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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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 Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the 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
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) Politicians Are Calling the Protests in Minnesota an Insurgency
The term, used to describe war, poses dangers when applied to American political unrest.
By Greg Jaffe and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Jan. 31, 2026
Protesters demonstrating against ICE agents in Minneapolis on Friday. Republicans and Trump administration officials have described slain protesters as insurgents or “domestic terrorists.” Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
The day after federal immigration agents killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a U.S. Senate candidate in Maine spoke with his supporters about resisting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Graham Platner, a Democrat and Marine combat veteran, urged them to join “watch groups,” “rapid response teams” and “intelligence collection networks” to alert citizens and potential targets to the presence of federal immigration agents in their communities.
“Don’t just join a Signal thread and monitor it,” Mr. Platner told the audience in the coastal town of Kittery, referring to the encrypted texting app. “You’ve got to get in a room with people. You’ve got to develop relationships and trust.”
Mr. Platner was talking about a form of nonviolent resistance that employs methods common in war zones like Syria and Ukraine, where civilians built text chains to track and seek shelter from enemy attack drones and fighter jets.
Increasingly, though, Republicans have described the measures he was highlighting as something else: an American insurgency.
“The issue is always revolution, right? That’s what these people want,” Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona and a former Navy SEAL, told the right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday. “They want to fundamentally remake and tear down the institutions and the culture of this country.”
To Mr. Crane, the resistance in Minneapolis and elsewhere added up to “communist insurrection,” and he argued that President Trump should use the U.S. military to reimpose order.
On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson, the right-wing commentator, struck a similar tone. “What you’re watching are the beginnings of a color revolution, of a kind of insurrection against federal authority,” he said, referring to the protests in Minneapolis.
Such language, reminiscent of overseas battlefields in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, has become a growing staple of American politics, especially among Republicans and Trump administration officials, who have described slain protesters as insurgents or “domestic terrorists.”
A danger, experts on such wars said, is that the martial rhetoric antagonizes protesters, cuts off the possibilities for civil debate and lowers the bar for violence on both sides.
“When you start using the language of warfare and treating someone that has an opposing view as a terrorist or as an insurgent, that legitimizes the use of violence against them,” said Seth G. Jones, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who advised U.S. military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such terms, Mr. Jones added, grossly distorted the situation. The protesters in places like Minneapolis and Maine are standing watch in the cold, sending out alerts on text chats and blowing whistles when they see Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Insurgents use violence to overthrow a government and replace it.
“We’re nowhere near any of that,” Mr. Jones said.
Mr. Platner pointed to the government’s heavy-handed approach, captured in videos showing older women “getting thrown to the ground” by ICE agents for recording videos or protesting. Such brutality, he said in an interview with The New York Times, could easily be described as “using the language of militarism.”
“It’s literally what federal agencies are doing in our communities,” he said.
The parallels to war zones extend beyond rhetoric and are reflected in the federal immigration officers’ appearance and aggressive posture on patrols. ICE agents frequently deploy clad in helmets, camouflage and tactical gear that call to mind U.S. soldiers fighting in overseas wars. Many wear masks, which immigration officials say are needed to protect them and their families from retribution.
To Emma Sky, who spent years in Iraq advising U.S. military commanders, the masks evoke the state-sponsored sectarian militias that were often sent out by Iraqi strongmen to terrorize civilians. “It is in dictatorships and authoritarian systems that opposition movements are routinely described as terrorists or insurgents, which signals that violence is the appropriate response,” said Ms. Sky, a lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs.
Those who label protesters as insurgents or domestic terrorists and suggest that they must be put down using force or arrest ignore the fact that most insurgencies are resolved through negotiation.
“My challenge to those on the right who have chosen to label what’s happening as an insurgency would be to ask how insurgencies often end, which is usually some of kind of political compromise,” said Andrew Exum, a former Army officer and senior Pentagon official.
Earlier this week, Mr. Trump said he wanted to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis. He has not specified what tactics federal immigration agents might change after the fatal shootings of Mr. Pretti and another protester, Renee Good. But he replaced Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official whose harsh tactics drew the ire of state and local officials, with Tom Homan, the White House border czar.
By Friday, Mr. Trump was back to calling Mr. Pretti an “agitator” and possibly an “insurrectionist,” using the inflammatory language that characterized his administration’s initial response to the protests.
In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz also turned to the language of war and insurgency to describe the events in his state. “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?” Mr. Walz mused this week to The Atlantic, referring to the opening shots of the Civil War.
“It’s a physical assault,” he said. “It’s an armed force that’s assaulting, that’s killing my constituents, my citizens.”
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2) A Minnesota School District Guards Against ICE, From Dawn to Dusk
In Fridley, a Minneapolis suburb, school officials are driving nervous teachers and buying families groceries. At dismissal, the superintendent patrols for federal agents.
By Sarah Mervosh, Photographs and Video by Jamie Kelter Davis, Jan. 31, 2026
Sarah Mervosh, an education reporter, and Jamie Kelter Davis, a photographer, embedded in the Fridley school district on Wednesday.
A child walks home from school in Fridley, Minn.
In the predawn darkness, the teacher slips out of her apartment, into the idling car of a colleague waiting in her driveway.
Normally, the teacher, who moved from the Philippines a year and a half ago and does not yet have her own car, would Uber to work, where she spends her days working with disabled children who are nonverbal. It is one of the hardest jobs in education and one of the hardest to fill, which is why her Minnesota school district sponsored her to come teach on a visa.
But ever since immigration raids began sweeping the Twin Cities, and especially since Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot dead, she has been fearful.
She is here legally. But if American citizens are not safe, she wonders, what might happen to her?
Now, a district official escorts her to work each morning. They pull out of the driveway shortly before 7 a.m., the start of another tense school day in Fridley, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb of big-box stores, apartment complexes and modest, snow-covered homes. Twenty-seven other anxious school employees are also being escorted in vans and car pools, the new morning ritual.
