Prepared for the Office of Public Affairs (OPA)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Editorial Note: The DHS Daily Briefing is a collection of news articles related to Department’s mission. The inclusion of particular stories is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse the political viewpoints or affiliations included in news coverage.

Breitbart [1/21/2026 4:37 AM, Christian K. Caruzo, 2416K] reports the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) on Tuesday announced the U.S. seized another oil tanker that stood in defiance of the Venezuelan oil blockade ordered by President Donald Trump. In a social media post, SOUTHCOM detailed the seizure took place on Tuesday morning and is part of the Department of War’s unwavering mission to “crush illicit activity in the Western Hemisphere” in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department through Operation Southern Spear. In December, President Trump ordered a “total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela as part of his administration’s pressure campaign on Venezuela’s now deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. The Sagitta stands as the seventh Venezuela-linked oil tanker seized by the United States since the start of the blockade. Last week, the United States seized the Veronica, which marked the sixth seized tanker. Like the Sagitta, the Veronica was seized “without incident.” SOUTHCOM explained the Sagitta tanker was operating in defiance of President Trump’s “quarantine” of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean and demonstrates “our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link] The AP [1/20/2026 6:00 PM, Konstantin Toropin and Michael Biesecker, 31753K] reports U.S. military forces boarded and took control of a seventh oil tanker connected with Venezuela on Tuesday as part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to take control of the South American country’s oil. U.S. Southern Command said in a social media post that U.S. forces apprehended the Motor Vessel Sagitta "without incident" and that the tanker was operating in defiance of President Donald Trump’s "established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean."

Reported similarly:
The Hill [1/20/2026 4:42 PM, Filip Timotija, 12595K]
CBS News [1/20/2026 6:19 PM, Faris Tanyos, 39474K]
FOX News [1/20/2026 4:40 PM, Alexandra Koch, 40621K]
Telemundo [1/20/2026 5:15 PM, Staff, 2218K]

NewsMax [1/20/2026 10:32 AM, Staff, 4109K] reports President Donald Trump hailed the first year of his second administration and its successes Sunday night on the eve of his inauguration anniversary, as The New York Times highlighted the mass deportation effort that has removed roughly 540,000 immigrants to date. The analysis estimated about 230,000 people were arrested and deported from within the United States, another 270,000 were removed after being apprehended at the border, and roughly 40,000 accepted stipends to "self-deport.” That brings the total number of deportations since Trump took office to about 540,000 in one year. "The number of deportations from interior arrests since Mr. Trump took office is already higher than the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration," the Times analysis read. "It offers the clearest measure of the impact of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown and expansive efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to deport millions of people. "At the same time, the number of people trying to cross the Southwest border has fallen to record lows. As a result, far fewer people were arrested and deported from the border than in the preceding few years.” The Department of Homeland Security cited higher overall figures in December, reporting that more than 2.5 million immigrants had left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, including an estimated 1.9 million self-deportations and more than 622,000 deportations. "In less than a year, President Trump has delivered some of the most historic and consequential achievements in presidential history — and this administration is just getting started," Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a statement. "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making America safe again and putting the American people first. In record-time we have secured the border, taken the fight to cartels, and arrested thousands upon thousands of criminal illegal aliens. Though 2025 was historic, we won’t rest until the job is done.”

Washington Times [1/20/2026 3:31 PM, Alex Swoyer, Stephen Dinan, 852K] reports the Department of Homeland Security has paid out roughly 100,000 bonuses to illegal immigrants who have registered to self-deport through the government’s special app. Most of those were $1,000 payments, though the department experienced a surge when it offered a bonus $3,000 holiday payment last month, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Washington Times’ “The Sitdown With Alex Swoyer” podcast. Ms. McLaughlin said the total is significantly lower than the $17,000 it costs to arrest, detain and fly out the typical illegal immigrant. Ms. McLaughlin addressed some of the personal vitriol and threats aimed at her from Democratic politicians and Trump opponents, particularly those on social media. Ms. McLaughlin took aim at sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with the department’s deportation efforts. Ms. McLaughlin said federal agents have deported “upwards of 600,000” illegal immigrants since the president took office and are deporting at a rate of about 2,500 daily. That is higher than ICE’s official figures indicate.

New York Post [1/20/2026 11:34 AM, Chris Nesi, 42219K] reports one year into President Trump’s second term, DHS has arrested 7,000 illegal immigrant gang members, comprising a rogue’s gallery of murderers, kidnappers and thieves who have either already been removed from the country or are on their way out for good. The milestone is the result of a lot of hard work by immigration agencies, and represents a massive departure from the Biden administration, whose open-border policies enabled millions of illegal migrants to flood into the country with virtually no safety checks in place. "When we say we are targeting the worst of the worst, this is what exactly we mean," said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Many of these were let in by Joe Biden and should have never been in this country. These vicious criminals murdered, assaulted, robbed, and terrorized innocent Americans for sport. But under President Trump’s and Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s leadership, ICE is turbocharged to arrest even more gang members and make America safe again.” The coast-to-coast enforcement operations have been waged amid an unprecedented climate of violence and hostility toward immigration agents, who have faced a more than 1,300% increase in assaults since the start of Trump’s second term. DHS chalks this staggering figure up to lefty politicians who knowingly stoke the flames of anti-ICE sentiment to virtue-signal against the administration’s historic illegal immigration crackdown. ICE has rounded up criminal thugs from more than a dozen gangs, including the Crips, the Bloods, Norentos, MS-13, Tren de Aragua, Asian Boys, Trinitarios, the Latin Kings and many more.

Washington Times [1/20/2026 5:30 PM, Alex Swoyer, 261K] reports hello, I’m Alex Swoyer, and I’m here for another episode of The Sitdown. This time, I am joined by Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. She’s joining me at a crucial time for the department, with threats against ICE agents at an all-time high and protests in major Democratic cities across the country unfolding. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Daily Wire [1/20/2026 11:06 AM, Jennie Taer, 2494K] reports President Donald Trump promised that he would carry out a historic mass deportation campaign once he took office one year ago. Since then, federal authorities have deported more than 670,000 illegal immigrants. Additionally, roughly 1.9 million illegal immigrants have left the United States on their own. "On President Trump’s first day in office, he unleashed ICE to target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens, including pedophiles, murderers, gang members, terrorists, and rapists," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire. "Today, we thank our law enforcement for a record-breaking first year of achievements including more than 670,000 removals and two million self-deportations. DHS is committed to continuing to remove dangerous illegal aliens from American communities. 70% of ICE arrests [are] of criminal illegal aliens who have been convicted or charged with a crime in the U.S. We will not rest until American communities are free of the scourge of illegal alien crime," she added. The Department of Homeland Security shared the "worst" illegal immigrants nabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Inauguration Day with The Daily Wire. Here are their rap sheets. ICE officers arrested Uzbek national Akhror Bozorov, who was wanted in his home country for belonging to a terrorist organization, on November 9 in Kansas while he was working as a commercial truck driver. They also nabbed Afghan national Jaan Shah Safi in Waynesboro, Virginia, in December after he provided support to the ISIS-K, while his father was found to be a commander of a militia group in Afghanistan. Safi entered the United States during former President Joe Biden’s "Operation Allies Welcome," which brought over thousands of Afghans following the botched troop withdrawal.

FOX News [1/20/2026 4:56 PM, Greg Wehner, 40621K] reports President Donald Trump said criminal illegal aliens being removed from the U.S. are so violent, they "make the Hells Angels look like the sweetest people on Earth," arguing tougher border enforcement is now driving what he called "reverse migration." Trump made the remarks during a White House press briefing Tuesday, where he displayed images of individuals ICE agents are targeting in U.S. cities, including Minneapolis. The president said that for the first time in 50 years, more illegal immigrants are now leaving the country than entering it, blaming prior border policies under former President Joe Biden’s administration for allowing dangerous criminals into the U.S. Trump continued, saying some of those being removed came from foreign prisons, including prisons in Congo. White House officials say the administration’s enforcement efforts are focused on removing illegal immigrants with violent felony records, gang affiliations, or outstanding warrants. As part of the crackdown, ICE has expanded targeted operations in several major metropolitan areas, prioritizing individuals with serious criminal histories. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said Monday that more than 10,000 criminal illegal immigrants have been arrested in and around Minneapolis, underscoring the administration’s focus on interior enforcement.

DailySignal [1/20/2026 1:30 PM, Jarrett Stepman, 549K] reports that what a difference a year makes. For the first time in half a century, the United States experienced net negative migration, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institution. The reason, the report concluded, was President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies. "The report attributed the shift to a combination of the large drop in entries and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures," ABC reported. This is an important milestone as we reach the end of Trump’s first year in office. The reckless immigration policies of President Joe Biden turned the American people decidedly against immigration, both illegal and legal. Those policies would have almost certainly continued if Vice President Kamala Harris had won in 2024. We’ve really seen an incredible turnaround. Just a few years ago, border towns were completely overrun by illegal aliens. The only defense border states had was to ship the newcomers off to northern sanctuary cities that also became entirely overwhelmed. That’s halted entirely. The New York Times ran a story Sunday about how a migrant shelter in McAllen, Texas, which had been packed to the gills under Biden, was now practically vacant. "We have not seen a single migrant in months," Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs the facility, said to the Times in December. "We are completely empty."

NewsMax [1/20/2026 3:02 PM, James Morley III, 4109K] reports thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol employees have been exposed in an online doxing campaign. The announcement follows backlash over the fatal shooting of Minnesotan Renee Good by a federal officer. Dominick Skinner, founder of ICE List, told the Daily Beast that dissatisfaction within the federal government has intensified since the Minneapolis shooting earlier this year. The outlet noted that personal information tied to roughly 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees, including nearly 2,000 agents in front-line enforcement roles, was leaked by a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower and published online by the activist group. Skinner said public reporting of agents’ identities has surged since the incident, with tips coming from across the country. Homeland Security officials have condemned the release of agents’ personal information, warning that doxing federal law enforcement officers poses serious safety risks and could interfere with ongoing operations. The campaign comes as tensions remain high over stepped-up immigration enforcement and federal operations in Minnesota following Good’s killing.

Federal News Network [1/20/2026 6:06 PM, Justin Doubleday, 986K] reports lawmakers are moving to extend key cybersecurity information authorities and grant programs, while also providing funds for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to fill "critical" positions. The "minibus" appropriations agreement released by House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday includes fiscal 2026 funding for the Department of Homeland Security. DHS funding could be a sticking point in moving the bill forward, as some Democrats want more restrictions around the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. The bill also extends the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program through the end of fiscal 2026. Both laws are set to expire at the end of this month. The bill would include a cut for the agency CISA, with fiscal 2026 funding level set at $2.6 billion, about $300 million less than its current annual budget. The appropriations agreement would specifically provide $20 million for CISA to hire additional staff to "critical positions," according to the joint explanatory statement on the DHS appropriations measure. That funding would be evenly split across five CISA programs: Threat Hunting; Vulnerability Management; Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation; Security Programs; and Security Advisors. Appropriators are also taking aim at burnout within the Secret Service’s ranks. The funding measure provides $3.3 billion for the Secret Service as it embarks on a major recruiting initiative over the next two years. The bill includes an increase of $46 million for Secret Service hiring in fiscal 2026. It also provides the agency with advance funding to prepare for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. But appropriators also want updates on the Secret Service’s recruitment and retention efforts. The explanatory statement directs the agency to provide briefings on its employee resiliency program and hiring projections, respectively. The spending agreement also includes a "rejection" of staffing cuts made at the Federal Emergency Management Agency in fiscal 2025, according to the joint explanatory statement. The bill would provide $32 billion for FEMA, including $26.4 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund. Now, appropriators want FEMA to provide monthly briefings on the agency’s staffing levels and workload requirements. The bill also requires FEMA to maintain staff "necessary to fulfill the missions" required of the agency by six separate laws and various other authorities.

Politico [1/20/2026 7:50 AM, Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus, 13586K] reports congressional leaders released bill text Tuesday of a bipartisan compromise to fund the vast majority of the federal government ahead of the Jan. 30 shutdown deadline. The bicameral breakthrough on funding for the Pentagon and the nation’s largest nondefense agencies is the product of private negotiations between top appropriators in the two months since Congress ended the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. House leaders plan to hold a vote later in the week on the legislation, which would boost defense funding to more than $839 billion. It would also fund the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Education, and Homeland Security. FOX News [1/20/2026 12:22 PM, Leo Briceno, Elizabeth Elkind and Alex Miller, 40621K] reports congressional negotiators unveiled a massive $1.2 trillion spending package that includes funding for several key aspects of the federal government, but partisan tensions are still raging over money going toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The legislation is aimed at funding the Department of War, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), among others. But progressives have threatened a rebellion over funding for ICE, which is included in the DHS portion of the bill, if President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is not reined in. The division was spurred by a deadly confrontation between an ICE agent and 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. Responses to Good’s killing from Democrats and Republicans have been sharply divided along partisan lines. If passed by the House and Senate, the legislation — which combines four separate spending bills into a package called a "minibus" — would be the final piece of the puzzle for Congress to avert another government shutdown come Jan. 30. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, acknowledged frustrations raised by progressives, but fell short of outright condemning the bill. "I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues may be dissatisfied with any bill that funds ICE. I share their frustration with the out-of-control agency. I encourage my colleagues to review the bill and determine what is best for their constituents and communities," DeLauro said in a statement Tuesday morning. "The Homeland Security funding bill is more than just ICE. If we allow a lapse in funding, TSA agents will be forced to work without pay, FEMA assistance could be delayed and the U.S. Coast Guard will be adversely affected," she said. The Washington Times [1/20/2026 1:33 PM, Stephen Dinan and Lindsey McPherson, 852K] reports that the agreement, which will need to be passed before the end of the month to avoid a lapse in funding, erases some of the last vestiges of President Biden’s immigration policy, such as funding for nonprofits that helped settle illegal immigrants and trims the budget of several ombudsman positions within the Department of Homeland Security. Negotiators also struck deals on a package of three other annual appropriations measures. They fund the Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development departments. Under the DHS deal, both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol will see their annual allocation of money dip, which Democratic leaders cast as a victory. But both ICE and the Border Patrol got massive infusions of cash in last year’s budget bill that will more than make up for the reductions. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, one of Democrats’ chief negotiators on the bill, said she did win more oversight from the DHS inspector general, though she acknowledged it didn’t include a host of other restrictions her party had sought on ICE. NBC News [1/20/2026 2:12 PM, Sahil Kapur, Kyle Stewart and Scott Wong, 34509K] reports that the DHS measure is sure to be a point of contention for Democrats in the House and the Senate, many of whom insisted they would reject any funding bill without policies to restrain Immigration and Customs Enforcement after an officer fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis this month. “There should absolutely be reforms to ICE. And if there aren’t reforms, I’m going to be a hard no on that bill, the DHS bill,” Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the No. 4 House Democrat, told NBC News last week ahead of the release of the bill. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and top progressive in Congress, said Tuesday that the bill “leaves in place an additional $18 billion a year for ICE, tripling the budget. It is a surrender to Trump’s lawlessness. I will be a strong no and help lead the opposition to it.” The package would keep ICE funding essentially flat at $10 billion for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, even as the agency received $75 billion of additional money for detention and enforcement from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator, acknowledged that the package did not include broad reforms to rein in ICE in a statement from her office announcing the bill. But she endorsed the package, saying it would prevent a partial shutdown and arguing that it did include some Democratic priorities. The bipartisan deal would allocate $20 million for the “procurement, deployment, and operations of body worn cameras” for ICE personnel. And the bill “encourages” DHS to develop and implement a new uniform policy “to ensure that law enforcement officers are clearly identifiable as Federal law enforcement,” according to DeLauro’s office. DeLauro said the bill would also cut funding for ICE enforcement and removal operations by $115 million and reduce the number of ICE detention beds by 5,500. The House is expected to vote on the package Wednesday. DeLauro said GOP leaders have promised to hold a separate vote on just the Homeland Security part of the package, which would give Democrats an opportunity to oppose it, without moving Washington toward another shutdown. “I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues may be dissatisfied with any bill that funds ICE,” DeLauro said in her statement. “I share their frustration with the out-of-control agency. I encourage my colleagues to review the bill and determine what is best for their constituents and communities.”

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CBS News [1/20/2026 9:25 AM, Kaia Hubbard, 39474K]
DailySignal [1/20/2026 1:45 PM, George Caldwell, 549K]
Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 10:52 AM, Rachel Schilke, 1394K]

The Hill [1/20/2026 6:16 PM, Sudiksha Kochi and Mike Lillis, 12595K] reports House Democrats are pushing a contentious Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill that would allow tens of billions of dollars to flow to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), drawing fire from liberals. In endorsing a bill that would carry forward a huge spike in funding to ICE, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, acknowledged it excludes most of the ICE reforms Democrats have demanded since the Jan. 7 shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. But a shutdown or a short-term spending patch, she argued, would be worse. “A continuing resolution will jettison the guardrails we have secured while ceding authority to President Trump, Stephen Miller, and [DHS] Secretary [Kristi] Noem,” she said Tuesday morning. The strategy is tailor-designed to win bipartisan support for the DHS bill and prevent a partial government shutdown on Jan. 30, when funding is set to expire. But the outcry from progressives in both chambers is inevitable given the uproar over the Minnesota shooting, and it was already becoming public. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said in a video statement on the social platform X he will vote no on the bill and will help lead the opposition against it. “It’s a moral disgrace. It has an $18 billion dollar plus up for the ICE agency. That’s right. They are tripling ICE’s budget at a time that ICE is ripping American citizens out of their cars and arresting and shooting American citizens,” he said. The DHS bill includes a few targeted reforms aimed at appeasing Democrats, including a $115 million reduction in funding for ICE enforcement and removal operations, a decrease of 5,500 ICE detention beds and a $1.8 billion cut in Border Patrol funding. It also strengthens oversight of ICE through the Office of the Inspector General and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Breitbart [1/21/2026 4:50 AM, Ian Hanchett, 2416K] reports on Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Laura Coates Live,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) stated that he can’t support the short-term funding bill even though doing so could lead to a government shutdown because he “can’t support the continuation of this absolute terrorizing lawlessness.” Host Laura Coates asked, “I understand the House Appropriations Committee is releasing the new short-form — short-term funding bill, and there are some small reforms and budget cuts to ICE, also Border Patrol, but, frankly, not that much. And many of your Democratic colleagues say that this does not go far enough, and, now, as a result, they won’t support it. That, obviously, could cause a government shutdown in ten days. What is your position? Will you support it?” Goldman answered, “No, I can’t support the continuation of this absolute terrorizing lawlessness. The notion of secret and masked agents asking people on the street for their proof of their citizenship papers, that is literally what the SS did in Nazi Germany. That is authoritarian. And the notion that our own law enforcement, civil law enforcement, not even criminal, would be doing things like that, or things like barging into homes without warrants. That is just illegal. If you are searching — trying to arrest someone for a crime, much less arrest someone for a civil immigration enforcement action. So no.”

NewsMax [1/20/2026 11:39 AM, Eric Mack, 4109K] reports the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026 (CAA-26) includes $20 million for the purchase, deployment, and operation of body-worn cameras for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers, adding new oversight requirements as immigration enforcement expands nationwide. The funding, included in the Department of Homeland Security section of the omnibus, is designated for officers engaged in enforcement activities and requires DHS to submit a detailed spending plan to Congress within 30 days of enactment. The measure is part of a broader package of guardrails aimed at increasing transparency and accountability for ICE as lawmakers pair increased enforcement resources with tighter reporting and oversight requirements. The news comes in the same month an ICE officer was allegedly nearly run down by anti-ICE "agitator" Renee Good, forcing Jonathan Ross to fatally shoot her in self-defense, according to DHS officials. Video taken by Ross before the fatal shooting shows Good’s widow speaking to agents during the encounter and telling her wife to "drive, baby, drive" to flee potential ICE arrest for obstruction. The $20 million is just a small piece of the $10 billion allocated for ICE operations, while another $18.3 billion is ticketed for CBP border security.

Bloomberg [1/20/2026 9:20 AM, Zach C. Cohen and Ken Tran, 803K] reports key lawmakers agreed to reduce ICE’s enforcement and removal budget and institute modest reforms of the controversial agency after the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees announced an agreement Tuesday to give $64.4 billion to the Department of Homeland Security as part of its last appropriations bill for the fiscal year, teeing up one the most hotly contested funding measures for potential House passage later this week. The measure was released with three other funding bills but will get a standalone vote, according to a statement from House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). ICE would get $10 billion for the current fiscal year, including $3.8 billion for detainment and deportation operations, according to a summary from House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole’s (R-Okla.) office. The bill would cut enforcement and removal operations by $115 million but keep the agency’s overall funding flat, according to DeLauro. The Homeland Security measure is considered to be one of the hardest — if not the hardest — bill to negotiate given it deals with the fraught topic of immigration policy. The negotiated bill dedicates $20 million to body cameras for immigration enforcement agents and officers and instructs DHS to standardize uniforms for domestic law enforcement except when agents are working undercover. "ICE must be reined in," DeLauro said in a statement. "The bill takes several steps in the right direction." The measure proposes $5.7 billion — excluding $26 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund — for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, $873 million above currently enacted levels, according to Murray’s summary. The Secret Service would receive $3.3 billion, according to Murray’s summary, which includes $44 million for planning and coordination of upcoming major events, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup, America’s Semiquincentennial, and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic games.

