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.

CBS News [1/31/2026 12:00 AM, Caitlin Yilek, Kaia Hubbard, 51110K] reports funding for many federal agencies expired at 12 a.m. on Saturday after Congress failed to pass half a dozen spending bills before the deadline, prompting a partial government shutdown. The funding lapse comes despite the Senate voting late Friday to approve a five-bill package and extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, which had been the sticking point in the upper chamber. The deal struck between Senate Democrats and the White House still needs to be approved by the House, which is set to return to Washington on Monday. The Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement has been the focus of this funding fight. Since the longest shutdown in U.S. history last fall, lawmakers have been working to pass individual spending bills to fund federal agencies through September 2026. Congress has passed, and the president has signed, six of those bills already. The other six are the focus of the current funding fight. Bipartisan talks appeared to have yielded a deal in recent weeks. Appropriators released the text of the funding measures on Jan. 20. Five of the bills were grouped together into one package, while the bill funding DHS was separated. House Democrats had threatened to withhold their support for the overall funding if the DHS bill was included, arguing it did not go far enough to rein in ICE after the deadly shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. The DHS portion passed with support from just seven Democrats when the House voted last week, while the larger funding package passed with wide bipartisan support. The House then grouped the bills together to send them to the Senate, a move that was meant to clear the way for swift passage. But the deadly shooting of Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis last weekend changed the calculus for Senate Democrats. They came out fiercely against funding for DHS without further reforms, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that the caucus would not provide the votes to move forward on the funding package unless the DHS money was stripped out. Senators returned to Washington this week without a clear path forward. Schumer outlined Democrats’ demands on Wednesday, including the end of roving patrols by immigration agents, banning the use of masks and tightening warrant requirements. Republicans — some of whom spoke out against the events in Minneapolis — encouraged Democrats to take their requests for reforms to the Trump administration. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] Roll Call [1/30/2026 6:50 PM, Jacob Fulton and Aris Folley, 673K] reports that senators voted 71-29 to send the revised package — which also includes the full-year Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services, National Security-State, and Transportation-HUD funding bills — back to the House for another vote, while extending Homeland Security funding through Feb. 13. The punt on a full-year Homeland Security bill, which the House had included in its initial package last week, forces the House to hold another vote, which could occur as early as Monday. Current funding for many federal agencies is set to expire Friday night, ensuring at least a brief partial government shutdown until the House can clear the revised package for President Donald Trump’s signature. The undoing of what was once a six-bill package came after the fatal shooting of intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last week by federal immigration agents, triggering a revolt by Democrats against Homeland Security Department funding until new restrictions are imposed on federal agents. But with the polarizing Homeland Security bill set aside for now, Democrats and Republicans alike touted the long-delayed deal, which covers the lion’s share of discretionary spending for the fiscal year that began last October. The Hill [1/30/2026 6:44 PM, Alexander Bolton, 18170K] reports Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told House Republicans in a Friday afternoon conference call that he hopes to quickly pass the bill under a fast-track process known as suspension of the rules, which allows him to bypass the difficult task of getting Republicans unified behind a rule to pass the package under regular order. The suspension process requires a two-thirds vote to suspend the rules and pass legislation. FOX News [1/30/2026 6:42 PM, Alex Miller and Elizabeth Elkind, 37576K] reports Schumer and his caucus are determined to get a series of extra reforms attached and dropped three categories of restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Wednesday that many Republicans have balked at. "These are not radical demands," Schumer said on the Senate floor. "They’re basic standards the American people already expect from law enforcement. I hope we can get voting quickly here in the Senate today so we can move forward on the important work of reining in ICE. The clock is ticking.". Democrats argued that the tweaks were common sense and geared toward reducing further incidents during immigration operations around the country after two fatal shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis this month. The Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 6:42 PM, Ramsey Touchberry and David Sivak, 1147K] reports that about half of all Senate Democrats voted against the funding deal, which funds the Pentagon, Department of Health and Human Services, and other federal agencies. Five Republicans, all fiscal hawks, also voted "no": Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Rick Scott (R-FL). The deal, a version of the legislation passed by the House earlier this month, was blessed by President Donald Trump, who urged senators Thursday to support it and, on Truth Social, advocated against a "long and damaging Government Shutdown.". But Senate leadership had to overcome a temporary setback as senators blockaded the legislation as leverage for their own priorities. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) emerged as the most vocal stumbling block but lifted his objections on Friday afternoon in exchange for a future vote on legislation penalizing "sanctuary cities," as well as a separate bill directing monetary damages for groups affected by Biden-era surveillance led by special counsel Jack Smith. Other senators secured amendment votes as part of the funding legislation, each of which failed before final passage.

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Breitbart [1/31/2026 12:53 AM, Staff, 2238K] reports the US government entered a partial shutdown Saturday as a midnight funding deadline passed without Congress approving a 2026 budget, though disruption was expected to be limited with the House set to move early next week to ratify a Senate-backed deal. The funding lapse followed a breakdown in negotiations driven by Democratic anger over the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents, which derailed talks over new money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). "Instead of going after drug smugglers, child predators, and human traffickers, the Trump Administration is wasting valuable resources targeting peaceful protestors in Chicago and Minneapolis," Senate Democratic Minority Whip Dick Durbin posted on social media. "This Administration continues to make Americans less safe.". Roughly three-quarters of federal operations are affected, potentially triggering shutdown procedures across a wide range of agencies and operations, from education and health to housing and defense. Federal departments were expected to begin implementing shutdown plans overnight, but congressional leaders in both parties said the Senate’s action made a short disruption far more likely than a prolonged impasse. If the House approves the package as expected early next week, funding would be restored within days, limiting the practical impact of the shutdown on government services, contractors and federal workers. CBS News [1/31/2026 12:00 AM, Caitlin Yilek and Kaia Hubbard, 51110K] reports funding for many federal agencies expired at 12 a.m. on Saturday after Congress failed to pass half a dozen spending bills before the deadline, prompting a partial government shutdown. The funding lapse comes despite the Senate voting late Friday to approve a five-bill package and extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, which had been the sticking point in the upper chamber. The deal struck between Senate Democrats and the White House still needs to be approved by the House, which is set to return to Washington on Monday. The Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement has been the focus of this funding fight. Since the longest shutdown in U.S. history last fall, lawmakers have been working to pass individual spending bills to fund federal agencies through September 2026. Congress has passed, and the president has signed, six of those bills already. The other six are the focus of the current funding fight. Bipartisan talks appeared to have yielded a deal in recent weeks. Appropriators released the text of the funding measures on Jan. 20. Five of the bills were grouped together into one package, while the bill funding DHS was separated. House Democrats had threatened to withhold their support for the overall funding if the DHS bill was included, arguing it did not go far enough to rein in ICE after the deadly shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. The shutdown is not expected to affect the Trump administration’s controversial immigration enforcement campaign. DHS received an infusion of roughly $165 billion in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and $65 billion for Customs and Border Protection. The funding goes well beyond the annual allotments that the agencies typically receive and means they can continue operations without new money. [Editorial note: consult video at source link] FOX News [1/30/2026 3:52 PM, Leo Briceno, Elizabeth Elkind, Alex Miller, 37576K] reports the country’s airlines and military members could once again take the brunt of a government shutdown as lawmakers advanced a plan on Friday that looks set to put the government on the path to a shutdown come Feb. 1. Lawmakers in the Senate struck a deal on Friday to advance funding for the departments of Defense, Education, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services while passing a short-term extension for the Department of Homeland Security, the piece of the puzzle holding up funding for 2026. Despite looking poised to clear the Senate, the package must also re-pass the House of Representatives to become law. The House isn’t scheduled to return to Washington, D.C. until Monday, all but guaranteeing at least one day of a shutdown. The Federal News Network [1/30/2026 6:36 PM, Jory Heckman, 1297K] reports agencies are preparing for an imminent government shutdown, as lawmakers advance a spending package that would likely end the funding lapse by Monday. An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson told Federal News Network that agency guidance on a potential funding lapse been "ongoing" this week, and that it would direct impacted agencies to begin shutdown procedures once funding runs out Friday at midnight. "We always prep agencies for a potential lapse, and we start that process early," the OMB spokesperson said. The Senate passed a spending package on Friday, based on a compromise reached between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The spending package will now head to the House, which is not scheduled to return until Monday. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told the Associated Press that he might have some "tough decisions" over whether to bring the House in session over the weekend to pass the Senate-approved spending package. The Senate passed a two-week continuing resolution for DHS and five spending bills that would fund large swaths of the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. Those five bills include funding the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, as well as several other agencies. The stopgap spending for DHS would give lawmakers more time to negotiate over guardrails on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations, following the deaths of two protestors in recent weeks.

NewsMax [1/30/2026 8:59 AM, Staff, 3760K] reports that Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., accused Democrats in Congress of engaging in political "showboating" as a shutdown deadline looms. In an interview with Newsmax on Friday, Tenney argued their opposition to funding the Department of Homeland Security — particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is aimed at appeasing the party’s far-left base. "It’s about a stunt," Tenney said on "National Report." "The Democrats need to show their base that they’re going to stand up and do something about ICE, because that’s what their base is asking them to do." Tenney argued that pressure from progressive activists — including what she described as "the far-left anti-police group that actually is driving the Democratic Party in many ways" — is fueling the fight, despite Congress having already acted on DHS funding. "We already passed the bill in the House," she said. "DHS funding was mostly passed during the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ last year. So they’re really just quibbling over something that is a show vote." According to Tenney, the dispute risks real-world consequences for Americans who rely on federal security and emergency services. "And it really just is unfair to the rest of the American people who want security and safety," she said. "And also, this is going to disrupt TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA, which is really important. And now, we’re going to put all that at risk because the Democrats need to show vote for their base."

Breitbart [1/30/2026 3:13 PM, Neil Munro, 2238K] reports pro-American activists and groups are slamming the establishment’s bipartisan push for a stealth nationwide amnesty that would help progressives and CEOs freely use the huge population of million illegal migrants to sideline American citizens. The stealth amnesty got a big push forward on Tuesday night when Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to delay passage of the 2026 funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS bill is now being held back until Senate Democrats and Republicans can include a series of apparently minor changes that would create a huge bureaucratic barrier to the deportation of non-violent illegal migrants. But pro-American legislators and activists are fighting back.

NewsMax [1/30/2026 7:01 PM, Mark Swanson, 3760K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared a video Friday highlighting Americans killed by illegal aliens, saying the victims represent "who we fight for" as the administration continues to crack down on illegal immigration. "We are deporting criminals from America so that no family will have to suffer a tragedy like this ever again," Noem wrote in a post on X alongside the 46-second video, which featured dozens of victims. The post comes as Noem faces mounting criticism following two fatal shootings involving ICE protesters this month in Minneapolis, the most recent occurring last weekend. President Donald Trump has publicly defended Noem, dismissing calls for her resignation. "I think she’s done a very good job," Trump said this week. "The border is totally secure.". At the same time, Trump dispatched White House border czar Tom Homan to oversee immigration law enforcement operations in Minnesota. Those efforts had previously fallen under the purview of Noem and Gregory Bovino, the administration’s Border Patrol commander. Trump and Noem met privately for approximately two hours Monday amid growing political backlash. Several Democrat lawmakers — along with at least two Republicans — have since called for Noem’s removal.

Breitbart [1/30/2026 5:01 PM, Warner Todd Huston, 2238K] reports the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is highlighting the arrests Thursday of more of the "worst of the worst" criminal illegal migrants, including pedophiles, domestic abusers, and violent assailants. The department’s "Operation Metro Surge," which is aimed at taking dangerous criminal illegals off the streets of Minnesota, included the arrests of those convicted of sexual abuse of a minor, aggravated sexual assault, domestic assault, and possession of narcotics for sale, DHS exclusively told Breitbart News. "Just yesterday, DHS arrested multiple sex offenders, violent assailants, and drug traffickers in Minnesota," said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. "Our law enforcement are putting their lives on the line to arrest these public safety threats. We are calling on Minnesota politicians to allow us into their jails to arrest criminal illegal aliens instead of releasing them back into American communities to commit more crimes and create more victims. We need Minnesota to honor the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 1,360 illegal aliens in their custody."

Daily Signal [1/30/2026 3:50 PM, Virginia Allen, 549K] reports federal immigration agents on Thursday arrested illegal aliens convicted of a third-degree sex offense, manslaughter, and arson, as the Department of Homeland Security continues to deal with backlash over enforcement operations in Minnesota. “These thugs have no place in our communities,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, adding, “Seventy percent of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. This statistic doesn’t even include foreign fugitives, terrorists, and gang members who lack a rap sheet in the U.S.” Authorities on Thursday arrested two Mexican nationals, Darwin Vazquez-Ramos, who has been convicted of a third-degree sex offense, and Israel Sanchez-Jimenez, who has been convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in Los Angeles, according to DHS. “With every arrest, we are making America safe again,” McLaughlin said.

AP [1/30/2026 1:15 PM, Michael Biesecker, Rebecca Santana and Alanna Durkin Richer, 2238K] reports the Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday. The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday. “We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Blanche said during a news conference. Blanche did not explain why DOJ decided to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but has said a similar probe is not warranted in the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good, who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. He said only on Friday that the Civil Rights Division does not investigate every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances and facts that “warrant an investigation.” “President Trump has said repeatedly, ‘Of course, this is something we’re going to investigate,’” Blanche said of the Pretti shooting. Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Friday that “the family’s focus is on a fair and impartial investigation that examines the facts around his murder.” The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the FBI will lead the federal probe into Pretti’s death. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the investigation during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department previously said Homeland Security Investigations, a departmental unit, would head the investigation. “We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Homeland Security Investigations will support the FBI in the investigation. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

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CBS News [1/30/2026 12:52 PM, Nicole Sganga, Sarah N. Lynch and Alex Sundby, 51110K] reports the FBI is now leading the federal investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, with the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security – known as Homeland Security Investigations – supporting the investigation, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. HSI had been leading the probe into Saturday’s shooting of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse with the Department of Veterans Affairs. The FBI’s lead role in the investigation marks a major reversal from earlier in the week, when sources told CBS News that the bureau was only playing a marginal role in assisting HSI by helping analyze some of the evidence in the case. At a press conference Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the FBI was investigating. He also said the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division would be participating in the probe. "The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has the best experts in the world on this," Blanche told reporters. "They’ve been doing it for decades. And so I expect the investigation will proceed with those parameters.". Blanche stopped short of formally calling it a civil rights investigation, however, and declined to discuss the scope of what the FBI will be examining. "I don’t want to overstate what’s happening because I don’t want this takeaway to be that there’s some massive civil rights investigation that’s happening," he said.

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Daily Wire [1/30/2026 8:14 AM, Zach Jewell, 2314K] reports President Donald Trump said on Friday that video of Alex Pretti’s altercation with federal agents 11 days before he was shot and killed proves that the Minneapolis man was an "agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.". Trump argued that Pretti’s "stock has gone way down" after the video shows the man confronting federal agents in Minneapolis and kicking out the taillight of a federal vehicle. The video was released by The News Movement earlier this week and published by numerous news outlets. "Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces," Trump wrote in an early morning Truth Social post. "It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!". The footage shows a man yelling and spitting at federal immigration agents on January 13 before he damaged a federal vehicle as it began to drive away. Federal agents then got out of the vehicle and tackled the man to the ground. Pretti’s family confirmed that it was him in the video. The Minnesota Star Tribune confirmed with Alex Pretti’s family that the man in this video is indeed Alex Pretti. The Pretti family’s attorney, Steve Schleicher, said the video shows Pretti getting "violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents." Before the video was released, CNN reported that Pretti broke a rib during an altercation with ICE agents a week before his death. One source who spoke to Pretti after the altercation told CNN, "That day, he thought he was going to die." Pretti was reportedly released at the scene after the confrontation. A little over a week later, Pretti was shot and killed in the street by Border Patrol agents after confronting authorities who were conducting an immigration operation. Pretti, who was armed with a 9 mm handgun, got into an altercation with agents as they were pushing demonstrators off the road. Video shows Pretti getting pepper-sprayed before he’s taken to the ground. Pretti then resists as officers attempt to detain him. The video appears to show one agent taking Pretti’s gun while he’s on the ground before two other agents fire around 10 shots in five seconds, killing Pretti.

The Hill [1/30/2026 8:57 AM, Sophie Brams, 18170K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday she was using the “best information we had at the time” when she initially responded to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti over the weekend, the second U.S. citizen killed by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis this month. Noem, who called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” shortly after the shooting, described a “very chaotic” situation on the ground in the aftermath of the incident and told Fox News host Sean Hannity that she was “being relayed information from [agents and officers] on the ground.” “We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people, and get them what we knew to be true on the ground,” Noem responded, after Hannity asked if some of her initial statements were premature. Noem is facing growing criticism over her rhetoric surrounding the shooting, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle chiding her for rushing to compare Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, to a “domestic terrorist” immediately after he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent. She claimed Pretti brandished a gun at officers and wanted to “inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” “Violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and to perpetuate violence. That is the definition of domestic terrorism,” Noem said Saturday.

NPR [1/31/2026 12:16 AM, Jude Joffe-Block, Huo Jingnan, Audrey Nguyen, 28764K] reports that, on a Saturday in early October, Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old teacher and American citizen, was driving her car when she noticed federal immigration agents in her Chicago neighborhood. She began following them, as did the driver of another car. She honked her horn and shouted "la migra" to warn her neighbors that immigration agents were nearby. As she drove alongside a Chevy Tahoe driven by Border Patrol agents, the vehicles made contact — who swerved into whom is a point of dispute. Martinez then began to drive away. A Border Patrol agent fired at her five times. The Department of Homeland Security quickly alleged Martinez had "rammed" the Border Patrol vehicle. "This woman — who, by the way, is a Montessori school teacher with no criminal history — she’s now, all of a sudden, a ‘domestic terrorist,’" her attorney, Chris Parente, told NPR. "This is before there’s any investigation done.” Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against Martinez, who survived the shooting. But a Department of Homeland Security press release with her name, mug shot and the accusation that she is a "domestic terrorist" is still online, as are a number of posts on X by high level Trump administration officials that paint her as a criminal who attacked law enforcement. One post with allegations about her was reshared by FBI Director Kash Patel and inaccurately links to video footage from a different incident she had nothing to do with. The @FBI just arrested two individuals who were allegedly driving these vehicles and attacking our federal law enforcement officers. They have been charged for assaulting federal officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Attack our law enforcement, and this FBI will find you… https://t.co/iQ9wDeAzQh. — FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 6, 2025. In recent weeks, the Trump administration swiftly attempted to justify the shootings of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti by claiming they were carrying out acts of domestic terrorism in the moments before they were killed. They made these claims without waiting for investigations to unfold, and in spite of conflicting video evidence and witness accounts. As Martinez’s case and others demonstrate, these statements are part of a much broader, months-long communication pattern by the administration on immigration related issues. Trump administration officials have repeatedly made unproven or incorrect claims when describing immigrants targeted for deportation, U.S. citizens arrested while protesting the administration’s immigration crackdown and people who simply drove through areas where an immigration enforcement operation was going on. On social media, the administration has accused people of violently attacking federal immigration agents or impeding operations. In many instances, criminal charges were quietly dropped or never filed. While it’s not uncommon for law enforcement agencies to make allegations about suspects that wind up being disproven, many of DHS’s accusations against private individuals stand out for their hyperbolic language. "It seems to me that they are not writing these statements with the intention of ever supporting them in court, but just to try and convince officers and their voter base," said Greg Jackson, an attorney in Southern California who has clients who were shot at by federal immigration agents.

Bloomberg Law [1/30/2026 11:15 AM, Erik Larson, 50K] reports former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles in connection with his coverage of a protest against federal immigration enforcement activities in Minnesota, escalating the Trump administration’s clash with the press. US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X on Friday that she had ordered the arrest of Lemon and three others over what she described as "the coordinated attack" on a church in St. Paul, Minnesota. The post did not provide details on which laws Lemon is accused of violating. Lemon, now an independent journalist, covered a Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church, which was targeted because one of its pastors is purportedly an official at the local US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. The arrest is the latest development in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration in Minnesota, which has triggered massive protests across the state and nation. The operation has also led to the deaths of two US citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — who were shot by federal agents in separate confrontations earlier this month. Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s lawyer, said the journalist was taken into custody by federal agents Thursday night in Los Angeles, where he was preparing to cover the Grammy awards. Lowell blasted the Justice Department for devoting its resources to targeting journalists instead of investigating agents "who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters.". "Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done," Lowell said in a statement. "The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.". The New York Post [1/30/2026 3:59 PM, Patrick Reilly, 40934K] reports that a federal grand jury indicted Lemon on the charges of conspiracy to deprive rights and interfering with First Amendment rights, White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair posted on X. He’s charged with a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 federal law that deals with access to health clinics but also covers interference with religious worship.

Bloomberg Law [1/30/2026 7:23 PM, Maia Spoto, 50K] reports former CNN anchor Don Lemon was released from custody Friday by a federal judge in Los Angeles. Federal prosecutors asked the judge to require a $100,000 unsecured bond for his release, but Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue in the US District Court for the Central District of California allowed for Lemon’s release without payment, on personal recognizance. "I’ve spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now," Lemon said in front of the court, after his release. "There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines the light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.". Lemon, who now works as an independent journalist, was arrested Thursday night by federal agents in Los Angeles in connection with his coverage of a protest at a Minnesota church against federal immigration enforcement activities. Lemon was indicted by a grand jury in the District of Minnesota, said Alexander Robbins, representing the federal government. The journalist said "the whole point" of entering the church was "to disrupt," Robbins said. The prosecutor advocated for stricter release conditions, saying Lemon should not "feel emboldened to commit similar acts.". Lemon’s arrests followed a failed effort by the Justice Department to sway two Minnesota judges and a federal appeals court to sign off on earlier arrest warrants, with one of those judges saying there was "no evidence" that Lemon and another journalist targeted by the Justice Department had "engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so." Members of the Justice Department boasted on social media about Lemon’s arrest Friday. Donahue said during Lemon’s initial court appearance that Robbins should limit his remarks on Lemon’s alleged conduct to the indictment returned by a grand jury, after Lemon’s lawyer, Marilyn Bednarski, said a judge found no probable cause in an earlier attempt to arrest the journalist.

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AP [1/30/2026 7:02 PM, Staff, 35287K] Video: HERE

Politico [1/30/2026 7:26 PM, Liam Dillon, Josh Gerstein and Brock Hrehor, 21784K] reports a defiant Don Lemon made his first court appearance Friday, vowing afterward to fight federal criminal charges stemming from his role at a immigration protest in a case that has exploded into a major First Amendment showdown between the Trump administration and a prominent journalist. “I have spent my entire career covering the news,” Lemon, the former CNN anchor, told a crowd of press and supporters in the courtyard of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and United States Courthouse here. “I will not stop now. In fact, there is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media.” Lemon’s arrest Thursday night in Los Angeles was met with fury by press freedom advocates, who excoriated the president and the Justice Department for what they said was a blatant incursion on the protections afforded journalists by the Constitution. In an indictment unsealed Friday, a grand jury in Minneapolis approved charges accusing Lemon and eight others of conspiring to deprive congregants at a church of their civil rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits intimidating or interfering with people seeking to exercise their religious freedom rights at a place of worship. The criminal case revolves around a protest on Jan. 18, in which demonstrators disrupted a service at a St. Paul church where a pastor also works as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. Lemon, 59, was held in custody overnight and spoke to supporters outside the courthouse following his initial appearance in front of Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue. He maintained his actions in Minnesota were no different than other reporting he’s undertaken in his decades-long career. “Last night, the DOJ sent a team of federal agents to arrest me in the middle of the night for something that I’ve been doing for the last 30 years and that is covering the news,” Lemon said. “The First Amendment of the Constitution protects that work for me and for countless other journalists who do what I do. I stand with all of them and I will not be silenced.” He said he looked forward to his day in court. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of Lemon and three others Friday morning. Two additional people are named as defendants in court records related to the indictment, but it’s unclear whether they have been arrested. Bondi, who posted on X early Friday that the arrest of Lemon and three others were made “at my direction,” said that the charges protected worshippers’ freedom of religion. “Make no mistake, under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely,” Bondi said in a brief video posted online. “And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”

FOX News [1/30/2026 4:36 PM, Breanne Deppisch, Chris Pandolfo, 37576K] reports former CNN anchor and journalist Don Lemon is slated to appear in federal court Friday afternoon to face federal criminal charges and potential jail time in connection with his alleged involvement in a protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month. Lemon will be charged in Los Angeles Friday afternoon on allegations of conspiring to violate someone’s constitutional rights and alleged FACE Act violations, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Fox News Digital. Because the FACE Act classifies a first-time violation involving the use of force or physical obstruction as a misdemeanor, Lemon could face a maximum of one year in federal prison if prosecutors seek those charges. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Lemon’s arrest comes more than a week after he was seen with a group of anti-ICE protesters who interrupted a church service at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official serves as a pastor. The group of protesters was seen chanting "ICE out," according to video footage, and interrupting the service. Three other individuals, including independent journalist Georgia Fort, were also charged Friday in connection with their alleged involvement in the demonstration.

Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 1:44 PM, Sydney Topf, 1147K] reports that Democrats criticized the Justice Department for "weaponizing" the federal government after former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested Thursday night during an anti-immigration enforcement protest in a Minnesota church. Lemon, who was arrested alongside three other people, maintains that he was there in an official capacity as an independent journalist and had no connection with the group. "Should the Department of Justice continue with a stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job, Don will call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly through court," Lemon’s attorney Abbe Lowell said on X. While Lemon hasn’t yet called out the Justice Department, many Democrats and news organizations have come to his defense. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said on X that "Putin would be proud," while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on X that Lemon is protected by the First Amendment. "There is zero basis to arrest him and he should be freed immediately," Jeffries wrote. "The Trump Justice Department is illegitimate and these extremists will all be held accountable for their crimes against the Constitution." Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who has been critical of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Minnesota, said the arrest is "unacceptable."

CNN [1/30/2026 9:50 AM, Kameryn Griesser, 612K] reports Homan says ICE & CBP are working on Minneapolis ‘draw-down plan’. President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said he has ordered federal immigration authorities to work on an eventual draw-down plan for federal agents in Minnesota. Homan, who is taking control of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, said operations on the ground will be targeted. This comes after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by federal agents.

FOX News [1/30/2026 10:23 PM, Nora Moriarty, 37576K] reports "Border czar" Tom Homan pushed back against claims that President Donald Trump sent him to Minneapolis as part of a pullback of the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. "If anybody thinks that Tom Homan, if President Trump, isn’t serious about immigration enforcement and having a mass deportation, then they weren’t paying attention," he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday. Joining "Hannity" for his first interview since being sent to Minneapolis, Homan detailed his mission to defuse widespread unrest in Minnesota while making it clear there will be no surrender. "To set the record straight, because my staff said they’ve seen a lot of people that say President Trump’s backing off on his promise of mass deportation – that’s just untrue," he said. "For people that want to misinterpret what President Trump sending me to Minneapolis means, then you’re not paying attention," Homan said. President Donald Trump dispatched Homan to Minneapolis this week to replace Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, whom the president suggested did not perform well overseeing the state’s immigration crackdown. "Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy," Trump told Fox News’ Will Cain on Tuesday. "And in some cases, that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here." "Tom is fantastic. Tom is a tough guy, but I’ve watched over the years, and he’s gotten along with governors, and he gets along with mayors," he added. "Some people don’t. Some people just want to do their job and leave me alone." On "Hannity," Homan revealed more about his "productive" meeting Tuesday with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He said the leaders pledged to honor federal immigration detainers within Minnesota’s prison system, allowing officers to make arrests inside jails rather than searching for suspects on the streets. "The more agents we have in the jails, the rest of these people in the safety and security of a jail, it’s safer for the officer, safer for the alien, safer for the community," Homan explained. Federal agents operating in neighborhoods to locate deportation targets have been a flashpoint for widespread unrest in Minnesota, with members of the public protesting their actions. "One agent can arrest a bad guy in a jail rather than sending a whole team to the community," Homan said. "And with all the hate and rhetoric attacks, then we’ve got to send another team for security." "What one agent can do in a jail, we got to send 15 or 16 guys to do," he added. Homan said if Walz and Frey follow through on their pledge of cooperation, the number of federal agents in Minnesota could be reduced. "We can draw down on the number of agents there, because we’re in the jails," he said. While Homan said his goal is to calm tensions in Minnesota amid unrest over the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, he stressed that his leadership would not waver. "We’re going to have a mass deportation, but we’re going to prioritize the arrest of criminals and public safety threats," he said. "If you’re in a country illegally, you’re not off the table. We’ll find you, too, and deport you, too."

New York Times [1/30/2026 8:35 PM, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Julie Bosman, 148038K] reports organizers of community groups tracking federal agents in the Twin Cities said on Friday that they were continuing to see arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis and its suburbs nearly a week after agents killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse. But in the last few days, city officials and several volunteers from the tracking groups said that arrests appear to be taking place less visibly, with fewer clashes between agents and the public in the streets. At least one person who has regularly kept track of agents said that he has observed fewer arrests, which he saw as perhaps a sign that the aggressive federal immigration operation of previous weeks might be slowing. Others said that they believed that the Trump administration was trying to leave an impression that it was scaling back in Minnesota, but might actually be continuing its operation in a more subtle, quiet fashion. The Trump administration appeared to be responding to widespread public backlash over the killing of Mr. Pretti this week when it removed Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, from his post in Minnesota, and the Justice Department said it had opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Mr. Pretti. But in Minnesota, it was uncertain whether the crackdown on the ground might also be shifting amid the backlash. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about numbers of arrests in recent days or whether the operation was changing in any way. Across the Twin Cities, where residents and elected officials have broadly opposed the crackdown on illegal immigration that the administration calls Operation Metro Surge, residents continued to stand guard outside of schools and businesses to watch for sightings of ICE agents. One patroller, Will Stancil, a lawyer and activist also known for his online political punditry, has been searching for and following immigration agents for 22 days. He says he does it because he wants the agents to know someone is watching. On Friday, he drove around South Minneapolis for three hours without spotting an arrest. There were several vehicles he found suspicious — mostly S.U.V.s with men wearing masks inside — but none that clearly belonged to immigration agents, and he saw no arrests along his route. “It’s been a quiet last few days, though we have had lulls before,” Mr. Stancil said, as he drove his black Honda Fit in loops around part of the city, peering at cars that he described as suspiciously “ICE-y.” “We are all, at this point, very wary of reading too much into that.”

New York Times [1/31/2026 5:15 AM, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, 135475K] Video: HERE reports Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis knows that what is playing out on the streets of his city will have profound implications for the whole country. Since December, thousands of federal agents have arrived in Minneapolis, as part of an immigration enforcement effort that the Department of Homeland Security has named “Operation Metro Surge.” Since then, Frey has had to shepherd a city rived by protests, infuriated by the killings of two American citizens at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and shaken by an aggressive federal action that has left some residents afraid to leave their homes. I spoke to Frey on Thursday afternoon, not long after Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan — who has been dispatched to Minneapolis to replace and clean up after the operation’s original commander Gregory Bovino — promised to de-escalate the situation there. He said in a news conference that there would be a drawdown of agents, only to have President Trump later deny that there was any plan to pull back. Protests against ICE have now spread nationwide, and congressional Democrats are pushing for reform of an immigration enforcement agency that they say is out of control. The federal government is promising to crack down on the protesters, and the Justice Department is already investigating both Frey and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for what it says is a conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents. While there are many differing opinions on what is happening in Minneapolis, it’s clear that this confrontation between the federal government, a state and its people is at an inflection point. Frey and I talked about how the conflict was playing out on the ground, where it might be headed and the long-term impact on his city and the country.[Editorial note: consult video at source link]

NewsMax [1/30/2026 11:00 PM, Theodore Bunker, 3760K] reports Minnesota Republican state Sen. Bill Lieske told Newsmax on Friday that political rhetoric over immigration enforcement in his state is "turning up again" as clashes continue between federal authorities and local residents. Lieske responded on "Wake Up America" to national calls for cooler heads amid escalating protests and enforcement actions tied to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, saying he has seen little evidence of de-escalation locally. "I wish I could say that I was hearing turning down the rhetoric," Lieske said. "But all I see on TV and in the media is more turning up." He added: "And as a minority member of our Senate, I’ve been asking for weeks to turn down the rhetoric so that we talk more like humans and adults in the room, and it doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. "And more, more turning up again, as usual." House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tom Homan urged lawmakers to dial back heated exchanges over immigration policy. Johnson said of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, "I think the secretary is doing a good job in a very difficult time when we’re trying to enforce federal immigration law. "And you have local and state officials who are impeding that and actually encouraging American citizens to stand against law enforcement. It creates a dangerous situation." Lieske said he appreciated Homan’s visit to Minnesota, where the federal official spent about 30 minutes urging de-escalation amid Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement campaign in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas.

Politico [1/30/2026 5:55 AM, Adam Wren, 21784K] reports Vice President JD Vance relayed a “crazy” story on X about protesters mobbing immigration and Border Patrol officers at a Minneapolis restaurant following Alex Pretti’s killing. But Minneapolis police and the restaurant manager both disputed key parts of the vice president’s account to POLITICO, which they say was incomplete at best. The conflicting versions have come to light amid a deescalation in tensions between local and federal officials in the city and mixed messaging within the Trump administration over Pretti’s death. Two agents have been placed on leave and the administration said it’s investigating the shooting. The retellings of the incidents as reported here by POLITICO underscore the Rashomon-like nature of documenting an immigration enforcement operation unfolding in a major American city — one that partisans are eager to weaponize in almost real time. On Sunday, hours after Pretti was shot by federal agents, Vance took to X, saying that on his visit to the city the week before he “heard a number of crazy stories,” then highlighted one that included two “off duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers” who “were going to dinner in Minneapolis.” Vance said they “were doxed and their location revealed, and the restaurant was then mobbed.” The officers, Vance said, “were locked in the restaurant, and local police refused to respond to their pleas for help (as they’ve been directed by local authorities). Eventually, their fellow federal agents came to their aid.” An administration official familiar with the incident told POLITICO Vance heard about it from federal agents at a roundtable discussion on the ground in Minneapolis and his team confirmed the details. In an audio recording of that roundtable, a DHS official is heard telling Vance that 30-50 agitators “locked them inside the restaurant,” referring to two off-duty officers. The administration official played a portion of the audio recording for POLITICO and identified the speaker as a DHS official. A vice presidential pool report from Jan. 22 noted the roundtable included “local law enforcement, business owners, ICE officers and some people with opposing views.” But a public information officer for the Minneapolis Police Department said “MPD monitored the situation and determined that the federal agents had sufficient resources available to manage the incident,” which the MPD said occurred on Jan. 19, at an address that matched the location of the restaurant — Darbar India Grill & Bar — in the southwest corner of the city. “Records indicate the two individuals, and the assisting federal resources were able to leave the area within approximately 15 minutes of the initial 911 call. MPD was later notified that one of their vehicles had been left behind,” Sgt. Garrett Parten said in a statement. “MPD monitored the vehicle until the agents were able to return and recover it.”

The Hill [1/30/2026 8:03 AM, Sophie Brams, 18170K] reports President Trump signaled Thursday that his administration would not pull back immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota, contradicting comments made earlier in the day by border czar Tom Homan about a “draw down” of federal officials in the state. “We keep our country safe. We’ll do whatever we can to keep our country safe,” Trump said ahead of the “Melania” film premiere at the Kennedy Center, responding to a reporter’s question about whether he would pull agents out of Minnesota. “So, you’re not pulling back?” the reporter asked again. “No, no. Not at all,” Trump replied. The president’s remarks stand in stark contrast to the position Homan outlined Thursday, in which he stated that staff from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were crafting a “draw down plan.” “What does that look like based on the cooperation? What does that look like based on how many targets we have left to find?” the border czar said during a press conference in Minneapolis. Homan, who was sent to replace U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino on the ground, said that Trump wanted to “fix” operations in the state following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration authorities. The administration has made changes to “Operation Metro Surge” in the aftermath of the shooting, and Homan acknowledged there may have been some missteps.

New York Times [1/30/2026 5:02 AM, Julie Bosman, Lauren McCarthy, Talya Minsberg, and Sheila M. Eldred, 148038K] reports Molly Phipps, a consultant in St. Paul, never considered herself much of a crier. That was before Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities: before roving federal agents arrested thousands suspected of illegal immigration and killed two U.S. citizens, before the protests, the fear of going out in public, the Signal chats, the cellphone videos and the fweeeeet of the whistles. “All of a sudden, a thought will come to my head or I’ll see a headline, and I’ll tear up,” said Ms. Phipps, the mother of two children. “Sometimes it’s just because regular people are doing amazing things. Or sometimes it’s because it’s so sad to walk into these once-thriving businesses and see them empty.” Two months into the crackdown that the Trump administration has called the largest immigration enforcement effort in the agency’s history, residents of the Twin Cities say the constant strain of the operation has become overwhelming, compounded by a lingering uncertainty over when it will end. This week has brought some hope to Minnesotans who oppose the operation. Those monitoring the news closely have seen small signals that the administration could be wavering in the face of intense public backlash. On Monday, officials said that Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol leader who has directed aggressive operations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, was leaving Minnesota, along with some Border Patrol agents. On Wednesday, a Department of Homeland Security official said that two of the agents involved in the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was killed after filming federal agents on Saturday, were on leave. Stephen Miller, a top aide to Mr. Trump who initially called Mr. Pretti an “assassin,” suggested on Wednesday that the agents who killed Mr. Pretti after he had been restrained and disarmed “may not have been following” protocol. Still, with no firm signs of an end to the operation, anxiety in the Twin Cities is unceasing.

New York Times [1/30/2026 5:03 AM, Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik, 148038K] reports on the morning of Jan. 10, Nicole Cleland was in her car trailing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent through Richfield, Minn., her hometown. Suddenly, the agent turned into a series of one-way streets and stopped, getting out of his white Dodge Ram, said Ms. Cleland, who volunteers with a local watchdog group that observes the activity of immigration officers. The agent then walked over to Ms. Cleland’s car and surprised her by addressing her as Nicole. “He said he had facial recognition and that his body camera was on,” said Ms. Cleland, 56, who had not met the agent before. Ms. Cleland was one of at least seven American citizens told by ICE agents this month that they were being recorded with facial recognition technology in and around Minneapolis, according to local activists and videos posted to social media, which were verified by The New York Times. None had given consent for their faces to be recorded. Facial recognition is just one technology tool that ICE has deployed in Minneapolis, where thousands of agents are conducting a crackdown. The technologies are being used not only to identify undocumented immigrants but also to track citizens who have protested ICE’s presence, said three current and former officials of the Department of Homeland Security who were not authorized to discuss confidential matters. The Homeland Security Department has not disclosed which technologies immigration agents are using in Minneapolis. A spokeswoman said the agency would not detail its methods, adding: “For years law enforcement across the nation has leveraged technological innovation to fight crime. ICE is no different.” The reach of the technologies has raised concerns.

Politico [1/30/2026 7:00 PM, Dana Nickel and Alfred Ng, 21784K] reports federal agencies have expanded their use of domestic surveillance to carry out mass deportations and crack down on protesters. Now, online activists and hacker groups are deploying their own arsenal of digital tools to fight back. In recent weeks, efforts to track ICE agents’ movements and identities have exploded online, including sites to report ICE raid locations. Even prolific cybercriminal collectives — better known for their ransomware attacks on luxury carmakers — are joining the fray by releasing the names and personal information of hundreds of ICE and DHS officials online. And despite sweeping efforts to swat down these anti-ICE tools, new apps or websites continue to pop up. “Even when the government pushes to block high-profile apps or webpages, people will continue to share information with their community to keep each other safe,” said Mario Trujilo, senior staff attorney for the data privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties team. These hacktivist moves come in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and heightened federal presence in U.S. cities, including Minnesota, where two people have been shot and killed by ICE agents in recent weeks. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill gave ICE a major funding injection, which the agency has used to boost its surveillance toolkit. Its vast expansion of domestic spying equipment includes contracts with Israeli spyware company Paragon and contracts with Palantir, as well as deals with a forensic phone-cracking tool used for analyzing data on cellphones; a data broker, which collects and sells sensitive digital information on Americans, including geolocation history and addresses; and facial recognition technology used to conduct ICE operations in U.S. cities. The Trump administration has also given ICE permission to access troves of sensitive data housed in other federal agencies — including data from the IRS, Medicaid and Social Security Administration. To push back, people across the country are using social media and encrypted messaging apps to track ICE vehicles and identify agents. Last month, a YouTuber identified a security flaw in a nationwide surveillance system used by law enforcement that exposed its AI-powered cameras to the internet. Flock Safety, a nationwide license plate recognition software with cameras installed across the country, allows local law enforcement to access its surveillance systems. But police officers have reportedly also conducted searches of Flock’s nationwide camera network on behalf of ICE.

AP [1/31/2026 12:24 AM, Kimberlee Kruesi, Holly Ramer, 3760K] reports protesters across the U.S. are calling for "no work, no school, no shopping" as part of a nationwide strike on Friday to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The demonstrations are taking place amid widespread anger over the killing of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was shot multiple times during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. The death heightened scrutiny over the administration’s tactics after the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good, who also was fatally shot during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis. "The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country — to stop ICE’s reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN," said one of the many websites and social media pages promoting actions in communities around the United States. Some schools in Arizona, Colorado, and other states preemptively canceled classes in anticipation of mass absences. Many other demonstrations were planned for students and others to gather at city centers, statehouses, and churches across the country. Just outside Minneapolis, hundreds gathered in the frigid cold early Friday at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, the site of regular protests in recent weeks. After speeches from clergy members, demonstrators marched toward the facility’s restricted area, shouting at a line of Department of Homeland Security agents to "quit your jobs" and "get out of Minnesota.".

Washington Post [1/30/2026 6:48 PM, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, et al., 24826K] reports for the second frigid Friday in a row, thousands of demonstrators skipped work or school, and businesses shuttered, as a march took over downtown to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in this city. The march, and an earlier demonstration outside the nearby federal building that has become a focal point for protests against aggressive immigration operations that have roiled this city for weeks, was one of several that spilled into streets across the country. Seizing on public outcry that intensified after federal agents in Minneapolis killed Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, six days ago, organizers called for a nationwide strike from work, school and shopping. Friday’s protests in Minneapolis began early in the morning outside the B.H. Whipple Federal Building, where bundled up clergy, business owners and mothers of schoolchildren braved subzero temperatures to read scripture, chant “ICE out now!” and condemn federal immigration agents’ tactics, which have included using chokeholds during arrests and smashing car windows. “No matter what you believe in, right now as business owners, we can all agree that ICE is bad for business,” Dylan Alverson, the owner of Modern Times Cafe, told the gathering. Later Friday, protesters marched peacefully through downtown Minneapolis, chanting and toting signs that said “Please stop killing us.’’ “Everybody needs to see that there are this many people’’ opposing the federal operation, said Michael Sweet, a 37-year-old teacher. In other cities across the country, crowds answered the call to protest. Marches unfolded outside schools and universities from Rhode Island to Texas, and teacher absences led to school cancellations in Colorado and Arizona. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, who had initially accused Pretti of committing “an act of domestic terrorism,” sought to deflect the growing criticism against her department during a Thursday night appearance on Fox News. Asked by host Sean Hannity whether her characterization of Pretti had been premature, Noem said she was “using the best information we had at the time.”

CNN [1/31/2026 12:01 AM, Elizabeth Wolfe, 612K] reports restaurant tables sat empty, business windows went dark and students’ desks were abandoned in several cities across the country Friday amid a nationwide strike in protest of the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota. “No work, no school, no shopping” was the organizers’ rally cry, leading to school walkouts, canceled classes and marches in places as distant from the Midwest as California, North Carolina and Maine. In Minnesota, waves of demonstrators spilled into the streets for the second week in a row following an announcement from the Justice Department saying it would open a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti – the second Minnesotan to be killed by federal agents in the state this year. The deaths of Pretti and Renee Good have transformed the national conversation on immigration enforcement and appear to have driven a tone shift from the White House in recent days. But even after White House border czar Tom Homan announced the possibility of a drawdown of agents in Minneapolis, federal and local officials cannot seem to agree on what compromise might look like. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on social media Friday, “Actions speak louder than words,” adding Minnesotans have “yet to see meaningful change.” Even as the Trump administration works to contain backlash over the shootings in Minnesota, it has created a fresh wave of outrage from free speech and press freedom advocates over the Friday arrests of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort on charges related to their coverage of a church protest.

Washington Post [1/31/2026 6:00 AM, Annie Gowen, 24149K] reports Jordan’s parents didn’t want her to become an ICE watcher. But on Tuesday, after a single day of training, she climbed into her Jeep and joined hundreds of neighbors patrolling the streets of this embattled city, where federal immigration agents have shot and killed two people this month who were monitoring and attempting to disrupt their activities. “I’m not really nervous, it’s more like, I want to prevent bad things from happening in my neighborhood,” Jordan, 40, said as she headed out. Her family, however, had deeper worries — that she too might get shot, or federal agents could identify and harass her. She agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name not be used, for fear of government reprisals. More than 34,000 Minnesotans have signed up to be trained as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers with various activist groups in recent weeks, many of them since Jan. 7, when a federal agent shot and killed Renée Good, a poet and mother of three, after an encounter with an ICE convoy in South Minneapolis. The killings of Good and, on Saturday, ICU nurse Alex Pretti underscore the dangers for the city’s widespread resistance movement, a loosely connected network of neighborhood volunteers who communicate on Signal, the private messaging app, as they play cat and mouse with heavily armed and masked federal agents on snowy streets. This week these ICE observers vowed to continue their work despite signs of a political thaw on the national stage, after Trump removed controversial border patrol head Greg Bovino from Minneapolis and renewed talks with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), a frequent critic. Bovino’s replacement, border czar Tom Homan, said at a news conference Thursday that the administration would focus on “targeted” operations and that the 3,000 agents deployed to the city could be reduced if state and local leaders cooperated more with federal authorities. But, he warned, “justice is coming” for those who have been disrupting deportation actions in the city for weeks. Trump has called the protesters “paid agitators and insurrectionists,” and FBI Director Kash Patel said this week the agency is investigating the activists’ group chats. On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against 16 people in Minneapolis accused of assaulting officers or interfering with federal immigration enforcement operations. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CNN [1/30/2026 7:23 PM, Kaitlan Collins, 19874K] reports the Trump administration is facing backlash following the death of Alex Pretti resulting in a call for more transparency. Some Republicans call for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

FOX News [1/30/2026 6:46 PM, Asra Q. Nomani, 37576K] reports a network of self-described socialist and communist organizations staged carefully coordinated protests across the country Friday targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but their call for a nationwide shutdown of work, school and commerce mostly fizzled out. Several of the groups behind the demonstrations are linked to a constellation of nonprofits funded by tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, according to an ongoing Fox News Digital investigation. Singham, who lives in China and has publicly espoused Marxist ideology, has used his extensive network to promote pro–Chinese Communist Party messaging. Fox News Digital was on hand in Washington, D.C., as activists converged near the Gallery Place–Chinatown Metro station at 7th and H Street NW. At 2:49 p.m. A vehicle drove up to an alley near a Walgreens, where a small group of activists from the local chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation unloaded dozens of bright yellow protest signs stapled to wooden pickets. The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a self-described Marxist organization that has played a central role in past anti-police and anti-ICE demonstrations.