In the school district next door, more than two dozen parents and four students have been detained by federal agents, including a 5-year-old boy on his way home from school who was detained with his father.
From sunup to sundown, Fridley school officials are on high alert, worried federal agents might show up on their doorstep next.
Across the district, several hundred children are learning online because they are scared to go to school. Administrators are packing up groceries for families and trying to help with rent for parents who are afraid to work.
It all feels eerily similar to the pandemic, school leaders said. To their frustration they said, this time, the crisis is man-made.
“You have taken away the basic human right of children to be at school,” said Brenda Lewis, the Fridley superintendent. Her district is home to about 2,700 students, including significant Somali and Ecuadorean populations. Nearly 20 percent of students in the district are still learning English.
Though many families are legal immigrants, or U.S. citizens, fears about racial profiling and encounters with federal agents have grown.
As part of its crackdown on illegal immigration, the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era guidance that limited enforcement in or near “sensitive” locations, such as schools, churches and hospitals. Schools officials in the Twin Cities say federal agents have appeared at bus stops, and showed up at people’s homes at times when they are coming and going from school.
Trump administration officials say federal agents do not target or raid schools, and are focused on arresting violent criminals.
“Our ICE law enforcement officers are making arrests of child pedophiles and predators to protect the children of Minneapolis,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
In Fridley, though, fears of ICE are everywhere. Children come to school reporting raids in their neighborhoods and agents at their windows.
The adults at school see it as their job to shelter families in their care, to keep the daily act of going to school, at least, safe. Amid it all, they are also trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, even joy.
At Fridley Middle School, students stroll in, cups of Cocoa Puffs and cans of Pepsi in their hands.
The principal, Jordan Halverson, greets them at the door. “Morning, Antonio.” “A.J., how was practice?” He prods them along. Three minutes until first period.
A former running back and linebacker at Fridley High, Mr. Halverson, 34, is the middle school’s brand-new principal. He knew his first year would come with challenges. He never expected this.
Halfway through the school year, federal agents arrived, leading to tense protests across the region. His voice mail filled with more than 100 messages from parents. He remembers listening to several in Spanish. He could understand only snippets, but he understood enough. “You can hear the fear," he said.
Some parents said they would be keeping their children home. Others asked him directly: What will you do to protect us?
“It’s a helpless feeling,” he said. “As a leader, you try to be there, to be the rock, to have all the answers. But you don’t.”
The helplessness continues at home, where his 7-year-old daughter is asking questions about her classmates who haven’t come to school lately. They looked at a class picture together, and she pointed to the faces of those missing.
Mr. Halverson, who is Black, Vietnamese and white, has few answers for her. In his car, he is carrying his U.S. passport, in case he himself gets pulled over.
By late morning, school officials are out in the cold, loading 50 grocery bags into cars to give away to families. Boxes of macaroni and cheese. Crackers. Applesauce.
About 40 families are expected to pick up food, along with Chromebooks for their children who are learning online. The district officials stage their giveaway near the high school gym, where the sneaker squeaks and whoops of students playing lacrosse during gym class echo.
A few days earlier, the gym had been the site of a sit-in, organized by several students, including the superintendent’s two children, who said they needed to do something, anything, to speak out.
They described worries about friends who had stopped coming to school, and for themselves, in case they are profiled because of the color of their skin.
Yasin, a 10th grader whose parents are from Somalia, said his mother had warned him to be careful and carry extra documents, though he is a U.S. citizen. He says children shouldn’t have to do that just to go outside or go to school.
In the parking lot, parents are pulling up one by one. The first car is a mother picking up a computer for her kindergartner.
“Hello!” says Danielle Thompson, a district official who has been doing weekly grocery shopping. “Do you need food or supplies?”
A little girl in a pink hat waves from the back seat.
2 p.m.
Dismissal time at a Fridley elementary school.
Toward the end of the school day, Dr. Lewis, the superintendent, is in a Chrysler Pacifica minivan, circling the neighborhood.
She sees dismissal as a vulnerable time of day, when parents line up their cars outside school doors and buses drop off children to walk home.
In the driver’s seat is Mark Mickelson, a former police officer now in charge of district security. For the past several weeks, they have spent each afternoon patrolling, looking for federal agents near schools and bus stops.
Across Minneapolis, these kind of patrols, from citizen observers, have at times led to escalating confrontations with federal agents, who Trump officials say are there to do a job.
“Those blaming ICE for low attendance at schools are creating a climate of fear and smearing law enforcement,” said Ms. McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, adding that inflammatory rhetoric had led to an increase in assaults against ICE officers.
Dr. Lewis says she needs to be out monitoring the streets, in part to tamp down rumors and reassure community members, who regularly call in potential ICE sightings.
At 2:11 p.m., one of those calls comes in. It turns out to be a false alarm.
At 2:38 p.m., there is another call. An S.U.V. with out-of-town license plates, spotted nearby.
Mr. Mickelson swears and turns the steering wheel. Quickly, both he and Dr. Lewis start receiving phone calls from school officials keeping watch in the neighborhood.
“We are looking for a Texas plate,” says Dr. Lewis. “A Chevy Suburban, silver.”
They find the vehicle parked at Commons Park, a public park next to several schools. They pull up and peer inside. The driver is wearing a hat and appears to have on a tactical vest. Another man sits in the back seat, his face partially obscured by a mask. The license plate matches one in a community database tracking ICE vehicles.
Dr. Lewis types a text to her principals: “Hi team, we have a confirmed ICE at Commons. Please make sure we have all eyes on dismissal.”
Mr. Mickelson drives around the block and circles back. The S.U.V. is pulling away. As they cross paths, the man in the back seat rolls down his window and waves.
Whatever his intent, it leaves the school officials shaken.
“It’s games,” Mr. Mickelson says. “They know exactly what this vehicle is and what we are doing, and they are just letting us know.”
Dr. Lewis worries the agents could be looking for a family in her district. She wonders whether a news conference she did the day before, denouncing ICE and its impact on schools, could have attracted them.
