcement officers are supposed to be public-safety officers. This, to me, feels like it is not only not supporting public safety but it is reducing public safety in the sort of unconstrained, aggressive, nontargeted mechanism that they’re using to conduct immigration enforcement.
A Washington Post article on Dec. 31, “ICE Plans $100 Million ‘Wartime Recruitment’ Push Targeting Gun Shows, Military Fans for Hires,” showed how the Department of Homeland Security is seeking out those who want to subjugate and subordinate.
Drew Harwell and Joyce Sohyun Lee, reporters for The Post, wrote that the administration is using “ads targeting people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.”
The department uses social media to appeal to prospective ICE agents, they wrote, “with calls for recruits willing to perform their ‘sacred duty’ and ‘defend the homeland’ by repelling ‘foreign invaders.’”
The ICE hiring website, Harwell and Lee wrote, “portrays immigration as an existential threat. ‘America has been invaded by criminals and predators,’ reads the website, which includes an image of Uncle Sam. ‘We need you to get them out. You do not need an undergraduate degree.’”
ICE abuses have revealed the crucial importance of alternative media — including Vox, Axios, Noah Smith’s Substack and 404 Media — in describing in great detail the accumulating body of evidence pointing to a federal agency run amok.
On Dec. 8, for example, an Axios reporter, Monica Eng, listed 12 of ”the biggest disputed allegations by D.H.S. officials and the evidence or court actions that overturned them.”
Here is one:
Both D.H.S. officials and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino publicly stated, and he repeated under oath, that he threw tear gas at a crowd in Little Village after he was hit or almost hit with a rock. Video evidence directly contradicted it.
During his three-day deposition, Bovino admitted he was not hit until after deploying tear gas, then that same day presented a new justification — that a rock “almost hit” him before he gassed the crowd.
On the final day, Bovino admitted he had been “mistaken” and confirmed no rock hit him until after he launched the first canister.
And here is another:
Border Patrol agent Charles Exum claimed that Miramar Martinez rammed her car into his vehicle on Oct. 4, after which he shot her five times. Court documents show Exum later bragged about the shots and drove the car to Maine.
By Nov. 20, U.S. States Attorney Andrew Boutros’s office dropped felony assault charges against Martinez, whose lawyer said she was the one who was rammed and the victim of unjustified force.
Not to be outdone, on Jan. 10, Smith described the “consistent record of brutality, aggression, dubious legality and unprofessionalism in Trump’s second term”:
Here’s a video of ICE agents in Arkansas beating up an unarmed U.S. citizen. Here’s a video of ICE agents arresting two U.S. citizens in a Target. Here’s a story about a similar arrest. Here’s a video of an ICE agent brandishing a gun in the face of a protester. Here’s the story of ICE agents arresting a pastor who complained about an arrest he saw. Here’s a video of ICE agents arresting an American citizen and punching him repeatedly. Here’s a video of ICE agents threatening a bystander who complained about their reckless driving. Here’s a video of ICE agents arresting a man for yelling at them from his own front porch. Here’s a video of ICE agents making a particularly brutal arrest while pointing their weapons at unarmed civilians nearby. Here’s a story about another ICE killing, this one in Maryland, under dubious circumstances. Here’s a video of ICE agents savagely beating and arresting a legal immigrant. Here’s a video of ICE agents storming a private home without a warrant. Here’s a video of ICE agents pulling a disabled woman out of a car when she’s just trying to get to the doctor.
It may seem tangential, but any reasonable review of this increasing hostility between federal agents and the public should take into account the possibility of anabolic steroid use (or abuse). Legal and illegal steroid use has become increasingly common among law enforcement officials, although testing and punitive actions are very rare, despite the threat of excessive force and violence by government officials.
The Drug Enforcement Administration describes anabolic steroids as “synthetically produced variants of the naturally occurring male hormone testosterone that are used in an attempt to promote muscle growth, enhance athletic or other physical performance and improve physical appearance.”
In some individuals, according to the agency, “anabolic steroid use can cause dramatic mood swings, increased feelings of hostility, impaired judgment and increased levels of aggression (often referred to as ‘roid rage’).”
John Hoberman, a historian at the University of Texas, Austin, and the author of “Dopers in Uniform: The Hidden World of Police on Steroids,” described the effects of steroid abuse on police behavior:
These drugs can produce emotional instability in armed men who are in a position to act out their drug-fueled anger, irritation and aggressive urges on civilians. Anabolic steroids appeal to men who join police forces in order to achieve dominance over others.