San Diego Union Tribune [1/31/2026 2:20 AM, Maura Fox, 1257K] reports hundreds of people met at Teralta Park in City Heights for a rally Friday afternoon, chanting and holding signs saying “Stop ICE Terrorism,” “Justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti” and “Defund Trump.” The demonstration was part of a nationwide series of strikes that saw people stay home from work and school and avoid shopping Friday in protest of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and in particular the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. In San Diego, protest attendees said that they were angry, but that joining together gave them hope. The group — about 400 strong — marched through the neighborhood, down Orange and Fairmount avenues before circling back along University Avenue. Residents cheered the marchers on from the windows of their homes. Clairemont residents Matt and Erin Levy pulled their son out of school to join the rally. “We don’t want to have to teach him these things,” Erin said as the family walked down Fairmount Avenue, but said she wants him to be able to learn from them and ask questions. Matt works for the Pentagon and said it’s a challenge to work for a government he feels at odds with, calling the immigration arrests and enforcement “state terror.” “If people like me leave there and don’t work there, then it’s just gonna get worse,” he said. “Otherwise it’s left in the hands of people who play with big guns like toys.” Students from UC San Diego and San Diego State University said they skipped class for the national shutdown, and some professors canceled class. One woman traveled from Murrieta, in Riverside County, to join her family for the rally. “It’s important for us to be out here and speak for our community, especially for those that don’t have a voice right now,” said SDSU student Isabel Caballero. “This is a very serious thing for us.” Ariana Torres, a South Park resident, said rallies like these give people a way to take control of the narrative. But she points to other ways that people can get involved, too, such as by volunteering or through mutual aid. Speakers at the rally encouraged the crowd to keep fighting. Brisa Johnson, executive director of the San Diego Black Worker Center, urged them to keep mobilizing in their communities. “I’ve come out to rallies; I’ve come out to protest. And it was a beautiful crowd, and it was a beautiful moment. And the week later, I didn’t see them again,” Johnson said. “This is your moment of ignition.”

Newsweek [1/31/2026 5:05 AM, Sam Stevenson, 52220K] reports a national day of action against federal immigration enforcement erupted into clashes in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, with a group of protesters setting a dumpster on fire, as tensions escalated between demonstrators and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The confrontations in downtown Los Angeles reflect growing tensions over recent fatal shootings linked to federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Local officials placed the city on tactical alert as officers used chemical irritants and issued dispersal orders, highlighting how quickly a largely peaceful day of protest escalated at nightfall. As the confrontation intensified, protesters moved a dumpster toward the building’s loading dock before setting it ablaze, ABC7 reported. Firefighters initially attempted to extinguish the flames but withdrew after being confronted by a small number of protesters still in the street, aerial footage and incident updates showed. The fire burned for roughly 20 minutes before officers pushed the remaining crowd back, allowing firefighters to return. Officials said there was no indication the blaze spread to the building. Photographs from the scene showed federal agents in riot gear, protesters with signs opposing ICE, and the burned dumpster area near the loading dock, corroborating reports of the evening escalation. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin previously told Newsweek: "Attacks and demonization of ICE are wrong. ICE officers are now facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults. "Illegal aliens that ICE is deporting broke our nation’s laws. DHS is a law enforcement agency, and it will continue to carry out immigration enforcement for the safety of Americans who have been victimized by rapists, murderers, drug traffickers, and gang members."

FOX News [1/31/2026 1:37 AM, Michael Sinkewicz, 37576K] reports Los Angeles police arrested multiple violent agitators after issuing dispersal orders as protests erupted across the city Friday evening. Thousands of protesters met in front of City Hall in the afternoon, before many marched to the federal detention center, where a mob of violent agitators swarmed the area, pushing a large construction dumpster and blocking the entrance to the building’s loading dock. LAPD shared video on social media of the unrest, adding in a separate post that authorities had deployed pepper balls and tear gas to disperse the crowd. "We had hoped that demonstrations today would be peaceful, however, as you can see in this video, the violent agitators invited LAPD due to their actions," the department wrote. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a news conference Friday evening that five arrests had been made for failure to disperse. LAPD did not immediately confirm how many individuals had been arrested. LAPD said one person was arrested after allegedly using a slingshot to fire hard metal objects at officers. The unrest came as cities across the country took part in "ICE Out Everywhere" protests in the wake of the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good involving federal agents in Minneapolis. Bass cautioned protesters rallying against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown to remain peaceful, arguing that violent unrest was counterproductive. "I think the protests are extremely important, but it is equally important for these protests to be peaceful, for vandalism not to take place," Bass said. "That does not impact the administration in any kind of way that is going to bring about any type of change.” Bass asserted that violent protests are "exactly what I believe this administration wants to see happen." She added, "Don’t be surprised if the military reenters our city.” LAPD issued a dispersal order at around 5:45 p.m. local time, ordering all protesters in the area of Alameda Street between Union Station and First Street to leave or face arrest. Police also placed the city of Los Angeles on tactical alert due to violent agitators on Alameda between Temple and Aliso streets. While some protesters dispersed, others remained and continued to throw bottles and rocks at officers, according to the LAPD. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

USA Today [1/30/2026 6:04 PM, James Ward and Paris Barraza, 70643K] reports protests across California are ramping up as the"ICE Out of Everywhere" movement and a nationwide Jan. 30 shutdown gain momentum following the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. The killings have sparked a wave of demonstrations in Minnesota and fueled solidarity actions throughout California and the nation. Organizers of the nationwide shutdown — launched by University of Minnesota student groups and now backed by hundreds of supporting organizations — say the goal is to "shut it down" through a coordinated work stoppage on Friday, followed by street demonstrations. Protests are scheduled throughout California on Friday, including a planned 1 p.m. rally at Los Angeles City Hall and student walkouts and marches across the Coachella Valley.

Washington Post [1/30/2026 10:02 AM, Oliver Kaplan, 24826K] reports from coast to coast, groups of people are springing up to protect members of their communities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents threaten them with violent enforcement. In Portland, Oregon, community volunteers have delivered food boxes to migrant families scared to leave their homes. In Portland, Maine, nearly a thousand people turned out for a virtual American Civil Liberties Union "Know Your Rights" training event. And in Minneapolis and St. Paul, volunteers have formed networks to give warning with whistles and phone apps when ICE is prowling the streets. As someone who for two decades has studied nonviolent movements in war zones, I see many parallels between these movements abroad and those that have been organized recently across the U.S. The communities I have studied – from Colombia to the Philippines to Syria – teach lessons about surviving in the midst of danger that Americans have been discovering instinctively over the past year. These experiences show that protection of their neighbors is possible. Violence can bring feelings of fear, isolation and powerlessness, but unity can overcome fear, and nonviolence and discipline are key for denying the powerful pretexts for further escalation and harm. But at the same time, the deaths of Americans Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were part of a nonviolent movement and were killedby immigration agents in Minneapolis, make it clear that acting to protect neighbors requires courage, and prospects are not always certain.

New York Times [1/30/2026 5:42 PM, Katie Glueck, 148038K] reports less than a month into 2026, President Trump’s grip on his party seems to have slipped a little more. Here’s why. After another fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents in Minneapolis last weekend, many Republican officials — most of whom rarely, if ever, criticize the president — publicly objected to the spiraling situation in Minnesota, where the Trump administration has orchestrated an immigration crackdown. They included an ideologically diverse slate of Republican candidates running in key races this year, like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Jon Husted of Ohio, who offered a nuanced statement but urged a thorough and objective investigation, and Representative Mike Lawler of New York, from a competitive House district. Republicans from safely red states, like Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, expressed grave concerns, and even Gov. Greg Abbott, the Texas conservative, suggested that the White House should “recalibrate” its strategy. The polls are showing new fissures, too. A sizable and growing number of Republicans disapprove of the hard-line tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a small but notable share also express discontent with the president. And Republicans increasingly say that G.O.P. members of Congress are not obligated to support Trump if they disagree with him, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Bloomberg Law [1/30/2026 11:44 AM, Angélica Franganillo Diaz, 50K] reports senate Democrats’ demands to overhaul immigration enforcement tactics are gaining traction among some Republicans, but broader agreement remains far off despite an imminent government funding lapse. The debate over guardrails for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection has become a flashpoint in funding talks as Democrats call for accountability after the Jan. 24 fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minnesota. Democrats are using a six-bill appropriations package that would fund several federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, to push for oversight measures. Democrats are seeking a series of new restrictions on immigration enforcement operations. These include prohibiting agents from wearing masks, requiring body cameras, mandating adherence to use-of-force standards applied to local law enforcement, limiting roving patrols, barring home entries without a judicial warrant, and requiring coordination with state and local officials. The proposal to ban masks has emerged as a sticking point, with some GOP lawmakers warning it could expose officers to doxxing and threats. Meanwhile Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are pushing for even stricter measures, including redirecting billions of dollars in enforcement funding to "community safety and affordability concerns.". The negotiations are playing out as a partial government shutdown looms. Appropriations lapse for large swaths of the government, including DHS, early Saturday. Republican leadership had agreed to use a stopgap measure for DHS to allow negotiations to continue while passing the other funding bills, but the plan is in flux after an objection from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). ICE and the Border Patrol will largely continue operations, as law enforcement work is generally exempt from shutdowns and the agencies are flush with cash from a megabill Republicans passed last year.

The New York Times [1/30/2026 4:32 PM, Clyde McGrady, 148038K] reports hundreds of mayors from around the country converged this week on Washington and another city dominated the conversation — Minneapolis. The annual winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors often revolves around everyday responsibilities such as economic development, law enforcement and budgeting. This year, the added dimensions included tariffs, the withholding of federal funds to cities, and especially immigration enforcement as the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies continue Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities. Democrats predominate in large and medium-size cities, and many mayors voiced worry over the potential fraying of trust between their communities and law enforcement agencies. Some no longer saw the federal government as a reliable partner. This is how mayors in both parties view their jobs at the moment, with some minor editing to condense their thoughts.

FOX News [1/30/2026 10:50 AM, Stepheny Price, 37576K] reports the illegal immigrant convicted of murdering nursing student Laken Riley is seeking a new trial, returning to court in a case that helped fuel the national immigration debate and led to federal legislation named for the victim. Jose Ibarra, who is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, is scheduled to appear Friday in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court in Georgia, where a judge will hear arguments from his post-conviction attorneys requesting a new trial. Judge Patrick Haggard, who presided over the original case and handed down the maximum sentence, will hear the motion. Ibarra was found guilty on all 10 counts in November 2024 for the Feb. 22, 2024, killing of Riley, 22, who was attacked while running on the University of Georgia campus. Prosecutors said Riley died during a violent struggle with Ibarra. Riley was a student at Augusta University’s College of Nursing, which also maintains a campus in Athens, about 70 miles east of Atlanta. Ibarra’s legal team has already obtained a mental evaluation as part of the appeals process, claiming he was not competent to stand trial. Friday’s hearing focuses on whether alleged errors during the original proceedings justify a new trial.

FOX News [1/31/2026 2:49 AM, Michael Sinkewicz, 37576K] reports President Donald Trump offered renewed support for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday, saying she has done a "great job" amid ongoing nationwide immigration protests. In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump accused "radical left" activists of targeting Noem while touting what he described as historic gains in border security and public safety under his administration. "The Radical Left Lunatics, Insurrectionists, Agitators, and Thugs, are going after Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, because she is a woman, and has done a really GREAT JOB!" Trump wrote Friday evening. "The Border disaster that I inherited is fixed, the violent criminals that were allowed into our Country through Sleepy Joe’s ‘sick’ Open Border Policy, are largely gone, or being strongly sought for purposes of removal, and the Murder Rate in the USA just reached the lowest level in history, 125 years!" In a separate post, Trump praised border czar Tom Homan for doing a "FANTASTIC JOB" after sending him to Minneapolis this week to replace Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. Trump has suggested Bovino did not adequately oversee the state’s immigration crackdown. The Hill [1/30/2026 11:05 PM, Elliott Davis, 18170K] reports “Republicans, don’t let these Crooked Democrats, who are stealing Billions of Dollars from Minnesota, and other Cities and States from all over the Country, push you around,” Trump added in his post. “They are using this aggressive protest SCAM to obfuscate, camouflage, and hide their CRIMINAL ACTS of theft and insurrection. They should all be in jail. I was elected on Strong Borders, and Law and Order, among many other things. Thank you to Secretary Kristi Noem. Remember, ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!”

Daily Signal [1/30/2026 4:50 PM, Virginia Allen, 549K] reports Americans should not be surprised by the House Democrat leader’s threat to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, says the chair of the House border security subcommittee. “If you remember, just two years ago, Republicans conducted a very thorough investigation, and we impeached [Homeland Security] Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failure to perform his duties,” Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., said. “And so, should we be surprised that now we’re seeing Democrats try to come in and impeach the current homeland security secretary?” Guest serves as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, and is a member of the Committee on Homeland Security. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Tuesday called on President Donald Trump to fire Noem, adding that if he did not, “we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.” Jeffries’ impeachment threat, according to Guest, was predictable “regardless of who served” as the Department of Homeland Security secretary, adding, “the Democrats saw what Republicans did, and I think that they are trying to mirror our desire to impeach Secretary Mayorkas.” Jeffries’ office did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. Guest believes “the bulk” of Republican lawmakers will continue to support Noem as homeland security secretary as long as “she has the support of the president and the administration.” The agency will continue to enforce the laws Congress has passed, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Signal when asked about Jeffries’ impeachment threat. McLaughlin says Congress should change U.S. immigration laws if lawmakers disagree, and accused politicians of defending “criminals” who “attack the men and women who are enforcing our laws.”

Politico [1/30/2026 7:26 PM, Megan Messerly and Myah Ward, 21784K] reports President Donald Trump rose to power on his immigration agenda. Now, it’s threatening to box him in. After months of aggressive enforcement actions meant to telegraph strength on one of the Republican Party’s signature issues, the White House has had to backtrack in the face of Americans’ backlash to its approach — particularly after two protesters were killed by federal law enforcement agents in Minneapolis. But the calculus that forced the Trump administration to change course is a double-edged sword: If the administration appears to ease up on its maximalist stance against illegal immigration, it risks leaving its hardcore MAGA base disenchanted at a moment when Republicans can’t afford to lose support. And if it doesn’t, it risks alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support the administration’s immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it’s being executed. “I worry because if we lose the agenda, we’re done — and people don’t fully appreciate how big of an issue this is,” said Sean Spicer, Trump’s former press secretary. “When you have a two-seat majority in the House or a two- or three-seat majority in the Senate, you’re on a razor’s edge. To not acknowledge that is ridiculous.” For Trump, a midterms rout means the last two years of his administration will be eaten up by Democratic stonewalling, investigations and likely impeachment inquiries, rather than his own agenda — a situation the administration desperately wants to avoid. The result is a rare moment of vulnerability on Trump’s strongest issue, one that has exposed fault lines inside the Republican Party, sharpened Democratic attacks, and forced the White House into a defensive crouch it never expected to take. Some Trump allies insist the GOP shouldn’t be scared of their best issue, blaming Democrats for putting them on the back foot. “This has been President Trump’s area of greatest success,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin. “You’re looking at the Republicans be defensive on something they shouldn’t be defensive about.”

The Hill [1/30/2026 9:39 AM, Staff, 18170K] reports that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) [spoke] with reporters Friday morning as Democrats [continued] their push to rein in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) following two fatal shootings in Minnesota at the hands of federal immigration enforcement officials. Jeffries and others have blasted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in recent weeks over the agency’s use of force in its deportation operations, calling on the DHS chief to resign or face impeachment. The press conference also comes as lawmakers face a midnight deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown. The Senate failed to move a five-bill package and a short-term funding bill for DHS late Thursday, making a lapse in funding more likely. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also suggested that the House voting on any revised deal would have to wait until Monday. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

New York Times [1/30/2026 12:17 PM, Emma Bubola and Hamed Aleaziz, 148038K] reports that the United States and Argentina are in advanced talks to sign an agreement that would allow the U.S. to deport immigrants from other countries to the South American nation, according to two people familiar with the negotiations and U.S. government records obtained by The New York Times. The negotiations come as the Trump administration has mobilized a sweeping and aggressive deportation effort, including deploying immigration officers to U.S. cities, sometimes with fatal consequences. The talks also come as the Argentine government has escalated anti-immigrant rhetoric under President Javier Milei, including claiming to have made record numbers of expulsions and sending the police on immigration enforcement operations in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, the capital. The two people who described the contours of the agreement spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. While an agreement has not been finalized, the talks highlight Mr. Milei’s eagerness to strengthen his alliance with the United States and support President Trump’s crackdown even as it risks clashing with his own anti-immigration push at home.

Houston Chronicle [1/30/2026 7:00 AM, Staff, 2493K] reports “Texans come first.” That was Gov. Greg Abbott’s three-word explanation this week for suddenly directing state agencies and public universities to freeze new H-1B visa petitions. These high-skilled, specialized visas have long allowed world-class institutions such as MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin to attract the world’s sharpest doctors, researchers and scholars. “Texas is the strongest economic engine in America,” Abbott wrote on X, where he reposted the Chronicle’s article on his latest directive. “We’re going to keep it that way.” We’d all like to keep that engine chugging. Which is why we’re left wondering: How does shutting out the world’s brightest make us greater? It doesn’t. It throws more red meat to an increasingly influential far-right base that cares more about keeping out foreigners than growing our economy. As University of Dallas assistant professor of economics, John Soriano, put it on X: “Online groypers first, Texas second.”

The Hill [1/30/2026 10:00 AM, Myles Deal, 18170K] reports I was excited this month when I learned I passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination Step 1, the first national qualifying exam required to practice medicine in the United States. My plan has been to work as a pediatric doctor, and in many ways, my entire life the last few years has revolved around actualizing this dream. Naturally, when planning for and envisioning my future, I assumed my fiancée, a Moroccan citizen who has lived in France for nearly a decade, would be able to come to the U.S. with me while I continue my medical training and work as a physician. My goals were put on hold when I learned that Morocco was one of 75 countries affected by an indefinite suspension of visa processing. The State Department wrote on social media that it will, “pause immigrant visa processing from 75 countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates.” It said the measure “will remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people.” “We are working to ensure the generosity of the American people will no longer be abused.” Although some types of immigration may require public assistance, many of the visas which have been banned, such as CR-1 marriage visas, have strict rules which ensure the immigrants in question will not receive any type of welfare. In my situation, as an American citizen I would be required to sign Form I-864, which is an affidavit of support, requiring that my income be equal to or above 125 percent of the federal poverty line, and that I would be required to reimburse the government if public benefits are obtained. Similarly, many green card holders are not eligible for public benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid, during their first five years of their visa stay. When a foreigner applies for a visa, his or her application must be approved by a consular officer, which provides another safeguard to prevent welfare abuse. For example, consular officers have the legal authority to deny a visa if they believe an applicant is likely to become a public charge, even if all the paperwork is technically correct — giving a human element to a bureaucratic process. To any extent these safeguards are not working, they should be fixed. However, noticeably, neither the State Department nor the Trump administration has provided any evidence that American citizens like myself are violating the affidavits they sign. Nor have they proven that the immigrants from the 75 countries the State Department has listed are engaging in this type of fraud at higher rates than countries which are not listed.

Washington Post [1/30/2026 6:15 AM, Fareed Zakaria, 24826K] reports Donald Trump, JD Vance and other MAGA luminaries often proclaim that the grave danger facing the West is “civilizational erasure,” which they claim is happening in Europe: Through its dangerously misguided approach toward identity and immigration, Europe is destroying the West’s distinctive legacy. But the West’s defining character has not been tribal or religious solidarity — that describes most of the world. The West’s precious, almost unique, achievement has been the limitation of state power. Since Magna Carta in 1215, the West gradually placed constraints on rulers — through rights for citizens, independent courts, a sovereign church and the sanctity of private property. That inheritance is what made the West democratic and prosperous. It is also what made it stable: Citizens could dissent, businesses could invest and civil society could flourish because power was bounded by law. The second Trump administration has moved sharply to erode these traditions. In Minneapolis, two people exercising their First Amendment rights were shot dead. There and elsewhere, federal officers have been operating masked, often in unmarked vehicles, making arrests without judicial warrants. The optics — and the felt reality — are of authoritarian policing, state power that is unbounded. And it is more than optics. This administration has used its powers in stunningly aggressive ways, often slow-walking its obedience of court rulings, delaying them so much as to sometimes be defying them de facto.

The Hill [1/30/2026 9:00 AM, Chris Truax, 18170K] reports there is only one person to blame for the violence in Minneapolis that culminated in Renee Good and Alex Pretti being shot to death: Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas authored the majority opinion in Egbert v. Boule, a case that will take its place in the hall of infamy right next to Dred Scott and Korematsu, which authorized rounding up Japanese-Americans and putting them in camps. In Egbert, the Supreme Court held that no one can bring constitutional claims for excessive force — or any constitutional claim — against federal officers enforcing immigration laws. As a consequence, ICE and Border Patrol agents are effectively a law unto themselves. If state law enforcement officers beat you up or break into your house, they can be sued under 42 USC 1983 for violating your constitutional rights. But under Egbert, if Border Patrol shoots you to death, your remedy is to file a grievance with the agency — a process in which you are unable to participate and may not appeal. In short, under the current system, Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino are responsible for determining whether Pretti’s constitutional rights were violated when he was shot by Border Patrol agents. Even if you trusted either one of them as far as you could throw them, that’s not even a parody of due process, let alone justice.

Washington Post [1/30/2026 11:45 AM, Brad Todd, 24826K] reports on 2016, I coined a phrase that became a template for understanding the Trump political phenomenon: The media, to its detriment, takes him literally but not seriously, while his voters do the reverse. Now, President Donald Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security has made the same mistake with his most important voters — swing voters. Trump’s 2024 comeback was largely due to American frustration with President Joe Biden opening the southern border to all comers. A June 2024 poll by CBS showed 62 percent of Americans, including more than one-third of Democrats, favored deporting all undocumented immigrants in the country. Secretary Kristi L. Noem’s DHS took that sentiment literally and started a mass deportation campaign. It should have taken the voters seriously, instead of literally. By the time that CBS poll was taken, voters were rightly fed up with Biden’s warping of immigration laws, which had attracted millions of migrants, overwhelmed community resources and strained the public’s patience. No wonder they told pollsters they wanted the pendulum to swing back, but DHS overread the mandate. A broad coalition of Americans supports removing the “worst of the worst” — illegal immigrants who have violent or serious criminal records. At the time of Trump’s second inauguration, even a majority of Democrats agreed. A much smaller group wants wholesale deportation, beyond just violent offenders and those who become felons by entering illegally twice. A meaningful slice of hardcore Republican voters wants mass deportation of noncitizens and backs DHS’s no-apologies approach. But overall, the issue that was most responsible for electing the president is becoming a weakness in the middle, according to polls, with trust in the administration’s handling of immigration falling dramatically since August. Swing voters chose Trump to make the waves of border crossings stop — and he did. Biden’s lax enforcement attracted nearly 241,000 people to the southern border in October 2024. Within two months of being sworn in, Trump had cut the number to around 11,000 per month and has kept it there. It is his crowning achievement and should be the centerpiece of the Republican midterm campaign.

Daily Wire [1/30/2026 12:36 PM, Matt Walsh, 2314K] reports whenever clear battle lines are drawn on some major national issue, and the Left is busy canonizing martyrs and blowing their little whistles every day, one of the hardest things to do is step back and reassess all of your available options at a strategic level. At the moment, for example, it’s very easy to conclude that the main dispute in this country concerns ICE raids. You might think that the Left opposes ICE raids, and the Right supports them. You might conclude that, at the highest levels of government, the debate is between bleeding-heart Leftists who don’t want young Juan to be separated from his parents, on the one side, and hard-nosed Right-wingers who simply want the law to be enforced, on the other. But there’s a very good reason to believe that this divide doesn’t actually exist at all. And here’s why: Neither major political party has even suggested taking a very simple and straightforward step that would instantly result in the departure of millions of illegal aliens from this country, without the need for a single ICE raid. There wouldn’t be any need for "family separations," or federal agents with masks, or anything like that. All you have to do is take this one step, and you’ll solve the vast majority of the problem that both parties claim to be concerned about. I’m talking about getting rid of the "Individual taxpayer identification number," or ITIN. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, an ITIN takes the place of a social security number if you’re an illegal alien (or anyone else without a valid social security number). With an ITIN, an illegal alien can obtain credit. They can open savings accounts and checking accounts at a bank. They can start a business with an Employer Identification Number. They can work as independent contractors. They can obtain driver’s licenses in many states. They can apply for mortgages, too.