At one point, Mr. Mickelson thinks he has spotted them again. He speeds down a suburban road. But they are gone.
6 p.m.
School officials said attendance was lower than usual at a boys’ varsity basketball game this week.
It’s rivalry night at the boys’ varsity basketball game: Fridley vs. Columbia Heights, a neighboring district.
Normally it would be standing room only. But tonight, attendance is down. Several Columbia Heights students have been detained, including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose detention while he was wearing a Spider-Man backpack on his way home from school, along with his father, has drawn national attention.
Squinting into the stands, Tanya Moore, a Columbia Heights district employee and one of the few people in “Heights” sweatshirts, counts just six students from her district, aside from basketball players.
One Fridley 11th grader, who has been learning online, is there to work the concession stand with her friends. She feels safe, she says, because there are lots of people around. Police officers and school officials are at the entrance. It is scarier, she says, on a quiet school morning, when agents could be anywhere.
For now, though, it’s almost like any other high school night: back in their teenage bubble of TikTok dances and makeup checks in the girls’ bathroom, their biggest worries over who will win a basketball game.
It’s close, down to the end. But Fridley pulls away in the final seconds, 75-73.
The scoreboard switches off and the crowd scatters from the gym, out into the night.
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3) Minneapolis Residents Wear Their Passports, Desperate to Ward Off ICE
ICE agents can stop anyone they suspect of being undocumented. Now, residents are weighing their rights and their pride against their own safety.
By Talya Minsberg, Reporting from St. Paul and Minneapolis, Jan. 31, 2026
María Pabón Gautier’s children wear their identities around their necks. Liam James Doyle for The New York Times
María Pabón Gautier has a new routine when she sends her 8- and 15-year-olds off to school in their Minneapolis suburb. Before they run out the door, she slips lanyards around their necks. The lanyards hold their American passports.
“I don’t like it,” her youngest said. “I really don’t like it.”
In the past two months, federal immigration agents have arrested thousands in the Twin Cities, detaining citizens, asylum-seekers, refugees and the undocumented. They have killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And they have stopped people seemingly at random, asking for identification or simply demanding: “Where were you born?”
Now, many people here are asking a question that is a novel one in America: Is it safe to leave home without proof of citizenship? Has the United States turned into a show-me-your-papers nation?
For many Minnesotans, the answer has been an unequivocal yes.
“We need to be ready before they point a gun to us,” said Joua Tsu Thao, a citizen, retired mental health practitioner and pastor who fought with U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. The 75-year-old now tapes his passport and drivers license to the outside of his clothing.
On Sunday Jan. 18, the Hmong community watched in horror as ChongLy Scott Thao, a naturalized citizen, was dragged from his home in freezing temperatures, wearing only underwear and sandals. He was released hours later, without explanation or apology.
The state is home to one of the country’s largest Hmong populations, and the Thao family was the 27th to arrive, Mr. Thao’s daughter, Kaying Thao, said. That pride has dissipated.
Ms. Thao, who is also a citizen, has canceled two trips out of the country out of fear that officials will seize her passport. She rarely leaves her Twin Cities home, and if she does, she tries to travel with white friends, or her children, “who look more racially ambiguous.”
“This is our real life now,” Ms. Thao said, her voice breaking.
Residents of the United States who are not citizens can be asked to produce immigration documents. In a September 2025 case, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh also gave ICE increased discretion to detain anyone based on factors that include race and ethnicity. He wrote that people wrongly detained “may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens.”
Those actions, which opponents call “Kavanaugh stops,” have become ubiquitous.
“I never used to worry about, like, ‘Am I American enough?’” said Zaynab Mohamed, a state senator who carries her passport all the time now. “The past three or four weeks have shown people that your place in this country isn’t assumed, that your belonging is conditional and can be questioned at any point based on your name, your accent, how you dress.”
Even the mayor of St. Paul, Kaohly Her, carries her passport at all times.
The question of whether to carry one’s papers has taken an emotional toll, said Pauleen Le, a communication director who lives in Minneapolis.
“What’s worse, you get stopped, you exercise your rights, and you risk forcibly being taken away?” she asked herself. “Or you just give in?”
Still, for weeks, she refused to carry her passport. It felt like a capitulation: She was born in Minnesota. What did she need to prove?
On Jan. 18, she was going to a ceremony at a Buddhist temple. Could it be a target for ICE, she wondered?
“That morning, the answer was yes,” she said. “I took out my passport and I put it in my purse. And I still get emotional about it.”
Ms. Gautier was raised in Puerto Rico, whose native residents are U.S. citizens, and has lived in Minnesota for 22 years. Soon after President Trump began making disparaging comments about Somali immigrants in Minnesota, she realized her family would “need to figure out how we move differently,” she said.
“I’m trying to create a balance between showing them the reality, what’s happening right now, and not making them feel like an outsider in their own home,” Ms. Gautier said.
Her children — she asked that they remain nameless, for their own safety — came home from school on Wednesday and removed their passports from their necks. The lanyard was heavier than expected, both said; the 15-year-old made it clear that she was speaking both literally and figuratively.
“Every few seconds, I would feel it pressing into my stomach, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, I actually have to do this’,” she said.
Being able to prove their citizenship without making a sudden movement, toward a bag or a back pocket, did provide a sort of solace, they said. But “feeling safe” was a stretch.
Ms. Gautier’s younger child furrowed her brow. “It’s all concerning,” she said. “I have a passport, but it’s paper, not a shield.”
Lauren McCarthy, Ernesto Londoño and Bernard Mokam contributed reporting.
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4) Israel Launches Deadly Strikes in Gaza, as Rafah Border Is Set to Reopen
A local health official said at least 26 people had been killed in the attacks, which the Israeli military said had targeted Hamas commanders.
By Natan Odenheimer and Fatima AbdulKarim, Jan. 31, 2026
Natan Odenheimer reported from Jerusalem and Fatima AbdulKarim from Ramallah, in the West Bank.
Palestinians mourning their loved ones after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Saturday. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
The Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, an attack that local health officials said was the deadliest in weeks and that comes as the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was set to move into its next phase.