AP [1/20/2026 12:56 PM, Lisa Mascaro, 31753K] reports a ballooning Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget. Hiring bonuses of $50,000. Swelling ranks of ICE officers, to 22,000, in an expanding national force bigger than most police departments in America. President Donald Trump promised the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, but achieving his goal wouldn’t have been possible without funding from the big tax and spending cuts bill passed by Republicans in Congress, and it’s fueling unprecedented immigration enforcement actions in cities like Minneapolis and beyond. The GOP’s big bill is “supercharging ICE,” one budget expert said, in ways that Americans may not fully realize — and that have only just begun. “I just don’t think people have a sense of the scale,” said Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress and a former adviser to the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget. “We’re looking at ICE in a way we’ve never seen before,” he said. The Department of Homeland Security said its massive recruitment campaign blew past its 10,000-person target to bring in 12,000 new hires, more than doubling the force to 22,000 officers, in a matter of months. “The good news is that thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill that President Trump signed, we have an additional 12,000 ICE officers and agents on the ground across the country,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a December statement. The department also announced it had arrested and deported about 600,000 people. It also said 1.9 million other people had “voluntarily self-deported” since January 2025, when Trump took office.

Federal Newswire [1/20/2026 11:55 PM, T. J. Graves] reports the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the arrest of several individuals in Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge, targeting people described as "worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens." The arrests included those convicted or charged with crimes such as child molestation, rape, assault, making terroristic threats, and domestic violence. According to Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, “Minnesota sanctuary politicians have released nearly 470 criminal illegal aliens from their jails back onto the streets, endangering the lives of Minnesotans every day. While Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, and sanctuary politicians fight to protect criminal illegal aliens, DHS law enforcement officers are putting their lives on the line to arrest the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens. Yesterday’s arrests in Minnesota include criminal illegal aliens convicted of child molestation, rape, assault, making terroristic threats, and domestic violence. Since President Trump took office, DHS has arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota, and we are NOT slowing down. Our law enforcement officers are saving countless American lives.” Among those arrested were individuals from Laos, Guatemala, Honduras, Vietnam, Somalia, and Mexico. Offenses listed for these individuals range from sex offenses against children and failure to register as a sex offender to charges involving rape and lewd acts with minors. Other charges include assault-related convictions; disorderly conduct; driving under the influence; possession of dangerous drugs; theft; larceny; obstructing police; giving false information to peace officers; possession of drug paraphernalia; receiving stolen property; vehicle theft; and multiple counts related to domestic violence. The operation is part of ongoing federal efforts in Minnesota focused on removing individuals who have been convicted or charged with serious crimes.

USA Today [1/20/2026 4:50 PM, Zachary Schermele, 67103K] reports lawmakers in Congress are racing toward a deadline to get all their funding bills passed before Jan. 30 in order to evade yet another government shutdown. They took one big step closer to that goal on Jan. 20, releasing the last remaining batch of bipartisan appropriations bills. Though the $1.2 trillion funding package still has some big hurdles to clear before becoming law, it has many eye-popping provisions. Included in the legislation are notable reversals of some of President Donald Trump’s steepest cuts to government health and education programs, along with measures meant to ultimately reduce prescription drug costs for consumers. The megabill also would implement new accountability and transparency measures for the Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, amid national scrutiny of federal law enforcement after an ICE agent shot and killed a mother of three in Minneapolis.

USA Today [1/20/2026 9:07 PM, Francesca Chambers, 67103K] reports Vice President JD Vance will visit Minneapolis, Minnesota on Thursday, a person familiar with his plans said Jan. 20. Vance will hold a roundtable with community members and deliver remarks in the city where the Trump administration is fighting to continue its immigration operations. Vance has defended the killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, calling it "a tragedy of her own making" and alleging she was part of vast left-wing extremist network. The shooting prompted protests and has provoked bitter dispute between state and local officials. The Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement raids and officers’ aggressive tactics have stirred protests and increasing calls from local officials for ICE to leave the city.

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Reuters [1/20/2026 6:02 PM, Maria Cardona, Jana Winter and Andrew Hay, 36480K] reports the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday subpoenaed the offices of Minnesota’s governor and attorney general, and mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, as it weighed whether their public opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities amounts to a crime. One of the jury subpoenas, shared with the media by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, orders his office’s custodian of records to produce documents since the beginning of 2025 related to "cooperation or lack of cooperation with federal immigration authorities." The federal grand jury subpoenas were served on six offices of state and local Democrats, according to a Justice Department official, including those of Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison. Trump administration officials have accused Walz and Frey of deliberately stoking interference with ICE operations in "collusion" with anti-government agitators, which the governor denies. The subpoenas arrived a few days after it became public that the U.S. Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation of Walz, Frey and other Democrats and outspoken critics of Trump’s deportation drive in Minnesota. FOX News [1/20/2026 1:28 PM, Greg Norman-Diamond and Alexis McAdams, 40621K] reports that sources told Fox News that the Department of Justice served grand jury subpoenas on Tuesday to five Minnesota government offices — including the Governor’s Office, the Attorney General’s office and the Minneapolis Mayor’s Office – as part of a federal investigation into alleged conspiracy to coerce or obstruct federal law enforcement during ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minnesota. The sources said the FBI served the subpoenas, seeking records and communications. The Justice Department declined to comment on the matter. Fox News learned late last week that federal prosecutors were investigating both Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly impeding law enforcement efforts. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News the duo’s anti-ICE rhetoric was teetering on a federal crime. "When the governor or the mayor threaten our officers, when the mayor suggests that he’s encouraging citizens to call 911 when they see ICE officers, that is very close to a federal crime," Blanche said. Walz responded to the news by accusing the Trump administration of "weaponizing the justice system."

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Wall Street Journal [1/20/2026 3:54 PM, Sadie Gurman, 646K]
The Hill [1/20/2026 3:09 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K]
Blaze [1/20/2026 3:30 PM, Carlos Garcia, 1442K]
Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 4:13 PM, Kaelan Deese, 1394K]

AP [1/21/2026 1:05 AM, Steve Karnowski and Alanna Durkin Richer, 30493K] reports that, as confrontations with federal officers over their massive immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota showed no signs of stopping Wednesday, legal battles over the surge and the local response were also intensifying. Federal prosecutors served grand jury subpoenas Tuesday to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s office and five other officials in the state as part of an investigation into whether they obstructed or impeded law enforcement during a sweeping immigration operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, a person familiar with the matter said. The subpoenas, which seek records, were also sent to the offices of Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, the person said. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The subpoenas came a day after the government urged a judge to reject efforts to stop the immigration enforcement surge that has roiled Minneapolis and St. Paul for weeks. The Justice Department called the state’s lawsuit, filed soon after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an immigration officer, “legally frivolous.” Ellison has said the government is violating free speech and other constitutional rights. Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, is expected to travel to Minneapolis on Thursday for a roundtable with local leaders and community members, according to sources familiar with his plans who spoke on condition on anonymity because the trip had not yet been officially announced. The subpoenas are related to an investigation into whether Minnesota officials obstructed federal immigration enforcement through public statements they made, two people familiar with the matter said Friday. They said then that it was focused on the potential violation of a conspiracy statute. In a subpoena released by Frey’s office, the long list of documents required include “any records tending to show a refusal to come to the aid of immigration officials.” Frey said: “We shouldn’t have to live in a country where people fear that federal law enforcement will be used to play politics or crack down on local voices they disagree with.” The governor’s office referred reporters to a statement earlier Tuesday in which Walz said the Trump administration was not seeking justice, only creating distractions. Greg Bovino of U.S. Border Patrol, who has commanded the Trump administration’s big-city immigration crackdown, said more than 10,000 people in the U.S. illegally have been arrested in Minnesota in the past year, including 3,000 “of some of the most dangerous offenders” in the last six weeks during Operation Metro Surge. Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, expressed frustration that advocates have no way of knowing whether the government’s arrest numbers and descriptions of the people in custody are accurate.

FOX News [1/20/2026 4:08 PM, Louis Casiano, 40621K] reports Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday invited President Donald Trump to visit the state to "see our values in action" amid a contentious back-and-forth between the pair over the presence of federal immigration officers in and around Minneapolis. The invitation came as federal officers continue to conduct operations targeting criminal illegal immigrants amid clashes with agitators that authorities said impede the apprehension of illegal immigrants convicted of various crimes, including murder and child sexual abuse. Walz, as well as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other local Democratic officials, have condemned the enforcement operations and have called for Trump to withdraw federal authorities. On Tuesday, Walz and other top Democratic officials in the state, including Frey and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, were served grand jury subpoenas for allegedly conspiring to hinder ICE operations in Minnesota.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 3:55 PM, Claire Carter, 1394K]

FOX News [1/20/2026 1:10 PM, Alex Miller, 40621K] reports that Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., warned that President Donald Trump’s growing threats against her home state, including possibly invoking a rarely used, centuries-old executive authority, were tantamount to a declaration of war. Last week, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents continue to clash with agitators in Minneapolis. "The president’s statements today essentially amount to threats of declaring war on Minnesota," Smith said. "And in a time when we should be trying to keep people safe and finding a path forward, he continues to throw gasoline on the fire in ways that are really dangerous." The Insurrection Act is a seldom-used executive power first created in 1807. It’s designed to allow the president to deploy the military to quell rebellions and enforce federal laws. When asked about Trump’s threats to invoke the power, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said, "I think he’s threatened in other places, other states, too." "We’ll see what happens," Thune said. "Hopefully, local officials are working with federal law enforcement, ICE and other agencies, but also the local law enforcement officials being able to settle things down." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE have been major talking points in Congress, particularly after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent earlier this month.

NBC News [1/21/2026 5:11 AM, Natasha Korecki, 43603K] reports Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., plans to introduce a bill Wednesday that would financially cripple the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to detain or monitor immigrants, even as she admits the bill won’t advance unless Democrats take control of the House. The proposed legislation, a copy of which was first shared with NBC News, would bar DHS from using detention centers or contracting with new ones. It would then redirect that funding to cover health and human services in communities — primarily assisting with health care and housing, as well as other social services — particularly those affected by immigration enforcement now, Ramirez said. “They believe that there’s no limit to what they could do — there’s no limit to their lawlessness and that as long as they’re masked up and the president continues to justify and call them heroes ... they can do anything,” Ramirez said in an interview. NBC News has asked DHS for comment. Republicans hold a slight majority in the House, all but ensuring the bill wouldn’t get called anytime soon. Still, Ramirez, a Chicago Democrat, said that it was vital that her party begin building a case against the agency ahead of the midterm elections and that she needed time to get buy-in from her colleagues. Top Democrats have cast Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an out-of-control agency that’s overfunded and has little oversight. Ramirez said the timing of the bill’s introduction sends a signal now to angry constituents who are asking their elected leaders in Congress whether they are pushing back against the administration. “You hear the desperation of our people over and over. What do they say: ‘What the hell is Congress doing? Why won’t they stand up for us? Who is fighting for us? Who will defend us? How could this be legal?’” Ramirez said. “To me, it’s really important for us to demonstrate a sense of urgency, especially right now. Waiting until January of next year to begin introducing, building support, building a case for this is too damn late for us.”

FOX News [1/20/2026 11:09 AM, Stephen Sorace, 40621K] reports the Trump administration on Monday asked a federal judge to reject the state of Minnesota’s motion to limit ICE operations in the state, arguing to do so would be "unprecedented" overreach. The Justice Department (DOJ) argued in a filing in response to Minnesota’s lawsuit that the state was "effectively seeking a state veto over the enforcement of federal law," calling the notion "legally frivolous" and an "absurdity.” "The 10th Amendment does not afford an ejectment action for states who are dissatisfied with the federal government’s enforcement of federal law," the DOJ response said. The state sued the Trump administration last week, seeking to block a massive federal immigration enforcement surge they say has flooded the Twin Cities with armed agents, sparked fear and unrest, and interfered with state and local authorities, according to court filings. An injunction blocking the operation "would constitute an unprecedented act of judicial overreach," the administration’s filing said. The DOJ further argued that federal officers and agents were facing a rise in "violent attacks" while conducting enforcement operations.” "In and around Minneapolis, ICE officers operating out of the St. Paul Office have been confronted with increased threats, violence, aggression, attacks, vehicle block-ins, and obstruction of immigration enforcement operations," the filing said.

(B) CBS Mornings [1/20/2026 8:44 AM, Staff] reports that the Justice Department is asking a federal judge to allow more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into Minnesota. The State of Minnesota and its Twin Cities sued the US government last week, arguing a surge of 3000 federal agents violates the state’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. In its filing on Monday, the Trump administration called that position absurd. Minnesota’s attorney general argues the deployment is vindictive. Protests against immigration enforcement agents have only intensified since the fatal shooting of Renee Good earlier this month by ICE agent. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said yesterday some 3000 people have been arrested in her agency’s Minnesota operations.

NewsMax [1/20/2026 8:15 PM, Mark Swanson, 4109K] reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused Minnesota officials on Tuesday of blocking the arrest of more than 1,360 illegal aliens with criminal histories by refusing to honor federal detainer requests at state and local jails. ICE Acting Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Marcos Charles said the sanctuary posture in Minnesota has forced federal agents to pursue criminal illegal in neighborhoods rather than in controlled jail settings — putting the public and officers at risk. Charles specifically called on Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to reverse course and cooperate with ICE, arguing that local resistance is undermining public safety. "If local officials don’t want ICE arresting criminal aliens at large in their communities, the solution is simple," Charles said. "Turn them over to us in a safe, controlled environment like a jail — instead of releasing them back onto the streets to victimize the neighborhoods where your children go to school, where your parents live, and where families worship, shop, and spend time with your loved ones." Since President Donald Trump returned to office one year ago, Charles said Minnesota has released nearly 500 illegal immigrants from state or local custody instead of transferring them to ICE. Many of those individuals, he said, had already received final orders of removal from immigration judges. According to ICE, the agency currently has more than 1,360 active detainers lodged against illegal aliens being held in Minnesota jails and prisons. Minnesota officials dispute ICE’s numbers. The Minnesota Department of Corrections said Thursday that ICE’s claims are "categorically false," noting that of roughly 8,000 inmates in state prisons, 207 are non-U.S. citizens, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. The department said it notifies ICE when inmates with detainers are scheduled for release and coordinates transfers when requested. County jails, however, operate under different rules. A legal opinion issued last year by Democrat Attorney General Keith Ellison states that local law enforcement cannot hold inmates solely on civil ICE detainers. Ellison has also said counties may voluntarily enter agreements with ICE.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 5:53 PM, Anna Giaritelli, 1394K]

AP [1/20/2026 5:00 PM, Tim Sullivan, Claire Rush] reports for years, hospitals, schools and churches had been off-limits for immigration enforcement. But a year ago, the Trump administration announced that federal immigration agencies could now make arrests in those facilities, ending a policy that had been in effect since 2011. At Minneapolis’ sprawling downtown Hennepin County Medical Center, doctors and nurses have moved communications about the crackdown to an encrypted group chat, where they have described run-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, including a recent incident when an officer was accused of unnecessarily shackling a patient.

Axios [1/20/2026 3:49 PM, Monica Eng, 12972K] reports mayoral candidate and Illinois U.S Rep. Mike Quigley will reject new ICE and CBP funding unless agents change their practices on tear gas, masks, warrantless entry, body cameras and more. Federal immigration agents are facing growing accusations of unconstitutional conduct — from shootings and warrantless arrests to the use of chemical irritants on journalists and protesters — without a single known federal investigation into those actions. Quigley plans to introduce an amendment to the FY26 Homeland Security appropriations bill that would restrict using the funds on immigration enforcement. Quigley’s attempt to withhold federal funding could succeed where local efforts to rein in DHS agents have struggled due to a supremacy clause that grants broad immunity to federal agents in the line of duty. Quigley admits the amendment faces challenges.

CBS News [1/20/2026 9:01 AM, Michael Kaplan and Jonah Kaplan, 39474K] reports the Trump administration has justified its ongoing immigration crackdown in Minnesota by citing a need to curb fraud and pointing to a widening scandal involving members of the Somali American community. Yet prosecutors say the mastermind of the state’s biggest fraud scheme to date was not Somali but a White woman — 45-year-old Aimee Bock. In an exclusive interview from her jail cell, Bock defended her conduct, admitted regrets and argued that state officials who she worked with should bear some of the blame. It was the first time Bock spoke publicly since she was arrested for her role in what prosecutors say was a $250 million COVID-era effort to defraud a federal program to feed hungry children. "I wish I could go back and do things differently, stop things, catch things," said Bock, who was the head of Feeding Our Future, the now-infamous nonprofit that signed up restaurants and caterers to receive taxpayer money for providing meals to kids. "I believed we were doing everything in our power to protect the program.” So far, prosecutors have charged 78 defendants connected to Feeding Our Future, with more than 60 pleading guilty or convicted at trial. All are Somali American, except for Aimee Bock. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [1/20/2026 7:12 PM, Jasmine Baehr Fox, 40621K] reports federal immigration officials said Tuesday that Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have faced escalating violence in Minneapolis, including vehicle ramming incidents as recently as "today" and "yesterday," during a major enforcement operation targeting criminal illegal aliens in the Twin Cities. "I believe we had a vehicle ramming today. We had one yesterday," said Greg Bovino, who was identified to the assembled media during a scheduled Department of Homeland Security (DHS) news conference as the commander at large for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) assets in the Twin Cities. Bovino said two suspects "decided that it would be a good idea to ram Border Patrol agents and then take off," adding that a civilian vehicle was also struck during one of the incidents. He said both suspects were apprehended. No additional details were released. The briefing came amid fiery protests, political pushback and scrutiny of federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis after the death of Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7. Bovino appeared alongside Marcos Charles, acting executive associate director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, as DHS officials outlined what they described as a sharp increase in arrests, mounting confrontations and resistance from local leaders during Operation Metro Surge. Bovino said the operation is focused on public safety and violent offenders, rejecting claims that enforcement actions are random or politically motivated. "Our operations are lawful, they’re targeted and they’re focused on individuals who pose a serious threat to this community," Bovino said. "They are not random, and they are not political.” He accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of using "heated rhetoric" that he said has contributed to a hostile environment for federal agents. "Leaders like Tim Walz or Mayor Frey have relied on heated rhetoric and accusations that distract from the facts," Bovino said. "The facts are that federal agents are arresting murderers, rapists, child predators, cartel-connected criminals.” Bovino said federal officers have been "violently and aggressively assaulted," with objects thrown and vehicles damaged since the operation began, though enforcement efforts have continued. Bovino listed several cases he said occurred as recently as the previous day, including what he described as a registered sex offender convicted of crimes against a child and other individuals charged with rape, domestic assault and other violent offenses. Bovino also referenced the recent disruption of a church service during an anti-ICE protest. "Do we like what happened with the church there a couple of days ago when individuals came in and disrupted almost violently a church service? Absolutely not," Bovino said. The Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the disruption at a Minneapolis-area church after protesters stormed a service over a perceived ICE connection Sunday. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Post [1/20/2026 7:17 AM, Patrick Reilly, 42219K] reports President Trump on Tuesday blasted the anti-ICE protesters who stormed a Minnesota church during a service as professional "insurrectionists" — demanding they be thrown in jail or deported along with "corrupt politicians" Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar. The Department of Justice is investigating dozens of protesters who raided the Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday looking for a pastor whom they accused of moonlighting as the acting field office director for ICE in Minnesota. "Just watched footage of the Church Raid in Minnesota by the agitators and insurrectionists. These people are professionals!" Trump raged in an early-morning Truth Social post Tuesday. "No person acts the way they act. They are highly trained to scream, rant, and rave, like lunatics, in a certain manner, just like they are doing. They are troublemakers who should be thrown in jail, or thrown out of the Country," he continued. Trump added that Walz and Omar should be "first to go.” "Investigate these Corrupt Politicians, and do it now!" he added.

NewsMax [1/20/2026 7:20 PM, Michael Katz, 4109K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Newsmax on Tuesday that arrests will soon be made in connection with an incident at a Minnesota church where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement activists interrupted a service. The Department of Justice said it is investigating a group of protesters who disrupted services at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, allegedly leads the local ICE field office overseeing operations involving the arrest of illegal aliens. "There’s going to be arrests in the next several hours, Greta," Noem told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "There will be arrests tied to that, and people will be brought to justice for how they violated the law in that situation.” Noem did not elaborate on who would be arrested but said people involved, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, had prior knowledge of the activists’ plans. Lemon said during a livestream that the group’s plans were intentionally undisclosed ahead of time. He said the protest was organized by Nekima Levy Armstrong, who has "been doing this since George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and others, where they surprise people, catch them off guard, and hold them to account.” The protest was also livestreamed on the Facebook page of Black Lives Matter Minnesota. "The fact that ahead of time before this even happened, he said that he had conducted some surveillance before they went into this church," Noem said about Lemon. "He identified individuals that were going in with him that were activists, and the work that they’d done in the past, the fact that this entire situation was then posted on the Black Lives Matter website, all of that is something that they’re going to be responsible for.”