I asked Hoberman during a phone interview how widespread the use of anabolic steroids is in law enforcement. He replied:
My impression from having covered this since 2005 is that it’s very widespread. There are 1,800 departments in this country, and to the best of my knowledge, not one tests. The unions are going to cry bloody murder, because it’s a privacy invasion. The police chiefs do not want to catch somebody.
Would his estimate of widespread usage apply to ICE?
Hoberman said, “This is Trump’s goon squad, for Christ’s sake.”
There are no scientific measures of steroid use in law enforcement, although there is extensive anecdotal evidence.
A 2010 series by Amy Brittain and Mark Mueller in The Star-Ledger found, for example, that hundreds of police and emergency responders had acquired illicit steroid prescriptions from one New Jersey doctor, Joseph Colao:
In just over a year, records show, at least 248 officers and firefighters from 53 agencies used Colao’s fraudulent practice to obtain muscle-building drugs, some of which have been linked to increased aggression, confusion and reckless behavior.
Six of those patients — four police officers and two corrections officers — were named in lawsuits alleging excessive force or civil rights violations around the time they received drugs from him or shortly afterward.
Others have been arrested, fired or suspended for off-duty infractions that include allegations of assault, domestic abuse, harassment and drug possession. One patient was left nearly paralyzed after suffering a stroke his doctor attributed to growth hormone prescribed by Colao.
The reporters also found that employees paid for the prescriptions through their government health care programs and that police magazines carried ads for steroids.
In 2007, Susan Donaldson James, then a reporter for ABC, wrote:
From Boston to Arizona, police departments are investigating a growing number of incidents involving uniformed police officers using steroids. So-called juicing has been anecdotally associated with several brutality cases, including the 1997 sodomizing of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in New York City.
Jones quoted Gene Sanders, a police psychologist in Spokane, Wash., who estimated that “up to 25 percent of all police officers in urban settings with gangs and high crime use steroids — many of them defensively. ‘How do I deal with people who are in better shape than me and want to kill me?’ said Sanders, who worked as a street cop in Los Angeles in the 1970s and saw steroid use soar in the 1990s.”
Let me turn back to Ellis’s order in the civilian complaint case that I mentioned at the outset. In challenging the interpretations of events by the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, she wrote:
Repeatedly shooting pepper balls or pepper spray at clergy members shocks the conscience.
Tear gassing expectant mothers, children and babies shocks the conscience.
Shooting a pepper ball at a protester from about five feet away shocks the conscience.
Pointing a gun at someone for exercising their First Amendment rights shocks the conscience.
Videotaping while driving into concerned neighbors standing in the street shocks the conscience, particularly when the agent later explains it just happened despite “driving slowly.”
Tackling someone dressed in a duck costume to the ground and leaving him with a traumatic brain injury, and then refusing to provide any explanation for the action, shocks the conscience.
”Turning to Bovino,” Ellis went on, “the court specifically finds his testimony not credible”:
Bovino appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing “cute” responses to plaintiffs’ counsel’s questions or outright lying.
When shown a video of agents hitting Rev. Black with pepper balls, Bovino denied seeing a projectile hit Rev. Black in the head. In another video shown to Bovino, he obviously tackles Scott Blackburn, one of plaintiffs’ declarants. But instead of admitting to using force against Blackburn, Bovino denied it and instead stated that force was used against him.
Ellis’s conclusion?
Overall, after reviewing all the evidence, the court finds that defendants’ widespread misrepresentations call into question everything that defendants say they are doing in their characterization of what is happening at the Broadview facility or out in the streets of the Chicagoland area during law enforcement activities.
This is not happening just in Chicago. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Kate M. Menendez issued a ruling similar to Ellis’s, in another case concerning citizen complaints against ICE, charging abusive behavior in Minnesota.
“Plaintiffs have established an ongoing, persistent pattern of defendants’ chilling conduct,” Menendez wrote, noting that “that conduct includes the drawing and pointing of weapons, the use of pepper spray and other nonlethal munitions, actual and threatened arrest and detainment of protesters and observers and other intimidation tactics.” On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it would appeal Menendez’s ruling.
In the meantime, will the judge’s injunction requiring ICE to end unconstitutional treatment of protesters prove effective?
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, called the ruling a “dishonest, left-wing narrative.” She added, “Here’s the truth: Federal agents have acted lawfully to protect themselves and ensure the integrity of their operations when individuals attempt to intervene.”
In other words, ICE can do no wrong.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