Zaher al-Waheidi, an official at the Gaza health ministry, said at least 26 people had been killed in the strikes, which hit several locations, including Gaza City and a refugee camp near the city of Khan Younis, according to Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense rescue service.
Several children were among those killed, according to Mr. al-Waheidi and Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, who said his hospital had received some of the injured and dead on Saturday.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the airstrikes had targeted commanders and fighters from Hamas and another militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It said the strikes were a response to activity the day before, when it said militants had emerged from a tunnel in Rafah, in an Israeli-controlled area. The military described that as “a violation of the cease-fire agreement.”
Hamas described the Israeli attacks themselves as a violation of the cease-fire.
The strikes came before the expected reopening in the coming days of the crucial land crossing at Rafah between Gaza and Egypt, a long-delayed part of the cease-fire agreed in October.
The opening of the border crossing would allow Palestinians who had fled the two-year-long war between Israel and Hamas to return home for the first time.
An Israeli defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive information, said on Saturday that Israel still plans to reopen the Rafah crossing in the coming days.
As part of the cease-fire deal, Hamas released the remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, while the Israeli military withdrew to an agreed-upon line inside Gaza that left it in control of about half of the enclave. On Monday, Israeli forces recovered the body of the last Israeli captive held in Gaza, setting the stage for the cease-fire to advance to its next phase.
But there have been several outbreaks of violence in Gaza since the truce came into effect, with each side accusing the other of breaching the terms of the agreement.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says Israel has killed more than 500 people in Gaza since the truce was announced. The health ministry’s figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel has previously said that its strikes in Gaza were in response to Hamas’s violations of the cease-fire, including attacks on Israeli troops.
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5) These Gazans May Finally Get a Lifeline to the World
Visuals by Saher Alghorra, By Bilal Shbair and Adam Rasgon, Jan. 31, 2026
Saher Alghorra and Bilal Shbair reported from the Gaza Strip, and Adam Rasgon from Tel Aviv.
Mohammed al-Ser suffered a severe head injury in June that left him partly paralyzed. He is depicted before he underwent cranial surgery this week, but doctors say he needs care outside Gaza to fully recover.
After Mohammed al-Ser suffered a severe head injury in June, which he said was caused by shrapnel from an Israeli missile, doctors reconstructed his skull. But he has yet to regain the use of his left arm and leg.
Mr. al-Ser, 27, is among the thousands of Palestinians waiting to be evacuated for medical treatment as the border between Gaza and Egypt looks set to reopen in the coming days.
When approached for comment on Mr. al-Ser’s account of his injuries, the Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in that area in June 2025, targeting a Hamas operative.
The medical system in the Gaza Strip was decimated over more than two years of war. The border crossing, close to the city of Rafah, was a lifeline for patients seeking medical treatment they could not get inside the enclave.
The expected reopening of the Rafah crossing has brought hope to Gaza’s sick and wounded, and to their families.
Yet it is unclear how many will be able to leave Gaza through the crossing. On Friday, COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating with Palestinians, said that the crossing would open on Sunday, and that there would be only a “limited movement of people” in both directions.
When asked whether priority would be given to the sick and wounded to leave Gaza, an Israeli security official said Egypt would share lists of those wishing to cross the border with Israeli authorities, who would then approve or deny their passage. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details.
Here are the stories of some of those waiting to be evacuated.
The expected reopening of the Rafah crossing has brought hope for the parents of Umama al-Astal. Her father, Mohammed al-Astal, 39, said Umama was born with a heart condition in February 2023, and had only the first of a series of surgeries before the war began.
“Her case is very urgent and can’t wait,” said Ghaidaa al-Astal, 36, Umama’s mother, who hopes her daughter will get the treatment she needs abroad.
Umama’s father, Mr. al-Astal, waits in the hallway at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. With him is his 13-year-old daughter, Farah, and son, al-Yamani, who is almost two months old.
Mr. al-Astal is anxious for Umama to leave Gaza so she can get her next operation. “We are still waiting for a chance to save her,” he said.
About 20,000 people need to be evacuated for treatment abroad, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Since the border crossing at Rafah closed in March, about 1,000 Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza for medical treatment abroad by crossing first into Israel, according to the World Health Organization.
Yet those evacuations often required a lengthy approval process, as patients need a third country to host them during their treatment, and must get Israeli security clearance, the W.H.O. has said.
Sami Saad, 12, had acute liver failure and was hospitalized at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah. His father, grandfather and uncle take turns to stand by his bedside, comforting the boy and asking doctors and nurses for updates on his condition.
“I wish they let me travel, anywhere,” Sami said, his cheeks wet with tears.
Dr. Raed Hussein, the hospital’s director, said the facility lacked many necessary medications and surgical tools.
Randa al-Bordini, 44, has cancer and is currently being treated at Nasser Hospital.
“I want to go to the Emirates so I can understand what is happening inside my body, and get treatment,” Ms. al-Bordini said, sitting with her daughter Shaimaa.
COGAT did not specify how many people would be allowed to enter and exit Gaza each day. It said crossings would be permitted in “coordination with Egypt” and following “security clearance” by Israel.
The opening of the Rafah crossing was part of a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October. Israel had refused to open the crossing in both directions until all of the living hostages held by Hamas, and the bodies of the deceased, were returned to Israel.
The last remains, those of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, a member of the Israeli police, were recovered by Israel on Monday.
Ahmed Rasras, 19, has been lying unconscious at Nasser Hospital for weeks.
On Jan. 4, a bullet penetrated Mr. Rasras’s skull while he was asleep in his tent in northwestern Rafah, according to his brother Tareq Rasras, 26, who was with him at the time. Tareq said he does not know who fired the bullet.
Ahmed relies on a tube to breathe, and doctors at the hospital say that he needs to undergo tests using machines that are not currently available in Gaza.
Tareq said that the family was anxiously awaiting news about the Rafah crossing. “Reopening it is the only hope for patients like my brother to receive treatment,” he said.