FOX News [1/20/2026 1:03 PM, Alex Nitzberg, 40621K] reports that an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agitator loudly berated churchgoers at the Cities Chuch in St. Paul, Minnesota, where demonstrations interrupted a service on Sunday. A Facebook post featuring footage of the man’s tirade includes text that reads, "No Rest For Demons! If you support Kristi Noem you are a demon!" Noem is secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The social media post includes footage of a man walking around the church service, asserting that "all these pretend Christians, all these comfortable White people… are living lavish, comfortable lives, while children are dragged into concentration camps." "You are a fake Christian," he asserted. "You’re sinners." He accused people of living "a very easy life, while people are starving.” An overlay on part of the video reads, "PROTESTING DAVID EASTERWOODS RACIST CHURCH THAT SUPPORTS KRISTI NOEM!’ Demonstrations against ICE have increased in Minnesota following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent. The Trump administration said Good was attempting to ram the agent with her vehicle when he opened fire. The agitators allege that one of the church’s pastors — David Easterwood — also leads the local ICE field office overseeing the operations that they claim have involved alleged violent tactics and illegal arrests. The incident comes as the Trump administration continues cracking down on illegal immigrants in the U.S., sparking the ire of the radical left. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [1/20/2026 8:18 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports Attorney General Pam Bondi warned Tuesday that "no one is above the law" as the Department of Justice (DOJ) increases its presence in Minnesota following weeks of unrest, escalating tensions tied to immigration enforcement and the disruption of a church service Sunday. Bondi made the comments in an exclusive interview with Fox News in Minneapolis, where she met with federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials amid what she described as ongoing chaos in the state. "No one is above the law in this state or in this country, and people will be held accountable," Bondi told Fox News. Bondi said conditions in Minnesota have deteriorated in past weeks, citing constant unrest and concerns for officer safety. "This state is a mess right now," she said. "We’ve seen the chaos, and it’s constant. And our men and women in law enforcement deserve to be safe.” Bondi said she met with federal agents from the FBI, DEA and ATF, as well as U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, emphasizing coordination among federal agencies as tensions continue. "We have a great U.S. attorney, and we are all going to fight together," she said. "That’s why it was so important to be here.” Bondi arrived after Minnesota officials, including the governor, mayor and state attorney general, confirmed they had received federal subpoenas. Asked whether those subpoenas signal an investigation into their offices, Bondi declined to provide details. "I can’t confirm nor deny whether we have any investigation or what it is," Bondi said. "I can’t discuss.” When pressed on whether rhetoric from state and local leaders has contributed to unrest, Bondi said inflammatory language can have consequences but iterated that accountability applies universally. "Rhetoric causes people to get hurt and injured, and that shouldn’t be happening," she said. "Whether it’s a public official, whether it’s a law enforcement officer, no one is above the law in this state or in this country, and people will be held accountable.” Bondi also addressed Sunday’s disruption of a church service in St. Paul, calling the incident "horrific" and saying such conduct should never occur at any place of worship. "What happened in that church was horrific," Bondi said. "That should not happen to any Christian, to any religion, to a synagogue, to a mosque, to any place of worship in our country.” Bondi said she has spoken directly with Pastor Jonathan Parnell and plans to meet with him. "That should not happen," she said. "And it was horrific.” In a statement after the Jan. 18 incident, Parnell said a group of agitators disrupted the worship service, accosted members of the congregation and frightened children, describing the conduct as "shameful" and "unlawful.” "Invading a church service to disrupt the worship of Jesus — or any other act of worship — is protected by neither the Christian Scriptures nor the laws of this nation," Parnell wrote, adding that church buildings are meant to be places of peace and refuge. Parnell said the church is evaluating next steps with legal counsel and called on local, state and national leaders to protect the fundamental right to worship freely. Asked whether Minnesotans should expect continued federal involvement following her visit, Bondi answered unequivocally. "President Trump is committed to making Minnesota safe," she said. "So, the answer is yes.”

USA Today [1/20/2026 1:19 PM, Greta Cross, 67103K] reports the U.S. Justice Department is investigating an anti-ICE protest that interrupted a Minnesota church service over the weekend. A group of protestors entered Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota on Sunday, Jan. 18, alleging that Pastor David Easterwood serves as the ICE St. Paul Field Office acting director. The protest was held less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, who was killed by an ICE officer on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis. In an X post on Jan. 18, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ is investigating the protest as a potential violation of the FACE Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of force, threats or physical obstruction to block people from reproductive health care or access to religious worship under the First Amendment’s right of religious freedom. "I just spoke to the pastor in Minnesota whose church was targeted," Bondi wrote in another X post on Jan. 18. "If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails.” St. Paul Police Department Public Information Officer Nikki Muehlhausen told USA TODAY that officers responded to the church, but by the time they arrived, the group of 30 to 40 protestors had moved outside. The department is actively investigating the protest as disorderly conduct, Muehlhausen added. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump condemns the protestors’ actions. Protesters claimed that Easterwood, who is listed on the Cities Church website, made an appearance alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during an ICE operations press conference in October 2025. As of Jan. 20, USA TODAY was unable to confirm Easterwood’s alleged role with the ICE St. Paul Field Office. Cities Church did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for further information on Easterwood’s role, and the Department of Homeland Security declined to provide information on their agents. "DHS will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers. Doxxing our officers put their lives and their families in serious danger," DHS Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by USA TODAY. Doxxing refers to publicly providing personal information of an individual online, often without their consent.

Blaze [1/20/2026 9:17 AM, Joseph MacKinnon, 1442K] reports radicals participating in a so-called "ICE Out Action" stormed a Christian church on Sunday in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The interlopers — ex-CNN talking head Don Lemon and a motley crew of leftists hailing largely from Nekima Levy Armstrong’s Racial Justice Network, Black Lives Matter Minnesota, and BLM Twin Cities — not only lashed out at a pastor over his apparent role at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement but intimidated parishioners, drowned out sound of worship with their propaganda, and pressured the prayerful to condemn ICE. The Justice Department has indicated that criminal charges for possible Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act and KKK Act violations are imminent. Despite the clear language of the relevant statutes, some Democrats have defended the mob action, indicating that churches are viable targets for further desecration. When asked whether the DOJ has a case against the anti-ICE radicals who disrupted Minnesota Christians’ lawful exercise of religious freedom in a place of worship, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday, "Under this DOJ, wrongdoing has nothing to do with whether they’re going to focus or investigate you. So I wish in a normal time I would say no; I’d say this is First Amendment activity.” After she suggested that "the optics of going into a place of worship are not necessarily great," Burnett asked the Muslim Minnesota AG whether he was frustrated "that it happened this way.” Rep. Adelita Grijalva (Ariz.), a co-sponsor of a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and a recent participant in an anti-ICE operation, is another Democrat who evidently figures churches are fair game for intimidation campaigns. On a CNN appearance Monday, Grijalva justified the mob action, suggesting that the supposedly ICE-affiliated pastor "now knows what it’s like to have his daily life and privacy interrupted. This is a daily occurrence in our immigrant communities — being followed, being kidnapped, us out of our schools, churches, and hospitals.”

FOX News [1/20/2026 12:23 PM, Marc Tamasco, 40621K] reports after a group of anti-ICE agitators disrupted a church service in Minnesota over the weekend, The New York Times published a report framing the incident as adding to "tensions over ICE tactics.” On Monday, the Times published a report titled "Protest at Minnesota Church Service Adds to Tensions Over ICE Tactics," drawing the ire of some on social media who felt that the headline was dismissive of the worshipers who were victimized, and instead focused on the public backlash to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in the state. "Incredible," wrote Drew Holden, a managing editor at the conservative outlet "American Compass," on X Monday. "NY Times headline about the storming of a church in Minnesota. The takeaway is that the public intimidation of Christians ‘adds to tensions over ICE tactics.’". "It’s always about Trump. There are no other villains to the legacy press. Deranged," he added. Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, also questioned the Times’ headline. "Tensions over whose tactics?" York wrote on X Tuesday, including a screenshot of the article. Danielle Rhoades Ha, The New York Times senior vice president of communications, told Fox News Digital: "Our role is to cover the news fully and fairly, which we did in this reporting. Our story and headline accurately report on Monday’s protest at the church in St. Paul. The Justice Department is investigating whether or not a crime took place.” The Times reported that the protest was organized by Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer, who said she wanted to draw attention to church leader David Easterwood. "Ms. Levy Armstrong, the church protest organizer, said that in the lawsuit filed earlier this month against ICE’s tactics, she saw that Mr. Easterwood was named as a defendant for overseeing ‘a racial profiling campaign of massive scale and with devastating consequences,’ and connected him with the church," according to the Times. "She compared Mr. Easterwood’s appearance in an October news conference alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with a sermon he delivered at the church that was posted to YouTube.” According to the Times, Levy Armstrong said she circulated her plans to interrupt the service via social media as a way to "raise awareness among the congregation of Mr. Easterwood’s involvement in the immigration crackdown.” "To have someone in the role of a pastor also being in that role as an overseer is unconscionable," Levy Armstrong told the Times. She added that Jesus "called out religious leaders for their hypocrisy.”

NewsMax [1/20/2026 8:25 AM, Brian Freeman, 4109K] reports protests targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota are being used to divert attention from massive fraud and corruption in the state, Rep. Claudia Tenney told Newsmax on Tuesday, accusing Democrats of deliberately fueling anti-law enforcement sentiment to shield political allies from scrutiny. The New York Republican echoed President Donald Trump’s recent comments on Truth Social, where he argued that media focus on ICE enforcement actions has overshadowed what he called staggering financial misconduct by Minnesota politicians. "I think that’s the whole point of all these protests," Tenney said on Newsmax’s "Wake Up America." They "are being ginned up to distract everyone from the tremendous fraud, abuse, and waste we’ve seen in Minnesota.” Tenney added that "people are now starting to look in their own states like New York and California and everywhere to eradicate this, but the Democrats are part of this operation.” She accused Democrat leaders in Minnesota — including Rep. Ilhan Omar, Gov. Tim Walz, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — of amplifying outrage over ICE operations while remaining silent on corruption allegations. "You see them screaming and yelling about ICE," Tenney said. "Where do we come up with this unlawful behavior against people who are serving in law enforcement?". Tenney framed the backlash against ICE as part of a broader effort by Democrats to weaken policing nationwide, linking the current protests to earlier calls to defund police departments.

FOX News [1/20/2026 6:00 AM, Brian Flood Fox, 40621K] reports one of the anti-ICE agitators who stormed into a Twin Cities church Sunday has also been accused of harassing congregants at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s church in Washington, D.C. Anti-ICE agitators stormed Cities Church sanctuary on Sunday, causing chaos and insisting that one of the pastors is the acting director of ICE’s St. Paul field office. Protesters were heard shouting "ICE out" and "Justice for Renee Good" in the middle of services in front of shocked churchgoers. A man with the group was identified as William Kelly, who goes by "DaWokeFarmer" on TikTok, where he has over 66,000 followers, and regularly posts politically charged videos attacking ICE, President Donald Trump and members of his administration with profanity. A member of Christ Church in Washington, D.C., who asked to remain anonymous, told Fox News Digital that he immediately recognized Kelly as a part of a group that has been pestering worshipers on a routine basis. "William Kelly is a regular outside our church, he screams incredibly vile and gross things at families, at children at people, he’s called my wife a c---, a whore and a Nazi breeder, all sorts of fun things," the Christ Church member told Fox News Digital. The anonymous member said Kelly’s identity is well known among congregants after six months of "social media sleuthing."

Reported similarly:
Breitbart [1/20/2026 12:54 PM, Amy Furr, 2416K]

The Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 3:25 PM, Christian Datoc, 1394K] reports President Donald Trump on Tuesday shielded Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, seeking to tamp down on growing opposition to improper arrests and documented misuses of force witnessed while agents carry out the president’s deportation agenda. Much of Trump’s remarks, delivered to reporters in the White House press briefing room on Tuesday, the first anniversary of his second inauguration, focused on the federal government’s operations in Minnesota. The president lauded ICE for allegedly arresting "tens of thousands of illegal alien gang members, drug dealers, murderers, drug runners, human traffickers, fraudsters, and savage criminals." The president, however, appeared to acknowledge the documented overreaches by ICE agents, including the multiple improper detainments of American citizens. The New York Times [1/20/2026 8:04 PM, Anushka Patil, 135475K] reports President Trump on Tuesday said the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis was a “tragedy” about which he “felt terribly,” adding that the immigration agents he has deployed sometimes are “going to make a mistake.” The change in tone was stark for the president, who said he had been told that Ms. Good’s father was a strong Trump supporter. Just hours after she was killed on Jan. 7, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that Ms. Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer” and said that she had “behaved horribly.” He later said Ms. Good, a poet and a mother of three, had a “highly disrespectful” attitude toward law enforcement and suggested that it justified her killing. Trump administration officials, including Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, were quick to accuse Ms. Good of being a “domestic terrorist.” But at the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Trump dropped that hard-line stance as he delivered a meandering reflection on his first year back in office. “You know, when the woman was shot, I felt terribly about it,” he said, referring to Ms. Good. “And I understand both sides of it.” He called the shooting “a horrible thing.” “You know they’re going to make mistakes,” Mr. Trump said. “Sometimes ICE is going to be too rough with somebody or, you know — they deal with rough people. They’re going to make a mistake. Sometimes it can happen terribly.” NBC News [1/20/2026 5:21 PM, Jonathan Allen, 34509K] reports that Trump’s rare appearance at the press briefing marked one year since his inauguration. He expressed exasperation that Americans have been more focused on clashes between immigration agents and the public than on allegations that members of Minnesota’s Somali American community have participated in schemes to defraud the government. Trump also spoke specifically of Good, who was shot by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7, after Ross and other officers approached her stopped car and she began to drive. On his Truth Social platform Tuesday, Trump also lamented that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE weren’t getting enough support, saying they needed to talk more about the "murderers and other criminals that they are capturing."

USA Today [1/21/2026 4:03 AM, George Petras, 67103K] reports donors have contributed about $2.5 million after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 – with $1.5 million going to Good’s family and more than $1 million to the agent. A GoFundMe campaign in support of Good’s family opened hours after the shooting. It was verified and closed Jan. 9 after 38,500 donors raised $1.5 million. Another GoFundMe page, created Jan. 9, still active, and as yet unverified, supports Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer based in Minnesota, who has been identified as the agent who shot Good. Donors include hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who contributed $10,000. Before the fundraisers for Good and Ross, other donation campaigns opened after President Donald Trump increased the presence of ICE in Minneapolis in December. GoFundMe says donated funds "remain safely held by our payment processors" during the verification process, according to Newsweek. After verification, the money can be transferred to recipients.

FOX News [1/20/2026 2:53 PM, Stephen Sorace, 40621K] reports Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Tuesday accused Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of spreading "lies and propaganda" regarding ICE arrests in Minnesota. Omar was responding to Noem’s X post stating that federal officials have "arrested over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror in Minneapolis," including "3,000 criminal illegal aliens" in the last six weeks. Under Noem’s post, the secretary shared dozens of photos of who she described as criminal illegal aliens. "This would be amazing if it wasn’t full of lies and propaganda," Omar wrote. "The only reason she has photos of these criminals in prison is because they were already in prison. Stop terrorizing people with your fake PR about criminals in Minneapolis because the only people on the streets of Minneapolis you are arresting are law abiding citizens." Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Daily Caller [1/20/2026 5:27 PM, Hudson Crozier, 835K] reports journalists erupted when Chief Border Patrol Agent Greg Bovino told the public not to flood the 911 system with calls about immigration officers in Minnesota at a Tuesday press conference. A CNN reporter began shouting and interrupting Bovino on video while he answered a question from the Daily Caller News Foundation about Brooklyn Park residents calling 911 on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The reporter asked Bovino to "address the fear in the community" caused by ICE as Bovino warned against flooding emergency numbers with such calls. Reporters then barraged him with questions scrutinizing ICE’s ongoing presence in the Minneapolis area after he ended the conference. After Bovino concluded his remarks, the CNN journalist and others began raising their hands and asking "how long" ICE would remain in the area.

Politico [1/20/2026 8:11 PM, Kyle Cheney, 13586K] reports Donald Trump’s most aggressive — and fiercely disputed — efforts to expand presidential power have all collided in Minnesota. A year into his second term, Trump has turned this Midwestern blue state into a testing ground for his most draconian policies — including mass deportation, the threat of military deployments on U.S. soil and the unilateral cancellation of nutrition assistance and disaster relief funding for cities and states run by his adversaries. The onslaught has placed Minnesota in the eye of a storm that is roiling the entire nation. Trump lost the state in all three of his presidential campaigns but has falsely claimed to have won it every time. It’s a state led by Democrats — including Gov. Tim Walz, who ran on the ticket against Trump in 2024. It has a large immigrant population, including Somalis, who Trump has described as “garbage.” It became a hotbed of anti-Trump sentiment and civil unrest after George Floyd’s killing by a police officer in 2020. Allegations of fraud in federally funded programs have given Trump an opening to assert control. “There’s really nowhere else in the country that ticks all of those boxes,” said Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor, who added that the White House’s push in Minnesota comes with a strategic benefit: the federal appeals court that would review legal challenges to Trump’s actions in the state is dominated by Republican appointees. The administration and its allies see Minnesota as uniquely recalcitrant and forceful in its pushback to the Trump administration’s agenda on almost every front. Though other Democratic-led cities and states and have resisted Trump’s deportation push and have battled his policies in court, they say the across-the-board opposition in Minnesota — and the uniquely aggravating factor of a burgeoning fraud scandal — has led to the culmination of legal and political battles in the state.

CNN [1/20/2026 6:00 AM, Graham Hurley, 18595K] reports Vincent Hawkins still has the megaphone he was holding when his face was mangled by a tear gas canister. Blood streamed down his face as he clutched his hand over his eye, shuffling in confusion. Moments later – for the first time in his life – the 25-year-old emergency room nurse found himself on the other side. He was the patient. As waves of federal agents surge to several cities across the US, cracking down on what the Trump administration calls the "worst of the worst" illegal immigrants, a growing number of Americans are taking to the street to express their concerns over what they see as heavy-handed overreach. Those protests reached a fever pitch after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. While tensions flare and protests build, so does widespread concern over what some say is the excessive use of crowd control tactics to quell and disperse demonstrators not just in Minnesota, but in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland as well. Law enforcement officers are typically trained to use force only when the crowd poses an imminent threat or is interfering with an officer’s official duties, according to CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst, Josh Campbell. Now the practice is drawing heightened scrutiny – particularly surrounding situations with small crowds and in residential neighborhoods. The effects of the crowd control devices commonly used by law enforcement are usually short-lived and temporary, but some can have a lasting, if not permanent, impact. "I will never see through my left eye again, not even light," said 21-year-old protester Kaden Rummler, in a statement to the Associated Press. "I’m just glad I’m alive to tell my story.” Rummler was maimed by a projectile fired by a federal officer at a recent protest in Santa Ana, California the AP reported. Video shows him advancing toward agents, falling to the ground after being hit in the face by the object, then bleeding profusely as he is dragged away by an officer. Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin described the group to CNN as "violent rioters" who were throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at law enforcement. She said two officers were injured in the altercation but declined CNN’s request to comment on the man’s injury. It is unclear whether any objects were thrown at law enforcement and by whom. Rummler is seen holding a megaphone throughout the incident.

Axios [1/20/2026 3:51 PM, Andrew Solender, 12972K] reports support among House Democrats for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is skyrocketing, nearly doubling in the last week to 100 co-sponsors. The Noem effort represents a mainstreaming of impeachment and offers an early signal of who Democrats may target first if they retake the House in November. A Kelly spokesperson told Axios they expect that number to grow further and that "more offices are continuing to look at the text." The 10-page impeachment resolution, spurred by the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month, accuses Noem of obstructing Congress, violating the public trust and self-dealing. DHS has slammed the effort as "silly" and said Kelly and the other Democrats supporting the articles should focus on crime in their districts. While Democrats can unilaterally force a vote on impeaching Noem, the measure faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled House. It would meet even steeper odds in the Senate, which is also under GOP control and requires a two-thirds majority vote to remove impeached federal officers.

FOX News [1/20/2026 8:24 PM, Bonny Chu, 40621K] reports thousands of people across the country flooded the streets on Tuesday in a mass walkout protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, marking exactly one year since Donald Trump was sworn in for his second presidential term. The walkout, dubbed the "Free America Walkout" is spearheaded by the Women’s March, the same group that mobilized millions of protesters against Trump’s first administration in 2017. According to its website, organizers urged people to walk out of schools, workplaces and businesses around 2 p.m. local time as part of the "Free America" movement, with the aim to "withhold our labor, our participation, and our consent.” Videos of the scene captured dozens of protesters converging in major metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, New York City, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C, as part of the coordinated demonstrations. In some areas, high school students walked out of school during snowy conditions, exercising their political voice despite being too young to vote. Ahead of the planned walkouts, principals at several schools reportedly notified parents and arranged supervision for the protests, according to the Virginia news outlet LoudounNow. In other cities, crowds of demonstrators filled streets and public spaces in protests that were largely orderly and peaceful. In New York City, for example, demonstrators marched to the area outside Trump Tower, chanting slogans and holding signs calling for changes to federal policies. Organizers accused the Trump administration of being "fascist" after the president deployed thousands of ICE agents and other federal troops to major cities in an escalated crackdown on illegal immigration. "One year into Trump’s second regime, we face an escalating fascist threat: ICE raids on our communities, troops occupying our cities, families torn apart, attacks on our trans siblings, mass surveillance, and terror used to keep us silent," the group said on its website. "It is time for our communities to escalate as well.” The organizers of the protest said that holding the walkout on a weekday allows the demonstration to have a greater impact by disrupting the normal routine of schools, workplaces and public life. "A walkout interrupts business as usual," the website for the march said. "It makes visible how much our labor, participation, and cooperation are taken for granted — and what happens when we withdraw them together.” Trump’s immigration agenda has sparked widespread outrage, particularly after an ICE agent fatally shot 37‑year‑old Renee Nicole Good while her vehicle blocked a Minneapolis immigration enforcement operation. The killing has since intensified scrutiny over the use of force in the administration’s crackdown.

Reuters [1/20/2026 12:20 PM, David Morgan, 36480K] reports that President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is fast becoming a double-edged campaign issue in November’s hotly contested midterm congressional elections because of mounting public unease over aggressive tactics by federal immigration officers. After an ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7, sparking protests, opinion polls showed most Americans disapprove of the conduct of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, including a Reuters/Ipsos survey that pointed to a Republican split over whether federal immigration agents should try harder to avoid hurting people. Criticism about ICE’s use of force appears to have diminished the ability of Republican candidates to pivot away from economic pessimism among voters by stressing the party’s traditionally strong standing on crime and security. Democrats could benefit, despite the party’s historic weakness on border security issues, if voters decide Trump has moved beyond what they elected him to do, said Nathan Gonzales, editor of analysis firm Inside Elections. Some Senate Democrats hope to use government funding legislation to impose new curbs on ICE’s actions. But Collins, who oversees funding issues as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she instead favored oversight hearings with Noem.

