After a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis last Wednesday, Trump administration officials were quick to come out in the agent’s defense. > Violent interactions with the public aren’t surprising, a former ICE official > said of the agency under Trump. “That’s sort of by design.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Jonathan Ross—a veteran officer with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations arm who has been identified by multiple media reports as the shooter—followed his training and the agency’s protocol. Vice President JD Vance claimed Ross had reason to fear for his life and acted in self-defense. And press secretary Karoline Leavitt referred to Good as a “deranged lunatic woman” who tried to run over the office with her vehicle as a weapon. Officials repeatedly accused Good of perpetrating “domestic terrorism.” The narrative put forward by the administration is largely disproved by available video evidence. And it has even been received with skepticism by some former ICE employees, who are condemning Ross’ use of force against the 37-year-old mother of three and warning that their one-time agency has lost its way. Former ICE chief of staff Jason Hauser recently wrote in USA Today: “When enforcement is driven by messaging instead of mission, when optics outweigh judgment and when leadership substitutes spectacle for strategy, the risk to officers, civilian and public safety increases exponentially.” The second Trump presidency has taken ICE off the leash. The agency is now the highest-funded law enforcement body in the United States, with a budget that eclipses that of some countries’ militaries. With its near-unlimited resources and aggressive directions from the White House, ICE is sending federal immigration agents not trained in community policing to make at-large arrests in cities across the country. (Days after the shooting, Noem announced DHS would deploy hundreds more agents to Minneapolis.) Two ex-ICE workers I spoke with described an agency that, in pursuit of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation mandate, is engaging in reckless and risky behavior. “They’re essentially operating now in a resource constraint-free environment and doing very dangerous things,” said Scott Shuchart, who previously worked at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS and more recently as ICE’s assistant director for regulatory affairs and policy under the Biden administration. Violent interactions with the public aren’t surprising, he added. “That’s sort of by design.” Dan Gividen, an immigration lawyer who acted as deputy chief counsel for ICE’s Dallas field office between 2016 and 2019, compared what the agency is doing as akin to running into a crowded movie theater and yelling “fire.” “You’ve got these ICE officers that are pouring out of these vehicles, pointing guns at US citizens—people who’ve done absolutely nothing wrong—and causing chaos.” ICE removal agents charged with doing administrative arrests, he said, lack the tactical training to safely do operations out in communities. “It’s not at all surprising that this is happening with these ICE ERO officers being sent out to basically treat people terribly,” he said, anticipating more escalation of violence. Another former ICE trial attorney I spoke with said that, typically, removal officers weren’t trained in high-risk operations because the daily demands of the job didn’t require it. In the past, if such an encounter took place, local law enforcement might have gotten involved to help keep the situation under control. “What has changed is there has been an encouragement from the top to be much more aggressive in enforcement and ramp things up and get the job done,” the ex-counsel for the agency told me. In Gividen’s view, the federal immigration agents didn’t have a reason to interact with Good to begin with. “He had no reason to believe she had committed any offense that he actually has the authority to investigate,” Gividen said of Ross. “They murdered her, plain and simple. That is all there is to it. The notion that they were in any way, shape, or form acting in self-defense to put three bullets in that woman is absolutely absurd.” An ICE’s use of force and firearms policy directive from 2023 states that authorized officers should only use force when “no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative” is available. It also mandates that the level of force be “objectively reasonable” given the circumstances and instructs officers to “de-escalate” the situation. The guidelines further state that an agent who uses deadly force should be placed on administrative leave for three consecutive days. (ICE didn’t respond to questions from Mother Jones about its policies and whether Ross had been put on leave.) > “They murdered her, plain and simple. That is all there is to it.” “The question isn’t: Was he in any danger?” Shuchart said. “The question is: Was the use of force the only thing he could do to address the danger? And was the use of immediate deadly force the appropriate level of force?” One of the videos shows that Ross appeared to move out of the way to avoid possible contact with the car. “I don’t understand how you get from there to the idea that deadly stop and force against the driver was necessary to protect the officer from serious bodily harm,” added Shuchart, who until January 2025 was part of a team that handles ICE-wide policy and regulations. A DHS-wide 2023 policy on use of force generally prohibits deadly force “solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject” and the discharging of firearms to “disable moving vehicles.” But a recent Wall Street Journal investigation identified at least 13 instances since July where immigration agents fired at or into civilian cars, shooting eight people—including five US citizens—and leaving two dead. Instead of de-escalating, Shuchart said, Ross only “exacerbated the danger.” Shuchart pointed to a number of errors Ross made that could have been avoided, starting with his decision to step in front of the car. “This officer was not just freshly coming across the scene when a vehicle lurches at him,” he said. “[He] had already violated policy creating a danger to himself by crossing in front of the vehicle that wasn’t in park. You have to assess what was reasonable in those circumstances from the fact that he had created the potential danger to himself.” Prior to joining ERO, Ross did a stint with the Indiana National Guard in Iraq and worked as a field intelligence agent for the Border Patrol. His job as an ICE deportation officer in the Twin Cities area involved arresting “higher-value targets,” according to his own testimony from court records obtained by Wired, related to an accident last June when Ross was dragged by a car during an arrest.   “As a matter of what someone in law enforcement anywhere would be trained to do, and what someone would be trained to do under DHS policy, what he was doing was nuts,” Shuchart said of Ross’ actions last week. “He was so completely out of line with respect to what would have been safe for him and the other people on that operation. It was not at all how any kind of operation should go.” > “As a matter of what someone in law enforcement anywhere would be trained to > do, and what someone would be trained to do under DHS policy, what he was > doing was nuts.” According to Shuchart, the agents at the scene also failed to follow protocol in the aftermath of the shooting by appearing to not immediately render medical assistance or confirm that, if the target was in fact a threat, they no longer presented danger. Speaking to the New York Times, Trump appeared to try to justify Good’s killing by saying she had been “very, very disrespectful” to law enforcement. “ The fact that their feelings are hurt by US citizens disapproving of what they do loudly is completely irrelevant,” Shuchart said. “The point of the job is not to have your feelings well-cared for by the public.” Under pressure to meet the administration’s goal of 3,000 daily arrests, ICE has been on a hiring spree. The agency is offering candidates signing bonuses and plans a $100 million “wartime recruitment” effort that includes geo-targeted ads and influencers targeting gun rights supporters and UFC fights attendees to bring in as many as 10,000 new hires. Earlier this month, DHS publicized the addition of 12,000 officers and agents—from a pool of 220,000 “patriotic” applicants who responded to the government’s “Defend the Homeland” calls—more than doubling ICE’s workforce. So far, the result of that expansion drive has been less than optimal, with recruits failing fitness tests and not undergoing proper vetting. Experts have also raised concerns about the lowering of standards and reduced training times for new hires as the administration pushes to get more agents in the streets and rack up arrest numbers quickly. “I would be skeptical of anyone who would take a job with an agency that is willing to defend behavior this unprofessional,” Shuchart said. “There are thousands of law enforcement agencies in this country. If you’re a decent recruit, go work for one of the others that has more reasonable standards and expectations.”

President Donald Trump has set his sights on several targets in the Western Hemisphere beyond Venezuela — from Mexico with its drug cartels to the political cause célèbre of Cuba. But one place is oddly missing from Trump’s list: Nicaragua. This is a country led not by one, but two dictators. A place where the opposition has been exiled, imprisoned or otherwise stifled so much the word “totalitarian” comes to mind. A place the first Trump administration named alongside Cuba and Venezuela as part of a “troika of tyranny.” Yet it’s barely been mentioned by the second Trump administration. That could change any moment, of course, but right now Nicaragua is in an enviable position in the region. That got me wondering: What is the regime in Managua doing right to avoid Trump’s wrath? What does it have that others don’t? Or, maybe, what does it not have? And what does Nicaragua’s absence from the conversation say about Trump’s bigger motives? Current and former government officials and activists gave me a range of explanations, including that the regime is making smart moves on battling drug trafficking, that it’s benefiting from a lack of natural resources for Trump to covet and that it doesn’t have a slew of migrants in the U.S. Taken together, their answers offer one of the strongest arguments yet that Trump’s actions in the Western Hemisphere or beyond are rarely about helping oppressed people and more about U.S. material interests. “The lesson from Nicaragua is: Don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue,” said Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to then-President Joe Biden. “For an administration that doesn’t care about democracy or human rights, that’s an effective survival strategy for authoritarians.” Some Nicaraguan opposition leaders say they remain optimistic, and I can’t blame them. Trump is rarely consistent about anything. He’s threatening to bomb Iran right now because, he says, he stands with protesters fighting an unjust regime (albeit one with oil). So maybe he might direct some fury toward Nicaragua? “The fact that Nicaragua is not at the center of the current conversation doesn’t mean that Nicaragua is irrelevant,” Felix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan politician in exile, told me. “It means that the geopolitical interests of the U.S. right now are at a different place.” Nicaragua is run by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, a husband and wife who take the term “power couple” somewhat literally. They are now co-presidents of the Central American nation of 7 million. Over the years, they’ve rigged elections, wrested control over other branches of the government and crushed the opposition, while apparently grooming their children to succeed them. It has been a strange and circular journey for a pair of one-time Sandinista revolutionaries who previously fought to bring down a dynastic dictatorship. Hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans have fled the impoverished country, some to the United States. Meanwhile, the regime has enhanced ties to Russia, China and other U.S. adversaries, while having rocky relations with Washington. Nicaragua is part of a free trade agreement with Washington, but it has also faced U.S. sanctions, tariffs and other penalties for oppressing its people, eroding democracy and having ties to Russia. Even the current Trump administration has used such measures against it, but the regime hasn’t buckled. Nicaraguan officials I reached out to didn’t respond with a comment. Several factors appear to make Nicaragua a lower priority for Trump. Unlike Venezuela, Nicaragua isn’t a major source of oil, the natural resource Trump covets most. It has gold, but not enough of that or other minerals to