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6) An Ocean of Frozen Flowers Grows Where Alex Pretti Was Killed
One week after the I.C.U. nurse was shot dead by federal agents, tributes continue to build on the sidewalk where he fell.
By Jesse McKinley, Jesse McKinley reported from Minneapolis, Jan. 31, 2026
There are flowers, candles and words upon words at the scene of the killing. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
The bitter wind blows out the candles and the flowers wilt, victims of the cold. But Alex Pretti’s memorial continues to grow.
Seven days after Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was shot dead by federal agents on a Minneapolis street, tributes to him and denunciations of ICE have steadily spread outward from the site of the shooting, claiming walls, windows, and street poles on the block where he died.
The makeshift memorial along Nicollet Avenue, a popular stretch lined with shops, restaurants, and grocery stores, has become a solemn gathering place for mourners, who have left hundreds of prayer candles and bouquets, piling one atop another.
More than anything, though, there are words: in letters and handmade signs, on placards and scrawled graffiti. The messages are sometimes angry, and obscene — calls for retribution.
But most are simply wrenching, expressive of the sorrow, anxiety, and dread that many here in Minneapolis — and elsewhere — are feeling. On one storefront, dozens of sticky notes have been left by visitors, offering small messages. Some plead for peace, others for justice.
“Do Not Look Away,” read one on Friday evening.
“Empathy & Patience,” read another.
The street scene — running perhaps 40 feet long now — is demarcated by a feeble length of construction tape, but it makes its own border as the circle of offerings expands. Even a barricade set up to close some traffic has become part of the tribute: “Viva Alex!” someone has written on the orange-and-black sign.
On Friday, hours after thousands had marched noisily through downtown Minneapolis in a defiant protest of ICE, the memorial was quiet. Food and hot drinks were handed out by some Samaritans. Most who came were silent, though some sang softly.
Don Baker, 70, who lives in nearby Saint Louis Park, Minn., and works in insurance, says that the memorial — which he has visited three times — reminded him of New York after the 9/11 attacks.
“I remember feeling sad, anger, hate. Just lots and lots of mixed emotion,” Mr. Baker said. “And I had, Sunday night, the exact same feeling.”
There are small crosses and American flags, and many visitors have left testaments and letters offering prayers and thanks to a person whom they likely didn’t know.
“Alex Pretti was a very good man,” reads one. “Alex Jeffrey Pretti should be alive right now,” reads another. “Nurses are heroes, Alex was a superhero,” reads a third, with a hand drawn picture of a figure in a cape.
Mr. Pretti, who was carrying a licensed handgun, was slain after coming to the aid of another protester; the two agents who shot him are on leave and federal authorities say they are investigating the killing, which Mr. Trump and others in his administration have defended.
For those coming to the site, there seems to be no question about Mr. Pretti’s actions.
“Thank you for being brave, kind and standing up for us when it mattered most,” one note read. “Hopefully you’ll meet my daughter in the heavens.”
Poems both laud Mr. Pretti and decry the actions of authorities.
“One of these days/you’ll go to sleep,” one stanza read. “And wake up/forgetting what freedom means.”
Elsewhere there is gallows humor. “What would Jesus do?,” one homemade placard asks. “He would have been killed weeks ago.”
On a wall opposite the shooting site are two large posters, of Mr. Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, another Minnesota resident who was slain by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. “American Mom,” it reads above her photo. “ICU Nurse,” it reads above Mr. Pretti’s. Their captions, however, are the same: “Murdered by ICE.”
There is a refrain of worry, too, and resolve.
“We Are Under-Reacting,” reads a poster, mimicking the form and colors of an American flag.
“No More MN Nice,” reads another, referring to the Minnesota’s reputation as the capital of politeness.
Some deploy a dash of humor or hope. “I nominate the people of Minneapolis,” one reads, “For the next Nobel Peace Prize.”
Quotations seeking to comfort or explain are common. “Neither love nor terror makes one blind; Indifference makes one blind,” one sign says, quoting James Baldwin.
Some words were more plain.
“Damn, just damn,” one note read. “I’m so sorry for you, Alex. And for us.”
On Friday evening, Steve Anderson, 68, said that those gathering were grieving, letting the community reconnect and “carry on, adapt, survive, move on.”
“I don’t know anything about all that closure stuff,” Mr. Anderson said. “But this is big medicine.”
One handwritten letter left suggested that Mr. Pretti and this stretch of Nicollet Avenue would be permanently linked.
“Your spirit will remain here, at this very site, and in my heart, forever,” it read.
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7) Sherrill Urges New Jersey Residents to Record ICE Action on Their Phones
Governor Mikie Sherrill said the state would begin collecting images of federal immigration agents interacting with the public.
By Ana Ley, Jan. 31, 2026
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill appeared on “The Daily Show” on Wednesday with host Desi Lydic. Matt Wilson/Comedy Central
Mikie Sherrill, the newly inaugurated Democratic governor of New Jersey, said that her administration would soon begin collecting images of federal agents interacting with the public, cementing the state’s growing opposition to President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Ms. Sherrill, who was sworn in this month, made the announcement on Wednesday during an appearance on “The Daily Show,” urging residents to use their cellphones to record immigration officers. State officials said that they would soon create a portal that could be used to upload footage of the encounters. New Jersey is also planning to ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from carrying out operations on state property.
“If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out,” Ms. Sherrill said during the segment. “We want to know.”
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security criticized Ms. Sherrill’s announcement and said that federal officials had a duty to enforce the country’s laws.
“New Jersey will be less safe as a direct result of these policies,” the statement said. “Our partnerships with state and local law enforcement are key to removing criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and terrorists from American communities.
“When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with us, that is when we have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities,” the statement continued.
Sean Higgins, a spokesman for Ms. Sherrill, said that the governor was trying to protect New Jersey residents from federal overreach. State officials will use the database to track the activity of federal agents as they work to deport more immigrants.