In response, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, "President Trump and Secretary Noem are delivering on the American people’s mandate to deport illegal aliens."

Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 1:34 PM, Mia Cathell, 1394K] reports that former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), the front-runner in the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s open Senate seat, was pressured in 2019 by an anti-deportation group with financial ties to a dark-money hub. After a pressure campaign from the group, Cooper rejected legislation that would have helped immigration authorities track illegal immigrants who had been arrested in the state. That same activist group, a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization named Siembra NC, is now gearing up to rally behind Cooper’s 2026 Senate bid.
Attempting to win a Senate seat that Republicans have held for years in a battleground state, Cooper’s record on immigration could draw scrutiny, particularly as Democrats attempt to navigate intense outrage on the Left over immigration enforcement that roughly half of Americans still generally support. Cooper vetoed 2019 bill on statewide compliance with ICE detainers. Siembra NC, the beneficiary of dark money meant to influence ballot initiatives, is a well-funded cohort of "community organizers" leading the state’s boots-on-the-ground resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In 2019, Siembra NC started a petition calling on Cooper, then the governor, to "stand against" state legislation that would have mandated local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities. "A veto by Governor Cooper may be our best and only way of preventing this anti-immigrant bill from passing," Siembra NC informed its followers. Cooper went on to veto the measure, House Bill 370.

Reuters [1/20/2026 3:55 PM, Nate Raymond, 36480K] reports a federal judge on Tuesday said she was "very worried" after the top U.S. immigration judge told her colleagues they are not bound by a court ruling declaring the Trump administration cannot lawfully subject thousands of people to mandatory detention without an opportunity to seek release on bond. U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston made those remarks during a hearing in a class action lawsuit challenging the administration’s detention policy, which she and hundreds of other federal judges throughout the country have declared unlawful. The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who say the guidance issued by Chief Immigration Judge Teresa Riley has resulted in immigration judges systematically denying bond hearings to detained migrants even after judges like Saris declared the practice unlawful. They say bond hearings should be guaranteed after Saris and U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California issued rulings declaring the policy unlawful in separate class action lawsuits brought on behalf of people who were living in the United States when they were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet in an email on Jan. 13, Riley told her colleagues they were not bound by Sykes’ ruling. Saris said she believed the Supreme Court would ultimately need to resolve the issue. Justice Department lawyer Katherine Shinners said the administration is "actively seeking appellate resolution" to the issue through numerous appeals nationally. Sykes has separately scheduled a Thursday hearing to address Riley’s guidance.

New York Times [1/20/2026 8:37 AM, Thomas B. Edsall, 135475K] reports 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 Judge Sara L. Ellis of 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.

Washington Post [1/20/2026 5:45 AM, Stewart Verdery, 24149K] reports the United States is on the cusp of a once-in-a-generation opportunity, hosting the world’s most beloved and watched sporting events: this year’s World Cup, the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. For nearly a decade, the global spotlight will be on America and will attract millions of spectators to U.S. soil That moment will succeed only if the United States is seen not just as a great place to compete, but as a safe, welcoming place to visit. Unfortunately, a newly proposed Department of Homeland Security rule risks undermining that goal and could deter millions of qualified visitors without meaningfully improving security. The rule would dramatically expand the personal and social media information required of travelers from America’s closest security partners. The policy risks chilling travel, generating negative headlines abroad and leaving stadium seats empty. Travelers from 42 countries currently visit the U.S. visa-free for up to 90 days under the visa waiver program. These countries, which include such close allies as Britain, Japan and Australia, already meet stringent security standards, including sharing information with U.S. law enforcement, issuing passports secured with electronic chips, allowing air marshals on certain international flights and providing access to travelers’ criminal records. Roughly 19 million visitors use the program annually, with an almost flawless compliance record. Under the new proposal, visa waiver travelers would have to submit additional information "when feasible" such as phone numbers and addresses for themselves and family members. More concerning, they would be required to provide a history of their "social media from the last 5 years." Press accounts in the U.S. and overseas have warned this program would enable DHS to screen individuals’ social media posts, perhaps with artificial intelligence tools, for content deemed anti-American or suggestive of "bad intentions." This is a task even the largest technology companies have not mastered. Meta and TikTok have spent billions trying to distinguish harmful content from benign speech, satire or news engagement, often with inconsistent results. A "like" on a news story about U.S. military engagement in Venezuela could indicate support for or opposition to the action itself, or merely bookmarking. Satire and humor are even harder to parse. And genuine bad actors can easily create fake or scrubbed accounts.

FOX News [1/20/2026 10:00 AM, Corey Brooks, 40621K] reports the only reason I am doing my Walk Across America is because of the kids who are caught in the crossfire of failing policies, broken education systems and leaders who prioritize everything except their future. In Chicago, under Mayor Brandon Johnson’s watch, we have a city screaming for help, but instead of listening, he’s fixated on ICE raids, shielding illegal immigrants, showing solidarity with Minneapolis and even weighing in on foreign policy in Venezuela. Why? When our own streets are stained with the blood of our children, and our schools have failed for years? Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. In a recent video, Johnson declared, "If we don’t push back against Trump and ICE with everything that Black people used to get ‘us free,’ we’re going to find ourselves subjugated to tyranny. One thing is for sure: Not in Chicago.” But hold on — the same man who claims those sacrifices "got us free" is the one who constantly cries about inheriting a "White supremacist system" full of ongoing oppression and racism. Which is it, Mayor Johnson? Are we free, or are we still subjugated? You can’t have it both ways just to fit your narrative. And why drag our ancestors’ legacy into shielding the city from federal law? That’s not honoring their fight. That’s exploiting it. If you want to know the real truth, there’s a population in our city that is not as free as it could be — a population that is constantly denied equality of opportunity, a population that is exploited by the left as "evidence" of systemic racism — and that population is the kids. If White supremacy is truly behind this oppression of our kids, I want to know who’s behind it so we can protest them out of power.

Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 10:25 AM, Byron York, 1394K] reports you’ve seen videos of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers struggling to apprehend illegal immigrants in Minneapolis and elsewhere around the country. Many of those immigrants have criminal records. The reason ICE struggles to detain them is that heavily Democratic jurisdictions, such as Minneapolis, specifically make it hard for immigration authorities to detain criminal illegal immigrants. That’s the point of sanctuary laws — to erect a barrier between the illegal immigrant and federal immigration law. In a more normal world, when a person who is in the country illegally and who has committed another crime is released from jail, local authorities would notify federal immigration officials, who would then pick up the illegal immigrant and put them on the path to deportation. Not in sanctuary jurisdictions. Their laws, passed by Democratic local and state governments, forbid local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. If ICE wants to deport a criminal who is in the country illegally, it’ll have to find them itself. That is what often leads to the scenes of ICE officers showing up in neighborhoods. "There’s a very simple remedy to [the troubles in Minneapolis]," Republican strategist Matt Gorman said on Fox News Sunday. "Let state and local law enforcement let ICE into the jails to get the worst of the worst out. This is happening because [local authorities] are not cooperating … The goal of Democrats is to make all this enforcement as messy and as complicated as possible, so you get a lot of these scenes." Watching events in Minneapolis and other blue cities, if the goal of Democrats is to make ICE’s work "as messy and complicated as possible," they have certainly succeeded.

USA Today [1/21/2026 4:31 AM, Nicole Russell, 67103K] reports once again, leftists are on the wrong side of a vital issue. And once again, things are not as they appear. I watched news coverage of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters in Minnesota storming Cities Church, a Baptist church in St. Paul, during a Sunday morning service on Jan. 18, and I felt a twinge of righteous indignation. Some leftists seem to hate law, order and President Donald Trump so much that they will interrupt a church service of evangelical Christians to make a point and possibly defy state and federal laws. They have crossed a line. Anti-ICE protesters, former CNN host Don Lemon in tow, screamed at Christians as they worshipped God, "Justice for Renee Good," and "Hands up! Don’t shoot!" On Jan. 19, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the Justice Department "will pursue charges" related to the protest. Time will tell. Unfortunately, this escalates already high tensions in the Twin Cities over ICE agents arresting illegal migrants, and now protesters have ceded whatever optics advantage they thought they had. What is clear so far is that it seems like we may not find common ground on this issue, and that’s too bad. Believe it or not, I do understand the angst I see from some Minnesotans about ICE. I emailed a Republican friend who lives there, and he said the mood felt like one of an "occupied" place. The right to protest peacefully is fundamental. But storming a church, in the middle of a Sunday morning sermon, under the guise of defending the immigrant community, goes too far. Protesters did so because they believed a pastor there, David Easterwood, was also an ICE official. Even if this turns out to be true, protesters do not have the authority to hunt down a federal agent during church. This incident, while isolated, suggests that protesters are willing to overlook the reason ICE agents are there − to restore law and order − and bully a group of Christians in the name of justice. This is disrespectful of another core tenet of American beliefs: religious freedom. The protesters’ choice to barge into a house of worship showcases just why progressivism as a belief system has become inherently anti-Christian and anti-Western.

NewsMax [1/20/2026 12:42 PM, James Morley III, 4109K] reports President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to more aggressively publicize their arrests of violent criminal illegal aliens, stating that federal immigration enforcement is saving lives and deserves greater public support. "The Department of Homeland Security and ICE must start talking about the murderers and other criminals that they are capturing and taking out of the system. They are saving many innocent lives!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. Trump said DHS and ICE should highlight the "numbers, names, and faces" of criminals taken into custody, including murderers and repeat offenders, to counter criticism of the agencies and bolster public confidence in their work. "The people will start supporting the Patriots of ICE," Trump wrote, accusing "highly paid troublemakers, anarchists, and agitators" of undermining law enforcement efforts. Trump singled out Minnesota, saying the state is home to "thousands of vicious animals" who have contributed to crime, while also pointing to what he described as historically strong national crime statistics. The comments came as the Trump administration ramps up deportations and interior enforcement, with DHS and ICE prioritizing the removal of illegal aliens with criminal records.

Reported similarly:
Newsweek [1/20/2026 12:52 PM, Gabe Whisnant, 52220K]

ABC 7 Denver [1/20/2026 11:06 PM, Haley Bull, 30493K] reports on Tuesday Scripps News spoke with Todd Lyons, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about the agency’s objectives. "We have almost 1.5 million people that are here in the country that have been legally ordered deported or removed by a federal judge. So that’s someone that has an outstanding deportation. Are that we’re going to go ahead and focus on that, but we’re also going to focus on the worst of the worst," Lyons said. "What we’ve been trying to do is really educate the public on the fact that that we do have so many of these international fugitives and folks that have really serious criminal histories that are hiding in plain sight, and unfortunately they were weren’t vetted properly and at the border previously. So now we’ll go ahead and try to, you know, get rid of these." Lyons said he wanted to see more cooperation from state and local officials — by doing more to arrest immigrants with criminal histories, and by toning down rhetoric against federal enforcement. "When we go out and make an arrest after someone gets released from local jurisdiction, you’d only need five or six officers to do that. Now, we have to go out there with those five to six officers make the arrest, but 15 to 20 just to protect them," Lyons said. "You wouldn’t see that many officers and special agents on the street if we had that cooperation. "

FOX News [1/20/2026 9:16 PM, Staff, 40621K] reports I.C.E. executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations Marcos Charles blames ‘agitators’ and ‘vile protesters’ for impeding immigration enforcement on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [1/20/2026 8:09 AM, Greg Norman-Diamond, 40621K] reports a federal judge refused to block the Trump administration from enforcing a new policy requiring members of Congress to give a week’s notice before visiting immigration detention facilities. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., comes after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said she and other Minnesota lawmakers were kicked out of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10. They were asked to leave the facility after being informed about the Trump administration rule governing lawmaker visits. Plaintiffs’ attorneys representing several Democratic members of Congress asked Cobb to intervene, but the judge ruled Monday that they used the wrong "procedural vehicle" to challenge it. The judge also concluded that the Jan. 8 policy is a new Department of Homeland Security action that isn’t subject to her prior order in the plaintiffs’ favor. "The Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs’ motion only because it is not the proper avenue to challenge Defendants’ January 8, 2026, memorandum and the policy stated therein, rather than based on any kind of finding that the policy is lawful," Cobb wrote. Last month, Cobb temporarily blocked an administration oversight visit policy. She ruled on Dec. 17 that it is likely illegal for ICE to demand a week’s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions in ICE facilities. A day after Renee Nicole Good’s death in Minneapolis, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem quietly signed a new memorandum reinstating another seven-day notice requirement, according to The Associated Press. Plaintiffs’ lawyers from the Democracy Forward legal advocacy group said DHS didn’t disclose the latest policy until after Reps. Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig were turned away from an ICE facility in the Minneapolis federal building.

Reported similarly:
The Hill [1/20/2026 3:40 PM, Sophie Brams, 12595K]

Daily Caller [1/20/2026 7:43 PM, Mariane Angela, 835K] reports Border czar Tom Homan said Tuesday that federal immigration agents may briefly detain a U.S. citizen during an enforcement operation if officers have reasonable suspicion. During an appearance on "The Will Cain Show," host Will Cain pressed Homan on claims that United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) improperly targeted a U.S. citizen during a Minneapolis enforcement action. Homan responded that agents may briefly detain American citizens during operations when they have reasonable suspicion, while probable cause is required for an arrest. "ICE can detain a U.S. citizen if they have probable cause or this person may have committed a crime. Detainment, short detainment and questioning, all you need is reasonable suspicion," Homan told Cain. "If they’re going to actually arrest a person and charge them, they need probable cause." A Minnesota man claims federal agents briefly detained him during an enforcement action, saying officers entered his home, restrained him, and escorted him outside while they worked to verify his identity. ChongLy Thao, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen who goes by Scott, said agents later released him and returned him home. Homan pushed back against claims of improper enforcement. He walked through the sequence of events that led agents to a Minneapolis home, saying the operation focused on tracking down two illegal immigrants with violent criminal records. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Axios [1/20/2026 2:38 PM, Brittany Gibson, 12972K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is going all-in to defend immigration officers who’ve detained U.S. citizens, even as the number of incidents continues to rise. The government has blamed media "fear-mongering" for the negative attention. But it’s locked in court battles over whether its sweeping immigration checks — called "roving patrols" — violate the U.S. Constitution. U.S. citizens aren’t required to carry around documentation proving their nationality, and agents must have probable cause specific to that individual to ask a person to see their papers. At least 170 U.S. citizens were detained by ICE through October of 2025, according to a ProPublica investigation that was denied by Noem. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told CNN that encounters shown in videos posted online are not "racially based" and said "there’s a lot of fear-mongering going on by the media." Noem said Thursday that officers are acting appropriately and "in every situation, were doing targeted enforcement." "If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there and having them validate their identity," Noem said at the White House.

FOX News [1/20/2026 11:59 AM, Brian Flood, 40621K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been portrayed in an overwhelmingly negative light by ABC News, NBC News and CBS News, according to a new study. The Media Research Center (MRC) analyzed all morning and evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS from Jan. 7, when Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer, through Jan. 17. The incident has sparked heated debate across the country and ignited several violent attacks on federal immigration enforcement agents. In the 10 days following the shooting, ABC, NBC and CBS were overwhelmingly negative about ICE, according to the MRC study. The study found 68 negative soundbites about ICE, compared to only five positive clips as ABC, NBC and CBS morning and evening newscasts were negative 93% of the time. "No news network produces coverage this dishonest by accident. The elitist media’s abysmal reporting proves their intent, which is to nullify immigration law via manipulating public opinion," MRC President David Bozell told Fox News Digital. ABC’s "Good Morning America" and "World News Tonight" aired 21 negative soundbites and only two positive ones, while NBC’s "Today" and "Nightly News" also aired 21 negative soundbites and only two positive ones, according to the study. Both networks were 91% negative. CBS was negative about ICE 96% of the time, airing 26 negative soundbites and only a single positive one, according to the study. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the ICE officer fired in self-defense after Good used her Honda Pilot SUV in a way that posed a threat. The ICE officer suffered internal bleeding to his torso when he was struck by her vehicle, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday. The extent of the bleeding was not immediately clear.

NewsMax [1/20/2026 1:41 PM, Jim Mishler, 4109K] reports Department of Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told Newsmax that mainstream media outlets work hard to "cherry-pick" data to challenge the Trump administration on immigration enforcement issues. Bis told "National Report" on Tuesday that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was recently openly challenged on arrest statistics by a CBS show host. "Look, this is again the mainstream media trying to cherry-pick data to tell a story that they want to tell. Secretary Noem is correct: The fact is, 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens who have been charged or convicted of a crime just here in the U.S.” Bis said that the numbers are staggering. "That statistic doesn’t even include people who lack a rap sheet here in the U.S.” "[Such as] People with Interpol Red Notices who have committed crimes and are wanted fugitives in their home country [and] terrorist gang members who just lack a rap sheet here in the U.S.” She defended the administration’s immigration enforcement as being directed at protecting America. "We are targeting the worst of the worst — 70% have committed a crime in the U.S.” Bis said the types of criminals being arrested are not who most would want as neighbors. "For instance, we’ve arrested someone who murdered their 3-month-old son. We’ve arrested pedophiles every day.” "That’s the type of people we are targeting. The media just doesn’t want to report on it," she said.

Axios [1/20/2026 2:38 PM, Josephine Walker, 12972K] reports at least 31 people died in ICE custody last year, a two-decade high, as President Trump’s mass-detention surge strains a system already under fire for dangerous conditions. Immigrants rights groups warn deaths will keep rising as the administration floods ICE with more cash — and that the agency’s facilities may not be equipped to handle the influx of detained people. The Trump administration’s policy of limiting congressional oversight visits to ICE facilities has exacerbated those fears, fueling an impeachment push against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The 2025 death toll nearly tripled from the 11 deaths in 2024, according to an Axios review of ICE news releases. The next closest peak was 20 deaths in 2020, when COVID-19 raced through tightly packed detention centers. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told Axios that there was "no spike in deaths" in ICE custody in 2025, arguing the death rate per person has remained stable. "Every detainee receives food, water, medical care, bedding and clean clothing. All detainees are receiving three meals a day that are certified by dietitians," they said. DHS says it screens everyone for medical, dental and mental health needs within 12 hours of arrival, and conducts a full health assessment within two weeks. Detained people also have access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.

Axios [1/20/2026 2:38 PM, Sam Sabin, 12972K] reports protesters opposing ICE’s mass deportation operations are increasingly turning to data leaks and homegrown surveillance tools. The latest wave of U.S.-based hacktivism — where hackers launch attacks to make a political statement, rather than to make money or steal state secrets — reflects a more strategic, cohesive embrace of digital tools. Someone leaked a trove of sensitive information about approximately 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees, including 2,000 frontline enforcement agents, to the site ICE List last week. The trove appears to be the largest known breach of Department of Homeland Security staff data. It follows the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. "It is a sign that people aren’t happy within the U.S. government, clearly," ICE List founder Dominick Skinner told the Daily Beast. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials have condemned the "doxing" of agents and threatened to prosecute offenders.

USA Today [1/20/2026 10:58 AM, Brendan Morrow, 67103K] reports Billie Eilish is making her voice heard. The "Birds of a Feather" singer, 24, spoke out against President Donald Trump, recent actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and more in a Jan. 17 speech while accepting an honor at the MLK, Jr. Beloved Community Awards in Atlanta. The Grammy winner, who received the Environmental Justice Award, said that she did not feel "deserving" of the honor, according to video of her speech shared on social media and YouTube. "It’s very strange to be celebrated for working towards environmental justice at a time where it feels less achievable than ever, given the state of our country and the world right now," she said. "We’re seeing our neighbors being kidnapped, peaceful protesters being assaulted and murdered. Our civil rights are being stripped, resources to fight the climate crisis being cut, fossil fuels and animal agriculture destroying our planet and people’s health, access to food and healthcare becoming a privilege for the wealthy, instead of a basic human right for all Americans.” Eilish continued, "It is very clear that protecting our planet and our communities are not a priority for this administration, and it’s really hard to celebrate when we no longer feel safe in our own homes or in our streets." Members of the Trump administration have described ICE’s actions in Minnesota as an effort to make the community safer. "PEACE AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN MINNEAPOLIS!" Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently posted on X, also describing ICE arrests as "a HUGE victory for public safety." Eilish also said she has a "responsibility" to use her "platform," adding, "I feel like I’m just doing what anyone in my position should be doing."

FOX News [1/20/2026 6:55 PM, Staff, 40621K] Video: HERE reports Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins reports on the Trump administration’s expansion of immigration enforcement operations into Maine on ‘Special Report.’

Daily Caller [1/20/2026 12:49 PM, Nicole Silverio, 835K] reports Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed on Tuesday that he supports abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During an appearance on "The View," Mamdani accused ICE of "terrorizing" people and violating the law while disregarding people’s "humanity." He has long condemned ICE and called on the agency to be held accountable, asserting that no one is above the law and that immigrants’ rights must be protected. "I am in support of abolishing ICE, and I’ll tell you why," Mamdani said. "Because what we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We’re seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law, but instead what it’s doing is terrorizing people, no matter their immigration status, no matter the facts of the law, no matter the facts of the case. And I’m tired of waking up every day and seeing a new image of someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life.” "What we need to see is humanity," Mamdani continued. "And there is a way to care about immigration in this city and in this country with a sense of humanity. What we’re seeing from ICE is not it, and we have not seen that from them in a long, long time." Shortly after being elected mayor, Mamdani called on New Yorkers to obstruct ICE agents and argued that a "Warrant of Removal/Deportation" is invalid. He later doubled down on the move, stating that he was simply informing New Yorkers "of their rights.” "I’m proud to inform people of their rights, and I can’t think of a more American thing to do than to speak about the protections that we all have under the law," Mamdani said on Dec. 11. Anti-ICE sentiments have escalated among Democrats since the death of Renee Good, who was shot by an ICE agent on Jan. 7 after she defied officers’ orders and hit him with her car in Minneapolis. In response, Mamdani stated that the agent "murdered" Good and accused President Donald Trump of bearing responsibility for her death.