New York Times [1/30/2026 6:04 AM, Ben Rhodes, 148038K] reports the renewed calls to abolish ICE are an understandable reaction to an intolerable reality. ICE has become dangerous and unaccountable by design under the second Trump administration, with its deportation quotas, dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants and extrajudicial pronouncements that agents have “absolute immunity.” The assault on Minneapolis has demonstrated what can happen when that toxic mix of incentives is unleashed on a community. ICE has operated more like an invading army than a force for public safety. But the rot goes deeper at the Department of Homeland Security, the behemoth that controls ICE, Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P.) and myriad other federal agencies, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Secret Service. Since its founding in 2002, a combination of organizational flaws and mission creep has allowed D.H.S. to evolve into the out-of-control domestic security apparatus we have today, one that views the very people it is supposed to protect as threats, not humans. The last time we had a true debate about how the U.S. government should be organized to protect Americans and to protect what it means to be American was almost a quarter century ago. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, politicians sparred over how to balance security and liberty, as if they sat on opposite sides of a scale. Our obsession with security — aided by politicians determined not to appear “weak” and Supreme Court decisions that empowered the presidency — has obliterated that balance. As it has in other countries, the pursuit of security paved the way for the consolidation of power. Now, Minnesota has neither security nor liberty. Unwinding this will take time and is unlikely during the Trump administration. But the time to start this debate is now, and there is one answer available if you look to the not-too-distant past: End immigration enforcement at the D.H.S. and return it to the Department of Justice so that it is embedded in the rule of law. This goes beyond abolishing ICE in its current form; we must fundamentally overhaul D.H.S. and end the securitization of American life if we are to have just and lasting peace in this country.

Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 8:32 PM, Byron York, 1147K] reports in recent days, it has become clear that the Battle of Minneapolis is, at its core, a battle over the continued existence of sanctuary cities. During the 2024 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump promised to pursue "the worst of the worst" of illegal immigrants. As of September 30, 2024, Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that there were 1,426,932 people who were in the country illegally and who had received a final order of deportation from an immigration judge. Many Trump supporters thought those people were the best place for Trump to begin a ramp-up of federal immigration law enforcement. After all, they have already gotten full legal due process — and an order to go. Then there are the illegal immigrants who are jailed for various offenses, who, when they are released, could be subject to deportation proceedings on the basis of their crimes. That is where a key part of the sanctuary city practice comes in. When an illegal immigrant criminal is released, officials should notify ICE, which can then pick up the criminal in an orderly way. But sanctuary city laws forbid officials from notifying ICE, so if ICE wants to find the newly-freed criminal, it will have to do so on its own. That can lead to the kind of difficult operations in neighborhoods that have been the focus of protests in Minneapolis. Trump border czar Tom Homan went straight to the matter when he met the press on Thursday after talking with local officials. "Like I’ve said many times for the last several years, even before this administration, jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities are sanctuaries for criminals," Homan said. "Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals." It was a moment of clarity. When a sanctuary city proclaims itself a sanctuary, it’s reasonable to ask: A sanctuary for whom? And the answer is, a sanctuary for criminals. It is an odd position for a state or local government to put itself in, especially since it is responsible for enforcing the law. But there it is.

Bloomberg [1/30/2026 7:30 AM, Mark Gongloff, 18082K] reports Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is in trouble because her boss’ attempt to use her agencies to occupy Minneapolis has been a tragic disaster. Gaining less attention, for now, is her equally problematic oversight of several other disasters that weren’t created by ICE. It’s less of an affront to democracy than what’s happened in Minneapolis but a greater threat to leave millions of Americans immiserated. Along with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, Noem is in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which she and President Donald Trump have often mused about destroying. Though it survived the first year of Trump’s second term, FEMA came through it significantly weakened. Noem has overseen the departure of about 20% of the agency’s staff and plans to further cut its workforce in half. Worse, Noem is holding up about $17 billion of the relief funds FEMA awards to people and places that have suffered disaster losses, the New York Times reported this week. That’s more than the $12 billion FEMA spends in an average year. Some of these are payments for disasters that took place as long ago as 2017, early in Trump’s first term. And the tally keeps rising: The winter storm and deep freeze that hammered much of the country this week, causing dozens of deaths, destruction and about a million power failures, will generate new FEMA claims. Private forecasting service AccuWeather has estimated total economic losses from the storm to be at least $105 billion. The holdup in FEMA funds is partially caused by Noem’s order last June that she must clear every item of spending above $100,000. That decision appears to have contributed to FEMA’s suboptimal response to the deadly floods that struck the Texas hill country in July. The agency was slow to deploy disaster-relief teams and failed to answer about two-thirds of the calls coming from flood survivors, partly because Noem had fired many call-center employees right before the disaster.

Washington Post [1/30/2026 10:16 AM, Michael Shermer, 24826K] reports even President Donald Trump seems less than thrilled with the tenure of Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who oversaw the catastrophic Minneapolis operation that resulted in the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. “Bovino is very good,” Trump told Fox News, “but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy. And in some cases, that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here.” The president has learned — or at least neatly illustrated — a vital lesson that eludes many Americans: Personnel is policy. Bovino, a longtime law enforcement official with a penchant for theatrics, answers to a boss who shares that weakness: Kristi L. Noem, the secretary of homeland security, whose self-dramatizing gestures frequently backfire. This appeals to our reality-star-in-chief for obvious reasons, but at least Trump has some political cunning and a keen sense of what audiences like. Noem, by contrast, believed she could somehow appeal to the American public by reminiscing about shooting her own dog. Instead it may well have knocked her off Trump’s vice president shortlist. Putting theater kids in charge of a sensitive law enforcement operation was a mistake. That error was compounded by who was sent to carry out their orders. As Peter Moskos, a former police officer and criminology professor at John Jay College, has pointed out, urban cops have more training and experience with urban policing than Border Patrol — including dealing with rowdy protesters. Contrast that with Randy Clarke, who runs the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. WMATA has had problems for decades: underfunding, deferred maintenance, safety disasters, reduced hours and angry riders. The pandemic tipped a troubled agency into full-blown crisis. In 2022, when Clarke took over, bus ridership was down by one-third from pre-pandemic levels, Metro ridership by almost two-thirds. With all of Metro’s structural problems, and the work-from-home revolution, I wondered if WMATA could recover. Then Clarke made it work. Bus ridership now approximates its 2019 average, and Metro ridership, having steadily improved every year, finished 2025 at two-thirds the old level. Back-to-office mandates helped, but ask any Washingtonian (including me) and you’ll hear that they’re back on Metro because it suddenly got good again. As snow and bitter cold shut the city down this week, WMATA was one of the few parts of the government that seemed to function properly.

NewsMax [1/30/2026 7:59 AM, Josh Hammer, 3760K] reports "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun," King Solomon famously observed in the Koheleth (Book of Ecclesiastes). Truer words have never been written. Look no further than the present anarchic tumult in Minnesota. On Jan. 12, Minn. Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison initiated a lawsuit on behalf of the North Star State, along with municipal co-plaintiffs Minneapolis and St. Paul, against U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons, and the rest of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus. In his press conference announcing the suit, Ellison emphasized the same basic arguments as his formal complaint: Namely, that ICE’s enforcement "surge" in Minnesota amounts to a "violation of the Tenth Amendment and the sovereign laws and powers granted to states." In essence, Ellison and his Minnesota’s Democratic Party leadership confreres argue that the constitutional federalism articulated in the Tenth Amendment and its corollary of "states’ rights" can shield the Land of 10,000 Lakes from the long enforcement arm of federal immigration law.

The Hill [1/30/2026 11:00 AM, Austin Sarat, 18170K] reports last Saturday, ICU nurse Alex Pretti was involved in an altercation with Customs and Border Patrol agents. He was shoved to the ground and outnumbered, and in broad daylight 10 shots rang out. To stop killings like Pretti’s requires that we don’t confuse them with other forms of violence, like executions. An execution occurs after a presentation of evidence in a trial and a formal adjudication of guilt. Pretti got street justice — no weighing of evidence, no careful deliberation, no adjudication of guilt. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has a word for such killings in past times of American turmoil. They were called lynchings and were “carried out by lawless mobs, although police officers did participate, under the pretext of justice.” The parallel isn’t perfect, but bear in mind the similarities. Although the victims of lynching were predominantly Black, around one-quarter of those lynched were white. As the NAACP notes, “white people were lynched for helping Black people or for being anti-lynching.” These victims were not unlike Pretti and Renee Good, who had the temerity to stand up for the rights of the Somali immigrants that ICE and Homeland Security say they are targeting. Pretti was put to death in public, before a crowd of onlookers with cameras. Sociologist David Garland argues that lynchings were “public punishments” rather than “acts of private vengeance.” And that Pretti was shot not once but 10 times points to something other than an act of self-defense. But more was at play in the history of lynching — what historian Brent Campney calls “a culture war that developed throughout the nineteenth century between supporters of due process and proponents of mob rule.” This characterization also captures the struggle playing out in Minneapolis. One could interpret Pretti’s killing not just as the reaction of a single Border Patrol agent and his colleagues but as part of a new system of punishment that the administration is deploying both at home and abroad. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi have both made clear they will look the other  way as immigration agents do their violent business. Noem, head of Homeland Security, reacted to Pretti’s killing not by promising a thorough investigation but by targeting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D). They are the enemies in the culture war she is waging.

The Washington Post [1/30/2026 2:45 PM, Jonathan O’Connell and Douglas MacMillan, 24826K] reports one industrial building the federal government plans to overhaul into an immigrant detention center, in Roxbury, New Jersey, draws groundwater from a small town that uses nearly all of its daily limit. Another proposed detention site is a warehouse in Oklahoma City that would hold up to 1,500 people a little more than a mile from an elementary school and a Pentecostal church. A third location, previously an auto parts distribution center in Chester, New York, became so unbearably hot during summer months that two people who used to work there said it was akin to being stuck inside an aluminum shed. Those are a few of the logistical and humanitarian concerns raised by residents and local officials in some of the 23 towns where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to convert industrial buildings into detention centers that, combined, would hold up to 80,000 people. ICE has offered few details about its plan since The Washington Post first reported on it last month. As specific sites have surfaced in news reports, people in those communities have taken steps to block the projects. “I’m not sure that this is the type of detention that is humane,” Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, said in an interview about plans to transform a warehouse there into an ICE facility that could hold up to 7,500 people. On Jan. 15, the same day that local news photographers documented ICE officials inspecting the building, the city council passed a five-year ban on all new nonmunicipal detention facilities. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, declined to answer questions about specific properties, or about whether they can be converted to meet standards, but said the agency “has new funding to expand detention space to keep these criminals off American streets before they are removed for good from our communities.” NewsMax [1/30/2026 12:39 PM, Solange Reyner, 3760K] reports ICE planned to hold immigrants in one of seven large-scale warehouses holding 5,000 to 10,000 people each, where they would be staged for deportation. They include warehouses in Louisiana, Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri. The agency’s new facilities will "maximize efficiency, minimize costs, shorten processing times, limit lengths of stay, accelerate the removal process, and promote the safety, dignity, and respect for all in ICE custody," the solicitation said.

New York Times [1/30/2026 7:35 PM, Hamed Aleaziz and Charlie Savage, 148038K] reports that, amid tensions over President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota and beyond, federal agents were told this week that they have broader power to arrest people without a warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo reviewed by New York Times. The change expands the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up people they encounter and suspect are undocumented immigrants, rather than targeted enforcement operations in which they set out, warrant in hand, to arrest a specific person. The shift comes as the administration has deployed thousands of masked immigration agents into cities nationwide. A week before the memo, it came to light that Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of the agency, had issued guidance in May saying agents could enter homes with only an administrative warrant, not a judicial one. And the day before the memo, Mr. Trump said he would “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis, after agents fatally shot two people in the crackdown there. The memo, addressed to all ICE personnel and signed on Wednesday by Mr. Lyons, centers on a federal law that empowers agents to make warrantless arrests of people they believe are undocumented immigrants, if they are “likely to escape” before an arrest warrant can be obtained. ICE has long interpreted that standard to mean situations in which agents believe someone is a “flight risk,” and unlikely to comply with future immigration obligations like appearing for hearings, according to the memo. But Mr. Lyons criticized that construction as “unreasoned” and “incorrect,” changing the agency’s interpretation of it to instead mean situations in which agents believe someone is unlikely to remain at the scene. “An alien is ‘likely to escape’ if an immigration officer determines he or she is unlikely to be located at the scene of the encounter or another clearly identifiable location once an administrative warrant is obtained,” Mr. Lyons wrote. The Times shared a description of the memo’s contents with several former senior ICE officials from the Biden administration. Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior adviser at ICE, called the new definition “an extremely broad interpretation of the term ‘escape.’” “It would cover essentially anyone they want to arrest without a warrant, making the general premise of ever getting a warrant pointless,” she added. Mr. Lyons’s memo explicitly portrays the revised interpretation of “likely to escape” as a change from how ICE had “previously applied the phrase.” But Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said that “this is not new.” “This is simply a reminder to officers,” she wrote in a statement, to keep “detailed records on their arrests.” Mr. Lyons’s memo lists factors agents can consider when deciding whether the standard has been met, including whether someone obeys commands or tries to evade them; has access to a car or other means to leave; has identification or work authorization documents agents suspect are fraudulent; or provides “unverifiable or suspected false information.”

Bloomberg Law [1/30/2026 12:14 PM, Mallory Culhane, 50K] reports the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security were hit with a lawsuit Friday challenging an allegedly unconstitutional policy that authorizes ICE agents to enter homes to make immigration arrests without a warrant. Federal immigration officials "may not unilaterally change core constitutional principles and well-established jurisprudence governing judicial warrants," two Latino and immigrant advocacy groups said in a complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. The lawsuit comes as ICE and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown face broad scrutiny after federal immigration officers shot and killed two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, during confrontations in Minneapolis. Filed by the Greater Boston Latino Network and the Brazilian Worker Center, the Friday complaint asserts ICE’s actions in Minnesota have violated court orders and demonstrated a "flagrant contempt for the rule of law.” Acting ICE chief Todd Lyons allegedly issued a memo last May authorizing the agency’s officers to rely on DHS administrative warrants—known as Form I-205s—to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judicial order to make an arrest. But Form I-205s only allows immigration officers to take into custody individuals who are subject to a removal order issued by an immigration judge, and DHS regulations bar ICE from entering residences without a warrant or consent, the suit says. Long-standing Fourth Amendment law also bars searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant, the plaintiffs allege. The complaint asserts violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief barring ICE from implementing the Lyons memo. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Bloomberg Law that every individual served an administrative warrant by DHS has "had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge. The officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause.”

Reported similarly:
Reuters [1/30/2026 11:14 AM, Nate Raymond, 38315K]
Washington Times [1/30/2026 11:06 AM, Stephen Dinan, 1323K]

Politico [1/30/2026 4:00 PM, Kyle Cheney, 21784K] reports that, for a year, federal judges grappling with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda have looked askance at his administration, warning of potential or, in rarer cases, outright violations of their orders. But in recent weeks, that drumbeat of subtle alarm has metastasized into a full-blown clarion call by judges across the country, who are now openly castigating what they say are systematic legal and constitutional abuses by the administration. “There has been an undeniable move by the Government in the past month to defy court orders or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights,” warned U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, a Minnesota-based Clinton appointee. His docket has been inundated as a result of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s large-scale deportation campaign in the Twin Cities. The object of judges’ frustration has routinely been Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the vanguard of Trump’s push to round up and expel millions of noncitizens as quickly as possible. The agency’s unprecedented strategy to mass detain people while their deportation proceedings are pending has flooded the courts with tens of thousands of emergency lawsuits and resulted in a breathtaking rejection by hundreds of judges. “ICE is not a law unto itself,” Judge Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge on Minnesota’s federal bench, said Wednesday in a ruling describing staggering defiance by ICE to judges’ orders — particularly ones requiring the release of detained immigrants. He estimated, conservatively, that the agency had violated court orders by Minnesota judges 96 times this month alone. Judge Christine O’Hearn, a Biden appointee in New Jersey, blasted the administration’s defiance of her order to release a man from ICE custody without any conditions, noting that they instead required him to submit to electronic monitoring. “Respondents blatantly disregarded this Court’s Order,” O’Hearn wrote in a Tuesday order. “This was not a misunderstanding or lack of clarity; it was knowing and purposeful,” she added. Judge Roy Dalton, a Florida-based Obama appointee, threatened sanctions against Trump administration attorneys for what he says was presenting misleading arguments in support of the administration’s deportation policies. “Don’t hide the ball. Don’t ignore the overwhelming weight of persuasive authority as if it won’t be found. And don’t send a sacrificial lamb to stand before this Court with a fistful of cases that don’t apply and no cogent argument for why they should,” he wrote in a Monday ruling. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson responded to questions about the complaints from judges by noting Schiltz backed off an initial plan to have ICE’s director, Todd Lyons, appear for a potential contempt proceeding. “If DHS’s behavior was so vile, why dismiss the order to appear?” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, labeling Schiltz — a two-time clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — an “activist judge.”“DHS will continue to enforce the laws of the United States within all applicable constitutional guidelines. We will not be deterred by activists either in the streets or on the bench,” she added.

FedScoop [1/30/2026 4:00 PM, Matt Bracken, 56K] reports the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat is demanding answers from the Treasury Department about the IRS’s data-sharing agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the agency “refused” to respond to questions about the pact. In a letter sent Friday to Treasury Secretary and acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and 10 of his colleagues blasted the tax agency’s “unprecedented and disturbing disclosure of federal tax return information” to the Department of Homeland Security under an April 2025 memorandum of understanding. That MOU led to the resignation of the IRS’s then-acting commissioner and sparked legal challenges about the agency’s compliance with data privacy law spelled out in federal tax code. “The IRS and Treasury Department have refused to answer key questions about the agreement it reached with ICE in 2025 to share legally-protected taxpayer data,” Senate Finance Committee Democrats said in a press release. “The privacy protections that safeguard taxpayer data are among the most stringent in federal law, and they carry tough criminal and civil penalties for federal officials who violate them,” the statement continued. “A recent exodus of nonpartisan IRS leadership and compliance staff suggests that there are concerns within the agency that the administration is violating the law.”

Politico [1/30/2026 2:33 PM, Nick Reisman, Madison Fernandez, Kelly Garrity and Shia Kapos, 21784K] reports Democratic governors are racing to erect new legal barriers to President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation strategy, limiting the reach of federal immigration officials in their states. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed an order restricting how closely police can work with federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger on her first day in office rescinded her Republican predecessor’s executive order that encouraged such cooperation. And in Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker called for a state oversight commission that he created to expand its investigation into immigration enforcement practices, with an additional focus on senior figures in the Trump administration. On Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul became the latest to make an immigration-related move. She is seeking to end agreements that allow federal agencies like ICE to deputize local police officers for the purpose of carrying out civil deportations. “We’re sending a strong message to ICE: You will not weaponize our police in the state of New York,” Hochul said. Taken together, the efforts paint a picture of growing alarm among state-level Democratic executives after the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, by federal immigration officers roiled the nation. National polling found voters’ support for ICE’s actions and Trump’s aggressive deportation plans have sharply dropped while the president has signaled plans to pull back on efforts in Maine and Minnesota, where Pretti and Good were killed. A POLITICO poll this week found nearly half of Americans — 49 percent — believe Trump’s deportation effort is too aggressive. The governors’ approach underscores how quickly the dynamic has shifted against Trump’s campaign promise to swiftly deport undocumented immigrants — an issue Democrats struggled to counter effectively during the 2024 election. Halting federal immigration officers from forceful, high-profile actions in their states comes with significant financial and political risk for these chief executives. Their countermeasures come as the Trump administration has vowed to pull federal funding from states and cities with so-called sanctuary policies by Monday. And the proposals may further complicate the political dynamics for moderate Democrats in suburban swing seats that stand to determine control of the closely divided House. “What we’re seeing is a direct response to the Trump administration’s lawlessness and the way in which they’ve been operating with impunity,” said New York Immigration Coalition Executive Director Murad Awawdeh. “States as a whole should be embracing their ability to self-govern. They’re exercising their right to state sovereignty in this moment.”

Washington Post [1/31/2026 6:00 AM, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Marianna Sotomayor, and Theodoric Meyer, 24149K] reports after a year of relative silence on immigration, Democrats in tough races across the country are now making President Donald Trump’s aggressive enforcement tactics the focus of their campaigns. But there are still divisions over just how far to go, with many carefully avoiding the “abolish ICE” slogan that leaders concluded was politically toxic and may have contributed to recent election losses. Many Democrats are calling for an overhaul of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and making clear they oppose “Trump’s ICE” — without uttering the word “abolish.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) advocated stripping the agency “down to its studs.” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) said “we need to start over with ICE” and “reimagine” it. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), a possible 2028 presidential candidate, called for cleaning house to “bring new leadership, bring in new standards, protocols, rules.” Steve Israel, former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the party learned the hard way that slogans like “abolish ICE” and “defund the police” alienated centrist and independent voters. “Voters want fairness, and they want fixes, but very few of them want anarchy,” he said. “Democrats have a real opportunity to lean into ending ICE abuses without falling into the trap of appearing to oppose the constitutional enforcement of immigration laws.” That has not stopped some Democrats from resurrecting the slogan — which became popular with some progressives during Trump’s first term — particularly those involved in tough primaries ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, where they are trying to win over the party’s left.

Federal News Network [1/30/2026 4:20 PM, Michele Sandiford, 1297K] reports both of Virginia’s senators want an investigation into how the Department of Homeland Security uses sensitive personal data. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) this week requested that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari look into that issue. They pointed to reports that DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are tapping into tools ranging from facial recognition and license plate readers to social media monitoring. Earlier this month, ICE also released a request for information on the use of AdTech data to help with its investigations. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

Roll Call [1/30/2026 12:34 PM, Robert Farley, 673K] reports that while the Trump administration insists it is targeting the "worst of the worst" in its immigration enforcement, it has not provided information to substantiate that, and the data that is available suggests the claim has become less accurate over time. "The Trump administration has specifically targeted the worst of the worst," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a news conference in July. "The individuals that we are going after are those that are violent criminals, those that are breaking our laws and those that have final removal orders." While the number of monthly Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests has risen steadily over the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the percentage of those arrested who have no criminal convictions or pending charges has also gone up. Our analysis of ICE arrest data obtained by the Deportation Data Project found a doubling over time of the percentage without criminal records, meaning neither convictions nor charges. In Trump’s first three months in office, 21.9 percent of those arrested had no criminal record. The percentage rose to 34.2 percent in Trump’s second three months, and then to 40.5 percent in the three months ending in mid-October. In January, nearly 43 percent of those detained had no convictions or charges, according to publicly available ICE data. Meanwhile, the percentage of those arrested by ICE who have criminal convictions, not merely pending charges, fell from 44.7 percent in Trump’s first three months to 31.8 percent in the three months ending in mid-October.

FOX News [1/30/2026 3:30 PM, Morgan Phillips, 37576K] reports a bomber jet streaking overhead. Armed agents in camouflage and body armor. A cowboy on horseback riding across a snowy plain beneath the words, "We’ll have our home again." Those are some of the images the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using to recruit immigration enforcement officers as it ramps up hiring for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and related agencies, leaning heavily on national security language and tactical imagery to sell the job. ICE has described its $100 million recruitment push as a "wartime recruitment" strategy in internal planning documents as the agency moves to add thousands of new personnel, according to a Washington Post report published in December 2025. The campaign’s tone has drawn attention to recruitment messaging at a time when DHS’ interactions with the public have grown increasingly tense and, in some cases, deadly. Internal ICE planning documents described a recruitment strategy that included targeted digital advertising aimed at audiences with interests in guns, tactical gear and military culture, as well as outreach tied to events like UFC fights and gun trade shows, according to the Post. The plan also called for "geofencing," a marketing technique that delivers ads to mobile devices near specific locations, near military bases and gun trade show events. Some former officials are questioning how the recruitment messaging aligns with the realities of civilian law enforcement work and public trust. DHS, for its part, says recruitment messaging does not reflect any change in vetting or standards for immigration enforcement officers, even as hiring accelerates.