In neighboring New York, the attorney general, Letitia James, has created a similar portal to collect photos and videos of ICE officials to determine whether they were breaking the law during enforcement actions.
Ms. James set up the portal in October after more than 50 federal agents descended on a stretch of Canal Street that is famous for the African men and Chinese women who sell bootleg luxury merchandise to tourists. The raid caused outrage in the city, and several hundred protesters rallied at 26 Federal Plaza, the New York City headquarters of ICE.
After winning key races in November, Democrats in New Jersey tried to strengthen immigrant protections in a state with one of the highest percentages of immigrants in the country. This month, lawmakers passed three measures to reinforce existing protections and to make it more difficult for federal agents to target undocumented immigrants for deportation. But in his final hours as governor, Ms. Sherrill’s predecessor, Philip D. Murphy, vetoed two of the bills. The bill that Mr. Murphy did sign into law protects the rights of undocumented residents at schools, courthouses and health care facilities.
Immigration had been a divisive issue in the governor’s race, and before taking office, Ms. Sherrill had carefully avoided taking a clear position on the state’s Immigrant Trust Directive, a policy enacted in 2018 that limits the help that local law enforcement officers can offer to federal immigration agents. Her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, had vowed to repeal the directive as he tried to appeal to voters supportive of Mr. Trump’s efforts to curb illegal immigration.
The response to the actions of federal immigration officers has gained urgency since the killing of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen who was shot during an enforcement action in Minneapolis. Less than three weeks later, agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse.
In her television appearance, Ms. Sherrill said that agents have acted dangerously and with impunity, pointing to the killing of Ms. Good, a mother of three, and Mr. Pretti. She also said that federal officials have not been transparent about who they are arresting, at times detaining American citizens. Ms. Sherrill referred to federal immigration officials as a secret police force because many agents cover their faces while conducting raids and wear tactical gear without identifying insignia.
“We want documentation,” Ms. Sherrill said. “We are going to make sure we get it.”
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8) Protesters Rally Across the U.S. in Solidarity With Minneapolis
Demonstrations drew sizable crowds in several cities, including Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., and churches in the Twin Cities rang their bells in support of detainees and protesters.
By Christina Morales, Jan. 31, 2026
Protesters outside Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday held signs denouncing ICE. Apu Gomes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Crowds rallied in dozens of cities across the nation on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, hoping to build on momentum from demonstrations on Friday against federal operations targeting Minneapolis and other liberal-leaning cities.
In Minneapolis — where federal agents have clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in recent months — a rally was punctured with moments of tension, as sheriffs’ deputies made several arrests that some protesters deemed to be violent, knocking over some people as they chased others.
Hundreds of people rallied in the afternoon outside Los Angeles City Hall, where Isaac G. Bryan, a Democratic state legislator, spoke to the crowd, encouraging them to keep up their protests and pointing to Minneapolis as a model. Noting the Trump administration’s decision to move Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol commander widely criticized for aggressive tactics, from Minnesota, Assemblyman Bryan said it had happened “because the people of Minneapolis had had enough.”
An afternoon rally in Portland, Ore., swelled to become one of the largest protests the city had seen in months, joined by demonstrators from other events held earlier in the day. Thousands of people crowded into Elizabeth Caruthers Park, near the ICE facility in Portland, for a rally that was supported by several major labor unions.
“This gathering, the size and energy, is unique,” said Jackson Casimiro, 28, a filmmaker who lives in Portland.
Derek Boyd, 46, a dental assistant, came to the protest equipped with a leaf blower to try repel tear gas. “We have to let them know we won’t tolerate this,” he said of the aggressive way in which federal agents have confronted detainees and demonstrators.
Several dozen counterprotesters also appeared, marching past the park chanting, “God bless ICE.” People at the rally tried to drown out the chants by blowing whistles and shouting insults.
The large crowd marched from the park to Bancroft Street outside the ICE facility, which the local police had blocked off to exclude vehicles. Tensions mounted around 4:30 p.m. when federal agents fired volleys of tear gas canisters into the crowd, which included numerous families with children and others unused to Portland’s sometimes fractious street protests. The crowd soon dwindled to a few hundred people.
In Minneapolis, about 100 people gathered in frigid weather on Saturday morning outside the B.H. Whipple Federal Building, where federal agents have been detaining suspected undocumented immigrants who have been arrested in the Twin Cities area. Protesters blew whistles and blared air horns.
Protest activity intensified across the nation in January in support of the residents of Minneapolis, who have faced an aggressive immigration enforcement campaign by the Trump administration. President Trump announced on Saturday in a social media post that ICE and Border Patrol agents would begin guarding federal buildings, which have become targets for protesters.
The killings of two people in Minneapolis — Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both American citizens — by federal agents taking part in the immigration crackdown ignited a powder keg in public opinion over the past week.
Hoping to tamp down public anger, President Trump sent his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis to oversee the immigration enforcement operation there in place of Mr. Bovino.
Church bells pealed solemnly throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., on Saturday, expressing solidarity with protesters and with people facing deportation.
Meghan Gage-Finn, a senior associate pastor at Westminster Presbyterian in Minneapolis, said that while the bells were a familiar sound to her, their music on Saturday meant something different.
“I hear them all day long, they ring throughout the day, throughout the week,” she said. “But to hear them ringing out in solidarity and in response to what this community is experiencing, I heard them in a new way.”
Some protesters have criticized the prosecution of demonstrators who were accused of interrupting a church service in St. Paul, where a pastor is an ICE official. Two journalists who were present at the incident, including the former CNN reporter Don Lemon, also have been charged.
Opponents of the administration’s immigration agenda rallied on Saturday in towns and cities, including some that have themselves been targets of aggressive enforcement operations.
About a dozen people conducted a sit-down protest against ICE at a Trump building in New York.
Nearly 100 protesters rallied in Fair Lawn, N.J., a community outside New York City that is home to many immigrants.
One of them was Alex Babin who came to the United States more than two decades ago from Ukraine. On Saturday, he thought of his homeland as he joined the protest.