Reported similarly:
ABC News [1/20/2026 4:15 PM, Ivan Pereira, 30493K]

Politico [1/20/2026 3:56 PM, Ry Rivard, 13586K] reports Rep. LaMonica McIver, the New Jersey Democrat who is being prosecuted by the Trump administration, is expected to appeal all the charges against her on Tuesday and argue she is shielded from prosecution by the Constitution. McIver, a first-term Democrat, was charged with assaulting law enforcement officers following a chaotic scrum outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in New Jersey in May. She and two other New Jersey Democrats — Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez — were there to do an oversight visit. They were not charged. McIver, who is a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, argues she is shielded from the charges by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which grants members of Congress a form of immunity that is mostly impenetrable in investigations relating to the official duties of lawmakers. “Legislative immunity doesn’t put members of Congress above the law, it protects the public’s right to have a voice — especially when that voice challenges power,” McIver said in a statement to POLITICO. “What happens here matters far beyond what happens in this one case. So I can’t, and won’t, back down — that’s what this appeal is about.” The Department of Homeland Security has previously called this argument laughable. McIver’s appeal seeks to combine all the issues of targeted prosecution and congressional immunity into one appeal. She is facing a three-count indictment. She previously filed a notice of appeal of a November ruling by U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper, a Biden appointee, who declined to dismiss two of the three counts. Earlier this month, after spending more time looking at evidence, he also declined to dismiss the other count.

Politico [1/20/2026 10:23 AM, Daniel Han and Matt Friedman, 13586K] reports in one of his last actions in office, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would write into state law permanent restrictions between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities — saying signing it would “unintentionally undermine protections for New Jersey’s immigrant communities.” The outgoing governor’s action comes amid intense scrutiny on Immigration and Customs Enforcement following an agent’s fatal shooting of a woman in Minnesota this month. New Jersey lawmakers cited that shooting in hearings as one reason to pass the bill in a package of pro-immigration legislation. The Garden State currently has a nearly identical policy through a state directive — although progressives wanted Murphy to codify it into law to ensure it would continue permanently. Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill has said she would continue the practice which began under the Murphy administration, although she has suggested she would tweak it to help federal agents if they are in “real danger.” New Jersey’s current practice — dubbed the Immigrant Trust Directive — has been the subject of litigation but has been upheld in federal court, including by a Trump-appointed judge. In a statement, Murphy said the vetoed bill, NJ A6310 (24R), contains two provisions that could undermine its standing in court: removing an exception that allowed state authorities to notify federal authorities of an inmate’s release if they’re subject to a final order of deportation signed by a federal judge, and new restrictions on state and local law enforcement funding used to assist federal immigration enforcement. “I am extremely concerned that signing this bill, which differs from the Immigrant Trust Directive, would open New Jersey up to a new court challenge and renewed judicial scrutiny from judges who may not render the same decision upholding these critical protections,” Murphy said. State Sen. Britnee Timberlake, a Democrat from Essex County who sponsored the bills, said in a phone interview that she would reintroduce the two vetoed bills and hopefully see them signed by Sherrill, who takes the oath of office at noon Tuesday. “We needed these bills to help protect all New Jerseyans, both documented and undocumented. It’s unfortunate,” she told POLITICO.

Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 6:33 PM, Barnini Chakraborty, 1394K] reports a Pennsylvania county official on Tuesday called for the eviction of ICE officers from county-owned space, alleging the federal government has not paid rent for more than three years and does not have a valid lease. Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley demanded the immediate payment of more than $115,000 in unpaid rent and nearly $8,000 in late fees, a termination of all negotiations with the Department of Homeland Security, the eviction of federal immigration enforcement agencies from county property, and accountability for county officials who knowingly allowed the arrangement to go on for years without doing something about it. "We found that they haven’t been paying for nearly three years and they’ve been occupying space," Pinsley, a Democrat who is running for Congress, said. He added that due to the civil and political unrest in Minneapolis and other cities across the country, he believes the county should stop "housing or helping them in any form or fashion.” Pinsley, who is in his second term as county controller, said DHS and ICE illegally occupied the space for 38 months, and that taxpayers absorbed utilities, maintenance, and other operational costs. Lehigh County is home to about 347,557 Pennsylvanians. Its county seat is Allentown, the state’s third-largest city, following Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. "I think the county should be unequivocal and tell ICE: pay your bills, pack your s***, and get the hell out," he added. The inquiry into ICE and DHS was initiated after a complaint was filed with Lehigh County’s Controller’s office. The complaint also questioned DHS’s use of the space and why the agency was there in the first place. The review identified issues that the controller’s office deemed credible and significant, prompting a recommendation for immediate action by the county executive and further review by county leadership. During a press conference, Pinsley said he felt a "growing sense of alarm and sadness" while watching ICE carry out raids in Minneapolis.

Reported similarly:
Newsweek [1/20/2026 2:22 PM, Billal Rahman and Dan Gooding, 52220K]

Daily Caller [1/20/2026 5:08 PM, Derek VanBuskirk, 835K] reports council members in Montgomery County, Maryland, introduced bills Tuesday to create both literal and legal barriers against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents operating within the county. The two bills prohibit the masking of ICE agents and bar them from entering county facilities without a judicial warrant. Jawando is the lead sponsor of the Unmask ICE Act, Bill 5-26, which prohibits the masking of all law enforcement officers operating within the county, according to a statement released Friday. Jawando said exceptions will be made for medical needs, cold weather conditions and SWAT operations, but masks will not be used for intimidation or to avoid accountability. Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles said at the press briefing that although the law applies to all officers, it will help community members distinguish ICE from the unmasked county police. Jawando agreed, saying the bills will not stop ICE from operating, but will establish a "basic standard" to follow.

FOX News [1/20/2026 3:39 PM, Stepheny Price, 40621K] reports a man accused of driving drunk and killing a student-athlete and his girlfriend in a Rowan County, North Carolina, crash is now facing felony charges, with federal immigration officials also issuing a detainer, according to local reporting. Juan Alvarado Aguilar, 37, has been identified as the suspect in the case. Jail records show Aguilar is being held at the Rowan County Detention Center on a bond set at over $5 million, following his arrest on multiple charges, including two counts of felony death by vehicle and driving while impaired. The Salisbury Post reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a detainer and administrative warrant for Aguilar following his arrest. The victims were identified as 20-year-old Fletcher Mark Daniel Harris and 19-year-old Skylar Nichole Provenza. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

FOX News [1/20/2026 7:28 PM, Stepheny Price, 40621K] reports a deadly wrong-way crash on a Tennessee interstate has led to vehicular homicide charges against an illegal immigrant, with jail records showing the suspect is now being held for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The suspect, 27-year-old Eric Ramon Alcantara-Guevara, is charged with vehicular homicide, DUI and leaving the scene of an accident knowing a death resulted following the crash Sunday night on Interstate 640 West in Knoxville. According to the Knoxville Police Department, officers responded around 7:15 p.m. on Jan. 18 to reports of a wrong-way crash near the Broadway exit, where a passenger vehicle traveling in the opposite direction collided with a westbound motorcycle. The man on the motorcycle was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not been released pending notification of next of kin. Police say the occupants of the passenger vehicle fled the scene before officers arrived. A short time later, responding officers located Alcantara-Guevara and took him into custody. Investigators say he ran from the scene but was quickly apprehended. Court and jail records show multiple warrants were issued against Alcantara-Guevara on Jan. 19, including a $125,000 pre-trial bond for vehicular homicide. Those same records show a hold for ICE was placed on him that day, indicating federal authorities believe he may be in the United States unlawfully. Alcantara-Guevara appeared in court on Jan. 20 for several required 48-hour bond hearings and is scheduled to return to court again on Feb. 26, according to court records. The Knoxville Police Department said the investigation into the crash remains ongoing. ICE has not yet publicly confirmed Alcantara-Guevara’s immigration status or whether the agency had any prior contact with him before his arrest. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., weighed in on the case, calling for strict punishment and deportation. "Eric Ramon Alcantara-Guevara should face the full wrath of American justice, and he should be deported," Blackburn said in a statement. "The Knoxville community is safer because law enforcement officers arrested this man and held him on an ICE detainer after he allegedly murdered a motorcyclist and fled the scene of the crime.” Fox News Digital reached out to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and ICE for comment.

CBS News [1/20/2026 11:10 AM, Dan Raby, 39474K] reports Metro Atlanta students are set to join a nationwide walkout in solidarity with Minnesota residents protesting an immigration crackdown in the state. The Free America Walkout is set to begin on Tuesday afternoon at universities and high schools around the area. At Lakeside High School in DeKalb County, dozens have said that they plan to attend the walkout. "On January 20, we call on our communities to organize teams, call your neighbors and classmates, and turn your back and walk out on fascism," the event description reads. Additional walkouts are set to take place at Emory University as well as cities around the metro area. In Atlanta, the protest is set to end with a city-wide rally at 5 p.m. in Hurt Park. Escalating tensions as ICE crackdown continues in Minnesota. In Minnesota, daily protests have been ongoing throughout January, following the Department of Homeland Security’s ramping up of immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, which involved deploying thousands of federal officers. The protests have escalated after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good during an encounter. A report obtained by CBS News Minnesota showed that responders found that Good had two apparent gunshot wounds to her chest, one on her left forearm, and a possible fourth on the left side of her head.

Breitbart [1/20/2026 1:23 PM, John Binder, 2416K] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking the public’s help in locating a pair of fugitive illegal aliens convicted of sex crimes, including child rape, in Minnesota. ICE officials are pleading for help from the public in finding Kongmeng Vang and Lue Moua, both illegal aliens from Laos, who are believed to be in the sanctuary city of St. Paul, Minnesota. "ICE is calling on the public to report any sightings of these two sexual predators to the ICE tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or visiting www.ice.gov," a press release issued on Tuesday states. According to ICE officials, Vang is wanted for sexual assault, gang activity, and assault, and was ordered deported from the United States by a federal immigration judge in 2016. Moua, ICE officials said, is wanted for sexual assault of a minor, rape, kidnapping, and domestic abuse. Like Vang, Moua was ordered deported from the U.S. by a federal immigration judge in 2012. "These two violent illegal alien sexual offenders are at large in St. Paul," the Department of Homeland Security’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "We are asking the public to provide any information leading to the arrests of these two heinous sexual predators," McLaughlin said. "Any tips or sightings can be reported to 1-866-DHS-2-ICE. These monsters are the exact type of criminal illegal aliens ICE is targeting in Minnesota. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will find you, we will arrest you, and you will never return."

Reuters [1/21/2026 3:03 AM, Jillian Kitchener, 36480K] reports community volunteers across Minneapolis and St. Paul have organized neighborhood patrols and rapid‑response networks, saying they are working to protect one another from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the area.

Breitbart [1/20/2026 11:08 AM, Bob Price, 2416K] reports ICE agents arrested Guatemalan national Samuel Eduardo Arevalo‑Hernandez after Cottonwood County, Minnesota, officials refused to honor a federal detainer and released the alleged child sex predator back into the community. The criminal alien is charged with two counts of third‑degree penetration of a child between the ages of 14 and 15. Officials assert that this is the type of person Minnesota officials chose to protect, not American citizens. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Fugitive Task Force members were forced by sanctuary jail policies to make the arrest of Arevalo-Hernandez on the streets, rather than a safe transfer of a dangerous criminal alien in a secure facility. ICE officials posted that Cottonwood County officials refused to honor a detainer that would have enabled a peaceful, secure transfer. Instead, the public, the officers, and the criminal alien were all placed in danger by the felony arrest process on the streets. Arevalo-Hernandez stands accused by a Minnesota prosecutor of two counts of third-degree penetration of a child under the age of 15, the post reveals. In Minnesota, this is considered a rape-level crime. "This is who sanctuary city politicians and anti-ICE agitators are defending," ICE officials stated. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin reported that two other accused sex offenders are at large in the St. Paul, Minnesota, area.

Washington Post [1/20/2026 1:07 PM, Robert Klemko, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Anna Liss-Roy, Daniel Wu, Joshua Lott, Erin Patrick O’Connor and Justine McDaniel, 24149K] reports on the seventh Friday of the largest immigration enforcement operation in a U.S. city, during a presidency defined by the issue, a growing cadre of activists searched tinted car windows for masked federal agents. A man facing a deportation order in connection with a rape more than 20 years ago begged one of those agents for a final moment to say goodbye to the mother of his children. A child care worker blowing desperately on a whistle sprinted after two federal officers pursuing a person. And a 22-year-old Ecuadorian asylum seeker ventured out nervously to a new job in a city that seemed to be tilting on end, in a country threatening to shake her loose. An estimated 3,000 people have been arrested since Operation Metro Surge began, according to Homeland Security officials, following crackdowns in Chicago, New Orleans, Portland, Memphis, Charlotte and Los Angeles.In relative terms, Metro Surge dwarfs those other efforts, with more officers — about 2,000 to begin with — flooding the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, which together have a population about one-quarter the size of Chicago and less than one-fifth the size of Los Angeles. The saturation of federal enforcement has reoriented aspects of public life, especially for non-White residents, both documented and undocumented. The choices people make have changed: dropping kids at school, or going to school at all; whether to shop, and what to shop for; whether to go out at night; whether to drive to work; whether to go to a doctor’s appointment. Federal officers roam in tinted SUVs most hours of the day. And thousands of civilians, many of them U.S. citizens with no deportation risk, have organized themselves into a highly coordinated campaign to thwart those officers. The sounds of car horns and whistles, megaphones and profane chants have become the soundtrack to daily life in the Twin Cities’ most diverse neighborhoods. Residents posting cellphone videos on TikTok, Instagram and X make up a collective online photo album of a city under stress. And that was before an ICE officer fatally shot a woman who had positioned her car in the middle of the road as law enforcement gathered several blocks from her home. Since Jan. 7 when Renée Good was killed, administration officials have pledged to deploy up to 1,000 more officers to the Twin Cities and even weighed whether to send military troops to quell what one official called an “insurrection.” Then, a week later after Good’s death, an ICE officer shot a man in the leg during an attempted arrest, prompting bitter and violent late-night protests. On a frigid Friday last week, The Washington Post set out to document a city where the full weight of the federal government has descended, upending daily life. The day started outside a squat, concrete block of a building named for a 19th-century Episcopal minister who defended the rights of Native Americans. The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building has become the new heart of the Twin Cities, pumping out a steady stream of ICE officers into the frozen streets and drawing them back hours later, their vehicles bearing the handcuffed results of their unrelenting searches.

New York Post [1/20/2026 4:28 PM, Anthony Blair, 42219K] reports a US citizen was dragged out of his Minnesota home in his underwear by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a search for two sex offenders who allegedly lived at the property. ChongLy "Scott" Thao, who has no criminal record, was napping when his daughter-in-law woke him up to tell him that ICE agents were banging on the door of their home in St. Paul on Sunday, the Associated Press reported. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the ICE raid was a "targeted operation" seeking "two convicted sex offenders" at the address. But Thao told the AP that only he, his son, his daughter-in-law and 4-year-old grandson live at the rental home and neither they nor the property’s owner are listed on Minnesota’s sex offender registry. The confusion may have been related to Thao’s son, Chris, getting stopped earlier in the day by ICE while driving a car that he borrowed from his cousin’s boyfriend. The boyfriend shares the first name of a separate Asian man convicted of a sex offense, court records show. When they realized Thao was a US citizen with no criminal record, he was brought back to his house two hours later and made to show his ID, he said. He now plans to file a civil rights lawsuit against DHS, and said he no longer feels able to sleep in his home.

Reported similarly:
Los Angeles Times [1/20/2026 1:09 PM, Jack Brook, 14862K]
AP [1/20/2026 9:46 AM, Staff, 31753K]

New York Times [1/20/2026 7:15 PM, Maia Coleman, 135475K] reports it was over in a flash. Masked federal agents descended on a one-story home in St. Paul, Minn., on Sunday and dragged a man wearing nothing but his underwear and slip-on shoes from his doorstep, through an icy snowbank and into an idling S.U.V. Tires screeched. Whistles sounded. Neighbors shrieked in the background. And then the agents and the man were gone. The arrested man was identified as ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen with no criminal record, according to his family. He was released about an hour later without being charged, they said. The images of the diminutive, barely clad man being led away through freezing temperatures spread instantly. The Department of Homeland Security said Mr. Thao’s arrest was made amid an attempt by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain convicted sex offenders. But in a community on edge, the operation quickly came to represent what critics call a callous and unnecessary enforcement campaign. It has also has touched off panic on St. Paul’s east side, where a large population of Hmong people has lived for decades. Neighbors in the area have described a surge of immigration raids in recent days targeting people of Asian descent. The Department of Homeland Security said on Monday that the arrest had been part of a targeted operation seeking two sex offenders who lived at the address with Mr. Thao. On Tuesday, they identified two men from Laos and said both are wanted for sexual assault. It was unclear on Tuesday whether the two men were the intended targets of Sunday’s raid, or were connected in some way with Mr. Thao. Local officials and Mr. Thao’s family have disputed the department’s account, describing instead a chaotic case of mistaken identity and an incursion of armed agents who forcibly removed a U.S. citizen from a residence without presenting a warrant or allowing him to show identification. “ChongLy was taken outside in freezing weather wearing only underwear and Crocs, placed into an SUV, and driven around for nearly an hour while being questioned,” Louansee Moua, Mr. Thao’s sister-in-law, wrote in a description of the event on a GoFundMe page fund-raising for Mr. Thao’s legal fees and other costs. The family declined to comment further on the arrest on Tuesday. But in an earlier interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Thao said the agents did not explain or apologize for the arrest. “They didn’t say sorry or anything,” he said. In its statement on Monday, homeland security said that Mr. Thao had refused to be fingerprinted or facially identified and that he had matched the description of the two sex offenders they were seeking. “It is standard protocol to hold all individuals in a house of an operation for safety of the public and law enforcement,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the department, wrote on social media. It did not appear that any other members of the family were arrested on Sunday.

San Francisco Chronicle [1/20/2026 6:54 PM, St. John Barned-Smith, 4722K] reports James Cook was visiting Minneapolis for the holidays when thousands of ICE agents arrived in his hometown like an occupying force, raiding neighborhoods and plucking people off the streets. Cook, 57, isn’t an immigration attorney. He spends his time on civil rights and criminal cases in federal court out of his Oakland office. But as the Trump administration ramped up its deportation raids in Minneapolis over the past six weeks, Cook started getting phone calls from friends of people who’d been snatched off the streets, asking if he could help. “All hell broke loose,” he said of the situation in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Soon, he was visiting ICE’s detention facility outside of Minneapolis, attempting to stop deportations and free protesters from custody. Cook’s experience offers a window into the volatile situation playing out in Minneapolis — where federal agents are aggressively detaining immigrants, prompting clashes with protesters — and the dilemma facing detainees who may not understand their legal rights. Legal experts say many of these detainees are at risk of being deported without due process. This week, Cook represented an asylum seeker from Ecuador, helping delay her deportation hearing until next November. But such victories have been extremely rare, he said. In many cases, people he’s tried to represent have been flown out of state, in some cases, less than 24 hours after being detained. In others, he said, he believes the government has been tricking detainees into waiving their right to counsel. “We’re getting blocked on all sides,” he said. “It sucks, but it’s a problem we have to solve.” Often, it’s hard for Cook to find out where detainees are being held. Frequently, he said, those detained in Minneapolis are removed from the facility hours after being taken into custody, often being flown to other ICE detention centers hundreds of miles away, or elsewhere across the country. “We’re in uncharted territory,” he said. “If you’re deporting someone in 12 hours, you’re definitely not following due process.”

New York Times [1/21/2026 3:20 AM, Orlando Mayorquín, 330K] reports 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.

Free Beacon [1/20/2026 6:30 PM, Ira Stoll, 411K] reports a statement signed "The Faculty of Columbia Journalism School" denounces what it describes as "increasingly aggressive government suppression of political speech throughout the country, including on our own campus, as well as the administration’s violent efforts to quell Constitutionally protected protests in Minnesota.” If you thought the job of Columbia journalism faculty was to teach students how to cover those protests and the immigration enforcement operations with an open mind, rather than opining from Morningside Heights in Manhattan on the clashes between immigration enforcement officers and protesters determined to obstruct them, the statement suggests that the faculty members have a different view of it. That faculty members might have varying views of the Minnesota situation instead of a single uniform analysis is not an option the statement contemplates; rather, it states, "The Columbia Journalism School stands in defense of First Amendment principles of free speech and free press across the political spectrum. The actions we’ve outlined above jeopardize these principles and therefore the viability of our democracy. All who believe in these freedoms should steadfastly oppose the intimidation, harassment, and detention of individuals on the basis of their speech or their journalism.” I’ve been following the Minneapolis protests from afar here in Massachusetts, and it seems to me that even if you think an individual immigration officer made a mistake by shooting Renee Good, it’s an unproven leap from that to framing the whole situation as the "administration’s violent efforts to quell Constitutionally protected protests in Minnesota." Trump got elected in part because Biden wasn’t enforcing the immigration laws. Trump has proceeded to try to enforce the immigration laws. Instead of organizing politically for more permissive immigration laws or more lax enforcement, the Minneapolis protesters are running around in cars or with cellphones and whistles chasing or blocking the immigration enforcers. Other protesters have reportedly vandalized vehicles, struck someone in the head with a flagpole, and disrupted a church service.