truly stand out. (Although yes, I know, Trump loves gold.) It’s also not a major source of migrants to the U.S. Besides, Trump has largely shut down the border. Unlike Panama, another country Trump has previously threatened, it doesn’t have a canal key to global commerce, although there’s occasional talk of building one. Nicaragua may be placating the president and his team by taking moves to curb drug trafficking. At least, that’s what a White House official told me when I sought comment from the administration on why Nicaragua has not been a focus. “Nicaragua is cooperating with us to stop drug trafficking and fight criminal elements in their territory,” the official said. I granted the White House official anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security issue. It’s difficult to establish how this cooperation is happening, and the White House official didn’t offer details. In fact, there were reports last year of tensions between the two countries over the issue. A federal report in March said the U.S. “will terminate its Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operations in Nicaragua in 2025, partly due to the lack of cooperation from Nicaragua’s agencies.” The DEA didn’t reply when I asked if it had followed up with that plan, but it’s possible the regime has become more helpful recently. The U.S. and Nicaragua’s cooperation on drugs has waxed and waned over the years. In any case, although drug runners use Nicaraguan territory, it’s not a major cartel hub compared to some other countries facing Trump’s ire, such as Mexico. Some Nicaraguan opposition activists have been hoping that U.S. legal moves against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would expose narcotrafficking links between Managua and Caracas, providing a reason for the U.S. to come down harder on the regime. They’ve pointed to a 2020 U.S. criminal indictment of Maduro that mentioned Nicaragua. But the latest indictment, unveiled upon Maduro’s Jan. 3 capture, doesn’t mention Nicaragua. When I asked the White House official why the newer indictment doesn’t mention Nicaragua, the person merely insisted that “both indictments are valid.” A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment. Nicaraguan opposition leaders say that although the new indictment doesn’t mention the country, they still hope it will come up during Maduro’s trial. My sense, though, is that Ortega and Murillo are cooperating just enough with the U.S. that the administration is willing to go easy on them for now. It probably also doesn’t hurt that, despite railing frequently against Washington, Ortega and Murillo don’t openly antagonize Trump himself. They may have learned a lesson from watching how hard Trump has come down on Colombia’s president for taunting him. Another reason Nicaragua isn’t getting much Trump attention? It is not a domestic political flashpoint in the U.S. Not, for example, the way Cuba has been for decades. The Cuban American community can move far more votes than the Nicaraguan American one. Plus, none of the aides closest to Trump are known to be too obsessed with Nicaragua. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long denounced the Nicaraguan regime, but he’s of Cuban descent and more focused on that island’s fate. Cuba’s regime also is more dependent on Venezuela than Nicaragua’s, making it an easier target. Ortega and Murillo aren’t sucking up to Trump and striking deals with him like another area strongman, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. But, especially since the U.S. capture of Maduro, the pair seem bent on proving their anti-imperialist credentials without angering Trump. The results can be head-scratching. For example, in recent days, the regime is reported to have detained around 60 people for celebrating Maduro’s capture. But around the same time, the regime also reportedly freed “tens” of prisoners, at least some of whom were critics of Ortega and Murillo. Those people were released after the U.S. embassy in the country called on Nicaragua to follow in Venezuela’s recent footsteps and release political prisoners. However, the regime is reported to have described the releases as a way to commemorate 19 years of its rule. Alex Gray, a former senior National Security Council official in the first Trump administration, argued that one reason the president and his current team should care more about Nicaragua is its ties to U.S. adversaries such as Russia and China — ties that could grow if the U.S. ignores the Latin American country. Russia in particular has a strong security relationship with the regime in Managua. China has significantly expanded its ties in recent years, though more in the economic space. Iran also has warm relations with Managua. Nicaragua is the “poster child” for what Trump’s own National Security Strategy called the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which warns the U.S. will deny its adversaries the ability to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, Gray said. The White House official said the administration is “very closely” monitoring Nicaragua’s cooperation with U.S. rivals. But even that may not be enough for Trump to prioritize Nicaragua. Regardless of what his National Security Strategy says, Trump has a mixed record of standing up to Russia and China, and Nicaragua’s cooperation with them may not be as worrisome as that of a more strategically important country. With Trump, who himself often acts authoritarian, many things must fall in place at the right moment for him to care or act, and Nicaraguan opposition activists haven’t solved that Rubik’s Cube. Many are operating in exile. (In 2023, Ortega and Murillo put 222 imprisoned opposition activists on a plane to the U.S., then stripped them of their Nicaraguan citizenship. Many are now effectively stateless but vulnerable to Trump’s immigration crackdown.) It’s not lost on these activists that Trump has left much of Maduro’s regime in place in Venezuela. It suggests Trump values stability over democracy, human rights or justice. Some hope Ortega and Murillo will be weakened by the fall of their friend, Maduro. The two surely noticed how little Russia, China and others did to help the former leader. Maybe Nicaragua’s co-dictators will ease up on internal repression as one reaction. “When you get this kind of pressure, there are things that get in motion,” said Juan Sebastian Chamorro, a Nicaraguan politician forced out of the country. “They are feeling the heat.”