“Russia attacked Ukraine trying to take their human rights,” he said. “Trump supports Russia. And now, here in America, innocent people have been killed because of his policies.”
He added, “This demonstration is about following the Constitution of the United States.”
Alba Lucia Morales Jimenez, a professor at Columbia University who immigrated to the United States from Colombia, also joined the protest in Fair Lawn. Though she is a naturalized American citizen, she has lately become worried that her citizenship may still not be enough to protect her from being a target for federal agents.
“I don’t feel safe any more,” Ms. Morales said. “We don’t want to be kidnapped, snatched, threatened, pushed, shoved and shot.”
Jessica Ochs, a photographer, attended the rally with her husband and 16-year-old son. She said she was frustrated over the killings in Minnesota and the deployment of federal agents across the nation, some of whom have knocked on the doors of her friends.
It was important, she said, for people to keep documenting enforcement activity that they see and to hold federal agents accountable.
“We are all witnesses,” she said. “We all have phones in our pockets. We should use them for something good.”
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9) How Alex Pretti’s Death Became a National Tipping Point
Several factors converged to force a remarkable shift in the federal government’s aggressive efforts in Minnesota.
By Kurt Streeter, Feb. 1, 2026
Mourners at the site where Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents, four days after the shooting. Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
Renee Good was killed on Jan. 7. Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Federal agents killed both of them, and the administration labeled both of them terrorists — labels that quickly fell apart when the public learned more about each case and saw videos of the shootings.
Yet it was Mr. Pretti’s death that broke the dam, galvanizing public sentiment against the federal government’s tactics and forcing a remarkable retreat by the Trump administration.
Gun-rights groups turned on the White House. Republican senators called for investigations. One poll found that support for abolishing ICE had nearly doubled among independent voters.
Both deaths provoked outrage. But Mr. Pretti’s reached further — into conservative circles that had defended the crackdown, and among independents, who had been willing to look away. Why did his death cross political lines that Ms. Good’s, for all the anger it generated, didn’t?
It is never possible to say with certainty why one tragedy widens the circle of outrage and another does not. History offers precedents.
George Floyd was not the first Black man to die at the hands of police in 2020. The searing video of his death, however, and the moment it arrived — during heightened unease around police misconduct — turned his killing into a movement. Rosa Parks was not the first person to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus; a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin had been arrested after performing the same act months earlier. But it was Parks, for reasons both strategic and circumstantial, whose case became a catalyst. Tipping points are often visible only in hindsight.
Kevin Drakulich, a criminologist at Northeastern University who studies race, crime and public opinion, put it simply: “Renee Good’s death was tragic. Alex Pretti’s is a trend.”
The federal crackdown had already produced casualties elsewhere, including a Mexican immigrant who was shot and killed by ICE agents in Chicago in September. The death did not draw sustained national attention. Minneapolis was different — two killings of American citizens, at close to the same time, in a city that had become shorthand for protest and police violence.
Ms. Good’s death brought doubts about what federal agents were doing in Minneapolis into national view, with protests, headlines and the first serious fractures in President Trump’s public credibility on immigration. Then, four days before Mr. Pretti was killed, a photograph circulated widely: a 5-year-old boy named Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a blue bunny hat and a school backpack, being led away by federal agents in a Minneapolis suburb. A child, detained with his father, shortly after being picked up from school. The image widened the cracks.
The accumulation of images and tragedies does not alone explain the difference in responses.
Ms. Good was in her car when an agent shot her. Administration officials thus declared her vehicle a weapon, and said she had posed a threat to the agent. Video analysis challenged that account, but could not rule out the agent’s claim that he had feared for his safety.
Mr. Pretti left far less room for speculation. He was on foot, filming with his phone, helping a woman who had been shoved to the ground. The administration called him an “assassin,” who had intended to massacre law enforcement officers.
Within hours, video from multiple angles showed him holding a phone, not a weapon, then being tackled, pinned face down and shot multiple times in the back. An agent had already pulled the gun from Mr. Pretti’s waistband. Video analysis concluded that the shots had come after Mr. Pretti was disarmed and restrained — a sequence that, under standard use-of-force guidelines, may be difficult to justify.
Many viewers saw an execution, not defense against a domestic terrorist. The government’s story collapsed. Still, it is not enough to account for what followed. But a look at who the victims were and how the public perceived them may help explain how opinion was changed.
Mr. Drakulich uses a term for the kind of victim the public instinctively sympathizes with: the “ideal victim.” Two attributes make someone fit. “Someone whose life and well-being is broadly valued,” he said, “and someone who people can judge as not bearing any responsibility for their victimization.”
Consider the details that circulated in the days after Mr. Pretti’s death. He was not a so-called criminal immigrant, whom officials say they were targeting, but a white American citizen. He was an intensive care-unit nurse at a V.A. hospital, caring for veterans. A video of him saluting a deceased patient had circulated months earlier. He was a legal gun owner, with a gun permit, and no criminal record. On camera, in the moments before he was killed, he displayed what a former student called his “familiar stillness and signature calm composure.”
He did not run. He came to the aid of a stranger. Masked federal agents killed him nonetheless.
Sarah Gaither, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke who studies identity and perception, wrote in an email that Mr. Pretti’s profile “fit widely held cultural cues associated with respectability and being nonthreatening.”
She added that those cues “lowered resistance to empathy among people who might otherwise dismiss criticism of ICE.”
It was not that Mr. Pretti generated more sympathy. It was that his profile removed barriers. For people who had needed permission to criticize the agency, Mr. Pretti granted it.
For one constituency, Mr. Pretti’s death did more than grant permission to criticize. It confirmed a long-held fear.
For decades, the conservative case for the Second Amendment has rested largely on the premise that an armed citizenry is the last defense against government tyranny. N.R.A. fund-raising letters once warned of “jackbooted government thugs.” The language was apocalyptic, the scenario hypothetical.
Minneapolis made it real. Masked federal agents killed a legal gun owner who had never drawn his weapon.