Washington Post [1/21/2026 3:41 AM, Frances Vinall, 24149K] reports local law enforcement leaders in Minneapolis and St. Paul are raising concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violating U.S. citizens’ civil rights, including those of off-duty police officers, as ICE has surged into Minnesota in recent weeks. Mark Bruley, police chief of Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Park, said at a Tuesday news conference that an off-duty police officer had been “boxed … in” by vehicles driven by ICE agents, who demanded with guns drawn to see paperwork proving the officer had a right to be in the United States. “She’s a U.S. citizen, and clearly would not have any paperwork,” he said. The officer attempted to begin filming the interaction and her phone was knocked out of her hand, Bruley said. When she identified herself as a police officer, the federal agents “immediately left,” he said. All of the off-duty police officers who had been targeted by ICE in his city were people of color,✓ Bruley said. “I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident,” he said, adding, “if it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day.” Dawanna Witt, sheriff of Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, said that people were being “stopped, questioned and harassed solely because of the color of their skin” and that the behavior of federal agents was eroding trust in law enforcement. “We demand lawful policing that respects human dignity,” she said, adding that the surge of ICE agents in Minneapolis was impacting local officers as well as the general community. “We will all continue to show up, even though times are hard, even though our law enforcement is exhausted.” St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry said that city employees had been subject to “traffic stops that were clearly outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do.” “We watch the news and we see very, very angry groups of people out protesting, but the people that we’re dealing with as police chiefs are the people that are scared to death, that are afraid to go outside,” he said. Not because their status is in question, but because people “are getting stopped by the way that they look, and they don’t want to take that risk.” Bruley said the news conference was called to draw attention to the conduct of a “small group” of agents who had been deployed over the past two weeks. “What you won’t hear from any of us today is rhetoric of ‘abolish ICE’ or that there shouldn’t be immigration enforcement,” Bruley said. “The truth is, immigration enforcement is necessary for national security and for local security, but how it’s done is extremely important.” Thousands of ICE agents and officers have been deployed to Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge, which began in December as what the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month said would be the agency’s largest immigration enforcement operation ever. Minnesota officials filed suit last week challenging the operation’s legality, alleging that “armed and masked DHS agents have stormed the Twin Cities to conduct militarized raids” at sites including schools and hospitals. Earlier this month, Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot by an ICE agent while in her car in Minneapolis. A week later, an ICE officer shot an undocumented Venezuelan man in the leg during an arrest.

Wall Street Journal [1/20/2026 12:00 PM, Joe Barrett, 646K] reports Joe Martino, a 52-year-old merchant mariner, braved swirling snow and biting winds on a recent afternoon as he walked up and down Lake Street in search of tacos. On a two-block stretch that normally boasts at least three Mexican eateries, the only tacos to be had were at Taco Bell. Martino hiked two more blocks before grabbing a water and leaving a $20 tip at a Mexican restaurant and bar that was open but not serving food. Across the street, he finally found a spot with an open kitchen. “What the hell is going on?” he muttered to a passing reporter as he tried one of the locked doors, though he later acknowledged he had a pretty good idea. “They’re scared to come out. They’re scared that if they go to work—whatever their immigration status—they will be detained.” An unprecedented immigration-enforcement operation has surged thousands of federal agents into Minneapolis and greater Minnesota. Some small businesses that immigrants own, work at or frequent have all but shut down while the operation is under way. Some liken the standstill to the Covid era. Along a section of East Lake Street near Interstate 35W that is home to many small businesses—mostly Hispanic—at least nine appeared ready for customers yet had locked doors, minimal lighting and no employees. One of the blocks also had an indoor mall called Plaza Mexico, where about a quarter of the businesses appeared to be open. “We are the last survivor in this area, everything is closed,” said Luis Reyes Rojas, owner of Pineda Tacos Plus, a brightly colored eatery with a salsa bar featuring six selections of various colors and levels of heat, plus pickled vegetables. An employee stood watch at the front door, unlocking it to let patrons in and out. Reyes Rojas estimates that, including the mall, around 40 businesses in the area have closed down, at least temporarily. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, blamed the disruption on what she called state leaders’ “out-of-control rhetoric” and failure to cooperate with the agency’s mission. Minnesota officials are suing, alleging agents have acted illegally while carrying out the surge. “We are not asking ICE not to do ICE things,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said last week. “We are asking this federal government to stop the unconstitutional conduct that is invading our streets each and every day.” In response to the lawsuit, DHS said the administration was acting lawfully.

New York Times [1/21/2026 12:28 AM, Pooja Salhotra, 135475K] reports a Cuban immigrant died at the hands of guards in a federal detention facility in El Paso, according to his family members, who on Tuesday asked a court to block the deportation of two people who they say witnessed the death or the moments leading up to it. The detainee, Geraldo Lunas Campos, died on Jan. 3 while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s custody at Camp East Montana, a sprawling encampment on the Fort Bliss military base along the Texas-Mexico border. Mr. Lunas Campos’s family said that a fellow detainee saw the guards choke him to death, according to the legal filing they submitted on Tuesday. Another detainee saw Mr. Lunas Campos struggle with the guards before he died, the filing said. Both witnesses have since been given deportation notices. The children of Mr. Lunas Campos, who are preparing to file a wrongful-death suit over the episode, asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to stop the deportations so the witnesses could provide testimony in that suit. Federal officials have offered a different account of Mr. Lunas Campos’s death. On Jan. 9, ICE said that he had died after “experiencing medical distress.” But after The Washington Post reported the family’s claims about the death last week, a Department of Homeland Security official said that Mr. Lunas Campos had died by suicide. Mr. Lunas Campos had “resisted interventions from security staff” who were trying to save him, the homeland security official said in an emailed statement to The New York Times. “During the ensuing struggle,” the statement added, Mr. Lunas Campos “stopped breathing and lost consciousness.” According to the family, an employee of the El Paso medical examiner’s office had told them that it planned to list the manner of Mr. Lunas Campos’s death as homicide. The family said a conversation was recorded between Mr. Lunas Campos’s daughter and a woman they said was an employee of the medical examiner’s office. They shared the recording with The Times, but The Times could not verify its authenticity.

Houston Chronicle [1/20/2026 6:18 PM, Caroline Wilburn, 2983K] reports a crowd of protesters gathered outside of Houston’s City Hall on Tuesday afternoon to show their continued opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies and ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts across the country. Some demonstrators held signs calling for the end of ICE operations in Houston and elsewhere, while others held posters calling for Trump to be removed from office. It was at least the second demonstration at City Hall within weeks, as protests have been held all around the city in response to the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. "The reason we’re out here is we believe in the constitution and the rule of law and the current administration seems to be trampling all over it," said Micheal Martin, 76, who attended the protest with his wife, Pat Martin, 70. "We have friends overseas who are calling us constantly. They are embarrassed for us by what they see in the worldwide media. We have to do what we can and what we can do is be out here." After a year of Trump’s presidency, protester Susan Santos said she doesn’t believe he has followed through on a majority of the promises he made, including lowering everyday living costs like groceries and gas. A majority of U.S. adults say they’ve noticed higher grocery and electricity costs in recent months, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. "I think he brings out the worst in people," she said. "It’s like he encourages people to be the worst versions of themselves. We seem like we’re going backwards." The demonstration and subsequent march around downtown Houston were organized by advocacy groups Women’s March, 50501 Houston and Free Speech for People as part of a larger, nationwide "walkout" planned for Tuesday, the first anniversary of Trump’s second inauguration.

Los Angeles Times [1/20/2026 6:29 PM, Brittny Mejia and Ruben Vives, 14862K] reports U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff on Tuesday decried the inadequacy of medical care within the state’s newest and largest immigration detention center. The two California Democrats spent hours conducting an oversight visit of the California City Detention Facility on Tuesday, amid growing concerns over conditions inside and the Trump administration’s desire to increase the number of immigrants detained nationwide. "I’m leaving here even more concerned than I was when I arrived," Padilla said, as the detention facility, surrounded by barbed wire, loomed behind him. "The population here is only going to grow.” Schiff said people told them the drinking water smells bad and sometimes has mold in it. "We heard from detainees who said there was mold in their food," he said. "Many described getting stomach aches from drinking the water here.” The two senators hope to bring more attention to the California City facility as the number of immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to grow and Congress considers increasing funding to expand the number of detention beds across the country. The bipartisan bill would keep ICE funded at $10 billion for the fiscal year that ends in September, while reducing the agency’s budget for enforcement and removal efforts. "What we have seen from Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is frankly sick and un-American. ICE is out-of-control, terrorizing people, including American citizens, and actively making our communities less safe," Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), vice chair of the U.S. Senate Committee for Appropriations said in a written statement. In an email response to the Times, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said the department has made more than 12,000 arrest — up from 10,000 in December —in Los Angeles since the stepped-up immigration enforcement operations began in June. "Some of the most heinous criminal illegal aliens arrested include murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators, and armed carjackers," she wrote. "Thanks to our brave law enforcement, California is safer with these thugs off their streets.”

FedScoop [1/20/2026 1:20 PM, Staff, 56K] reports the Department of Homeland Security would need to follow stricter guidelines when using mobile biometric applications under legislation introduced Thursday by the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee and other Democrats. The Realigning Mobile Phone Biometrics for American Privacy Protection Act seeks to prohibit the use of such technology except for identification at ports of entry, bars DHS from sharing the apps with non-law enforcement agencies, and implements a 12-hour storage limit on data in the apps. The legislation points to the DHS app Mobile Fortify, other mobile identification apps and potential successor apps as the prime targets. If the bill gains ground, DHS would need to remove the technology from any non-DHS IT systems and workflows outside the ports of entry. Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said in a press release accompanying the bill’s introduction: “DHS should not be conducting surveillance by experimenting with Americans’ faces and fingerprints in the field — especially with unproven and biased technology. We can secure the Homeland and respect the rights and privacy of Americans at the same time.” The bill’s other co-sponsors are Democratic Reps. Lou Correa of California, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Yvette Clarke of New York, Grace Meng of New York, and Adriano Espaillat of New York. In written statements, members pointed to concerns around privacy, constitutional violations, civil liberties and the technology’s potential deficiencies. The Army’s top civilian leader said that the service will “kill NIPR” at multiple locations — likely starting next month — in an experiment to see if commercial internet solutions would be more effective. Speaking to soldiers at a town hall at Fort Drum, New York, on Monday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said “we’re going to bring you down to the commercial internet and we think it will solve all sorts of problems.” If the evaluation is successful, the Army will scale it across the service, he added. NIPR, which stands for Non-classified Internet Protocol Router, is the military’s communication network for unclassified information. Defense Department personnel can access commercial browsers or email through NIPR, for example, but the network is owned and secured by the military. An Army spokesperson told DefenseScoop that the service is evaluating “a shift” from NIPR to a commercial solution that can handle data at Impact Level 5. IL5 includes Controlled Unclassified Information, according to the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is considered sensitive and necessary to protect, but does not meet criteria for classification. The spokesperson said that the evaluation is intended to “cut costs, boost performance and enhance cybersecurity.” They added that the effort was in coordination with the Pentagon’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, DISA and other military services. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Bloomberg Law [1/20/2026 11:47 AM, Andrew Kreighbaum, 91K] reports a group of Iranian and Sudanese immigrants are challenging the Trump administration’s hold on employment authorization documents and other benefits for people from nearly 40 countries covered by an ongoing travel ban. Citizenship and Immigration Services late last year stopped processing benefits for immigrants from travel ban countries already present in the US. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a Dec. 2 memo that national security concerns after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC required a comprehensive review of all immigrants from those countries. The travel ban applied to 19 countries when it was rolled out in June. After the White House expanded the ban to an additional 20 countries in a December executive order, a second USCIS memo paused benefits for people from those countries. The agency has also halted asylum claims for immigrants from all countries. Edlow has no lawful basis to freeze benefits, a group of 32 immigrants argue in a complaint filed Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs include physicians, scientists, and researchers who have already had petitions approved for employment-based green cards through the EB-2 National Interest Waiver pathway. That category allows professionals to seek a green card without a sponsor if their work is deemed in the national interest.

NPR [1/20/2026 4:24 PM, Abigail Ruhman, 28013K] Audio: HERE reports the Department of Homeland Security wants to eliminate guidelines around what public benefits can be considered in a "public charge" determination. Experts warn it could have a chilling effect.

FOX News [1/20/2026 12:26 PM, Ryan Gaydos, 40621K] reports the 2026 FIFA World Cup is less than five months away and the State Department is set to roll out a system for ticket holders who need visas. The State Department will launch the FIFA Priority Appointment Schedule System (FIFA PASS), Fox News Digital learned on Tuesday. The system will give World Cup ticket holders the opportunity to access prioritized visa appointments before the event begins on June 11. Prospective visa holders must be able to show that they qualify to obtain a visa and plan to follow the laws in the United States as well as leave the country once the tournament is over on July 19. Scheduling the visa interview doesn’t necessarily mean a visa will be issued. Each applicant will undergo security screening and proper vetting. They will have to demonstrate that they qualify for a visa. The State Department will deploy 500 additional staff members to process applications. President Donald Trump spoke about the FIFA Pass in November. He said the Departments of State and Homeland Security had been working "tirelessly" to "ensure that soccer fans from all around the world are properly vetted and able to come to the United States next summer easily.” "I’ve directed my administration to do everything within the power to make the 2026 World Cup an unprecedented success. I think it’s going to be the greatest, and we are setting records on ticket sales," Trump said at the time.

National Law Review [1/20/2026 4:42 PM, Ian P. Band and Hunton Andrews Kurth, 191K] reports DHS Secretary Kristi Noem determined that the country conditions in Somalia no longer merit Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the United States and that designation will not be renewed. The program will expire on March 17, 2026. Somalian citizens holding TPS will lose permission to work in the United States and revert to the status they held prior to their grant of TPS status (if unexpired), unless they have acquired another immigration status allowing them to lawfully remain in the United States. Those without a valid prior status will need to either depart the United States or seek alternate legal pathways, if any, in order to remain.

CBS Miami [1/20/2026 8:26 PM, Zachary Bynum, 39474K] reports a federal judge has revoked the U.S. citizenship of a Fort Lauderdale man after determining he obtained it through fraud, following a conviction for child pornography offenses that predated his naturalization. U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith issued the order against Renzo William Alegre, 25, originally from Peru, canceling his Certificate of Naturalization. Alegre was also sentenced to 150 days of home detention and one year of probation after he pleaded guilty to unlawfully procuring citizenship or naturalization. According to court records, Alegre applied for U.S. citizenship in March 2019. On his application, he answered "no" to a question asking if he had ever committed a crime or offense for which he had not been arrested. He reaffirmed this answer during his October 2019 immigration interview and was subsequently granted citizenship later that month. In September 2020, Alegre was arrested on charges related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM). He was later convicted of possessing at least 600 images of CSAM and sentenced to four years in prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release. During legal proceedings, Alegre admitted to having received and downloaded CSAM for about a year before his arrest, which included the time before and during his citizenship application process. U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said, "United States citizenship is a privilege, not a shield for deception. This defendant lied to obtain citizenship while actively engaging in crimes that exploit children. When citizenship is procured by fraud, the law requires that it be revoked. Our Office will act decisively to protect children and to preserve the integrity of our immigration and naturalization system.” The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Fort Lauderdale and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Latoya C. Brown. Further information and related court documents are available through the Southern District of Florida’s website or public access to court electronic records under case number 25-cr-60161.

FOX News [1/20/2026 11:19 AM, Michael Ruiz, 40621K] reports drug overdose deaths in the United States fell by more than 20% last year, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the country’s porous borders. "The fall begins at the end of the Biden administration, but the question is, was it in anticipation of a tough-on-crime president coming in?" said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. According to the data, which looked at deaths through August 2025, they were on the rise going into Trump’s first term but remained largely flat, then they spiked and plateaued when President Joe Biden took office. While the CDC did not provide a reason for the decline, it coincides with stronger border enforcement. "Securing the borders has a lot to do with the drop," Giacalone told Fox News Digital. "Less chance for drug dealers and their mules to bring drugs into the country.” Amid steep criticism, the Biden administration eventually stepped up border enforcement near the end of his term, and the decline accelerated when Trump returned to office. Other factors may include increased availability of opioid overdose antidotes, like Narcan, but Giacalone said he believes that nothing made a bigger impact than "shutting down the floodgates at the border.” "The jury is still out on the effect of blowing up drug boats, but I can imagine it working as a deterrent as well," he added. "Deterrence matters in criminal justice policy.” The CDC noted that the data is provisional because some causes of death are still under investigation. Louisiana, Florida, Virginia, New York, Vermont, Wyoming and the District of Columbia saw drops of more than 30%.

FOX News [1/20/2026 9:58 AM, Staff, 40621K] reports U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss the current federal immigration policy one year after President Donald Trump’s return to office and how Border Patrol agents are assisting ICE officers across the country. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [1/20/2026 6:58 PM, Staff, 31753K] Video: HERE reports Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol leader behind President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown across the U.S., has risen in prominence in recent weeks after escalated enforcement and mass deportation initiatives.

The Hill [1/20/2026 1:03 PM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K] reports that officials in Maine on Tuesday said they would halt federal immigration officers from being granted undercover license plates as reports of statewide enforcement operations surface. “The Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles received a request for confidential, undercover Maine license plates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These requests in light of rumors of ICE deployment to Maine and abuses of power in Minnesota and elsewhere raise concerns,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a statement. “We have not revoked existing plates but have paused issuance of new plates. We want to be assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes,” she added. Maine is a sanctuary state, meaning it limits local authorities’ compliance with federal immigration enforcement efforts. Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) has strongly encouraged residents to stay vigilant amid the surge in immigration enforcement activity launched by the Trump administration. “To the federal government I say this: If your plan is to come here to be provocative and to undermine the civil rights of Maine residents, do not be confused — those tactics are not welcome here,” Mills said in a video statement last week.

AP [1/20/2026 4:18 PM, Sophia Tareen] reports a jury was selected Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of offering a $10,000 bounty for the life of a Border Patrol commander behind an immigration crackdown in Chicago last year. Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, faces one count of murder-for-hire. Federal prosecutors allege he’s a "ranking member" of the Latin Kings gang who offered a reward for Gregory Bovino’s killing. The Border Patrol official has been the public face of the Trump administration’s combative immigration operations including in California, North Carolina and Minnesota. Espinoza Martinez is the first person to be criminally tried in connection with the crackdown in and around the nation’s third-largest city. Bovino and the Trump administration have held up the case up as an example of increasing dangers faced by federal agents. But a slew of federal lawsuits have fueled skepticism about the Trump administration’s narrative on the Chicago operation. Of the roughly 30 criminal cases stemming from Operation Midway Blitz, charges have been dismissed or dropped in about half. In a notable lawsuit that forced Bovino to sit for depositions, a federal judge found he lied under oath including about alleged gang threats. Days ahead of Espinoza Martinez’s trial, prosecutors acknowledged they didn’t have evidence proving gang ties, leading U.S. Judge Joan Lefkow to bar questioning on the Latin Kings.

Reported similarly:
CBS Chicago [1/20/2026 4:22 PM, Darius Johnson, 39474K]
Chicago Tribune [1/20/2026 6:22 PM, Jason Meisner, 4829K]
Univision Chicago WGBO [1/20/2026 4:52 PM, Staff, 5004K]

Chicago Tribune [1/20/2026 3:07 PM, Jason Meisner, 4829K] reports Operation Midway Blitz was in high gear in early October when authorities made a sensational announcement: An alleged ranking member of Chicago’s Latin Kings street gang had been arrested in a murder-for-hire plot targeting Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino. The news quickly thrust Juan Espinoza Martinez, a 37-year-old Mexican-born carpenter, into the national spectacle of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation push, with the U.S. attorney’s office calling him "a ruthless and violent" gang member and senior officials holding the case up as an example of the threats immigration officials were facing from international drug cartels. But as Espinoza Martinez heads to trial Tuesday, the rhetoric is about to meet the road. In the months since Espinoza Martinez was charged, evidence of his supposed gang affiliations has not materialized. Prosecutors vastly toned down that aspect of the case, first dropping mention of gang affiliation in the indictment handed up by a grand jury, then saying in a pretrial hearing they only intended to prove Espinoza Martinez had an "affinity" for the Latin Kings. Then, last week, the federal judge overseeing the case barred prosecutors from presenting any mention of his ties to the Latin Kings to avoid prejudicing the jury. Instead, prosecutors will be allowed to ask a key cooperator about what he thought Espinoza Martinez meant in certain text messages where he made references to "LK," and play for the jury excerpts of Espinoza’s post-arrest interview, where he acknowledged telling the informant, "Latin Kings are on him." "Parties are barred from engaging in questioning regarding gang membership, gang affiliation, or gang affinity," U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow said in a ruling Friday. "Parties may, however, question witnesses about the meaning of their own statements.” The trial, which starts with jury selection Tuesday, is the first criminal case stemming from Operation Midway Blitz to go to a jury, and is sure to attract national attention.

FOX News [1/20/2026 5:59 PM, Staff, 40621K] Video: HERE reports Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino addresses the public with an update on federal operations in Minneapolis amid ongoing protests.