Minneapolis remains on edge after the ICE killing of Renée Good last Wednesday. As ICE and Border Patrol operations intensify—Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that “hundreds more” agents are being sent to the city—residents continue to spill into the streets, filming, heckling, and tracking federal vehicles, block by block. Following this drama closely is reporter Amanda Moore, who puts it simply: “Yeah, it’s chaos.” Over the weekend she captured confrontations she describes as “extremely violent,” including a St. Paul gas station scene where agents “busted out the window of a car.” (According the DHS, the man driving the car was a Honduran national with a final removal order.) Amanda says the mood is a mix of fear and fury, with residents watching arrests unfold up close and, at times, finding themselves surrounded by “masked men… banging on your windows carrying guns.” Her bottom line on the enforcement posture: “Everything is very aggressive.” Even the timing, she notes, might be a signal of escalation. Amanda says Sundays were normally a day off from the front lines—“you could do your laundry and watch TV.” With the ramp-up of federal agents, “I guess not anymore.” Check out her latest dispatch.

Kristi Noem spent Sunday defending the actions of ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis last week. The Trump administration, she asserted, was fully committed to ensuring that laws are enforced evenhandedly. But it quickly became clear that wasn’t true. During the Sunday interview on CNN’s State of the Union, the Secretary of Homeland Security reiterated the Trump administration’s position on the shooting, insisting that Good had supposedly been “breaking the law by impeding and obstructing a law enforcement operation.” Noem repeated the extremely dubious allegation that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle to “attack” Ross in “an act of domestic terrorism.” And she said that Good had “harassed” law enforcement at additional locations throughout the morning.  “These officers were doing their due diligence—what their training had prepared them to do—to make sure they were handling it appropriately,” Noem insisted.  But when anchor Jake Tapper played video of the January 6 insurrection, Noem struggled to explain how Trump’s mass pardons for the Capitol rioters could be reconciled with the administration’s current support for federal law enforcement. “Every single situation is going to rely on the situation those officers are on,” she said, without directly mentioning the Capitol attack. “But they know that when people are putting hands on them, when they are using weapons against them, when they’re physically harming them, that they have the authority to arrest those individuals.” > Tapper to Noem: "I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement > officers on January 6. Undisputed evidence, and I just said, President Trump > pardoned all of them. You said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws > equally. That's just not true. There's a… pic.twitter.com/WjZPqgCVhj > > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 11, 2026 As Tapper pointed out, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of every single January 6 defendant on his first day back in office—suggesting that the president is willing to tolerate some assaults on federal law enforcement. But Noem, improbably, maintained that the Trump administration was consistent. “When we’re out there, we don’t pick and choose which situations and which laws are enforced and which ones aren’t,” she said. “Every single one of them is being enforced under the Trump administration.” “That’s just not true,” Tapper responded. “There’s a different standard for law enforcement officials being attacked if they’re being attacked by Trump supporters.” Later in the show, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey rejected Noem’s allegation that Good was intentionally attacking Ross and said that the Trump administration’s portrayal of Minneapolis as an unsafe city that requires more federal law enforcement is unfounded.  “You know how many shootings we’ve had this year? Two. And one of them was ICE,” Frey said. “ICE and Kristi Noem and everything they’re doing is making it far less safe.” According to an analysis of Minneapolis crime data by the Minnesota Star Tribune, gun violence peaked during pandemic lockdown, but shootings have declined since then in all but one of the city’s five police precincts. As Noah Lanard reported on Thursday, immigration agents across the country have shot at least nine people since September. All of them were in cars, despite cops being trained not to shoot at moving vehicles and, instead, to get out of the way. Noah spoke with Seth Stoughton, a professor of law and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and a former Florida police officer, who cited the long history of people getting hurt when police shoot at moving vehicles. Meanwhile, many Democrats have called for new rules to curb abuses by federal immigration officers, including a requirement to show warrants prior to making arrests. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is expected to introduce legislation to push these changes.  “In many ways they’ve become lawless at this point,” one House Democrat said Friday, according to the Hill. “No search warrants. Masks. Refusing to tell people why they’re being picked up. Deporting people to places without telling their family. You can’t have that.” On Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC, Murphy said that his proposal is not a “sweeping” reform but simply aims to return to when ICE “cared about legality.” “It’s reasonable for Democrats, speaking on behalf of the majority of the American public who don’t approve of what ICE is doing, to say, ‘If you want to fund DHS, I want to fund a DHS that is operating in a safe and legal manner,’” Murphy said.