Univision [1/30/2026 4:24 PM, Staff, 4937K] reports border czar Tom Homan indicated on his X account that the "dedicated, talented and compassionate" men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement of the Department of Health and Human Services, continue to tirelessly search for 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children. Investigating hundreds of thousands of leads and conducting numerous investigations to locate more than 300,000 unaccompanied alien children that the Biden Administration handed over to unverified sponsors, whom it lost track of and did not expect. He highlighted that of these 300,000 children, and thanks to the exceptional work of agents from ICE, FBI and other security agencies, more than 145,000 minors have been located to date.

New York Times [1/30/2026 3:46 PM, Shaila Dewan, 148038K] reports five years ago, local police departments faced a tidal wave of criticism over racial profiling and the unnecessary killing of unarmed people. Many citizens looked to the federal government to rein them in. Now the tables have turned. It’s police officials who are complaining about federal agents, saying they are endangering residents and violating their civil rights. Police chiefs who have spent half a decade trying to persuade a skeptical public that officers would curb their use of violence are contending with widespread alarm over federal officers ushering an innocent man into the snow in his shorts, arresting a 5-year-old and killing U.S. citizens. While local officials have vowed to hold officers accountable for misconduct, Trump administration officials have been quick to declare that their agents did nothing wrong. Some chiefs have worried that the fragile trust they have worked toward is coming rapidly undone. “It’s all just going down the toilet,” said Kelly McCarthy, the police chief in Mendota Heights, a St. Paul suburb. “We do look good by comparison — but that won’t last because people are really frustrated.” Trump administration officials have defended their operations and blamed state and local officials in Minnesota for the unrest, saying they have incited insurrection and failed to assist federal agents.

New York Times [1/30/2026 5:03 AM, Ephrat Livni, 148038K] reports reverberations from the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota this month by federal immigration authorities are being felt far beyond the borders of the United States. Videos of the killings have raised concerns — including internationally — about the role of businesses serving Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Roland Lescure, the French minister of finance and economy, told lawmakers on Tuesday he was seeking answers from Capgemini, a French consulting and digital services company listed on the Paris stock exchange, whose American subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions just last month inked a new deal with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. “I am urging Capgemini to shed light, in an extremely transparent manner, on the activities it carries out, on this policy, and no doubt to review the nature of these activities,” he told members of the National Assembly. Capgemini is just one of many companies in the United States and around the globe that have found themselves facing questions from employees, investors and the public in the wake of the intense immigration operation in Minnesota.

Bloomberg [1/30/2026 9:30 AM, Stacey Vanek Smith and Max Chafkin, 18082K] Audio: HERE reports another week of US news has been dominated by Donald Trump’s flood of heavily armed immigration agents into Minneapolis, and the tens of thousands who took to the streets in sub-zero temperatures demanding they leave. After two of those masked agents shot dead observer Alex Pretti, protests escalated in Minnesota and around the country. So too did scrutiny of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents—including Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement—by members of Congress, including a few Republicans. In addition to the death of Pretti and before him ICE’s killing of Nicole Good, as well as accumulating allegations of other constitutional violations and brutality, a less urgent but still important issue is taking hold: the mounting taxpayer cost of finding, detaining and deporting alleged undocumented immigrants. A potential government shutdown fight in Washington has placed the funding of DHS center stage. The massive tax-and-spend bill pushed through by Republicans last summer allocated more than $170 billion to immigration agencies, a sum surpassing the annual military spending of every country save China and the US. This week on Everybody’s Business from Bloomberg Businessweek, Stacey Vanek Smith and Max Chafkin are joined by Bloomberg CityLab Reporter Fola Akinnibi to count the financial cost of Trump’s anti-immigration campaign.

Los Angeles Times [1/30/2026 6:00 AM, Brittny Mejia and Ruben Vives, 12718K] reports the ICE officers descended on Compton, targeting immigrants convicted of theft, child abuse and selling drugs. There were no protesters. No whistles alerting targets to the officers’ presence. No face masks. In some cases, residents opened their doors to let the officers inside their homes. One man thanked them for not arresting him in front of his children. The Los Angeles area operation ended with 162 arrests, including a Mexican national convicted of rape and a Salvadoran national convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said almost 90% of the people arrested had criminal convictions. It was June 2018, more than a year into Donald Trump’s first term as president. Seven years later, carrying out the same operation in L.A. or other U.S. cities feels almost impossible without drawing angry crowds and requiring multiple officers, at times across federal agencies, to detain a single target. In the years since Trump’s first term, ICE and the government’s immigration enforcement apparatus expanded raids well beyond those against known criminals or suspected ones. Increasingly, immigrants with no criminal records and even legal residents and U.S. citizens found themselves stopped and sometimes arrested. The uncertainty over who is being targeted has fueled a growing pattern of community protests and rapid response mobilizations, even when officials say they are targeting convicted felons, reflecting a widening gap between how enforcement is described and how it is experienced. That gap has become most visible on the ground. Experts say the Trump administration’s hostile rhetoric against immigrants and often seemingly indiscriminate targeting of people in neighborhoods has hurt the reputation of its immigration enforcement agencies, including ICE and Border Patrol, like never before. And it has inspired a mass movement of resistance that has seen Americans shot by federal immigration officers. In the last month, two U.S. Citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti — were shot dead by Border Patrol and ICE in Minneapolis. The fatal shootings forced Trump to recalibrate his immigration enforcement tactics, in part by sidelining Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who first launched the aggressive raids in California, and putting border policy advisor Tom Homan in charge. "I’m not here because the federal government has carried out this mission perfectly," Homan said during a recent news conference. "Nothing’s ever perfect, and anything can be improved on. And what we’ve been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book." Homeland Security has made it a point to tout the arrests of criminals across the country. The "worst of the worst arrests" in L.A. this month, according to the agency, included a man convicted of second-degree murder, another for voluntary manslaughter and one with multiple convictions for driving under the influence and disorderly conduct. "We will not let rioters or agitators slow us down from removing murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists," Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. But experts say the general public has clearly witnessed a shift in who is being targeted.

NBC News [1/30/2026 4:15 PM, David K. Li and Caroline Kenny, 42967K] reports Bruce Springsteen’s protest song "Streets of Minneapolis," a response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, soared to the top of iTunes. On Friday morning, "Streets of Minneapolis" occupied the No. 1 position, just ahead of "Choosin’ Texas" by Ella Langley, "Let Em’ Know" by Bryson Tiller and "I Just Might" by Bruno Mars. Springsteen penned the song on Saturday and released it on Wednesday "in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis," the artist told fans via social media. "It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good," he added. "Stay free, Bruce Springsteen.” The 4 1/2-minute song decries the ongoing enforcement action by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and calls out Trump administration officials by name — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and President Donald Trump himself. "We eagerly await Mr. Springsteen’s songs dedicated to the thousands of American citizens killed by criminal illegal aliens," Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Wednesday in response to Springsteen’s song. "Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are saving lives by arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, gang members, and terrorists.”

FOX News [1/31/2026 5:00 AM, Andrew Mark Miller and Alexandra Koch, 40621K] reports a conservative advocacy group is slamming the social media platform LinkedIn and conservatives online are threatening to ditch the site after the group’s post supporting President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown was temporarily removed in what the company called an error. ".@DHSgov is carrying out the essential task of keeping our country safe," State Freedom Caucus Network posted on Jan. 27 on multiple platforms including X and LinkedIn. "Biden let over 10M illegal aliens enter our states, many being violent criminals and pedophiles. Every state must ensure collaboration with ICE and CBP to remove them. Our caucuses are on the frontlines leading their states to support @POTUS’s mission to keep Americans safe!" On Thursday, SFCN revealed a screenshot showing that while the post was allowed by X, it was flagged as "hateful speech" by LinkedIn and removed. "Apparently protecting children is ‘hate,’ but letting actual predators roam free is fine," SFCN wrote. "@elonmusk doesn’t censor us, but @LinkedIn does! We’ll be deleting our account as a result." Conservatives on social media quickly began calling out the social media company, co-founded by liberal megadonor Reid Hoffman before he sold the company to Microsoft, where he currently sits on the board. "Everyone delete LinkedIn," Townhall columnist Dustin Grage posted on X. "Just a garbage woke platform that provides little value." "How is wanting pedos off the streets hateful?? ?? Why are you censoring Conservatives?? @LinkedIn," conservative influencer account LibsofTikTok posted on X. "DELETE YOUR LINKEDIN ACCOUNT." A LinkedIn spokesperson pushed back, telling Fox News Digital: "This was removed in error, and we quickly corrected it." Andrew Roth, president of the State Freedom Caucus Network, told Fox News Digital he received a "removal notice" via email and after the situation was posted on LibsofTikTok, he received another email saying the removal was an error. "Initially, your post was removed for going against our policies," Roth was told by LinkedIn. "As part of our review, we now find that your post doesn’t go against our policies and apologize for the mistake." Roth told Fox News Digital, "Yeah, right."

OutKick [1/30/2026 10:16 PM, Alejandro Avila] reports Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr acknowledged Friday night to OutKick that he misspoke and apologized for spreading misinformation after claiming federal agents were not "rooting out violent criminals," but were instead "taking 5-year-old kindergartners." The apology came days after Kerr warned that misinformation and a "for-profit" news cycle were dividing the country. Within 24 hours of returning from Minneapolis, the Warriors head coach found himself at the center of the same issue. OutKick asked Kerr directly about his comments, made after a Monday night loss to the Timberwolves, in which he criticized federal immigration enforcement. "It’s not like they’re rooting out violent criminals," Kerr said at the time. "They’re taking 5-year-old kindergartners and U.S. citizens and detaining people." Kerr was referring to the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. The Department of Homeland Security disputed that characterization. "You’re right, I definitely misspoke, and I knew that ICE was arresting some criminals," Kerr said during Friday’s pregame session at Chase Center. "I immediately regretted it because I knew that to be the case. My point is that they’re also arresting people and detaining citizens and people who should not be being detained. The manner in which they’re doing it, as you see, is riling everybody up all over the country. "Being in Minneapolis for those four days was incredibly emotional and powerful. It was a very difficult time for all of us. At the end of those four days, it was a pretty emotional time. I misspoke, and I apologize for the misinformation. I hope everybody else out there who’s saying stuff that’s not true, please apologize, too. All right, let’s talk about basketball." [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

CyberScoop [1/30/2026 1:40 PM, Matt Kapko, 122K] reports a trio of domains that allegedly distributed pirated content, including movies, TV shows, video games and other content was seized by the U.S. government as part of a globally coordinated crackdown on copyright infringement, the Justice Department said Friday. The sites — zamunda.net, arenabg.com and zelka.org — were among the most popular domains in Bulgaria and likely generated significant revenue from ads, officials said. Seizure notices are currently displayed on all three sites warning visitors that illegal distribution of copyrighted works is a crime. Officials said the U.S.-registered domains received tens of millions of visits a year, including one that often ranked in the top 10 most visited sites in Bulgaria. Multiple Bulgarian agencies assisted with the investigation alongside Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. The sites offered visitors thousands of infringed works, resulting in millions of downloads that carry a collective retail value of millions of dollars, prosecutors said. The seizures were announced just days after similar actions in Italy where police seized three allegedly illegal IPTV services that distributed pirated content to millions of users. The operation, dubbed “Switch off,” dismantled IT infrastructure the unnamed sites used to distribute content owned by Sky, Dazn, Mediaset, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Paramount, Disney+ and other media companies, officials said. Italian police said they found evidence linking the IPTV sites to 31 members of a transnational organized crime group and searched the suspects’ residences in Italy. Authorities identified an additional 14 suspects in the United Kingdom, Spain, Romania and Kosovo.

Reuters [1/30/2026 3:04 PM, Staff, 16072K] repprts New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday introduced a bill aimed at banning local law enforcement from being deputized by U.S. Immigration and Customs ‍Enforcement to take part in immigration enforcement operations. The bill, which was unveiled amid national U.S. ⁠protests following two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minnesota, would end an agreement enabling ICE to task state and local law enforcement officers with performing certain ICE functions under the agency’s oversight. The proposal would also prevent state and local police from acting ⁠as federal agents or using state taxpayer-funded resources or personnel to carry out federal civil immigration enforcement. The proposed law would allow people to sue federal officers for constitutional violations and require immigration officers to have judicial warrants to enter sensitive locations such as homes and schools. Hochul’s fellow Democrats control the state legislature. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has federal oversight of immigration enforcement, said the move would make New Yorkers less safe. "When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with us, that is when we have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities," department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. The Wall Street Journal [1/30/2026 5:45 PM, Jack Morphet, 646K] reports that New York officers in nine counties across the state are currently deputized to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Hochul said, under what is known as the 287(g) program. It empowers state and local officers to investigate the immigration status of people they stop in the course of their regular duties and to detain them if there is reason to believe they are in the country illegally. Under Hochul’s proposed legislation, all existing agreements will be void and New York will join seven other states that already prohibit the arrangement between local law-enforcement and federal immigration officers, including California, New Jersey and Washington. The state’s sanctuary laws have already freed thousands of criminal noncitizens from incarceration, said Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, who warned that further attempts to frustrate federal immigration enforcement would require more ICE officers on the streets. Several New York Democrats have challenged DHS’s data, saying that in some instances facilities were following state law by releasing people whose cases were legally dismissed or who met legal bail requirements. New York law-enforcement agencies already performing immigration-officer functions under ICE’s direction and oversight include the Nassau County Police Department and Sheriff’s Office, Broome County Sheriff’s Office and Steuben County Sheriff’s Office, according to Homeland Security.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [1/30/2026 5:52 PM, Maia Coleman and Grace Ashford, 148038K]
NewsMax [1/30/2026 3:49 PM, Solange Reyner, 3760K]
Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 3:36 PM, Molly Parks, 1147K]

FOX News [1/31/2026 4:06 AM, Landon Mion, 37576K] reports New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, announced that state officials will launch a portal allowing residents to upload photos and videos of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducting federal operations. Sherrill revealed the initiative during a Wednesday appearance on The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s nightly comedy news program. "If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out, we want to know," Sherrill said. "They have not been forthcoming," the governor continued. "They will pick people up, they will not tell us who they are, they will not tell us if they’re here legally, they won’t check. They’ll pick up American citizens. They picked up a five-year-old child. We want documentation, and we are going to make sure we get it.” Sherill said her administration will soon be launching a portal so New Jersey residents "can upload all their cell phone videos and alert people" about local immigration operations. A spokesperson for the governor, Sean Higgins, said Sherill’s administration will release further details in the coming days. "Keeping New Jerseyans safe is Governor Sherrill’s top priority and, in the coming days, she and Acting Attorney General Davenport will announce additional actions to protect New Jerseyans from federal overreach," Higgins said in a statement. Sherrill also said that her administration intends to provide information to educate New Jerseyans on their rights in the state. New York Attorney General Letitia James launched a similar portal in her state in October, saying state officials would review the videos and images uploaded to the portal to determine whether immigration agents violated the law. California officials also opened a portal last month for residents to report possible unlawful acts by ICE agents. Some grassroots groups across the country have also been warning community members of reports of ICE activity, so migrants can avoid the area.

CBS Baltimore [1/30/2026 1:28 PM, J.T. Moodee Lockman, 51110K] reports Maryland Congresswoman April McLain Delaney attempted to visit a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Baltimore on Friday, but failed to get a tour as ICE was transferring detainees. Her effort to visit the facility comes after a viral video showed conditions in one of the holding rooms. On Friday, ICE officials confirmed to McLain Delaney that the video was taken inside the George H. Fallon Federal Building. It shows dozens of people packed into what seems to be an ICE holding room. In response to the video, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the recent winter weather delayed the transfer of some detainees and said transfers would continue once weather conditions improved. In a statement, McLain Delaney said she formally demanded a visit on Dec. 11, but it was "repeatedly rescheduled by ICE with no explanations given." On Friday, ICE officials invited her to return after the transfer of detainees was complete, but she declined. She planned to demand answers about the viral video, investigate the conditions of people being held in the facility and assess their access to legal counsel during her visit Friday.

Axios [1/30/2026 6:20 AM, Cuneyt Dil, 17364K] reports ICE arrests in D.C. peaked in late August after President Trump’s federal surge — and while they dropped afterward, the numbers show immigration enforcement stayed persistent, per data analyzed by Axios. The pattern suggests Trump’s aggressive enforcement strategy wasn’t a one-off. The D.C. crackdown — which served as a testing ground for recent efforts in Minneapolis — averaged about 30 arrests per day in late August, according to data published by the Deportation Data Project, run by a group of academics and lawyers. On Aug. 21, the highest one-day tally in the dataset, ICE made 41 arrests. After that surge, daily D.C. arrests fell to around seven per day — before doubling again by mid-October, far above the levels seen when Trump took office. The latest D.C. data runs through Oct. 16. It’s unclear when the next update will be available. The Deportation Data Project acquires its counts from Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE, which stopped updating its public dashboard at the start of the new Trump administration. The Homeland Security Department didn’t respond to Axios’ email about its ongoing D.C. operations.

Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 10:00 PM, Amy DeLaura, 1147K] reports the Arlington County Board is telling people to call 911 if they see Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, despite a former police officer advising against calling the emergency line. County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti opened the emergency board meeting last week by condemning ICE for the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis and telling residents to call 911 if they see ICE working in the county. "Our responsibility is not just to follow the law, but to do everything possible within it to protect our neighbors and reduce harm," Ferranti said. "That means working together to call 911 when we see ICE in our community. Calling 911 is important because it helps us know when ICE is in Arlington, so that we can better pursue Arlington County’s law enforcement mission. Preventing violence in our community.” ICE has detained 19 people in Arlington in the past year, according to Ferranti. Federal officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have stated that an ICE officer shot Good in an act of self-defense as she drove her car toward his direction. The fatal shooting has led to anti-ICE protests throughout Minnesota and across the country, as has the more recent shooting of protester Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent. At the meeting, a former police officer asked the board to reevaluate their stance on telling people to call 911 if they see ICE, instead advising them to call the Arlington non-emergency line. "That would be sufficient and would work with the same people." Gregg Kurasz, a retired Arlington County Police Department officer, said. "Don’t overload 911.” Chairman Matt de Ferranti shot back, saying he believes ICE’s presence in the community constitutes an emergency. "My level of trust for our ICE approach is near zero, or very low," Ferranti said. "I believe that because we are not informed regularly when ICE comes into our community, 911 is the appropriate place to call.” Other board members also chimed in, reiterating that people should call 911 if they simply see ICE officers in their community. "I would always call 911 when I see an ICE officer in my neighborhood," board member Takis Karantonis said. "Something very bad will happen when these people show up. Not only directly because of their action, but also for the collateral consequences… 911 is the best solution right now.” "I also think about the fact that while federal agents have no requirement for bodycams, our police officers are required to have their body cameras on at all times when responding to a call, and that creates documentation," said Maureen Coffey, Vice-Chair of the Arlington County Board.

AP [1/30/2026 5:51 PM, Staff, 35287K] reports aCanadian company announced Friday it will no longer be selling a Virginia warehouse property to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which said it wanted the site as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility. The pending sale by Vancouver-based Jim Pattison Developments had been subject to intense criticism during an immigration crackdown in the United States. Two U.S. citizens were shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis this month, prompting widespread protests. The company said earlier this week it was not aware of the final owner or their intended use of the site when it accepted a purchase offer from a U.S. federal contractor. The board of supervisors in Hanover County, Virginia where the property is located, received a letter from Homeland Security last week saying the department planned to use the 43.5-acre (17.6-hectare) site as a "holding and processing" facility. Board chairman Sean Davis told residents Wednesday that the board opposed the sale, while hundreds of people had gathered at the county administration building to weigh in on the now-canceled transaction.

Reported similarly:
Bloomberg [1/30/2026 3:02 PM, Sophie Alexander, 18082K]

Axios [1/30/2026 6:18 AM, Sabrina Moreno, 17364K] reports the Department of Homeland Security won’t say whether it’s moving forward with plans to open an ICE facility in Hanover. The Board of Supervisors in the staunchly red county urged DHS to find another location earlier this week, citing land-use and revenue-loss concerns. In response to an Axios query about its plans for the Hanover project, an ICE spokesperson said: "It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space." "We have no new detention centers to announce at this time," the spokesperson added. DHS officials told the county in a letter last week that they intend to buy a private warehouse in Ashland near Bass Pro Shops to support "ICE operations" and use as a holding and processing facility. At a packed Wednesday meeting with hundreds of anti-ICE protesters inside and outside the building, Hanover supervisors unanimously opposed the project — though not because of immigration policy.

Daily Caller [1/30/2026 10:44 AM, Jason Hopkins, 803K] reports the Trump administration is demanding nearly $1 million from an illegal migrant who is refusing to follow through with a deportation order. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is imposing a $941,114 fee, plus accrued interest, on Marta Alicia Ramirez Veliz, an illegal migrant living in Chesterfield County, Virginia, for failing to leave the country pursuant to a final order of removal, according to court documents. The gigantic sum reflects the heavy-handed approach the White House has taken on foreign nationals flouting immigration law. An immigration judge ordered the removal of Veliz in July 2019, according to court documents. The order was finalized after the Board of Immigration Appeals, the body responsible for reviewing immigration court decisions, dismissed her appeal in September 2022. However, Veliz did not abide by the court order, prompting federal officials to serve her a fine notice on April 29, 2025, according to the DOJ. After failing to contest the penalty within 30 days of the notice, a final order imposing the fee was entered on June 25, 2025. It’s not immediately clear from court documents where Veliz is originally from. Politico was the first to flag the eye-popping lawsuit. "Defendant is indebted to the United States for a civil penalty assessed for willfully failing or refusing to leave the country during the period to do so," the court documents stated, submitted by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. "The total principal amount of the civil penalty is $941,114.00, as of April 24, 2025.” Prosecutors arrived at the amount by adding the $998 daily fines she was racking up since the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed her appeal more than 940 days ago. The fee appears to be the largest amount under a new policy the Trump administration rolled out in 2025.

Daily Wire [1/30/2026 11:10 AM, Leif Le Mahieu, 2314K] reports a man accused of raping a teen girl in Nashville on New Year’s Eve is an illegal alien from Egypt who entered the country through a diversity lottery program now paused by the Trump administration, The Daily Wire has learned. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed an immigration detainer on 31-year-old Mena Mohsen Farez Nmn Awad after he was arrested by law enforcement in Louisville, Kentucky, for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl in Nashville. The girl said that she awoke in the early hours of December 31 to find Awad raping her. Awad, who has a lengthy criminal history, entered the country in 2017 through the Diversity Lottery program. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paused the program in December and called on Congress to pass legislation to permanently shut it down. "Horrendous immigration policies allowed this monster into our country and made victims of children and families," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Wire. "This child rapist was allowed into our country by the Diversity Lottery program. Secretary Noem paused the diversity lottery to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program. ICE lodged an arrest detainer to ensure he is not released onto our streets to victimize more children.” The "diversity visa" program allowed up to 55,000 immigrants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States into the country every year, according to the State Department. Awad lost his legal status after a previous criminal conviction.