Breitbart [1/21/2026 4:50 AM, Ian Hanchett, 2416K] reports during an interview with CNN aired on Tuesday’s “The Story Is,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) responded to a question on whether the sharp decline in illegal border crossings should be celebrated by stating that “How you do it also matters.” Padilla said, “[W]e’ve been talking about immigration, the way they’ve chosen to try to go about enforcing is cruel, a violation of the law.” Host Elex Michaelson then cut in to ask, “But some may say they shut down the border, though, and that illegal border crossings have gone way down. Is that something to celebrate?” Padilla responded, “How you do it also matters, Elex. How you do it also matters. And when it comes to something as complex as immigration, right? I’m the first one to say our immigration system and laws need to be modernized. They are outdated. Everybody wants a safe, secure, orderly, and humane border, number one. Number two, we should revisit — not everybody who wants to come to the United States should automatically be able to come, but…the work visa, the student visa, the tourist visa, all these mechanisms for coming need to be updated. But let’s also not forget the millions of people, at this point, that have been in the United States for years and years, in many cases, decades, that don’t have criminal convictions, don’t have violent felonies on their record, otherwise, law-abiding, paying taxes, raising families, contributing to the vibrancy of our economy. They deserve better than to continue to live in the shadows. They need a step towards legalization and eventual path to potential citizenship.” [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

USA Today [1/20/2026 12:11 PM, Irene Wright, 67103K] reports hoping to go through airport security at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport without a Real ID? Starting in February, it will cost you $45, according to the Transportation Security Administration. On May 7, 2025, transportation officials with the Trump Administration began enforcing the 2005 REAL ID Act that requires anyone going through TSA to show a Real ID as a form of identification. "The Real ID requirement bolsters safety by making fraudulent IDs harder to forge, thwarting criminals and terrorists," Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in April. "TSA will implement REAL ID effectively and efficiently, continuing to ensure the safety and security of passenger wile also working to minimize operational disruptions at airports." TSA estimates more than 94% of passengers already used their Real ID as their identification when traveling, and they will not need to change their travel process. Yes, there is a way to go through TSA even without a Real ID, but beginning Feb. 1, this will come with a price. Those without a Real ID can pay $45 to go through the TSA ConfirmID system instead. The ConfirmID will be valid for 10 days once checked at a TSA and the $45 fee has been paid.

AP [1/20/2026 9:32 AM, Staff, 31753K] reports Texas Families Urged to Prepare for Potentially Active 2026 Tornado Season as La Niña Persists. SafeCave Highlights Demand for Indoor Storm Shelters Following Nationwide Total of Over 1,500 Tornadoes in 2025. Following a severe 2025 tornado season that produced more than 1,500 reported tornadoes nationwide, including significant outbreaks impacting Texas communities, SafeCave is urging homeowners to prioritize preparedness ahead of a potentially heightened-risk 2026 season as La Niña conditions persist into early spring. La Niña weather patterns are historically associated with increased severe weather across the Southern Plains, including Texas. In 2025, multiple strong tornadoes struck North Texas communities, while late-season storms near Houston damaged more than 100 homes, underscoring the reality that tornado threats in Texas are not confined to a single season. SafeCave, a North Texas-based provider of FEMA-rated indoor storm shelters and safe rooms, reports growing demand for modern alternatives to traditional underground shelters. Industry experts note that above-ground, indoor storm shelters are increasingly favored for their accessibility, reduced flooding risk in Texas clay soils, and faster installation timelines. "2025 was a wake-up call for many Texas families facing devastating tornado impacts," said Chad Morrill, Co-Founder and Owner of SafeCave. "Homeowners are increasingly choosing indoor shelters that install quickly, keep families and pets together comfortably, and provide EF5-level protection without the drawbacks of underground options.”

ABC News [1/20/2026 10:58 PM, Lalee Ibssa and Michelle Stoddart, 30493K] reports Air Force One turned around mid-flight as President Donald Trump was heading to Davos, Switzerland, after the crew identified "a minor electrical issue," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday night. The aircraft turned back and was set to land at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where the president and those traveling with him were set to board a different aircraft and then resume travel to Switzerland for the global economic conference. The flight issue came as Trump is making his first international trip of 2026. In Davos, Trump is expected to deliver remarks focused on his vision of American dominance, including his desire to take over Greenland. Reuters [1/21/2026 12:24 AM, Steve Holland, 36480K] reports U.S. President Donald Trump landed safely on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews near Washington to change aircraft on Tuesday night after crew on his initial flight identified what the White House called a "minor electrical issue" shortly after takeoff. After the Boeing 747 landed, the trip continued on a smaller Boeing 757 that departed just after midnight local time on Wednesday, more than two hours after the initial flight took off. Trump is traveling to join other world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Air safety incidents involving the U.S. president or vice president are rare, but not unprecedented. The AP [1/21/2026 1:10 AM, Josh Boak, 31753K] reports Trump boarded another aircraft, an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used by the president for domestic trips to smaller airports, and continued on with his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos shortly after midnight. The two planes currently used as Air Force One have been flying for nearly four decades. Boeing has been working on replacements, but the program has faced a series of delays. The planes are heavily modified with survivability capabilities for the president for a range of contingencies, including radiation shielding and antimissile technology. They also include a variety of communications systems to allow the president to remain in contact with the military and issue orders from anywhere in the world. Last year, the ruling family of Qatar gifted Trump a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to be added into the Air Force One fleet, a move that faced great scrutiny. That plane is currently being retrofitted to meet security requirements. Leavitt joked to reporters on Air Force One Tuesday night that a Qatari jet was sounding “much better” right now. Last February, an Air Force plane carrying Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Germany had to return to Washington because of a mechanical issue. In October, a military plane carrying Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had to make an emergency landing in United Kingdom due to a crack in the windshield.

Reported similarly:
New York Post [1/21/2026 12:24 AM, Zoe Hussain, 42219K]
Breitbart [1/20/2026 11:41 PM, Paul Bois, 2416K]
FOX News [1/20/2026 11:05 PM, Michael Sinkewicz, 40621K]

AP [1/20/2026 5:38 PM, Julie Carr Smyth] reports the individual charged in connection with the vandalism of Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home earlier this month pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. William D. DeFoor, 26, entered pleas to three counts in federal court in Cincinnati. Prosecutors have charged DeFoor with damaging government property, engaging in physical violence against any person or property in a restricted building or grounds, and assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers. The suspect faces up to 10 years in prison on each of the first two charges and up to 20 years on the third. Federal prosecutors allege the Secret Service saw someone run along the front fence of Vance’s residence in Cincinnati’s upscale East Walnut Hills neighborhood just after midnight on Jan. 5 and then breach the property line. The person later identified as DeFoor was armed with a hammer and tried to break out the window of an unmarked Secret Service vehicle on the way up the driveway. The person then moved toward the front of the home and broke 14 historic window panes, according to a federal affidavit. Damage done to security enhancements around the windows was valued at $28,000, according to the filing. DeFoor’s attorney, Paul Laufman, has said in court that the situation represents “purely a mental health issue” and that his client was not motivated by politics.

(B) 10 Tampa Bay News at Noon [1/20/2026 12:05 PM, Staff] reports search crews are back on the water near Honeymoon Island after suspending their search for a missing teen overnight. The US Coast Guard identified him as 18-year-old Elias Vargas. He disappeared Sunday evening in choppy waters. Officials say he was trying to help a female kayaker when his own kayak capsized. Crews from several local agencies responded to help. They rescued the woman and another kayaker but could not find Vargas. The Coast Guard is calling off its search but the sheriff’s office is still looking along the Gulf side of the island.

CyberScoop [1/20/2026 1:20 PM, Tim Starks, 122K] reports congressional appropriators announced funding legislation this week that extends an expiring cyber threat information-sharing law and provides $2.6 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), including money for election security and directives on staffing levels. The latest so-called “minibus” package of several spending bills to keep the government funded past a Jan. 30 deadline would extend the Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act of 2015 through the end of the current fiscal year, Sept. 30. Industry and the Trump administration have been seeking a 10-year extension of a law that provides legal protections for sharing cyber threat data between companies and the government, but a deal on Capitol Hill has proven elusive. The package, announced Tuesday, also would extend the expiring State and Local Cybersecurity Grants Program through the end of fiscal 2026. Both laws temporarily expired during the government shutdown before being included in broader government funding legislation that extended them through Jan. 30. The House Homeland Security Committee has approved legislation on a long-term extension of the grants program, but the Senate hasn’t taken any action on it. Also notably, the “minibus” — with funding for Labor and Health and Human Services; Education and related agencies; Defense; Homeland Security; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and related agencies — includes an extension until Sept. 30 for the Technology Modernization Fund, a program focused on upgrading old and vulnerable federal tech that likewise has had difficulties getting an extension. The legislation that funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would provide $2.6 billion for CISA. The agency’s budget coming into the Trump administration stood at approximately $3 billion, and President Donald Trump sought nearly half a billion dollars less than that for fiscal 2026.

Cybernews [1/20/2026 8:45 AM, Vilius Petkauskas] reports the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Madhu Gottumukkala, tried to impose a “management-directed reassignment” last week. The move would have given Costello a week to choose to work at another part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which controls CISA. The CISA leadership’s move was confirmed to Politico by three sources familiar with the matter. The action is likely related to CISA staffers organizing a polygraph test for Gottumukkala, a Donald Trump appointee, which he failed. But what Gottumukkala and the DHS found troublesome was not that Gottumukkala failed the test, but rather that the examination was unsanctioned. The move was followed by at least six staffers getting suspended with pay. Meanwhile, Politico reports that other senior officials were not briefed on Costello’s reassignment, prompting numerous agency officials to question Gottumukkala’s decision. The attention was fierce enough for DHS to first pause and then stop the reassignment. Sources told journalists Gottumukkala’s action against Costello sharply impacted CISA’s employees, as Costello is seen as the agency’s top technical talent. Nearly 1,000 staffers have already left CISA over the Trump administration’s imposed workforce cuts.

FOX News [1/20/2026 12:30 PM, Kurt Knutsson, 40621K] reports Illinois residents are once again being reminded how fragile government data systems can be. The Illinois Department of Human Services has confirmed a data breach that exposed sensitive records belonging to roughly 700,000 people. The breach is believed to have exposed two distinct sets of records. One is personal and program-related data tied to more than 672,000 Medicaid and Medicare Savings Program recipients, including addresses, case numbers, demographic details and medical assistance plan names, and another 32,000 Division of Rehabilitation Services customers whose names, addresses, case details and referral information were also exposed over multiple years. As spotted by Bleeping Computer, the Illinois Department of Human Services disclosed that unauthorized access to one of its systems led to the exposure of records tied to approximately 700,000 Illinois residents. The affected data was connected to individuals who interacted with DHS programs, which can include benefits, assistance services and support programs across the state. According to the agency, the breach involved personally identifiable information. While officials have not publicly released every technical detail, DHS confirmed that sensitive records were accessed, prompting notifications to impacted individuals. As is typical in cases like this, the investigation is ongoing, and the full scope of how the intrusion occurred is still being reviewed. For residents, the key issue is not just that data was accessed, but the type of data DHS holds. Government agencies like DHS often store names, addresses, dates of birth, case numbers and, in some instances, Social Security numbers or benefits-related information. Once that data escapes, it can be misused in ways that last for years. When a private company is breached, you can often change a password or close an account. Government data is different. You can’t change your Social Security number easily. You can’t erase past interactions with public assistance programs. That makes breaches involving state agencies particularly dangerous.

StateScoop [1/20/2026 1:20 PM, Colin Wood, 37K] reports the Minnesota Department of Human Services last week distributed data breach notification letters disclosing that the demographic records of nearly 304,000 people had been compromised last fall. According to the letter, the breach began in late August, when a user affiliated with a health care provider began accessing state data, without authorization, through a system called MnCHOICES. According to its website, that system supports counties, tribes and managed care organizations servicing state residents who need “long-term services and supports” that “they need to live a good life.” According to the letter, the state has found “no evidence the information accessed in the system has been misused” and that the notification was provided “out of an abundance of caution.” Over the course of approximately one month, the user accessed a system that provided income data, educational backgrounds and demographic data of hundreds of thousands of state residents. By the time the breach was detected on Nov. 18, the user had also accessed more detailed information — including names, phone numbers, dates of birth, addresses, Medicaid ID numbers and partial Social Security numbers — of more than 1,200 people. The state said the user had been authorized to access some MnCHOICES data, but had accessed more “than was reasonably necessary to perform work assignments.”

Politico [1/20/2026 3:00 PM, John Sakellariadis, 13586K] reports senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security have pushed the nation’s cyber defense agency to back the installation of a secure intelligence-sharing facility at a university in Secretary Kristi Noem’s home state of South Dakota. But those with direct knowledge of the request say there is no clear national security need for the project, despite pressure on CISA staffers to make a case for it. There are also concerns around funding for the installation — which would need to be built from scratch and could cost millions — and some argue the move could give the Noem-aligned Dakota State University a leg up on future federal contracts. “There is certainly no CISA mission that needs to share classified info with South Dakota more than any other state,” said one former agency official familiar with the planning. POLITICO spoke to four current and former officials familiar with the planning, all of whom were granted anonymity due to fear of retribution. Noem previously served as the governor of South Dakota before being confirmed last year by President Donald Trump to lead DHS, which houses CISA and shepherds its budget. In a statement, CISA spokesperson Marci McCarthy said that CISA’s intention to sponsor the sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, followed a March 18 executive order from Trump to empower state and local governments to strengthen “security and resilience nationwide.” SCIFs are government-accredited facilities where federal officials can store and share top secret material known as TS/SCI — the country’s most highly classified intelligence. About 1.25 million Americans have this level of security clearance, according to the most recent figures from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, though it’s unclear how many of those individuals are located in South Dakota. McCarthy also said that the agency was evaluating options to ensure highly classified intelligence could be shared directly with partners in hard-to-reach areas of the country: “The proposed SCIF at the Dakota State University in Sioux Falls is in a region with limited access to classified space, creating high demand from federal agencies and forcing TS/SCI-cleared personnel to travel hundreds of miles to obtain TS-level threat information,” she wrote in an email. McCarthy also said the project was not unique and was instead part of a broader effort to “bring SCIFs to states that do not have any.” She added that the SCIF was not being built for Noem’s personal use now as secretary — or potentially in the future. “It is almost two hours from her home and she, like other Cabinet secretaries, travels to a SCIF per regulation from Congress,” McCarthy said in an email. Dakota State University did not respond to a request for comment. The project was first tasked to CISA in early March 2025, according to the four people familiar with the planning.

Washington Times [1/20/2026 4:57 PM, Bill Gertz, 852K] reports China has conducted aggressive cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructures and the U.S. needs to step up efforts to block the planting of malicious software in control networks, the general slated to be the next commander of Cyber Command told Congress. Army Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, who also is nominated to be director of the National Security Agency, disclosed new details of cyberthreats to infrastructure in recent congressional testimony. Gen. Rudd, currently the deputy commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, said other adversaries also are threatening critical infrastructure, but less than the dangers from communist China. Gen. Rudd appeared before the panel Thursday but did not disclose details about Chinese cyberthreats during his verbal testimony that were contained in the written answers to policy questions.

FOX News [1/20/2026 2:48 PM, Preston Mizell, 40621K] reports Brown University began a new semester on Tuesday morning as the campus still remains shaken by a mass shooting that took the lives of two students and sent nine injured students to the hospital. Questions remain surrounding the security of Brown’s campus after controversial security measures allowed a killer to successfully carry out a deadly shooting, and a failed immediate apprehension let the gunman go on to take the life of an MIT professor days after the attack at the Ivy League school. Jack DiPrimio, a graduate student at Brown University, says being back at school for the spring semester has presented challenges following the shooting. "Being back at the place where [this incident] transpired a month ago, it feels so fresh and raw," DiPrimio told Fox News Digital. "The memorials are beautiful, but they’re also really hard to walk by because I get emotional seeing [Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov] and [Ella Cook’s] faces. It’s weird to see your friend’s [face] in a memorial.” Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, was the gunman authorities say was responsible for the shootings. The Department of Justice released a transcript of a recording Neves-Valente made following the attack, which reveals he had been plotting the shooting for some time. "It’s done. It was, it was six months, man. Not six months, six semesters. Uh. I had already planned this for a little more," the transcript reads. "It was all a little incompetent but at least something was done.” Nuno Loureiro, a professor at MIT, and Brown University students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov were victims of Neves Valente’s multiple attacks. Brown University faced intense scrutiny over how the shooter escaped local authorities, and how his identity was mainly discovered due to an interaction with a homeless man who was living on campus.

Blaze [1/20/2026 5:28 PM, Joseph M. Hanneman, 1442K] reports the alleged pipe bombs placed at two sites on Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, 2021, were not capable of exploding and thus were not bombs at all, an explosives expert said in a new federal criminal case filing. The devices, found along the rear of the Capitol Hill Club and under a bench at the Democratic National Committee building on Jan. 6, lacked the needed chemicals and proper fusing system that would have made them explosives, according to Brennan Phillips, a 20-year veteran of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In a report created for pipe-bomb suspect Brian J. Cole Jr.’s defense team, Phillips rejected the FBI’s five-year-long insistence that the devices were "viable" and could have exploded. "Based on my review of the materials provided, the two suspected pipe bombs in question do not contain an explosive filler capable of causing an explosion," Phillips wrote. The report, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., late on Friday, is just the latest complication for the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI in the prosecution of Cole, 30, a suburban Virginia man arrested Dec. 4 and charged a day later with two felony explosives counts. The defense filed the explosives expert’s report along with a motion to revoke the detention order keeping Cole locked up in the Rappahannock Regional Jail pending trial.

AP [1/20/2026 5:38 PM, Jim Vertuno, 19051K] reports that witness testimony ended Tuesday in the trial of a former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer accused of failing in his duty to stop a gunman in the critical first minutes of the 2022 Robb Elementary School attack, setting up the case to go to the jury. Defense lawyers for Adrian Gonzales rested their case after calling just two witnesses, including a police tactics expert to bolster their claim that Gonzales did the best he could after driving onto campus amid a chaotic scene. Gonzales has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment. He faces up to two years in prison if convicted. Gonzales did not take the stand in his own defense. Closing arguments are scheduled Wednesday before the jury begins deliberations. Prosecutors rested their case after nine day of witness testimony in a trial that began Jan. 5. Gonzales’ attorneys presented just two witnesses, starting with a woman who worked across the street from the school who told jurors she saw the shooter ducking between cars and trying to stay out of view — testimony that could reinforce Gonzales’ claims that he never saw the gunman. Gonzales was one of 376 federal, state and local officers swarmed to the school as the attack unfolded. It would take more than an hour for a tactical team to breach a classroom and kill the gunman. Only Gonzales and former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo have been criminally charged for the delayed response.

Reported similarly:
CBS News [1/20/2026 7:54 PM, Staff, 39474K] Video: HERE
CNN [1/20/2026 5:07 PM, Matthew J. Friedman, Shimon Prokupecz and Rachel Clarke, 18595K]

New York Times [1/20/2026 8:30 PM, James Wagner, 135475K] reports Mexico sent 37 people accused of being criminal operatives to the United States on Tuesday, the latest apparent bid to alleviate pressure from President Trump to do more to combat the powerful groups smuggling drugs across the border. It was the first such transfer this year, when Mr. Trump’s threats of military action against Mexico have grown more direct, but the third since he took office. Mexican authorities have now sent nearly 100 people accused of being key criminals to the United States. The transfers are part of a larger effort by Mexican authorities to appease Mr. Trump as he threatens unilateral strikes inside Mexican territory — an act that President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has said would be a violation of her nation’s sovereignty. Amid those threats, Ms. Sheinbaum has launched an aggressive campaign against cartels, strengthened policing at the border, bent to Mr. Trump’s economic demands and sent dozens of accused criminals north. Many experts in Mexico have raised questions about the legal grounds and political gambit of the transfers, as they have been completed outside the normal extradition process. Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s security chief, said Tuesday that the transfers were legal and that, in agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, the death penalty would not be pursued. (Capital punishment is prohibited in Mexico.) “These individuals posed a real threat to the country’s security,” he posted online. Mr. Harfuch added that the detainees were sent to various U.S. cities on Mexican military planes. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. For a year, Mr. Trump has threatened military measures and tariffs to try to force Mexican officials to take more action against cartels and illegal immigration. In the aftermath of the U.S. strike in Venezuela, Mr. Trump’s threats have grown sterner. He said in a Fox News interview on Jan. 8 that the United States would “start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels” in Mexico. Those comments greatly concerned Mexicans officials, who had believed that the two countries’ deep economic ties and improved security cooperation would shield Mexico from unilateral action. Last week, New York Times reported that the United States was intensifying pressure on Mexico to allow U.S. military forces to conduct joint operations to dismantle fentanyl labs inside the country. Ms. Sheinbaum and Mr. Trump spoke briefly on Jan. 12. Even though she said that she again rejected Mr. Trump’s offer of U.S. troops in Mexico, she said they agreed to talk more. But late last week, despite a phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Mexican counterpart and a joint statement about upcoming security meetings, the State Department said in a social media post that “the United States made clear that incremental progress in facing border security challenges is unacceptable.”

Reported similarly:
Wall Street Journal [1/20/2026 2:57 PM, Santiago Pérez and Steve Fisher, 646K]
Reuters [1/20/2026 6:29 PM, Natalia Siniawski, 36480K]
AP [1/20/2026 4:57 PM, Megan Janetsky, 31753K]

Daily Signal [1/20/2026 6:30 PM, Steven Bucci, 549K] reports in the midst of the back and forth of Nicolás Maduro’s capture, the seizure of so-call "Ghost Fleet" oil tankers, and the banter over a possible annexation of Greenland, it’s easy to miss the significance of the Christmas U.S. missile strikes in Nigeria which hit ISIS and other jihadist groups. This would be a real tragedy, as this was a real step forward. On Christmas Day, the U.S. conducted precision airstrikes in Nigeria’s Sokoto State, targeting ISIS affiliates with Tomahawk missiles and killing multiple terrorists in coordination with Nigerian forces. These strikes, launched from a ship off the coast, followed President Donald Trump’s threats against militants attacking Christians and aimed to disrupt violent extremist groups. While some western analysts worried about sovereignty and unintended consequences, Nigerian officials hailed the joint operation as a success against terrorism. The Trump administration acted quickly and with firm resolve, and in the process reshaped U.S.-Nigeria ties around safety and faith. Nigeria supported this action and wanted U.S. help. Beginning with a Nigerian state visit to the White House, Trump made it clear that more needed to be done to protect persecuted Christians, and the Nigerians got the point. The U.S. and Nigeria can and should do more together to fight jihadis in West Africa. Nigeria carries a tremendous strategic weight. It’s land mass, enormous population, and large military make it a natural anchor from West Africa to the rest of the world. The United States, long accused of ignoring Africa, truly needs a safe and steady Nigeria. A stable Nigeria does not guarantee stability in the nations around it, but an unstable Nigeria means the entire region is at risk.