Two days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, Rep. Roger Williams issued an ultimatum to the Trump administration’s critics in Minnesota and beyond. “People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil,” the Texas Republican told NewsNation. “And until we do that, I guess we’re going to have it this way. And the people that are staying in their homes or doing the right thing need to be protected.” > Rep. Roger Williams: "People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law > enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil." > pic.twitter.com/r5TFLgFHy1 > > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2026 That’s a pretty clear encapsulation of MAGA-world’s views on dissent these days. You aren’t supposed to protest. You aren’t supposed to “yell at” or “challenge” the militarized federal agents occupying your city. And anyone who wants to be “protected” should probably just stay “in their homes.” Williams isn’t some fringe backbencher; he’s a seven-term congressman who chairs the House Small Business Committee. He is announcing de facto government policy. For nearly a year, President Donald Trump and his allies have been engaged in an escalating assault on the First Amendment. The administration has systematically targeted or threatened many of Trump’s most prominent critics: massive law firms, Jimmy Kimmel, even, at one point, Elon Musk. But it’s worth keeping in mind that some of the earliest victims of the president’s second-term war on speech were far less powerful. Early last year, ICE began arresting and attempting to deport people with legal immigration status—such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk—who had engaged in pro-Palestinian activism or expressed pro-Palestinian views. The administration was explicit about the new policy. Troy Edgar, Trump’s deputy secretary of Homeland Security, made clear that the government was seeking to remove Khalil in large part because he’d chosen to “protest” against Israel. Asked about such cases, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that engaging in “anti-American, antisemitic, pro-Hamas protest will not be tolerated.” It should have been obvious at the time that Trump allies were laying the groundwork for an even broader crackdown. “When it comes to protesters, we gotta make sure we treat all of them the same: Send them to jail,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) in March, discussing Khalil’s arrest on Fox Business Network. “Free speech is great, but hateful, hate, free speech is not what we need in these universities.” That’s pretty close to Williams’ demand on Friday that “people need to quit demonstrating.” It also sounds a lot like Attorney General Pam Bondi’s widely derided threat in September that the DOJ “will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” Hate speech—regardless of what the Trump administration thinks that means—is protected by the First Amendment. Bondi can’t prosecute people for expressing views she dislikes. And ICE can’t deport US citizens like Good. But of course, federal law enforcement has more direct ways to exert control. “The bottom line is this,” said Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Texas Republican running for US Senate, in the wake of Good’s death. “When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life.” > Rep. Wesley Hunt: "The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you > instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep you life" > pic.twitter.com/JhA09qoT8r > > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2026 Moment’s later, Newsmax anchor Carl Higbie complained to Hunt that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) had “literally told Minnesotans to get out and protest and that it is, quote, ‘a patriotic duty.'” “People are going to go out there,” Higbie warned ominously. “And what do you think is going to happen when you get 3, 4, 5,000 people—some of which are paid agitators—thinking it’s their ‘patriotic duty’ to oppose ICE?”