Gun rights groups pushed back. Gun Owners of America posted on social media: “Peaceful protests while armed isn’t radical — it’s American. GOA will hold any administration accountable.”
Mr. Pretti was exactly the kind of American such groups were built to protect: a law-abiding citizen, legally armed, killed by government agents.
But new footage emerged on Wednesday that may yet complicate the narrative. The video shows Mr. Pretti on Jan. 13, 11 days before he was killed, in a confrontation with federal agents. He spits at them and kicks their vehicle, breaking a taillight. Agents tackle him. A gun appears to be visible in his waistband. He is released without arrest.
Earlier this week, President Trump had signaled a desire to turn down the temperature. He called Mr. Pretti’s death “very unfortunate” and said he wanted to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota.
On Friday morning, the president reversed course. “Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down,” Mr. Trump posted on social media, describing the video as “quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control.”
The post drew swift condemnation. Some critics called it a smear of a dead man.
The Pretti family had already commented on the release of the video. “Nothing that happened a full week before could have possibly justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan. 24,” it said in a statement.
The tide had already turned. Even Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, had acknowledged that the Minneapolis operation was flawed, a rare concession from an official who had long defended aggressive enforcement tactics. Days later, an immigration operation in Maine was abruptly called off.
What had happened on that frozen Minneapolis street was reverberating far beyond the city where Mr. Pretti died.
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10) What to Know About the Rafah Border Crossing in Gaza
The only crossing that connects Gaza with Egypt is reopening after nearly a year of closures. This will allow residents to leave for medical care or return to homes and families in the territory.
By Ephrat Livni, Feb. 1, 2026
The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt in 2023. Credit...Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times
The only border crossing that connects Gaza with Egypt prepared to open on Sunday for the first time in almost a year, a step that will throw a lifeline to Palestinians who want to leave for medical care or return to homes and families after two years of war.
Israeli officials said the crossing, near the southern city of Rafah, had opened to check systems in preparation for the passage of Gaza residents in both directions. It was expected to be fully operational by Monday, the officials said.
The Rafah passage was seized by Israeli soldiers in May 2024 and has been mostly closed since then, other than for a brief time during a temporary cease-fire last winter.
A long-term cease-fire that went into effect in October called for the crossing to open. But Israel had delayed it until the repatriation of the remains of the last hostage taken to Gaza in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that triggered the war. That happened on Monday.
Underscoring the fragility of the cease-fire, the Israeli military launched a series of deadly airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 26 people, including several children, according to local health officials.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the airstrikes had targeted commanders and fighters from Hamas and another militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as weapons facilities. It said the strikes were a response to activity the day before, when it said militants had emerged from a tunnel in Rafah, in an Israeli-controlled area of the enclave.
Israel and Hamas have accused each other of repeatedly violating the cease-fire agreement.
Who Will Be Allowed to Cross?
The border will, at least initially, be open only to individuals entering and exiting Gaza. It will not be used to bring in much-needed supplies to the territory ravaged by two years of war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said last week that he had agreed to “a limited reopening of the Rafah crossing for pedestrian passage only.” On Tuesday, he said there would be restrictions on the number of people entering, suggesting about “50-plus” would be allowed to come from Egypt daily.
More people are expected to be allowed to leave than to enter, for the time being, though the number of daily departures will also be limited.
Israel’s right-wing government has made no secret of its desire to see as many Gazans as possible leave and not return.
“We are not going to prevent anyone from leaving,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Who Will Control the Border?
The Egyptian authorities will continue to control the crossing on their side of the border. The names of those seeking to return to Gaza will first be approved by Egypt, and then by Israel 24 hours in advance.
Israeli security personnel will not be present at the crossing itself, but will operate a security checkpoint in another area of Gaza, where entrants will undergo physical screening and identification checks.
For Palestinians seeking to leave Gaza, the process will be handled by a mix of authorities. European Union officials, who monitored the crossing when it briefly reopened during the cease-fire last winter will do so again, along with Palestinian officials.
Palestinians will need authorization to travel abroad. The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would provide the necessary travel permits, Mr. Netanyahu said.
How Many Need Medical Evacuation?
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Tuesday that 20,000 people were waiting to travel abroad for treatment. The closure of the crossing “worsens their health conditions to a dangerous extent and threatens their lives,” the ministry said in a statement.
Roughly 18,500 patients, including 4,000 children, are waiting for medical evacuation, according to the United Nations. Patients are usually accompanied by at least one relative or caregiver.
The World Health Organization and partners facilitated about 7,600 medical evacuations during the war, including nearly 2,700 since the closing of the Rafah crossing in May 2024, it said.
Ola Abu al-Naser, 30, of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, is among those waiting for the reopening of the crossing. She plans to accompany her mother-in-law, who is seeking surgery abroad for injuries sustained after being buried under rubble in a strike in 2024.
“I spend all my time following the news of the crossing,” she said.
At least 100,000 Palestinians have left Gaza since the beginning of the war, according to Palestinian officials. Their passage was facilitated by aid and humanitarian groups in many cases, while others paid stiff fees to a well-connected Egyptian company, an option that was not available to most of the population of about two million.
What Are Aid Organizations Saying?
Humanitarian groups have expressed optimism about the reopening of the crossing, but have also called to allow aid and supplies to enter and to lift all restrictions on Palestinians’ passage.
Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said on Monday that the agency was prepared to send a surge of aid through the Rafah crossing.
“We would want to see humanitarian cargo and private cargo go in,” he said. “And, of course, in terms of movements of people through the Rafah crossing, Palestinians need to be able to come out or go in, as they wish, in line with international law.”
On Monday, Save the Children, an international charity, said there were also students waiting to take up scholarships and families longing for reunification, as well as a dire need for more supplies in Gaza.
“What is needed now is the immediate and urgent opening of Rafah and all border crossings and the safe, unrestricted passage of humanitarian assistance,” the group said.
Reporting was contributed by Abu Bakr Bashir, Natan Odenheimer Johnatan Reiss and Isabel Kershner.
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