FOX News [1/30/2026 9:49 PM, Michael Sinkewicz, 37576K] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an arrest detainer Friday against a criminal illegal alien from Egypt accused of raping a 16-year-old girl on New Year’s Eve while she was asleep in her bed in Tennessee. Mena Mohsen Farez Nmn Awad, 31, allegedly broke into an apartment in Nashville and began sexually assaulting the victim while she was asleep in her bed next to her nephew, WSMV-TV reported. The girl allegedly found Awad in her bed with a handgun tucked into his waistband and was sexually assaulted, the outlet reported. She later broke free, grabbed her nephew and told Awad she would not tell anyone about the incident if he left. According to DHS, Awad has a history of violence since entering the U.S. in 2017 through the Diversity Visa program. He was previously charged with domestic violence, intimidation, possession of a weapon, violation of a court order and vehicle theft, the agency said. "Horrendous immigration policies allowed this monster into our country and made victims of children and families," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. "This child rapist was allowed into our country by the Diversity Lottery program. Secretary Noem paused the diversity lottery to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.” McLaughlin added that ICE’s arrest detainer would "ensure he is not released onto our streets to victimize more children.” According to DHS, the victim called her sister, who then contacted authorities after Awad left the residence. Awad was later apprehended by police in Louisville, Kentucky, on Jan. 16, and was extradited to Tennessee the following week. He was charged with aggravated rape with a weapon, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated burglary, DHS said.

CBS News [1/30/2026 12:20 PM, Christopher Harris, 51110K] repots rumors about a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in College Park have been confirmed. ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams told CBS News Atlanta that the agency has established a new field office in the city. Mayor Bianca Motley Broom addressed community concerns in a statement Jan. 24, clarifying that ICE is not operating out of the Georgia International Convention Center. "Federal immigration agencies have not been in contact with the City of College Park about any operations taking place in our community," she said. "City leaders are actively monitoring the situation and working to ensure the safety of all College Park residents.” Ward 1 Councilwoman Dr. Jamelle McKenzie echoed the message, stating that while ICE personnel are present in College Park, there is currently no indication of any enforcement actions targeting residents. She encouraged community members to carry proper identification and documentation of legal status as a precaution. "This is sound practice for travel, employment, and interactions with law enforcement," McKenzie said.

New York Times [1/30/2026 6:23 PM, Vimal Patel, 148038K] reports an unusual agreement between many Florida universities and federal immigration officials has caused a new wave of anxiety among students, as immigration raids around the country have swept up thousands and ignited protests. The agreements give university police departments, after training from ICE, authority to conduct immigration enforcement and access to databases to check immigration status. It remains unclear to what extent university police departments have worked with ICE in practice. Florida International’s police chief has said that the university would assist ICE if the agency requested help with an immigration sweep on campus. And, for what appears to be the first time, the list of local authorities cooperating with ICE includes colleges and universities. Almost all of those schools are in Florida, which has been a leader in implementing conservative policies in higher education, including curbing ideas deemed “woke” by Republicans from core curriculums and cracking down on left-leaning student protests.

Telemundo51 [1/30/2026 5:31 PM, Leana Astorga, 162K] reports a federal lawsuit is moving forward against the detention center in the Florida Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” Lawyers and civil rights organizations allege that the facility is illegally restricting detainees’ access to legal representation. According to the federal lawsuit, lawyers must request appointments up to three days in advance, unlike at other immigration facilities where they can show up during scheduled hours. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that many detainees are transferred to other facilities after their lawyers have already scheduled visits, and that the delays have been so lengthy that some detainees were unable to meet with their legal counsel before key court dates. In response to these allegations, ICE argued that "the government claimed they had already made changes, but there is no document, they did not present any evidence that it is a certainty that the solution will be there." Attorney Dominguez says the final arguments have been presented before a judge in Fort Myers; now all that remains is to wait

New York Times [1/30/2026 10:10 PM, Danny Hakim, 148038K] reports an investigation by the police in Brookfield, Ill., backed an activist’s account of being assaulted by an off-duty federal agent as he was filming the agent putting gas in his car, according to a police report released on Friday. The agent, Adam Saracco of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was charged last week with misdemeanor battery, a rare enforcement action by local authorities against a federal agent. The activist, Robert Held, had been protesting at the Broadview Processing Center, a detention facility near Brookfield where hundreds of immigrant detainees have been held. He and other activists have been recording ICE activities and agents at the urging of local elected leaders, including Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois. Mr. Held told New York Times last week that he had followed Mr. Saracco in late December after the agent left the Broadview facility, and an altercation occurred. Mr. Saracco, who according to the police report initially denied being a law enforcement agent, told police officers who were called to the scene that Mr. Held “began walking up to his vehicle” and recording him on his phone while he was pumping gas into his car. Mr. Held has said he was standing on the sidewalk recording when Mr. Saracco approached him. After reviewing camera footage and talking to witnesses, investigators determined that the encounter had occurred at the far corner of the parking lot “near the public sidewalk,” the report said, backing Mr. Held’s claim. Mr. Saracco did not dispute that he had initiated physical contact when he tried to take Mr. Held’s phone. During the confrontation, Mr. Held fought to hold onto his phone, and the agent wrestled him to the ground, according to the report. After the fight, a bystander began filming as Mr. Held and Mr. Saracco continued to argue, with Mr. Saracco asking why he was being recorded and Mr. Held asserting that he was one of the federal agents who were engaged in violations of human rights. “You’re following me,” Mr. Saracco yelled, according to the report. “You can’t just expect to follow people and not face consequences.” In a statement earlier this week, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman with the Department of Homeland Security, said that the officer had been “targeted and aggressively harassed by a known ICE agitator with a prior arrest outside the ICE Broadview facility. While off duty and driving home in his personal vehicle, the officer was stalked by this individual to a local gas station.” The statement said that “the agitator” had recorded the agent at close range and captured images of the officer’s personal license plate. “These were clear attempts to dox our officer. The officer, who was alone and without protective equipment, acted to protect himself when faced with this threatening behavior.” It added, “We won’t accept this. Stay tuned."

Wall Street Journal [1/30/26 6:33 PM, Louise Radnofsky and Mariah Timms, 646K] reports Minnesota judges say they have run out of patience with Trump administration officials for violating court orders in immigration cases. Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who runs the federal district court in Minnesota, this week canvassed his fellow judges and said the administration had failed to comply with court orders in 74 different cases brought by individuals who said they were being wrongly detained. “This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law,” Schiltz, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said in a written order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said, “has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” Most of the orders involved individuals apprehended in immigration sweeps who judges had decided weren’t subject to mandatory detention and should quickly be given a bond hearing or released. By Friday, the government had addressed many of those violations, immigration lawyers said, but warned more cases were still working through the legal system, with few signs from ICE that it could comply more quickly. “The list is not static, it’s going to keep growing,” said David Wilson, whose law firm handled multiple cases highlighted by Schiltz. “You win one thing, then you’ve got to go fight another.” A Justice Department spokesperson said the Trump administration “complies with court orders and is committed to enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the agency “will not be deterred by activists either in the streets or on the bench.”

NPR [1/30/2026 4:47 PM, Lauren Hodges, Patrick Jarenwattananon, Juana Summers, 28764K] Audio: HERE reports NPR’s Juana Summers speaks with Paul Schnell, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, over his agency’s dispute of Homeland Security claims around arrest numbers.

AP [1/31/2026 12:28 AM, Jack Brook, Jim Mustian and Michael Biesecker, 16072K] reports intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolis hospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents initially claimed Alberto Castañeda Mondragón had tried to flee while handcuffed and “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” according to court documents filed by a lawyer seeking his release. But staff members at Hennepin County Medical Center determined that could not possibly account for the fractures and bleeding throughout the 31-year-old’s brain, said three nurses familiar with the case. “It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about,” said one of the nurses, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care. “There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.” The explanation from ICE is an example of recent run-ins between immigration officers and health care workers that have contributed to mounting friction at Minneapolis hospitals. Workers at the Hennepin County facility say ICE officers have restrained patients in defiance of hospital rules and stayed at their sides for days. The agents have also lingered around the campus and pressed people for proof of citizenship. Since the start of Operation Metro Surge, President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, ICE officers have become such a fixture at the hospital that administrators issued new protocols for how employees should engage with them. Some employees complain that they have been intimidated to the point that they avoid crossing paths with agents while at work and use encrypted communications to guard against any electronic eavesdropping. Similar operations have been carried out by federal agents in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities, where opponents have criticized what they say are overly aggressive tactics. It’s not clear how many people have required hospital care while in detention. The AP interviewed a doctor and five nurses who work at HCMC, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about Castañeda Mondragón’s case. AP also consulted with an outside physician, and they all affirmed that his injuries were inconsistent with an accidental fall or running into a wall. ICE’s account of how he was hurt evolved during the time that federal officers were at his bedside. At least one ICE officer told caregivers that Castañeda Mondragón “got his (expletive) rocked” after his Jan. 8 arrest near a St. Paul shopping center, the court filings and a hospital staff member said. His arrest happened a day after the first of two fatal shootings in Minneapolis by immigration officers. The situation reached a head when ICE insisted on using handcuffs to shackle his ankles to the bed, prompting a heated encounter with hospital staff, according to the court records and the hospital employees familiar with the incident. At the time, Castañeda Mondragón was so disoriented he did not know what year it was and could not recall how he was injured, one of the nurses said. ICE officers believed he was attempting to escape after he got up and took a few steps. “We were basically trying to explain to ICE that this is how someone with a traumatic brain injury is — they’re impulsive,” the nurse said. “We didn’t think he was making a run for the door.”

New York Times [1/30/2026 7:16 PM, Sarah Mervosh, 148038K] reports ten days ago, Jason Kuhlman, the principal of Valley View Elementary in Columbia Heights, Minn., got an urgent call over his school walkie-talkie. “Kuhlman, I need you now.” A 5-year-old boy at his school, Liam Conejo Ramos, had been detained by federal agents on the way home from school, in a case that quickly became national news. Now, two more students at his school are in federal custody, after their mother was detained, Mr. Kuhlman said in an interview on Friday. Mr. Kuhlman said he took the children to the B.H. Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Thursday at the request of their mother, who was detained after leaving an immigration hearing earlier in the day. The boys, a second grader and a fifth grader, had been in class on Thursday when the school’s front office got a message from their mother, saying she had been detained. At a school with 570 children, 25 families have had a parent or direct caregiver detained as part of the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps in the Twin Cities, Mr. Kuhlman said. Mr. Kuhlman sat the boys down into his office, where he broke the news. “I said, ‘I have some news for you. Your mom is being very brave, however she was detained. She is asking us to bring you to her,’” he recalled. Across the country, thousands of parents and children have been detained in recent years in federal immigration sweeps, which have ramped up with intensity in President Trump’s second term. The New York Times could not independently confirm the details of the family’s case. Parents of young children are typically given the option to be detained together. Mr. Kuhlman declined to offer details about the family’s case, including their names, because he did not have the mother’s permission to release personal information. He said he had reviewed paperwork showing the family had an active asylum case. The Department of Homeland Security said it could not comment on the case without the names of the people involved. It did not respond immediately to questions about the treatment of children in its care.

FOX News [1/30/2026 8:58 PM, Peter Pinedo, 37576K] reports Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois is accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of "needlessly" detaining a 5-year-old child with his illegal immigrant father after the agency said his mother refused to take custody. In an X post featuring pictures of 5-year-old Liam Ramos, Duckworth, a second-term senator, wrote that "Trump’s ICE snatched this bright, happy 5-year-old from his driveway." "They shipped him 1,300 miles to suffer, without his mother, in a squalid Texas detention center. And now he’s growing ill. Democrats are fighting to end this cruelty," she wrote. "Liam is not a criminal. Let him go." However, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted a statement from Dr. Sean Conley, acting director of DHS’ Office of Health Security and chief medical officer, in which he addressed the child’s condition. Conley said that a pediatrician examined Ramos and "found no medical concerns." "It is standard policy to provide medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes medical, dental and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility and access to necessary medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. This is the best healthcare many of these individuals have received in their entire lives," said Conley. The doctor added that "ensuring the safety, security and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE." He said illegal aliens are "provided with three meals a day that are certified by dieticians, including pediatric considerations." In response, Duckworth told Fox News Digital, "The Trump administration suggesting that needlessly keeping a 5-year-old in federal custody is in his best interests is appalling. "Detaining children like this is cruel, no matter what Trump’s DHS says," said Duckworth. "The best thing they can do for Liam is return him to his mother." Ramos was taken into custody along with his illegal immigrant father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, by federal immigration authorities Jan. 20 in a suburb of Minneapolis. They are both being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas. Federal authorities were trying to take Conejo into custody in Minneapolis last week when he fled and left Ramos, who was arriving home from preschool, the Department of Homeland Security said. Some ICE officers remained with the boy while others chased down Conejo, who was apprehended soon after. ICE officers made multiple attempts to have Ramo’s mother, who was inside her home, take custody of her son, but she refused, DHS said. McLaughlin said "officers even assured her she would not be taken her into custody," but "the alleged mother refused to accept custody of the child. The father told officers he wanted the child to remain with him." "Following the mother’s abandonment of the child, officers abided by the father’s wishes to keep the child with him. Father and son are together at Dilley [Immigration Processing Center]," DHS said in an X post. Conejo entered the U.S. illegally in December 2024 and was released into the U.S. by the Biden administration, DHS said. The family’s attorney said he had a pending asylum claim allowing him to stay in the country. A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting Arias and his child.

NBC News [1/30/2026 5:27 PM, Daniella Silva, 42967K] reports the mother of a 5-year-old boy who was taken with his father in Minnesota last week described her anguish as she watched from a window as immigration agents whisked her child and partner away. Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias, were returning from Liam’s preschool on Jan. 20 when they were confronted by immigration agents, according to Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools. A school board member who witnessed the father’s arrest said last week that she heard an adult inside the home pleading with agents to leave the child. Erika Ramos, Liam’s mother, told Telemundo in Spanish that she "witnessed the scene from the window and couldn’t do anything. Adrián begged me repeatedly not to go outside because he was afraid they would arrest me too." Ramos said the immigration officers noticed her, took Liam out of their car and brought him to the front door so she would open it. She said she didn’t open the door out of fear she would be arrested and her other child would be left alone. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Friday that the child’s father fled from agents who approached his car, leaving Liam. Ramos denied DHS’ allegations, saying, "I repeat, at no point did my husband do what they’re saying, abandon my son. No, at no point did he do that." The agency said Liam’s mother refused officers’ attempts to have her take custody of the boy. His father agreed to keep Liam in his care, DHS said. Both Liam and his father were moved from Minnesota to Texas, and the restraining order says they are in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. Ramos said she is worried about her son’s health. She said she had spoken with her husband and he told her Liam has been sick. On Thursday, the Trump administration said a pediatrician has examined Liam "and found no medical concerns." Ramos said neither she nor her husband have a criminal record and that the two entered the country legally under the Biden administration’s CBP One program, which was later undone by the Trump administration.

New York Times [1/31/2026 5:02 AM, Sarah Mervosh, 135475K] reports in the predawn darkness, the teacher slips out of her apartment, into the idling car of a colleague waiting in her driveway. Normally, the teacher, who moved from the Philippines a year and a half ago and does not yet have her own car, would Uber to work, where she spends her days working with disabled children who are nonverbal. It is one of the hardest jobs in education and one of the hardest to fill, which is why her Minnesota school district sponsored her to come teach on a visa. But ever since immigration raids began sweeping the Twin Cities, and especially since Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot dead, she has been fearful. She is here legally. But if American citizens are not safe, she wonders, what might happen to her? Now, a district official escorts her to work each morning. They pull out of the driveway shortly before 7 a.m., the start of another tense school day in Fridley, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb of big-box stores, apartment complexes and modest, snow-covered homes. Twenty-seven other anxious school employees are also being escorted in vans and car pools, the new morning ritual. From sunup to sundown, Fridley school officials are on high alert, worried federal agents might show up on their doorstep next. Across the district, several hundred children are learning online because they are scared to go to school. Administrators are packing up groceries for families and trying to help with rent for parents who are afraid to work. Though many families are legal immigrants, or U.S. citizens, fears about racial profiling and encounters with federal agents have grown. As part of its crackdown on illegal immigration, the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era guidance that limited enforcement in or near “sensitive” locations, such as schools, churches and hospitals. Schools officials in the Twin Cities say federal agents have appeared at bus stops, and showed up at people’s homes at times when they are coming and going from school. Trump administration officials say federal agents do not target or raid schools, and are focused on arresting violent criminals. “Our ICE law enforcement officers are making arrests of child pedophiles and predators to protect the children of Minneapolis,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. In Fridley, though, fears of ICE are everywhere. Children come to school reporting raids in their neighborhoods and agents at their windows. The adults at school see it as their job to shelter families in their care, to keep the daily act of going to school, at least, safe. Amid it all, they are also trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, even joy.

Bloomberg [1/30/2026 8:17 AM, Saijel Kishan and Alicia A. Caldwell, 18082K] reports employment records of at least two Minneapolis-area businesses are being audited by the Department of Homeland Security, in what state and local officials describe as retaliation over the fallout from the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Hennepin Healthcare, which operates the state’s largest safety-net hospital, and Mischief Toy Store, a small retailer in St. Paul, both got notices from DHS demanding records to verify their employees are authorized to work in the US. At a court hearing this week, Lindsey Middlecamp, a lawyer with the Minnesota Attorney General’s office, described the audits as retaliatory, according to John Stiles, deputy chief of staff at the AG’s office. He said Middlecamp had no additional comment. Hennepin said in a statement that it provided records to ensure compliance with federal employment-eligibility laws after receiving a Jan. 8 subpoena. Mischief Toy Store employs five US citizens and has complied with requests by authorities to examine its employee records, Dan Marshall, a co-owner of the store, said in an interview. Marshall said the request for documents came shortly after his daughter, a co-owner of the business, appeared on television criticizing the government’s immigration enforcement tactics. The DHS disputed that there was a connection. “Any allegation that DHS inspected Mischief Toy Store in response to the owner’s daughter doing an interview is FALSE,” department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an email. She said there’s an active Homeland Security investigation involving the business that’s unrelated to the owners’ political views. The audits come amid heightened tensions in Minnesota over stepped-up federal immigration enforcement and the fatal shooting of two US citizens this month, which sparked nationwide protests and disrupted daily life across Minneapolis. While employment audits are routine under US law, business groups and state officials say the timing has added pressure on Minnesota employers already dealing with safety concerns and hits to their sales.

NBC News [1/31/2026 5:00 AM, Alicia Victoria Lozano, 42967K] reports a south Minneapolis mother cried as she watched her daughter get ready for high school graduation. She wouldn’t be there as her daughter crossed the stage. It was too dangerous. The girl wore a white dress and cowboy boots, a nod to her parents’ native Mexico. “Take my coat so you can bring a little of me with you,” the mother tearfully said in Spanish. Her mother hasn’t left the house in two months and didn’t attend the graduation because she is fearful of being deported amid the massive immigration operation in the city, which DHS said has resulted in the arrest of 3,000 people. Similarly, the girl’s father has stayed inside for almost three weeks after closing his small service-based business indefinitely. NBC News is not describing his business in order to protect his identity. Their adult children, all U.S. citizens, have decided they would stay behind if their parents were removed from the country. “It’s so heartbreaking,” the mother said, wiping away tears. “I always wanted to see her graduate.” Four years ago, the girl’s eighth grade graduation was canceled because of the Covid pandemic. Now, her parents will have to settle for a livestreamed high school graduation because both lack U.S. citizenship and they’re too afraid to leave home. The couple, who asked NBC News not to use their names, is among thousands of Minnesota residents who are not U.S citizens. The mother, 53, stopped leaving the house a week after the family moved into their new rental in December. She heard reports that Operation Metro Surge would intensify in Minneapolis and worried that her pending work permit, which she submitted in 2024, would make her a target. The husband, 58, began staying indoors after the shooting death of Renee Good by federal agents, which coincided with the deportations of several friends and relatives, he said. Once Alex Pretti was killed, he began to wonder who would be next. “At this point anything can happen,” he said. Their anxiety has made even daily tasks, like taking out the trash, a struggle. Just stepping into their own backyard could attract immigration agents, the wife said. One of their two daughters who still live at home has taken on the trash responsibility.

NBC News [1/30/2026 11:19 AM, Laura Strickler and Suzanne Gamboa, 42967K] reports the death of an immigrant detainee at an El Paso facility has been ruled a homicide, according to the final autopsy report obtained Thursday by NBC News. Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, originally from Cuba, died Jan. 3 at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Camp East Montana facility at Fort Bliss. "Based on the investigative and examination findings, it is my opinion that the cause of death is asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. The manner of death is homicide," the El Paso county medical examiner concluded in the report. Homicide means a person causes the death of another one, regardless of intent. When ICE first reported his death in a Jan. 9 press release, it stated that Lunas Campos had experienced "medical distress." The agency said medical staff responded and initiated lifesaving measures and requested emergency medical services. In an email to NBC News on Thursday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson stated that Lunas Campos had attempted to take his own life and that the security staff had "immediately intervened to save his life." "Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life," the DHS email stated. "During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness. Medical staff was immediately called and responded. After repeated attempts to resuscitate him, EMTs declared him deceased on the scene.” DHS said that it’s still an active investigation and that "ICE takes seriously the health and safety of all those detained in our custody.”

CBS News [1/30/2026 7:45 PM, Marissa Armas, 51110K] reports Texas Democrats held a press conference outside the ICE Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado on Friday, demanding the release of a Columbia University protester. Lawmakers and family members are calling for the release of Leqaa Kordia, the last Colombian protester still in ICE custody. Texas Rep. Salman Bhojani said he had a scheduled visit with her but was denied entry into the facility. Kordia was arrested in March 2025 during a routine immigration check‑in in New Jersey, where she lived. Her family says she was targeted for advocating for Palestine, despite protest‑related charges later being dropped. They say the conditions inside the facility are inhumane. Her attorney, Travis Fife with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said Kordia has been in custody for more than 300 days. He shared a statement she wrote about her experience inside the detention center that read in part, "I’m 300 times prouder to be a Palestinian, I’m 300 times more hopeful, I’m 300 times more grateful, but I’m also 300 times more humiliated, I’m 300 times more frustrated." Fife said she has no criminal record outside of protest‑related arrests, both of which were dismissed. He said an immigration judge has granted her bond twice, but the Department of Homeland Security has not released her. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Houston Chronicle [1/30/2026 12:15 PM, Yvette Orozco, 2493K] reports Jack Vu and Abby Manuel had been part of a volunteer program teaching weekly computer and Spanish classes to kids in Houston’s East End for more than a year, when one day the kids stopped showing up. Masked federal immigration officers had been making their presence felt in the Lawndale-Wayside neighborhoods, Vu said, prompting families to shelter inside. “We were reading books, throwing the football with the kids, we knew their names, and they knew our names, and it was the fear that was keeping them away,” he said. The experience motivated the two Rice University students to create a digital map documenting U.S. Immigration Customs Agency activity, and awareness around their project has been growing since it went live in June. “People didn’t understand what was happening in their community, they couldn’t find any information, so we wanted to fill that void,” Manuel said. With the rise in ICE activity during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Vu said he and Manuel hope the map tracker turns a light on what is happening in communities across the country. “People become afraid to leave their houses, participate in the usual programs or play soccer outside,” he said. The tracker, icemap.dev, culls data from online sources to give the public a hawk-eye view of the activities of the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations nationwide. Using the platform, Media Cloud, and generated by scripts that run on a schedule to harvest ICE-related local and national media coverage from the web, the map casts a wide net, Vu said. “We don’t discriminate; it turns out that the aggregated stories tell the truth,” he said.

USA Today [1/30/2026 10:07 AM, Stephanie Innes and Kate Perez, 70643K] reports three cases of measles have been confirmed among federal immigration detainees in Arizona, according to health officials. The Pinal County Public Health Services District on Jan. 16 reported its first measles case in a decade and has since confirmed two more. All three cases "are associated with individuals in federal custody," Pinal County Public Health Services District spokesperson Jassmin Castro wrote in a Jan. 27 email to Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. The potential outbreak comes as migrants in other detention centers in the United States describe sick children and a lack of health care resources while inside, and cases of the measles are on the rise in other states. Castro would not say whether the confirmed cases are linked. Congregate settings such as jails and prisons are vulnerable to outbreaks if not enough people are vaccinated and public health protocols aren’t followed. Castro would not provide other details about infected individuals, including detention facilities and locations, "in order to protect patient privacy and comply with medical confidentiality laws." But the Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a Jan. 27 email to The Arizona Republic that at least one case was a Mexican citizen being held at the Florence Detention Center in central Arizona.