Scores of people are once again taking to their streets this weekend to protest the Trump administration’s ongoing offensive against immigrants and those who attempt to stand up for them. More than 1,000 demonstrations are slated for Saturday and Sunday after federal immigration agents shot three people in the past week. On Wednesday, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis in her vehicle, and on Thursday US Border Patrol shot a man and a woman in a car in Portland.  “The murder of Renée Nicole Good has sparked outrage in all of us,” Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the organizations spearheading the nationwide demonstrations, told Mother Jones. “Her death, and the horrific nature of it, was a turning point and a call to all of us to stand up against ICE’s inhumane and lawless operations that have already killed dozens before Renee.” > Just got home from our local ICE OUT protest. 24 degrees and snowing, hundreds > came out. Others were in the next town over responding to ICE trapping > roofers. > > — Ashley (@coyotebee.bsky.social) 2026-01-10T19:08:06.443Z The weekend protests are happening or poised to happen in blue cities like New York and Chicago, as well as Republican strongholds like Lubbock, Texas, and Danville, Kentucky.  The demonstrations are being organized by the ICE Out For Good Coalition, which in addition to Indivisible, includes groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, Voto Latino, and United We Dream.  “For a full year, Trump’s masked agents have been abducting people off the streets, raiding schools, libraries, and churches,” Katie Bethell, the civic action executive director for MoveOn, another organization in the coalition, said. “None of us want to live in a country where federal agents with guns are lurking and inciting violence at schools and in our communities.” According to tracking from The Guardian, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025—the most of any year in more than two decades.  Additionally, The Trace reports that since June 2025, there have been 16 incidents in which immigration agents opened fire and another 15 incidents in which agents held someone at gunpoint. The outlet writes that, in these incidents, four people were killed and seven injured. The Trace noted that the number of incidents involving guns could likely be higher, “as shootings involving immigration agents are not always publicly reported.” Members of Concord Indivisible gathered outside First Parish in Concord, Massachusetts, to protest the killing of Renée Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.Dave Shrewsbury/ZUMA Since Wednesday, an already tense situation in Minneapolis—and in other cities—boiled over. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, officers on the scene met protesters with chemical irritants. In the days since, border patrol agents outside the Whipple Building in Minneapolis have used violent tactics against protesters, including using chemical agents on demonstrators.  Online, some videos show escalating moments between immigration agents and those resisting them. In one instance, a border patrol agent is seen telling multiple women sitting in cars in Minneapolis: “Don’t make a bad decision today.” The women were seemingly attempting to interrupt immigration agents by taking up road space.  The coalition hosting the protests said in its list of stated goals that the groups hope to “Demand accountability, transparency, and an immediate investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Good,” “Build public pressure on elected officials and federal agencies,” and “Call for ICE to leave our communities,” among other aims.  > Huge turnout for anti-ICE protest in Newport News. They’re along a street so > hard to get everyone in one photo. Hampton Roads does not often see these > sorts of numbers. #ReneeGood > > — Zach D Roberts (@zdroberts.bsky.social) 2026-01-10T19:09:00.009Z These are just the latest protests to take over cities since President Donald Trump was sworn in for the second time. In April, it was the “Hands Off!” protest against Trump and Elon Musk’s gutting of government spending and firing of federal workers. Months later, in October, the “No Kings” demonstrations sought to call out Trump’s growing, often unchecked executive power. According to organizers, each saw millions of protesters. And now, only the second weekend of the new year, people are once again angry and outside.  “The shootings in Minneapolis and Portland were not the beginning of ICE’s cruelty, but they need to be the end,” Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer with the ACLU, said. “These tragedies are simply proof of one fact: the Trump administration and its federal agents are out of control, endangering our neighborhoods, and trampling on our rights and freedom. This weekend Americans all across the country are demanding that they stop.”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On Thursday, Republicans in the House failed to override President Donald Trump’s first two vetoes in office: a pipeline project that would bring safe drinking water to rural Colorado, and another that would return land to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida. Their inability to block the president’s move signals their commitment to the White House over their prior support for the measures.  The Miccosukee have always considered the Florida Everglades their home. So when Republicans in Congress voted to expand the tribe’s land base under the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act—legislation that would transfer 30 acres of land in the Everglades to tribal control—the Miccosukee were thrilled. After years of work, the move would have allowed the tribe to begin environmental restoration activities in the area and better protect it from climate change impacts as extreme flooding and tropical storms threaten the land. “The measure reflected years of bipartisan work and was intended to clarify land status and support basic protections for tribal members who have lived in this area for generations,” wrote Chairman Cypress in a statement last week, “before the roads and canals were built, and before Everglades National Park was created.” The act was passed on December 11, but on December 30, President Donald Trump vetoed it; one of only two vetoes made by the administration since he took office. In a statement, Trump explained that the tribe “actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” after the tribe’s July lawsuit challenging the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz,” an immigration detention center in the Everglades.  “It is rare for an administration to veto a bill for reasons wholly unrelated to the merits of the bill,” said Kevin Washburn, a law professor at University of California Berkeley Law and former assistant secretary of Indian affairs for the Department of the Interior. Washburn added that while denying land return to a tribe is a political act, Trump’s move is “highly unusual.” When a tribe regains land, the process can be long and costly. The process, known as “land into trust” transfers a land title from a tribe to the United States, where the land is then held for the benefit of the tribe and establishes tribal jurisdiction over the land in question. When tribal nations signed treaties in the 19th century ceding land, any lands reserved for tribes—generally, reservations—were held by the federal government “in trust” for the benefit of tribes, meaning that tribal nations don’t own these lands despite their sovereign status.  > Trump’s veto “makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance.” Almost all land-into-trust requests are facilitated at an administrative level by the Department of Interior. The Miccosukee, however, generally must follow a different process. Recognized as a tribal nation by the federal government in 1962, the Miccosukee navigate a unique structure for acquiring tribal land where these requests are made through Congress via legislation instead of by the Interior Department. “It’s ironic, right?” said Matthew Fletcher, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “You’re acquiring land that your colonizer probably took from you a long time ago and then gave it away to or sold it to someone else, and then years later, you’re buying that land back that was taken from you illegally, at a great expense.” While land-into-trust applications related to tribal gaming operations often meet opposition, Fletcher says applications like the Miccosukee’s are usually frictionless. And in cases like the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act, which received bipartisan support at the state and federal levels, in-trust applications are all but guaranteed. On the House floor on Thursday before the vote, Florida’s Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said, “This bill is so narrowly focused that [the veto] makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance that seems to have emanated in this result.” The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), did not respond to requests for comment. In July last year, Gimenez referred to the Miccosukee Tribe as stewards of the Everglades, sponsoring the bill as a way to manage water flow and advance an elevation project, under protection from the Department of the Interior, for the village to avert “catastrophic flooding.” “What you’re asking is for people in the same political party of the guy who just vetoed this thing to affirmatively reject the political decision of the president,” Fletcher said. The tribe is unlikely to see its village project materialize under Trump’s second term unless the outcome of this year’s midterms results in a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Studies show that the return of land to tribes provides the best outcomes for the climate.