FOX News [1/20/2026 1:34 PM, Ashley J. DiMella, 40621K] reports that the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala has issued a security alert warning Americans to use "increased caution" when in the Central American country. "The U.S. Embassy has lifted the shelter-in-place order for their staff," says the alert, which was issued Sunday. "The situation remains tense with coordinated, armed attacks on police in several zones of Guatemala City." The Embassy recommends that Americans monitor local media for updates, avoid crowds and demonstrations, and aim to keep a "low profile." Travelers are advised to review personal security plans and minimize unnecessary movements. The alert comes as gangs have attacked Guatemalan police after seizing control of three prisons in coordinated riots, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Over 2.9 million international visitors traveled to Guatemala between January and November 2025, according to the Guatemalan Tourism Institute. President Bernardo Arévalo issued an emergency declaration after prisoners took 43 guards hostage, killing 10 officers. There were "coordinated actions by self-named maras or gangs against state security forces, including armed attacks against civilian authorities," the declaration noted.

New York Times [1/20/2026 5:33 AM, Alejandro Cegarra, Isayen Herrera and James Wagner, 135475K] reports after a year behind bars as a political prisoner under the Maduro regime in Venezuela, one of the first things that Ángel Godoy did was apologize. Freed last Wednesday, Mr. Godoy, a political activist and columnist, returned to his home in Los Teques, 40 minutes outside the capital, Caracas, where his son showed him a photo of his high school graduation. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Mr. Godoy whispered. “Now you are,” his son, Miguelangel Godoy Briceño, replied. “And I need you to help me study for university.” Mr. Godoy, 52, walked along the walls of his apartment and touched the family photos to confirm that this was home. In the living room, there was a poster of his face that his wife had used as a backdrop for every video she recorded about her husband’s detention on Jan. 8, 2025. He took a marker and wrote across it in big letters: RELEASED. Mr. Godoy and his family had been waiting for this moment for 371 days, but their hopes grew earlier this month after President Nicolás Maduro was seized by U.S. forces in Caracas and the Venezuelan government announced that it would start freeing “an important number” of political prisoners. Mr. Godoy is one of the lucky ones. To date, only 143 of Venezuela’s estimated nearly 900 political prisoners have been released, according to a leading human rights group, Foro Penal. And much of the Maduro government’s machinery of repression remains largely intact.

Breitbart [1/20/2026 8:13 PM, Staff, 2416K] reports at a White House press briefing Tuesday afternoon, a reporter asked President Donald Trump how far he’s willing to go to acquire Greenland: "You’ll find out," he responded. Trump spoke to a packed White House press room for 2 1/2 hours, mostly boasting about his accomplishments in the past year and discussing immigration, the Nobel Peace Prize, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrests and former President Joe Biden. At the end, he took questions. A reporter said that taking Greenland could mean the breakup of NATO and asked "Is that the price you’re willing to pay?". "I think something’s going to happen that’s going to be very good for everybody," Trump said. "Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have, as I said before, in every way. Getting them to go up to 5% of GDP was something nobody thought was possible. And pay. At 2% they weren’t paying. At 5% they are paying," he said, referencing his push to get NATO members to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense. "They are buying a lot of things from us, and I guess giving them to Ukraine," apparently talking about military assets. "I think that we will work something out that NATO is going to be very happy, and we’re going to be very happy. We need [Greenland] for security purposes, national security and world security," he said.

Reuters [1/21/2026 3:03 AM, Alex Cohen, 36480K] reports the United States and NATO will come to an agreement on the future of Greenland that will satisfy both sides, U.S. President Donald Trump told a press conference on Tuesday, while members of his administration said the U.S. could impose tariffs on the Europeans if they don’t agree to his demands. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [1/20/2026 8:45 AM, Rachel Wolf, 40621K] Video: HERE reports North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) aircraft are headed to Pituffik Space Base, Greenland, for "long-planned" activities, as President Donald Trump continues his controversial push for the U.S. to acquire the island. The NORAD aircraft at Pituffik Space Base, along with aircraft operating from bases in the U.S. and Canada, will support the planned efforts, "building on the enduring defense cooperation between the United States and Canada, as well as the Kingdom of Denmark," NORAD said in a statement posted on X. Multiple governments allegedly approved of the NORAD activities, as the command said in its statement that it coordinated with Denmark and that Greenland was "informed" of its efforts. "This activity has been coordinated with the Kingdom of Denmark, and all supporting forces operate with the requisite diplomatic clearances. The Government of Greenland is also informed of planned activities," NORAD said. "NORAD routinely conducts sustained, dispersed operations in the defense of North America, through one or all three NORAD regions (Alaska, Canada, and the continental U.S.)," the command added. Trump has said in recent weeks that the U.S. needs Greenland for national security reasons. The president claims that if the U.S. does not step in, China or Russia could use the Arctic territory to their advantage. "NATO has been telling Denmark, for 20 years, that ‘you have to get the Russian threat away from Greenland.’ Unfortunately, Denmark has been unable to do anything about it. Now it is time, and it will be done!!!" Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday. Denmark and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have condemned the Trump administration’s rhetoric about Greenland. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

AP [1/20/2026 1:49 PM, Vladimir Isachenkov, 31753K] reports the bid by U.S. President Donald Trump to take over Greenland heralds a “deep crisis” for NATO and raises questions about the alliance’s preservation as a single military-political bloc, Russia’s top diplomat said Tuesday. “It was hard to imagine before that such a thing could happen,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference, noting it could create a scenario in which “one NATO member is going to attack another NATO member.” He said Trump’s actions upended the Western concept of the “rule-based global order” that Russia has long criticized, even after Moscow sent troops into neighboring Ukraine nearly four years ago. “Now it’s not the Collective West writing the rules but just one its representative,” Lavrov said sardonically. “It’s a major upheaval for Europe, and we are watching it. The Euro-Atlantic concept of ensuring security and cooperation has discredited itself.” Denmark’s control over Greenland was a vestige of the colonial past, Lavrov claimed. “In principle, Greenland isn’t a natural part of Denmark,” he added. At the same time, Lavrov strongly denied Trump’s suggestions that Russia and China have any intentions to threaten the Arctic island.

ABC News [1/20/2026 12:04 PM, Staff, 30493K] Video: HERE reports Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department, discusses the escalating showdown between the U.S. and its NATO allies over the fate of Greenland.

FOX News [1/20/2026 1:23 PM, Rachel Wolf, 40621K] reports that the European Union’s top official did not hold back in her warnings about President Donald Trump’s threat to impose fresh tariffs on countries opposing his push for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Trump’s threats "a mistake" and questioned U.S. trustworthiness, saying that the EU-U.S. trade deal from July had to "mean something." "Arctic security can only be achieved together. This is why the proposed additional tariffs are a mistake, especially between long-standing allies. The EU and U.S. have agreed to a trade deal last July. And in politics as in business — a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something," Von der Leyen said. "We consider the people of the United States not just our allies, but our friends. And plunging us into a dangerous downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape," she added, vowing the EU’s response would be "unflinching, united and proportional.” French President Emmanuel Macron also addressed the issue at Davos, saying the tariffs could force the EU to use its anti-coercion mechanism against the U.S. "for the very first time," The Associated Press reported. The outlet noted that he argued that allied countries should be focused on bringing peace to Ukraine and ending the nearly four-year war with Russia.

Washington Times [1/20/2026 9:03 AM, Tom Howell Jr, 852K] reports Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday said President Trump wants to acquire Greenland to “prevent a conflict,” rather than becoming involved in a full-blown war after a foreign incursion. Mr. Bessent said U.S. ownership of Greenland would deter other powers from intervening on the island in the first place. Mr. Trump says Danish control of Greenland is not a big enough deterrent to countries such as China and Russia. He will lay out that case during meetings this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “He will get his message across, I believe,” Mr. Bessent told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” from Davos, adding that European leaders must “have an open mind.” Mr. Bessent said the U.S. is trying to finalize a trade deal with the European Union despite upheaval over Mr. Trump’s latest threat to impose additional tariffs of 10% on eight European countries over their resistance to the Greenland plan. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking in Davos, said the EU-U.S. deal is still nearing completion. “When friends shake hands, it must mean something,” she said. However, Ms. von der Leyen said Europe would be “unflinching, united and proportional” in its response to any trade crackdown over Greenland. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump’s unilateral tariff powers will survive a challenge before the Supreme Court. The justices will decide soon whether Mr. Trump overstepped his powers by invoking a 1977 law to impose nation-by-nation tariffs at the heart of his overseas trade deals. Mr. Bessent said he is confident that Mr. Trump’s powers will remain intact.

NewsMax [1/20/2026 1:36 PM, Nicole Weatherholtz, 4109K] reports President Donald Trump reminded the world Tuesday morning of who he says is responsible for keeping the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alive. "No single person, or President, has done more for NATO than President Donald J. Trump," the president wrote on his Truth Social platform. "If I didn’t come along, there would be no NATO right now!!!". "It would have been in the ash heap of History," Trump added. "Sad, but TRUE!!!". Trump has long argued that NATO allies were failing to fund their fair share of the defense burden before he confronted them directly during his first term, repeatedly demanding that member nations meet defense spending commitments instead of relying on American taxpayers. Those demands were followed by increased defense spending among several NATO countries, though analysts note the trend began after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and an earlier alliance pledge to raise military budgets. The post comes as Trump continues to press a renewed push for the United States to acquire Greenland. The president has framed the controversial move as a strategic necessity, citing national security, Arctic dominance, and economic interests. While European leaders have criticized the idea, Trump has remained undeterred, signaling he is prepared to use U.S. leverage to secure what he describes as better outcomes for American interests. In recent days, Trump has argued that the United States has to have Greenland, intensifying a dispute that Denmark and Greenland’s leaders have flatly rejected. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

FOX News [1/20/2026 7:00 AM, Diana Stancy, 40621K] reports President Donald Trump is expected to head to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum this week — on the heels of threatening tariffs against NATO members as he seeks to acquire Greenland, a Danish territory. The Davos World Economic Forum is an annual summit bringing world leaders together to discuss global issues related to politics, business and society. Other world leaders who are expected to attend include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Federal Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. Trump is expected to deliver a special address Wednesday, per the World Economic Forum’s program. But the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital regarding Trump’s schedule in Switzerland.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [1/21/2026 12:00 AM, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, 135475K]

The Hill [1/20/2026 9:09 AM, Ashleigh Fields, 12595K] reports President Trump on Monday threatened to raise Champagne tariffs if French President Emmanuel Macron denies a seat on the White House Board of Peace, tasked with overseeing the 20-point peace plan in Gaza. “I’ll put a 200 percent tariff on his wines and Champagnes and he’ll join. But he doesn’t have to join,” Trump told reporters in response to a question about Macron’s reported refusal to join the board. “If he said that, you’re probably giving it to me a little bit differently, but if he actually did say that — but as you know, he’s going to be out of office in a few months,” the president added. France has been the subject of the president’s ire in recent weeks, with Trump imposing a 10 percent import tariff on all products from the European country in addition to seven others that have condemned his push to acquire Greenland. The latest threat comes as Trump extended invitations to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join the Board of Peace with hopes of having 60 member nations sign on during his trip to Davos, Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum this week. The president said each country will need to pay a $1 billion fee to keep their “seat” in the long term, which Carney has already rejected. Macron’s office said the Board of Peace proposal “goes beyond the framework of Gaza and raises serious questions, in particular with respect to the principles and structure of the United Nations, which cannot be called into question,” according to Politico EU.

NBC News [1/20/2026 6:31 PM, Charlene Gubash and Ammar Cheikh Omar, 34509K] reports longtime U.S. allies say they have abandoned large prisons holding thousands of Islamic State group fighters and their families in northeastern Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Tuesday it had redeployed from the al-Hol camp to nearby cities, blaming "international indifference" for the withdrawal. The move comes amid intensifying fighting between the SDF and fighters loyal to the government of Syria and after a reported ceasefire between the two sides. "International indifference toward the issue of the ISIS terrorist organization and the failure of the international community to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter" was behind the move, the SDF said in a post on X. The SDF and the government have traded blame over the escape from a prison in the town of Shaddadeh, amid the breakdown of a ceasefire deal between the two sides. SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami told Kurdish news website Rudaw that around "1,500 ISIS militants — including both foreign and Syrian nationals — had been released" by Damascus-affiliated armed groups from Shaddadi prison in southern Hasaka as well following fighting there. Syria’s Ministry of Interior said 120 Islamic State group members had escaped from the prison. Security forces recaptured 81 of the escapees, "while intensive security efforts continue to pursue the remaining fugitives and take the necessary legal measures against them," the statement said, The Associated Press reported. The Syrian army and the SDF on Sunday signed a ceasefire to end fighting that has displaced thousands. The two sides also agreed on a sweeping integration deal that was supposed to bring much of the autonomous region under government control. Responsibility for prisons housing ISIS detainees was meant to be transferred to the government. The two warring sides are key allies of Washington. U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa earlier Sunday as government forces were sweeping into the city of Raqqa and across Deir el-Zour province. SDF leader Mazloum Abdi reportedly joined the meeting over the phone.

Reuters [1/20/2026 4:20 PM, Phil Stewart and Idrees, 36480K] reports about 200 low-level Islamic State fighters escaped Syria’s Shaddadi prison on Monday after guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces left the facility, but Syrian government forces recaptured many of them, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. The official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said about 600 foreign fighters from Islamic State had been transferred from Shaddadi prior to January 19 to other facilities and remain in detention.

CNN [1/20/2026 11:27 AM, Nadeen Ebrahim and Eyad Kourdi, 18595K] reports Syrian forces are hunting ISIS fugitives after dozens escaped from a prison in northeastern Syria, the interior ministry said, as the government moves to take territory from Kurdish fighters. Of the 120 who escaped, 81 have been captured, the ministry said Tuesday, adding that "intensive security efforts continue to track down the rest.” Meanwhile, the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a former US ally in the fight against ISIS, accused the US-led coalition of failing to come to its aid after it was pushed out of much of the territory it controlled in the country. On Tuesday, the SDF announced its withdrawal from a vast detention camp holding tens of thousands of ISIS-linked civilians, citing "international indifference.” Syrian state media said US President Donald Trump spoke earlier with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to endorse Syria’s territorial integrity. Detainees escaped from al-Shaddadi Prison on Monday as government forces wrested control of the area from the SDF, which had been the US’ main local partner in the fight against ISIS that began in 2015. The SDF and the government accused each other of releasing the prisoners. SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami told Kurdish news site Rudaw that around 1,500 ISIS members had escaped, "including both foreign and Syrian nationals," accusing government-linked armed groups of releasing them.

Breitbart [1/20/2026 10:51 AM, Frances Martel, 2416K] reports a torrent of violence, including reported beheadings and a prison break by Islamic State terrorists, erupted in Syria on Monday following the signing of an agreement between the jihadist federal government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa and the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF and associated Kurdish political arms had enjoyed years of semi-autonomy in the region known as Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan, during the rule of deposed dictator Bashar Assad. Assad fled to Russia following the collapse of his military in late 2024, leaving the country in the hands of Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda offshoot. Sharaa has spent much of the past year arguing that Kurdish autonomy was a threat to the stability of his government and pressuring the SDF to incorporate into the reconstructed Syrian armed forces, fighting alongside HTS terrorists. He has received significant support from the United States, where President Donald Trump praised him as a "young, attractive guy" with "a real shot at pulling it together.” On Sunday, Sharaa and the SDF announced that they had reached an agreement in which the Kurds would concede most of their control of Rojava, including power over oil fields and traditionally Arab regions such as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The SDF took over those regions after destroying the Islamic State "caliphate" alongside the United States in 2017. In exchange, Sharaa’s government promised to respect Kurdish culture and allow the learning of the Kurdish language in Rojava schools.

AP [1/21/2026 4:15 AM, Julia Frankel, 42219K] reports Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he had agreed to join U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, after his office earlier criticized the makeup of the board’s committee tasked with overseeing Gaza. The board, chaired by Trump, was originally envisaged as a small group of world leaders overseeing the Gaza ceasefire plan. The Trump administration’s ambitions have broadened into a more sprawling concept, with Trump extending invitations to dozens of nations and hinting it will soon broker global conflicts. The announcement is a departure from the previous stand by Netanyahu’s office. It had said the composition of the Gaza executive committee — which includes Turkey, a key regional rival — wasn’t coordinated with the Israeli government and ran “contrary to its policy,” without clarifying its objections. Netanyahu’s decision to join the board could now put him in conflict with some of the far-right allies in his coalition, such as Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has criticized the board and called for Israel to take unilateral responsibility for Gaza’s future. Those who have joined the board are the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Vietnam, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Argentina. Others, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Egypt, Russia, Turkey and the executive arm of the European Union, say they have received invitations but have not yet responded. Netanyahu’s announcement came as Trump traveled to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he is expected to provide more details about the board. There are many unanswered questions. It was not immediately clear how many or which other leaders would receive invitations. When asked by a reporter on Tuesday if the board should replace the United Nations, Trump said: “It might.” He claimed the world body “hasn’t been very helpful” and “has never lived up to its potential” but also said the U.N. should continue “because the potential is so great.” That has created controversy, with some saying Trump is trying to replace the U.N. In a response to Trump, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday: “Yes to implementing the peace plan presented by the president of the United States, which we wholeheartedly support, but no to creating an organization as it has been presented, which would replace the United Nations.” After hearing late Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron was unlikely to join the board, Trump said, “Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon.”

Washington Examiner [1/20/2026 10:26 AM, Claire Carter, 1394K] reports Israeli forces moved into East Jerusalem early Tuesday with bulldozers to demolish the United Nations Relief and Works Agency headquarters, citing significant national security and terrorism concerns regarding the agency’s operation in the area. The operation, conducted under the supervision of Israeli lawmakers and government officials, follows the recent confiscation of agency devices and the forced closure of a nearby health center on Jan. 14. Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner general, released a statement on X, saying the actions by Israel are "a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law." The demolition is the culmination of years of mounting tension between Israel and the U.N. body. Israeli officials have repeatedly accused the UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas agents and employing people with allegiance to the terrorist group. Israel has alleged that several agency employees had a direct hand in the Oct. 7 massacre, an accusation that has fueled the government’s push to disassemble the organization from operating in the region. The UNRWA has admitted that the evidence points to at least nine of its employees having "been involved in the attacks of 7 October."

AP [1/20/2026 1:16 PM, Elena Becatoros, 31753K] reports Iran on Tuesday warned Donald Trump not to take any action against the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, days after the U.S. president called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly 40-year reign. “Trump knows that if any hand of aggression is extended toward our leader, we not only cut that hand but also we will set fire to their world,” Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, a spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, said. The comments came after Trump described Khamenei in an interview with Politico on Saturday as “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” adding that “it’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.” Tension between the U.S. and Iran has been high since a violent crackdown by authorities on protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy on Dec. 28. Trump has drawn two red lines for the Islamic Republic — the killing of peaceful protesters and Tehran conducting mass executions in the wake of the demonstrations.

Reuters [1/20/2026 8:43 AM, Staff, 36480K] reports any attack on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would trigger a declaration of jihad, or holy war, the Iranian Students News Agency quoted Iran’s national security parliamentary commission as saying on Tuesday. Tensions between Iran and the United States have grown following a severe crackdown of protests across Iran, which U.S. President Donald trump warned could lead to a response from Washington. "Any attack on the Supreme Leader means a declaration of war with the entire Islamic world and must await the issuance of a Jihad decree by Islamic scholars and the response of Islam’s soldiers in all parts of the world," the parliamentary commission said.

FOX News [1/20/2026 8:24 AM, Ashley Carnahan Fox, 40621K] reports the Islamic State claimed responsibility on Monday for a suicide blast at a Chinese restaurant in Afghanistan that killed more than half a dozen people. Abdul Mateen Qani, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, told New York Times the attack was carried out by one person linked to ISIS-Khorasan, commonly known as ISIS-K, one of the terrorist group’s most lethal branches. ISIS-K has claimed it targets Chinese citizens as retaliation for Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group, and has also denounced the Afghan government’s relationship with China, according to the Times. Kabul police command spokesman Khalid Zadran said on X that seven people were killed in the explosion, including six Afghans and one Chinese national. Several others were injured. Zadran said the blast occurred around 3 p.m. local time at a Chinese noodle restaurant in Kabul’s Shahr-e-Naw neighborhood that was jointly run by Abdul Majeed, a Chinese Muslim from Xinjiang province, his wife, and an Afghan named Abdul Jabbar Mahmoud. "The explosion occurred near the kitchen. The nature of the explosion is still unknown, investigations are ongoing," he added. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that one Chinese national was killed and five others were wounded in the attack.

Reuters [1/20/2026 9:49 AM, Staff, 36480K] reports the Chinese military said on Tuesday it had organised naval and air forces to warn and drive away a Philippine government aircraft which "illegally intruded" into the airspace over Scarborough Shoal, a disputed atoll in the South China Sea. "We urge the Philippine side to immediately stop infringing upon China’s rights and cease provocations and irresponsible hype," a spokesperson for the military’s Southern Theatre Command said in a statement. The Philippine Embassy in Beijing, the Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine National Maritime Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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