Daily Wire [1/31/26 1205 AM, Amanda Prestigiacomo, 2494K] reports a major nurses union is holding secretive training sessions for union members to learn how to “fight” federal immigration enforcement in their hospitals. An email reviewed by The Daily Wire reveals that the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) is promoting training sessions for nurses to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in hospitals. ONA, which represents around 15,000 nurses, is the largest nurses union in Oregon. As an affiliate of National Nurses United—the largest nurses union in the United States—ONA also wields influence at the national level. Notably, the email says that the sessions will not be recorded or posted publicly, adding a secretive element to the training sessions. The email addresses “ONA members” with the subject line, “Trainings: Accountability for ICE” and reads as follows: “As frontline healthcare workers, we are entrusted with a fundamental responsibility: to preserve life, reduce harm, and provide care with dignity to everyone who comes through our doors,” the email continues. “As ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) activity increases across Oregon, that responsibility is in jeopardy. Intimidation and the use of force create fear that keeps immigrant communities from seeking care and until conditions become life-threatening. This fear directly interferes with our ethical, professional, and legal duties and endangers lives rather than protecting public safety.”

Bloomberg Law [1/30/2026 10:04 AM, Beth Wang, 763K] reports attorneys are scrambling to find and make contact with clients caught in the Trump administration’s nationwide deportation blitz. I’m Beth Wang, a reporter covering New York courts. Maia Spoto, Megan Crepeau, and I’ve spent months digging through federal courts filings and interviewing attorneys to understand what’s happening at ICE detention centers from Los Angeles to New York City to Dilley, Texas. What we found is bleak. Attorneys told us they’re struggling to get information in to or out of ICE and Customs and Border Protection facilities, which are holding nearly 69,000 people this month.

AP [1/30/2026 3:48 PM, Cayla Mihalovich, 35287K] reports California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said she is taking a more proactive stance to preserve access to the judicial system as the Trump administration continues to make arrests in courthouses. At a press conference on Thursday, Guerrero — the high court’s first Latina chief — expressed concern over the "chilling effects" of federal immigration enforcement in California courthouses and said the Judicial Council has been closely monitoring the situation. Guerrero’s office has documented immigration enforcement incidents in 17 courthouses, with the most activity reported by the Superior Court of Shasta County. The data tracking has been informal so far, she said, but the Judicial Council will consider a proposal to formalize it on April 24. That would require courts to regularly submit data to the Judicial Council on civil arrests in and around superior courthouses. California Democratic senators this month introduced new efforts to bolster protections in courthouse.

FOX News [1/30/2026 5:50 PM, Louis Casiano, 37576K] reports the Los Angeles Police Department won’t enforce a California directive banning federal immigration agents from wearing masks or hiding their faces while conducting operations in the state. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told Fox Los Angeles’ "Good Day LA" that his department will not enforce the directive from California Gov. Newsom. From a tactical perspective, having officers cite federal authorities for what amounts to a misdemeanor could be unsafe, he said. In September 2025, Newsom signed a bill into law banning law enforcement from wearing face coverings while conducting official business across the state. The bill makes it a misdemeanor crime for local, state or federal law enforcement to wear masks or personal disguises during their duties, unless an officer is undercover or performing a tactical operation that requires protective gear.

Blaze [1/30/2026 3:10 PM, Andrew Chapados, 1556K] reports Santa Clara County Sheriff Bob Jonsen bizarrely pledged not to work with federal agents while claiming such non-cooperation would result in increased safety for residents. Ahead of Super Bowl LX at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the local sheriff said he is refusing to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The Trump administration has warned illegal aliens that there would still be enforcement around the Super Bowl, which takes place on February 8, but Sheriff Jonsen told residents he will not assist the Department of Homeland Security or its agents. Jonsen told reporters on Thursday that if residents or visitors see masked law enforcement who are "trying to hide their identity," that means "somebody hasn’t communicated" with his department. At that point, Jonsen made it clear to his constituents that his department would not be working alongside the immigration enforcement officers. In October, special adviser to Homeland Security Corey Lewandowski warned illegal aliens that if they went to the Super Bowl, there would be "repercussions to that." DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin told TMZ this week that her department is still "committed to working with" local partners to ensure safety around the Super Bowl.

AP [1/30/2026 1:26 PM, Claudia Boyd-Barrett, 35287K] reports that Lydia Romero strained to hear her husband’s feeble voice through the phone. A week earlier, immigration agents had grabbed Julio César Peña from his front yard in Glendale, California. Now, he was in a hospital after suffering a ministroke. He was shackled to the bed by his hand and foot, he told Romero, and agents were in the room, listening to the call. He was scared he would die and wanted his wife there. "What hospital are you at?" Romero asked. "I can’t tell you," he replied. Viridiana Chabolla, Peña’s attorney, couldn’t get an answer to that question, either. Peña’s deportation officer and the medical contractor at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center refused to tell her. Exasperated, she tried calling a nearby hospital, Providence St. Mary Medical Center. "They said even if they had a person in ICE custody under their care, they wouldn’t be able to confirm whether he’s there or not, that only ICE can give me the information," Chabolla said. The hospital confirmed this policy to KFF Health News. Family members and attorneys for patients hospitalized after being detained by federal immigration officials said they are facing extreme difficulty trying to locate patients, get information about their well-being, and provide them emotional and legal support. They say many hospitals refuse to provide information or allow contact with these patients. Instead, hospitals allow immigration officers to call the shots on how much — if any — contact is allowed, which can deprive patients of their constitutional right to seek legal advice and leave them vulnerable to abuse, attorneys said.

Reuters [1/30/2026 12:51 PM, Nate Raymond, 38315K] reports that a federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from ending protections from deportation that had been granted to thousands of Ethiopians living in the United States. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said he would issue an order delaying the February 13 effective date of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s termination of the Temporary Protected Status granted to over 5,000 Ethiopians in order to provide more time for a legal challenge to be heard. Murphy, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, during a virtual hearing said an order administratively staying the effective date would allow DHS time to produce records detailing how it made its decision so he can then consider whether to block the agency’s action for even longer. The U.S. Department of Justice had requested more time to respond to the lawsuit filed by immigrant rights advocates before Murphy, after he set the case down for arguments on Tuesday. At the same time, it opposed even a temporary court-ordered delay in the expiration of the protections the Ethiopians had from deportation. Murphy said he would schedule further arguments after the agency’s records are produced, which a government lawyer suggested could be done within weeks. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters [1/30/2026 4:56 PM, Ted Hesson, 38315K] reports President Donald Trump’s administration will add some 65,000 H-2B seasonal guest worker visas through September 30, a Federal Register notice said, saying the visas would be available to employers at risk of severe financial hardship due to a lack of U.S. labor. The move roughly doubles the 66,000 visas available each year to businesses such as construction, hospitality, landscaping and seafood processing, in a recognition that U.S. employers in those industries could be struggling to find workers. Employers in the seasonal businesses - including hotels - have clamored for more visas. Some construction businesses have complained of a lack of workers during Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Groups that favor lower levels of immigration oppose the visas, saying they undercut wages for U.S. workers. A temporary rule making the additional H-2B visas available will be formally published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the notice said.

Bloomberg Law [1/30/2026 11:19 AM, Justin Wise, 763K] reports the US Supreme Court will hear arguments April 1 in a case testing President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to redefine birthright citizenship under the US Constitution. The court on Friday scheduled arguments in a long-running clash that stems from an order Trump signed on his first day back in the White House that would restrict automatic birthright citizenship to people with at least one parent who is a citizen or a green-card holder. The order challenged a historical consensus that under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, citizenship is granted to virtually everyone born on US soil. It prompted immediate challenges from affected people and from some Democratic-led states. Multiple courts have also found the order likely violated the Constitution.

Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 7:00 AM, Jack Birle, 1147K] reports the Supreme Court will soon hear a landmark challenge over precisely who can enjoy the birthright citizenship granted under the 14th amendment, and the Trump administration and its allies are urging the high court to side with the president’s view. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, claiming that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment does not extend to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis, such as on a visa. Under the executive order, a child born on U.S. soil who has one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident would still be granted citizenship at birth. Trump’s order was challenged by numerous lawsuits, and the Supreme Court agreed to take up a class action lawsuit, titled Trump v. Barbara, in December, after the DOJ appealed multiple cases to the justices. The Justice Department submitted its brief for arguments to the high court earlier this month, followed by multiple briefs from outside groups supporting the president’s side filed this week. In the DOJ’s brief, the administration defended the executive order as consistent with the 14th amendment’s original intention for citizenship when it was ratified in the 19th century. "The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause was adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children—not to children of temporarily present aliens or illegal aliens," the DOJ said in its brief to the Supreme Court. "The Order advances broader efforts to combat the ‘significant threats to national security and public safety’ posed by illegal entry and birth tourism," the brief added. "Henceforth, consistent with the Citizenship Clause’s original meaning, the Executive Branch would not treat future children of temporarily present aliens and illegal aliens as U.S. citizens.”

AP [1/30/2026 8:33 PM, Tom Verdin, 34146K] reports a federal judge on Friday blocked certain federal agencies from requesting citizenship status when distributing voter registration forms, the latest blow to a wide-ranging executive order on elections President Donald Trump signed last year. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington ruled that the Constitution’s separation of powers, giving states and to an extent Congress authority over setting election rules, are at the heart of the case. "Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures," wrote the judge, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. Specifically, Kollar-Kotelly permanently blocked two provisions of the executive order that sought to impose proof-of-citizenship rules. Her decision said agencies will not be allowed to "assess citizenship" before providing a federal voter registration form to people enrolling in public assistance programs. It also said the Secretary of Defense cannot require documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots. "Our democracy works best when all Americans can participate, including members of our military and their families living overseas. Today’s ruling removes a very real threat to the freedom to vote for overseas military families and upholds the separation of powers," said Danielle Lang, a voting rights expert with the Campaign Legal Center, which is representing plaintiffs in the case. The White House said Trump’s executive order was intended to ensure "election security" and said Friday’s ruling would not be the last word. "Ensuring only citizens vote in our elections is a commonsense measure that everyone should be able to support," said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman. "This is not the final say on the matter and the administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.” The specter of noncitizens voting and tainting elections was a central strategy for Trump and Republicans during the 2024 campaign, and congressional Republicans are continuing to push proposals that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Research, even among Republican state officials, has shown voting by noncitizens is a rare problem. Friday’s ruling is among several setbacks for the president’s executive order, which has faced multiple lawsuits. In October, Kollar-Kotelly blocked the administration from adding a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form. Separate lawsuits by Democratic state attorneys general and by Oregon and Washington, which rely heavily on mailed ballots, have blocked various portions of Trump’s order.

Reported similarly:
NewsMax [1/30/2026 8:12 PM, Michael Katz, 3760K]

Washington Times [1/30/2026 5:57 PM, Staff, 1323K] reports a Florida Republican is threatening to bring House business to a halt unless the Senate passes sweeping election integrity legislation that would require voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said she has enough support among fellow Republicans to effectively shut down the House floor by blocking the procedural rules needed to bring most bills up for debate. “The SAVE Act on election integrity is one of the most important things to secure our elections,” Ms. Luna said on social media. “This is a non-negotiable.” The SAVE America Act, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy and Sen. Mike Lee, would require individuals to present photo ID before voting and proof of citizenship when registering. It would also remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls.

AP [1/30/2026 1:34 PM, Greta Solsaa, 35287K] reports that Immigrant communities in southern and central Vermont will have expanded access to legal services through a new partnership announced this week. The new program, the Immigration Community Lawyering Initiative, is a partnership between Vermont Legal Aid and Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. Through the initiative, Vermont Legal Aid is setting up a formal immigration law practice for the first time in its nearly six-decade history and hired two lawyers, one based in Rutland and another in Springfield, said Bessie Weiss, interim executive director of Vermont Legal Aid. The Immigration Community Lawyering Initiative is born out of a recognition that Vermont’s legal service infrastructure is "out of sync" with the state’s values, said Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. Vermont is unprepared for the increased presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials carrying out raids, detainments and targeting immigrants, Martin Diaz said. The lack of immigration legal services in Vermont predates the Trump Administration, Martin Diaz added, and advocates want to ensure the state leaves this moment with a more sustainable immigration legal support network going forward. "We want to also be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our communities under attack and making sure people have access to a little more upstream interventions, because the safest way to protect against detention and deportation is to have counsel," Martin-Diaz said.

Axios [1/30/2026 3:28 PM, Martin Vassolo, 17364K] reports a major deadline looms for South Florida’s Haitian community, the Caribbean nation’s largest diaspora in the U.S. More than 330,000 Haitians nationwide may lose their legal status Tuesday as the federal government moves to terminate their Temporary Protected Status. Advocates say the expiration of TPS will fracture families and disrupt the health care industry, where many TPS holders work. Community leaders — from Archbishop Thomas Wenski to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava — urged the Trump administration to extend deportation protections for Haitians living here. But conditions on the island are even worse now, advocates say. A federal notice announcing the termination of TPS for Haitians states that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem "has determined that while the current situation in Haiti is concerning, the United States must prioritize its national interests." Multiple lawsuits are challenging the decision, and one judge has indicated she plans to rule before Tuesday’s expiration date, the Herald reported.

Daily Caller [1/30/2026 9:38 AM, Audrey Streb, 803K] reports the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ran a simulation preparing for an outbreak of New World screwworm (NWS), a flesh-eating parasitic larva that primarily targets cattle. DHS teamed with federal partners this month for a two-part exercise aimed at bolstering national preparedness and sharpening coordination for emerging animal and public health threats. The Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) convened with the DHS for the exercise, which included three possible NWS outbreak scenarios. NWS infects animals — mainly livestock, but also birds and occasionally humans — by burrowing into living flesh and laying eggs, causing serious tissue damage. Though there hasn’t been a major U.S. outbreak since the 1960s, recent cases below the southern border raised concerns among officials that NWS could devastate the American beef industry and send shockwaves through the agriculture, wildlife and hunting sectors. “Food security is national security. I want to thank Secretary Rollins and Secretary Burgum for recognizing that and taking action to protect the American people,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement provided to the DCNF. “A country that cannot feed itself and provide for itself cannot defend itself. We need to protect America’s food supply to protect the American homeland.” “This is the first exercise of its kind,” acting DHS Chief Medical Officer and Acting Director of the Office of Health Security Dr. Sean Conley said in a statement. “The sessions provided participants with a shared operational baseline and an opportunity to test coordination and identify decision points critical to an effective government response.” The simulation included three scenarios: illegal cattle smuggling, transmission via wild animals and by way of a human with a screwworm-infested wound, according to the DHS. Decision makers from federal, state, local and tribal authorities attended the event, the DHS told the DCNF. The Trump administration has been addressing the NWS threat below the southern border, closing imports several times last year and announcing a major first-of-its-kind domestic lab in June 2025 at Moore Air Base in south Texas. The lab would release sterile flies to disrupt the screwworm mating cycle, preventing new larvae from scourging wildlife, according to the USDA.

Bloomberg [1/30/2026 2:15 PM, Margi Murphy, 18082K] reports a payments director at the Minneapolis-based retail giant Target Corp. said her fast-track credentials for airport security were revoked following an interaction with a federal border patrol agent who claimed he had facial recognition and was recording with a “body cam.” Nicole Cleland, a 56-year-old from suburban Minneapolis, said in a court declaration that she was participating with a neighborhood group on Jan. 10 that tracked federal agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, two agencies under the Department of Homeland Security that are carrying out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. That morning, Cleland said she followed an agent’s white Dodge Ram into the parking lot of a Mexican supermarket. She described the agent, dressed in camouflage, as a “border patrol agent.” “The agent addressed me by my name and informed me that they had ‘facial recognition’ and that his body cam was recording,” Cleland said, adding that the agent said she was impeding the law enforcement officers’ work. “He indicated he was giving me a verbal warning and if I was found to be impeding again, I would be arrested,” she said. Her declaration is included in a lawsuit filed in Minnesota state court in December by residents alleging DHS and some of its top officials and agents violated their First Amendment rights. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to requests for comment. Cleland couldn’t be reached for comment. Target declined to comment on the matter. The immigration crackdown in Minneapolis is facing a growing backlash after a protester, Alex Pretti, was killed last weekend, the second US citizen to be fatally shot by federal forces in the city this month. Among the concerns raised by civil rights groups is the growing use of facial recognition and other technologies by federal agents. “We are seeing a crackdown on observers,” said Mario Trujillo, an attorney at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. According to Trujillo, federal agents only have the authority to collect people’s biometric information during entry or exit at the border, when a person has been detained or arrested, when a lawfully admitted immigrant applies for benefits, like work authorization, or when an undocumented person is in the country but working on an immigration application. Trujillo said he is aware of several instances in which DHS is taking measures to track US citizens and monitor their work. Those include pressuring technology giants Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to remove apps that track ICE agents, and making requests of Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., to unmask accounts that have posted online about immigration raids, he said. In addition, DHS has amassed a stockpile of artificial intelligence-based surveillance tools, according to agency records, which includes a database of AI-enabled tools it’s using. For instance, there are 24 different tools that use facial recognition, developed by vendors or in-house.

Telemundo20 [1/30/2026 2:37 PM, Renee Schmiedeberg, 56K] reports the United States Marshals Service (USMS) announced Thursday the arrest of a 50-year-old woman and fugitive accused of murdering a man in Oceanside three years ago, before fleeing the country. Aarin "Angel" Sorenson was wanted for the murder of Jacob Sanders, a 37-year-old Oceanside resident, whose body was found on December 26, 2022, in an Oceanside riverbed near State Route 76. Sorenson was detained in Tijuana, Mexico, and subsequently transferred by Mexican authorities to USMS personnel at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Her court appearance is scheduled for this Friday in Vista. The arrest was made possible through investigative work by several agencies, including the Oceanside Police Department, the Escondido Police Department, the San Diego County Prosecutor’s Office, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the USMS.

Los Angeles Times [1/30/2026 3:42 PM, Andrew J. Campa, 12718K] reports when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents questioned what was behind the "abnormally bulging" groin of a Tijuana resident as he attempted to cross the border late last year, the 35-year-old responded it was just part of his natural male anatomy, according to federal court documents. Officers searched him and found two emaciated and potentially sedated orange-fronted parakeets — the victims of an alleged botched smuggling attempt — stuffed in his underwear, according to court documents. Jesse Agus Martinez, a U.S. citizen, was charged with one felony count of importation contrary to law following the Oct. 23 incident. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. Calls to attorneys representing Martinez and the government were not immediately returned. The case was one of two recent smuggling attempts in Southern California highlighted in a report released Thursday from the criminal enforcement division of the Environmental Protection Agency. In the second case, prosecutors say a man tried to smuggle 14 keel-billed toucans, which he had concealed inside the dashboard of his Volkswagen Passat. Carlos Abundez pleaded guilty to smuggling the toucans and is expected to be sentenced in March, court records show.

Telemundo [1/30/2026 9:09 PM, Paulina Castellanos Wade, 56K] reports Cross Border Xpress (CBX) , the terminal that connects Southern California to Tijuana International Airport (TIJ) via a secure cross-border pedestrian bridge, announced that as of January 19, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) implemented the Enrollment on Arrival (EoA) program at its inspection facility within the terminal, allowing applicants with conditional approval for Global Entry or SENTRI to complete their enrollment interviews upon arrival at Tijuana International Airport and crossing through CBX, authorities said in a press release. Enrollment on Arrival (EoA) is a CBP process that allows Trusted Traveler Program applicants who already have conditional approval to complete their interviews upon arrival in the United States. The EoA program eliminates the need for applicants to schedule an appointment at an enrollment center to finalize their process. To complete the EoA interview, you must submit the following documents: A valid passport. If you are traveling using more than one passport, please bring them all to the interview so that the information can be added to your file. Documents that prove your address. Examples: driver’s license (if the address is up to date), mortgage statement, proof of rent, utility bill, etc. This is not required for minors. Permanent Resident Card (if applicable) With the implementation of End-of-Availability (EoA) at CBX, we are strengthening our close collaboration with CBP, and our passengers continue to receive additional services that enhance their travel experience and facilitate their entry into the United States. This also reinforces our commitment to continuous innovation and constant improvement to provide a safe, efficient, and seamless journey between Tijuana International Airport and our terminal in San Diego. CBX is designed and operated in accordance with U.S. and international security standards. U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations are located within the CBX facility in the United States, while Mexican Immigration and Customs are located at Tijuana International Airport. SENTRI, Global Entry, and I-94 services are available for northbound passengers.

The Hill [1/30/2026 12:21 PM, Addy Bink, 18170K] reports planning to fly next week without your REAL ID? Be prepared to pay a hefty fee. Starting on Feb. 1, 2026, travelers who fail to provide their REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses or certain other acceptable forms of identification at a TSA security checkpoint will be subject to a $45 fee, the Transportation Security Administration has announced. The TSA says its new policy will help cover the cost of its new TSA ConfirmID process, described as a “modernized alternative identity verification option” for travelers who forget to bring an acceptable form of ID or haven’t yet obtained one. “Impacted travelers will have the option to pay $45 and use the TSA ConfirmID process,” Adam Stahl, the senior official performing the duties of deputy administrator for the TSA, said of the policy. “This fee ensures that non-compliant travelers, not taxpayers, cover the cost of processing travelers without acceptable IDs.”

Reported similarly:
ABC News [1/30/2026 11:35 AM, Staff, 34146K]
Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 12:01 PM, Claire Carter, 1147K]

Breitbart [1/30/2026 1:10 PM, Lowell Cauffiel, 2238K] reports that video has been released of the moment a man bulled his way through a security checkpoint at Atlanta’s busiest airport only to have a bystander tackle and subdue him within seconds. Police released the security video footage, obtained through a public records request by Fox 5, which documents the incident on the morning of October 30 at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, ranked as the world’s busiest airport. Fox5 identified the suspect as 40-year-old Fabian Leon, who was later charged with simple battery and avoiding security measures, the outlet reported Thursday. In the airport video, Leon appears to rush through the airport on his way to a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint. As he approaches the checkpoint, Leon appears to aggressively force his way through a sliding door, knocking a man to the ground. According to the report, a TSA officer yelled "breach," prompting a good Samaritan named Mark Thomas to turn around. The video shows Thomas grabbing Leon and then quickly body slamming him to the ground. "I saw him knock over the first dude and then a TSA agent tried to grab him, and once he was going to get past me, I was just like, okay, I’ll just take over if I can," Thomas told Fox 5. Thomas said that after taking Leon to the ground the man’s demeanor did not match his aggressive act. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Post [1/31/2026 6:45 AM, Ben Noll, Brady Dennis, and Ruby Mellen, 24149K] reports parts of the Southeast and Eastern Seaboard are bracing for the impacts of a powerful storm this weekend — an intense nor’easter that has already delivered several inches of snow to the southern Appalachians as of early Saturday and is expected to become a dangerous bomb cyclone off the coast of North Carolina by Sunday morning. The storm will rapidly intensify Saturday night — undergoing what’s called bombogenesis — while bringing moderate-to-major winter weather impacts to around 35 million people near the East Coast from Georgia to Massachusetts. While the worst of the storm is expected along the coasts, it will also usher frigid temperatures to millions more — including in places still recovering from last weekend’s widespread and deadly tempest. In North Carolina’s storm-weary Outer Banks, moderate-to-significant coastal flooding is expected, especially during high tides on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. When coupled with tropical-storm-force winds and blizzard conditions on Saturday night, the extreme weather could become life-threatening. And as a lobe of the polar vortex swirls south late Saturday into Sunday, not even Florida will be spared. The Sunshine State is bracing for the potential for rare and highly unusual Gulf of Mexico-effect snow. The storm will also scrape the coastal Mid-Atlantic and southeast Massachusetts from late Saturday to Monday while en route to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in Canada, where it will deliver significant snow into next week.

USA Today [1/30/2026 1:36 PM, Jeanine Santucci, 70643K] reports that the East Coast isn’t done yet with frigid temperatures and winter weather as it braces for a storm meteorologists have described as a bomb cyclone, nor’easter and a blizzard. Blizzard conditions are headed for the Carolinas due to a "rapidly intensifying coastal cyclone," the National Weather Service said on Jan. 30. Through the weekend, heavy snow, high winds and hazardous travel conditions will take aim at North and South Carolina, along with parts of Virginia and Georgia. Central North Carolina expects to see between 4 and 8 inches of snow, with localized amounts a foot or greater, starting the evening of Jan. 30, the weather service in Raleigh said. Wind chills will reach as low as minus 5 degrees in the region. The weather service in Columbia, South Carolina, said some areas could see 6 to 8 inches near the border between the Carolinas while other areas will see 3 to 6. "For cities such as Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro, this storm could be the biggest snowstorm in decades," AccuWeather said. According to AccuWeather, up to 6 inches of snow is possible across southern Virginia. Snow starting out in Kentucky the morning of Jan. 30 is expected to expand into the Appalachians, and meanwhile, the coastal cyclone will brew off the southeastern U.S. coast. The cyclone is expected to intensify on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, bringing coastal flooding up and down the East Coast.

NBC News [1/30/2026 5:14 PM, Bracey Harris and Elizabeth Chuck, 42967K] reports roughly 79,000 Mississippians were still without power as of Friday, according to PowerOutage.us. Entergy, a major electric company, said it had restored power to 75% of customers in the state affected by the storm as of Friday morning. The utility expects some homes to remain dark until Sunday evening. Other utilities could take longer. The Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association, which serves several counties in north Mississippi, said in a Facebook post Friday that it can’t yet offer restoration times. The National Guard has been deployed to both Mississippi and neighboring Tennessee. In Oxford, the Cajun Navy was among several volunteer organizations serving hot meals and delivering supplies. Reeves said the state has begun preparing a major disaster declaration request to the White House.

CBS News [1/30/2026 3:22 PM, Steven Rosenbaum, 51110K] reports Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration to help bolster the state’s efforts to prevent the spread of New World Screwworm (NWS) flies, his office said Thursday. The flies have not reached Texas, but are being tracked in Mexico as sightings slowly move northward toward the border. "State law authorizes me to act to prevent a threat of infestation that could cause severe damage to Texas property, and I will not wait for such harm to reach our livestock and wildlife. With this statewide disaster declaration, the Texas NWS Response Team can fully utilize all state government prevention and response resources to prevent the re-emergence of this destructive parasite. Texas is prepared to fully eradicate this pest if need be," Abbott said in a statement.

New York Times [1/30/2026 8:39 PM, Hannah Ziegler, 148038K] reports one body was recovered and six people remained unaccounted for after a fishing boat was reported missing on Friday off the coast of Massachusetts, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard said it had begun a search-and-rescue effort after it received an emergency alert from the Lily Jean, a 72-foot fishing vessel, around 6:50 a.m. on Friday. The vessel was about 25 miles off the coast of Cape Ann, Mass., about 40 miles northeast of Boston, when it activated its emergency position-indicating radio beacon, the Coast Guard said in a news release. The Coast Guard tried to contact the vessel, but got no response. Rescue crews located a debris field near the location where the vessel had sent its emergency activation, the Coast Guard said. One “unresponsive” body was recovered from the water, the Coast Guard said. Efforts on Friday to reach the medical examiner’s office, which had been contacted by the Coast Guard, were unsuccessful. A life raft associated with the vessel was found, but it was unoccupied. The vessel had been returning to Gloucester, Mass., with fish and had then intended to return to sea, Timothy Jones, the Coast Guard commander coordinating the search-and-rescue effort, said during a news conference on Friday. The identities of those on board were not publicly released. The air temperature when the boat sent its emergency radio alert was around 6 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill reading of 6 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service. The water temperature at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Mass., on Friday was about 40 degrees, according to local weather data. The search will continue through the night, the Coast Guard said on social media. A helicopter crew from Air Station Cape Cod and a boat crew from Gloucester, Mass., were searching the area. The Coast Guard also sent an 87-foot patrol boat to help in the search, a spokesman said. Poor weather conditions, including high winds, have made the search more difficult, Commander Jones said. “We will give this 110 percent,” Capt. Jamie Frederick of the Coast Guard said at the news conference. “We will search as hard as we can and as long as we can, until we get to the point where we really believe there is no reasonable expectation of survival.”

New York Post [1/31/2026 2:38 AM, Alexandra Koch, 40934K] reports the US Coast Guard is frantically searching Massachusetts waters for survivors after a commercial fishing boat with seven people on board, including a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) observer, sank Friday 25 miles off the coast of Cape Ann. Coast Guard watchstanders received an emergency position indicating a radio beacon (EPIRB) alert at about 6:50 a.m. registered to the 72-foot commercial fishing vessel Lily Jean. USCG crews attempted to contact the boat, and after getting no response, issued an urgent marine information broadcast (UMIB), according to officials. USCG Northeast District launched an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Air Station Cape Cod and a small boat crew from Station Gloucester to search the area. The Coast Guard cutter Thunder Bay was also diverted to assist the search. Rescue crews found debris near the location where the EPIRB was activated, along with a body and an unoccupied life raft. The Coast Guard said crews will continue with the search and rescue response. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said the state has offered its full support. “I’m heartbroken over the devastating news out of Gloucester about the sinking of the Lily Jean and have offered our full support to Mayor Lundberg, Harbormaster Lucido and the Coast Guard,” Healey wrote in a statement. “I am praying for the crew, and my heart goes out to their loved ones and all Gloucester fishing families during this awful time. “Fishermen and fishing vessels are core to the history, economy and culture of Gloucester and Cape Ann, and this tragedy is felt all across the state.” The boat’s captain, Gus Sanfilippo, and his crew were featured in a 2012 episode of the History Channel show “Nor’Easter Men,” highlighting a fishing expedition in dangerous weather conditions, according to a report from The Associated Press. Sanfilippo, a fifth-generation commercial fisherman, angled for haddock, lobster and flounder, according to the report. State Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, told the outlet he was friends with the missing captain. “He’s a person that has a big smile, and he gives you a warm embrace when he sees you,” Tarr told the AP. “He is very, very skilled at what he does. … I’m going to make a prediction. Tonight, tomorrow and the days that follow, you’re going to see strength. The strength that has made this the most historic fishing port in the United States of America.” Gloucester, Massachusetts, is a coastal city about 30 miles north of Boston, on Cape Ann.

Reported similarly:
AP [1/30/2026 11:37 PM, Michael Casey, Rodrique Ngowi and Patrick Whittle, 34146K]

CBS News [1/30/2026 11:03 PM, Brandon Truitt, 51110K] Video: HERE reports one person is dead, and six others are missing after a fishing boat sank off the coast of Gloucester.

CBS Pittsburgh [1/30/2026 5:42 PM, Staff, 51110K] Video: HERE reports when waterways like the Allegheny River freeze, there is no getting through.

CyberScoop [1/30/2026 10:40 AM, Matt Kapko, 122K] reports millions of devices used as proxies by cybercriminals, espionage groups and data thieves have been removed from circulation following Google’s disruption of IPIDEA, a China-based residential proxy network. The reduction in available proxy devices came after Google’s Threat Intelligence Group used legal action and intelligence sharing to target the company’s domain infrastructure, Google said in a blog post Wednesday. Google’s action, aided by Cloudflare, Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs and Spur, impaired some of IPIDEA’s proxy infrastructure, but not all of it. The coordinated strikes against malicious infrastructure underscore the back-and-forth struggle threat hunters confront when they take out pieces of cybercriminals’ vast and growing infrastructure. Initial data indicates IPIDEA’s proxy network was cut by about 40%. “We have still seen around 5 million distinct bots communicating with the IPIDEA command and control servers, so as of now they are still able to operate with a large volume of proxies,” Chris Formosa, senior lead information security engineer at Lumen Technologies’ Black Lotus Labs, told CyberScoop Thursday. Lumen was tracking a daily average of about 8.5 million proxies connecting to IPIDEA’s servers before some of its domains were taken offline this week. “The true population was likely closer to 10-11 million, but we could only see 8.5 million of them with our visibility,” Formosa said. Google researchers discovered a cluster of seemingly independent proxy and virtual private network brands controlled by IPIDEA. Google found several domains also owned by IPIDEA supporting software development kits for residential proxies embedded into existing applications.

DefenseScoop [1/30/2026 12:40 PM, Jon Harper, 150K] reports advocates of creating an independent U.S. military service focused on cyber argue that the Pentagon’s new force generation model isn’t a sufficient solution for fixing the department’s problems. During a congressional hearing this week, senior officials said their revised model is still needed regardless of whether a decision is ultimately made to create a Cyber Force. The new model, rolled out in November under the “Cybercom 2.0” initiative, aims to modernize the way the Defense Department builds and develops digital forces and talent, including by more closely linking U.S. Cyber Command with the military departments to recruit, assess, select, train and retain the nation’s digital warriors. “For many years, the department has recognized that our approach to building and sustaining cyber talent was not keeping pace. Our adversaries are investing heavily in cyber, while we have been constrained by traditional force generation models, which, while effective for conventional forces, fail to fully address the unique requirements of cyberspace operations. This has created significant challenges in recruiting the right people, retaining our best operators and providing the agile, specialized training needed to win,” Katie Sutton, assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy and the principal cyber advisor to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, told members of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity. She continued: “Our legacy force generation model is inconsistent, hindering our ability to adapt at speed and scale to counter threats like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon and quickly integrate emerging technologies like artificial intelligence to address these systematic challenges head-on.” Core attributes of the new model, according to Sutton, include targeted talent acquisition; incentives for recruiting and retention; tailored and agile training; tailored assignment management; specialized mission sets; integrated headquarters and combat support; and “optimized unit phasing” to prevent burnout and sustain readiness.

Breitbart [1/30/2026 11:52 AM, Bob Price, 2238K] reports the FBI has quietly carried out a three‑month offensive against the Latin Kings, arresting 50 gang members and seizing cash, drugs, and assets in a coordinated takedown across 13 field offices. Officials say the operation marks another major strike against violent gangs after a record year of MS‑13 and Tren de Aragua dismantlement. FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Friday the takedown of approximately 50 members of the violent Latin Kings drug trafficking gang. The three-month Operation Broken Crown led to the seizure of $200,000 in assets and approximately ten kilos of drugs, the director said in a post on social media. During a Fox News interview, Patel said the FBI operation involved more than a dozen field offices around the country and included many cooperating federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. "Under President Trump’s and Attorney General Bondi’s leadership, this FBI is dismantling violent gang networks in America at a record clip — breaking their operations and saving lives in the process," the director told Fox News Digital. Patel reported that during President Donald Trump’s first year of his second term, the FBI increased the takedown of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members by 210 percent. He said the new operation focused on the Latin Kings gang. The focus followed the threat by Latin Kings street gang members against a law enforcement officer in October, Patel added. The FBI also arrested another gang member in the District of Minnesota for being a felon in possession of a firearm after he was seen breaking into an FBI vehicle and stealing a rifle. Independent journalist Nick Sortor captured video of the incident where gang tattoos are clearly visible on the man’s face, Breitbart Texas reported. Fox News reported that the FBI’s Milwaukee Area Safe Streets Task Force carried out a separate operation where four Latin Kings members were arrested for drug trafficking and firearms possession. The task force seized more than $120,000 in illicit funds.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [1/30/2026 6:00 AM, Michael Sinkewicz, 37576K]

US News & World Report [1/30/2026 10:13 AM, Michael Kunzelman, 31753K] reports a federal judge has refused to order the pretrial release of a man charged with placing two pipe bombs near the national headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties on the eve of a mob’s Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled on Thursday that Brian J. Cole Jr. must remain in jail while awaiting trial. Ali upheld a decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh, who ruled on Jan. 2 that no conditions of release can reasonably protect the public from the danger that Cole allegedly poses. Cole, 30, pleaded not guilty to making and planting two pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the night of Jan. 5, 2021. Cole, who lived with his parents in Woodbridge, Virginia, has been diagnosed with autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His attorneys say he has no criminal record. Cole has remained jailed since his Dec. 4 arrest. Authorities said they used phone records and other evidence to identify him as a suspect in a crime that confounded the FBI for over four years. Prosecutors said Cole confessed to trying to carry out "an extraordinary act of political violence." Cole told investigators that he was unhappy with how leaders of both political parties responded to "questions" about the 2020 presidential election — and said "something just snapped," according to prosecutors.

FOX News [1/30/2026 5:27 PM, Alexandra Koch, 37576K] reports despite a Justice Department warning, a Nevada judge recently ordered the immediate release of an illegal immigrant and MS-13 gang member convicted of murder back into the community. U.S. District Judge Richard F. Boulware II, nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2014, ordered the Jan. 21 release of El Salvador national Harvey Laureano-Rosales, a 54-year-old who illegally entered the U.S. in 1987. Court documents allege the government was attempting to deport Laureano-Rosales to Mexico without due process, and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, prompting his release. The Nevada U.S. attorney’s office said it will seek further legal action, noting Laureano-Rosales’ release poses a risk to public safety. The U.S. attorney’s office said Laureano-Rosales has a final order of removal from the U.S., meaning he is required by federal law to remain in immigration custody, and releasing him conflicts with that law. While Laureano-Rosales’ immigration case was ongoing, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered removal should proceed, triggering the mandatory detention period required by federal immigration law. Court documents allege when Laureano-Rosales entered the U.S. nearly 40 years ago at age 16, he became a member of MS-13, kick-starting a violent criminal career.

AP [1/30/2026 5:15 PM, Mark Banchereau, 31753K] reports the Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility on Friday for an attack on an air force base in Niger’s capital that wounded four soldiers and damaged an aircraft. The claim of responsibility was contained in a statement on Amaq News Agency, the group’s propaganda wing, that said it was “a surprise and coordinated attack” in Niamey that inflicted heavy losses. State television reported that Niger’s forces responded quickly to the assault early Thursday, killing 20 of the attackers and arresting 11 others. The State Department on Friday ordered nonessential embassy staff and their families to leave Niger due to “security concerns” following the attack. Video footage that appeared to be taken at the scene captured loud blasts and the sky glowing following explosions that began around midnight and lasted about two hours in the area of Diori Hamani International Airport. The military leader of the West African country has accused the presidents of France, Benin and Ivory Coast of supporting the armed group behind the attack, without providing any evidence to support the claim.

Washington Post [1/30/2026 2:01 PM, Perry Stein and Amy B Wang, 24826K] reports the Justice Department said it released 3 million more pages on Friday from the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the latest drop in the agency’s troubled scramble to comply with a federal law that requires the public release of files from the high-profile case. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Friday that this tranche of files — which include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images — is expected to be the last major release of Epstein materials. The release, more than a month after the Dec. 19 deadline set by law, was the result of work by hundreds of lawyers across the Justice Department who have spent weeks reviewing the files and redacting any information that might identify victims, Blanche said. The effort required significant time and personnel resources from the Justice Department, pulling top prosecutors from D.C., Florida and New York to review the files. The documents are expected to provide an extensive look at the evidence the department gathered in its effort to prosecute Epstein, a politically connected financier who was charged with sex trafficking in 2019 and died later that year while in federal custody. His death was ruled a suicide. Lawmakers have criticized the Justice Department for not meeting the legal deadline, but Trump administration officials have defended their process and said that protecting the victims’ identities takes precedence over a speedy release. Blanche defended the department’s handling of the release, saying that it has scrupulously sifted through millions of pages of FBI emails, court files and more to comply with the law. He said that the Justice Department has redacted the files for any information that could identify a victim. Blanche said that every photo and video that includes women has been redacted. Lawyers did not redact any images of men, unless it was impossible to redact a woman without also redacting a man, he said. He said the names of powerful men who were associated with Epstein were not redacted from the materials.

Reported similarly:
Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 12:37 PM, Kaelan Deese, 1147K]

Washington Examiner [1/30/2026 1:38 PM, Claire Carter, 1147K] reports that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday that none of the documents released in the latest Jeffrey Epstein file drop were redacted or withheld for national security or foreign policy reasons. The Justice Department will release more than 3 million pages of records tied to the late financier’s investigations. Blanche outlined the scope of the release, which included more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images stemming from federal investigations into Epstein and his associates. The disclosures are part of the government’s effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed by Congress last year and signed by President Donald Trump that requires the agency make public records related to Epstein’s criminal conduct and the government’s handling of the case. "Although the act allows for withholding for items necessary to keep secrets in the interest of national security or foreign policy, no files are being withheld or redacted on that basis," Blanche said. He later added that, "there’s not some tranche of super secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we’re withholding." Blanche said redactions were only made to comply with legal protections, including protecting the privacy of victims, safeguarding ongoing investigations, and removing explicit content related to child abuse. He said that DOJ lawyers, supported by hundreds of reviewers, spent weeks combing through more than 6 million records, which he compared to "two Eiffel Towers," to determine what could be released publicly.

Reuters [1/30/2026 11:33 AM, Sarah Morland and Adriana Barrera, 38315K] reports Mexico will seek diplomatic solutions and alternatives to help Cuba, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday, after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing tariffs on countries supplying the Caribbean island with oil. The White House executive order on Thursday could prove devastating for Cuba, while also backing Mexico into a tight corner as one of its last remaining oil suppliers. "We do not want tariffs on Mexico, but we will always look for diplomatic channels to seek solidarity with Cuba," Sheinbaum said at her daily morning press conference, highlighting the humanitarian risks of cutting off shipments. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said the decision of whether to send oil to Cuba is a sovereign one, but the country’s economy is heavily dependent on exports to the United States and therefore vulnerable to tariffs. Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared an "international emergency" in response to the U.S. tariffs which he said on X constitute "an unusual and extraordinary threat".Sheinbaum said cutting off oil shipments to Cuba could trigger a "far-reaching humanitarian crisis" on the island, affecting transportation, hospitals and access to food. She did not say whether Mexico would cut shipments of oil or refined products to Cuba, which she said accounted for 1% of Mexico’s production, but emphasized the government is looking at alternatives to help the island.

New York Post [1/30/2026 10:11 AM, Ariel Zilber, 40934K] reports Panama’s highest court has voided the contract of a Chinese-linked company that operated key ports at the Panama Canal — handing the Trump administration a major victory in its push to curb China’s influence over the strategic waterway. Panama’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the long-standing port concession held by a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison was unconstitutional, stripping the company of its legal right to operate the ports of Balboa and Cristóbal. The affected terminals — Balboa on the Pacific side and Cristóbal on the Atlantic — sit at the physical entrances to the canal, making them among the most strategically sensitive commercial assets in global shipping. In 1997, Panama granted a long-term concession to Panama Ports Company, a CK Hutchison subsidiary, to operate the two ports as the canal transitioned from US to Panamanian control ahead of the 1999 handover. Friday’s ruling invalidated not only the original concession but also subsequent extensions, citing constitutional and procedural defects. Panama Ports Company blasted the Supreme Court ruling as legally flawed, warning it threatens the country’s rule of law and investment climate.

Washington Post [1/30/2026 1:49 PM, Matthew Hay Brown, Ana Vanessa Herrero, and Lori Aratani, 24826K] reports that President Donald Trump says he’s reopening “all commercial airspace over Venezuela,” two months after he warned carriers away amid a U.S. military buildup against the South American nation. U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3. Trump said Thursday he had directed the military, Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and “everybody else concerned” to allow the return of air travel to Venezuela. “American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela. And they’ll be safe there,” Trump told his Cabinet. “It’s under very strong control.” He said the large Venezuelan diaspora would also be able to return home, to visit or stay. “We’ve got this, Mr. President,” Duffy posted on X. “We are clearing the way for travel between the United States and Venezuela.” Trump said he had informed interim Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez of the plan. Her authoritarian socialist government, under U.S. pressure, has been working with the Trump administration since Maduro’s capture on federal narco-terrorism charges. “Let all the airlines come; let all the investors come,” Rodríguez told a rally Thursday in Caracas. National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez called the reopening “a direct consequence of the peace diplomacy.” He is Delcy Rodríguez’s brother.

AP [1/31/2026 12:33 AM, Regina Garcia Cano, 31753K] reports Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the United States-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodríguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Rodríguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. "May this law serve to heal the wounds left by the political confrontation fueled by violence and extremism," she added in the pretaped televised event. "May it serve to redirect justice in our country, and may it serve to redirect coexistence among Venezuelans.” Rodríguez also announced the shutdown of Helicoide, a prison in Caracas where torture and other human rights abuses have been repeatedly documented by independent organizations. The facility, she said, will be transformed into a sports, social and cultural center for police and surrounding neighborhoods. Rodríguez made her announcement before some of the officials that former prisoners and human rights watchdogs have accused of ordering the abuses committed at Helicoide and other detention facilities.

Breitbart [1/30/2026 11:18 PM, Joshua Klein, 2238K] reports senior U.S. military officials warned key Middle East allies on Friday to prepare for a possible strike on Iran as multiple reports said Washington and Jerusalem now view military action as decided, with one source saying the only remaining question is timing, not whether an attack will occur. According to an exclusive report published Friday by Drop Site News, senior U.S. military officials informed the leadership of a key U.S. ally in the Middle East that President Donald Trump could authorize strikes on Iran as early as this weekend, and the ally was told operations could begin as soon as Sunday if Washington moves forward. The report said U.S. war planners are considering attacks not only on Iran’s nuclear, ballistic-missile, and conventional military infrastructure, but also strikes aimed at senior leadership — particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — as part of a broader effort to weaken or collapse the regime. A former senior U.S. intelligence official cited by the outlet said the thinking inside the Trump administration is that a successful strike on Iran’s leadership could be followed by Iranians returning to the streets, potentially accelerating the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. A separate exclusive report published Friday by Iran International reinforced that assessment, citing a Western source familiar with U.S.-Israeli coordination who said decision-making circles in Washington and Tel Aviv have moved past diplomacy and now view military action as effectively inevitable. "The decision has been made. This will happen," the source told the outlet, adding that the only unresolved issue is when an appropriate operational and political window opens — a window that could emerge in the coming days or over the next several weeks. The source said current discussions are no longer focused on reaching a new agreement, but instead on delivering what was described as an "unprecedented" operation intended to deliver a decisive blow that would maximally weaken — and potentially collapse — Iran’s governing structure. Iran International reported that U.S. and Israeli officials view the present moment as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," with a significantly higher willingness to accept risk than during last summer’s 12-day war, when broader escalation was deliberately avoided. Those assessments surfaced as fresh indicators pointed to accelerated preparations and heightened regional tension. On Friday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) issued a public warning after Iran announced that the IRGC would conduct a two-day live-fire naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz beginning Sunday — an international maritime chokepoint critical to global energy flows.

US News & World Report [1/30/2026 11:00 AM, Ahmed Rasheed, Maya Gebeily, and John Irish, 36480K] reports transfers of Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq by the U.S. military have slowed this week, seven sources familiar with the matter said, following calls by Baghdad for other countries to repatriate thousands of foreign jihadists. The U.S. military said on January 21 it had started to transfer the detainees. Its announcement followed the rapid collapse of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria, which caused uncertainty about the security of prisons and detention camps they were guarding. The United States had expected to transfer up to 7,000 fighters to Iraq within days. But more than a week later, only about 500 have been moved, according to two Iraqi judicial officials, two Iraqi security officials and three diplomats, some from countries whose nationals are among those transferred. An Iraqi foreign ministry official put the number at under 500 so far. Baghdad asked the U.S. to slow the influx to make time for negotiations with other countries on repatriating their own nationals among the detainees and to prepare additional facilities to host the fighters, the Iraqi officials and a Western diplomat told Reuters. Those moved to Iraqi facilities so far include about 130 Iraqis and some 400 foreigners, the Iraqi judicial sources, the Iraqi security officials and a Western diplomat said. The slowdown, which has not previously been reported, is linked to Western governments’ reservations about bringing home their own citizens who joined the Islamic State’s brutal self-declared caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq from 2014. Most foreign fighters were subsequently captured in Syria and held in prisons in the northeast for years without trial. The U.S. State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the transfers.

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