LONDON — If there’s one thing Keir Starmer has mastered in office, it’s changing his mind. The PM has been pushed by his backbenchers toward a flurry of about-turns since entering Downing Street just 18 months ago.  Starmer’s vast parliamentary majority hasn’t stopped him feeling the pressure — and has meant mischievous MPs are less worried their antics will topple the government.  POLITICO recaps 7 occasions MPs mounted objections to the government’s agenda — and forced the PM into a spin. Expect this list to get a few more updates… PUB BUSINESS RATES  Getting on the wrong side of your local watering hole is never a good idea. Many Labour MPs realized that the hard way. Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her budget last year to slash a pandemic-era discount on business rates — taxes levied on firms — from 75 percent to 40 percent. Cue uproar from publicans. Labour MPs were barred from numerous boozers in protest at a sharp bill increase afflicting an already struggling hospitality sector. A £300 million lifeline for pubs, watering down some of the changes, is now being prepped. At least Treasury officials should now have a few more places to drown their sorrows. Time to U-turn: 43 days (Nov. 26, 2025 — Jan. 8, 2026). FARMERS’ INHERITANCE TAX  Part of Labour’s electoral success came from winning dozens of rural constituencies. But Britain’s farmers soon fell out of love with the government.  Reeves’ first budget slapped inheritance tax on farming estates worth more than £1 million from April 2026. Farmers drive tractors near Westminster ahead of a protest against inheritance tax rules on Nov. 19, 2024. | Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images Aimed at closing loopholes wealthy individuals use to avoid coughing up to the exchequer, the decision generated uproar from opposition parties (calling the measure the “family farm tax”) and farmers themselves, who drove tractors around Westminster playing “Baby Shark.”  Campaigners including TV presenter and newfound farmer Jeremy Clarkson joined the fight by highlighting that many farmers are asset rich but cash poor — so can’t fund increased inheritance taxes without flogging off their estates altogether. A mounting rebellion by rural Labour MPs (including Cumbria’s Markus Campbell-Savours, who lost the whip for voting against the budget resolution on inheritance tax) saw the government sneak out a threshold hike to £2.5 million just two days before Christmas, lowering the number of affected estates from 375 to 185. Why ever could that have been?  Time to U-turn: 419 days (Oct. 30, 2024 — Dec. 23, 2025). WINTER FUEL PAYMENTS  Labour’s election honeymoon ended abruptly just three and a half weeks into power after Reeves made an economic move no chancellor before her dared to take.  Reeves significantly tightened eligibility for winter fuel payments, a previously universal benefit helping the older generation with heating costs in the colder months.  Given pensioners are the cohort most likely to vote, the policy was seen as a big electoral gamble. It wasn’t previewed in Labour’s manifesto and made many newly elected MPs angsty.  After a battering in the subsequent local elections, the government swiftly confirmed all pensioners earning up to £35,000 would now be eligible for the cash. That’s one way of trying to bag the grey vote. Time until U-turn: 315 days (July 29, 2024 — June 9, 2025).  WELFARE REFORM Labour wanted to rein in Britain’s spiraling welfare bill, which never fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.  The government vowed to save around £5 billion by tightening eligibility for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a benefit helping people in and out of work with long term health issues. It also said other health related benefits would be cut. However, Labour MPs worried about the impact on the most vulnerable (and nervously eyeing their inboxes) weren’t impressed. More than 100 signed an amendment that would have torpedoed the proposed reforms.  The government vowed to save around £5 billion by tightening eligibility for Personal Independence Payment. | Vuk Valcic via SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images In an initial concession, the government said existing PIP claimants wouldn’t be affected by any eligibility cuts. It wasn’t enough: Welfare Minister Stephen Timms was forced to confirm in the House of Commons during an actual, ongoing welfare debate that eligibility changes for future claimants would be delayed until a review was completed.  What started as £5 billion of savings didn’t reduce welfare costs whatsoever.  Time to U-turn: 101 days (Mar. 18, 2025 — June 27, 2025).  GROOMING GANGS INQUIRY  The widescale abuse of girls across Britain over decades reentered the political spotlight in early 2025 after numerous tweets from X owner Elon Musk. It led to calls for a specific national inquiry into the scandal. Starmer initially rejected this request, pointing to recommendations left unimplemented from a previous inquiry into child sexual abuse and arguing for a local approach. Starmer accused those critical of his stance (aka Musk) of spreading “lies and misinformation” and “amplifying what the far-right is saying.” Yet less than six months later, a rapid review from crossbench peer Louise Casey called for … a national inquiry. Starmer soon confirmed one would happen. Time to U-turn: 159 days (Jan. 6, 2025 — June 14, 2025).  ‘ISLAND OF STRANGERS’ Immigration is a hot-button issue in the U.K. — especially with Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage breathing down Starmer’s neck. The PM tried reflecting this in a speech last May, warning that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers” without government action to curb migration. That triggered some of Starmer’s own MPs, who drew parallels with the notorious 1968 “rivers of blood” speech by politician Enoch Powell. The PM conceded he’d put a foot wrong month later, giving an Observer interview where he claimed to not be aware of the Powell connection. “I deeply regret using” the term, he said. Time to U-turn: 46 days (May 12, 2025 — June 27, 2025).  Immigration is a hot-button issue in the U.K. — especially with Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage breathing down Starmer’s neck. | Tolga Akmen/EPA TWO-CHILD BENEFIT CAP  Here’s the U-turn that took the longest to arrive — but left Labour MPs the happiest. Introduced by the previous Conservative government, a two-child welfare cap meant parents could only claim social security payments such as Universal Credit or tax credits for their first two children. Many Labour MPs saw it as a relic of the Tory austerity era. Yet just weeks into government, seven Labour MPs lost the whip for backing an amendment calling for it to be scrapped, highlighting Reeves’ preference for fiscal caution over easy wins.  A year and a half later, that disappeared out the window. Reeves embracing its removal in her budget last fall as a child poverty-busty measure got plenty of cheers from Labour MPs — though the cap’s continued popularity with some voters may open up a fresh vulnerability. Time until U-turn: 491 days (July 23, 2024 — Nov. 26, 2025).

The first American pope is on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump. The latest fault line between the Vatican and the White House emerged on Sunday. Shortly after Trump suggested his administration could “run” Venezuela, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of the “country’s sovereignty.” For MAGA-aligned conservatives, this is now part of an unwelcome pattern. While Leo is less combative in tone toward Trump than his predecessor Francis, his priorities are rekindling familiar battles in the culture war with the U.S. administration on topics such as immigration and deportations, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change. As the leader of a global community of 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo has a rare position of influence to challenge Trump’s policies, and the U.S. president has to tread with uncustomary caution in confronting him. Trump traditionally relishes blasting his critics with invective but has been unusually restrained in response to Leo’s criticism, in part because he counts a large number of Catholics among his core electorate. “[Leo] is not looking for a fight like Francis, who sometimes enjoyed a fight,” said Chris White, author of “Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.” “But while different in style, he is clearly a continuation of Francis in substance. Initially there was a wait-and-see approach, but for many MAGA Catholics, Leo challenges core beliefs.” In recent months, migration has become the main combat zone between the liberal pope and U.S. conservatives. Leo called on his senior clergy to speak out on the need to protect vulnerable migrants, and U.S. bishops denounced the “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” leveled at people targeted by Trump’s deportation policies. Leo later went public with an appeal that migrants in the U.S. be treated “humanely” and “with dignity.” Leo’s support emboldened Florida bishops to call for a Christmas reprieve from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. “Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. As if evidence were needed of America’s polarization on this topic, however, the Department of Homeland Security described their arrests as a “Christmas gift to Americans.” Leo also conspicuously removed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Trump’s preferred candidate for pope and a favorite on the conservative Fox News channel, from a key post as archbishop of New York, replacing him with a bishop known for pro-migrant views. This cuts to the heart of the moral dilemma for a divided U.S. Catholic community. For Trump, Catholics are hardly a sideshow as they constitute 22 percent of his electorate, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. While the pope appeals to liberal causes, however, many MAGA Catholics take a far stricter line on topics such as migration, sexuality and climate change. To his critics from the conservative Catholic MAGA camp, such as Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, the pope is anathema. U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of Venezuela’s “sovereignty.” | Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Last year the pope blessed a chunk of ice from Greenland and criticized political leaders who ignore climate change. He said supporters of the death penalty could not credibly claim to be pro-life, and argued that Christians and Muslims could be friends. He has also signaled a more tolerant posture toward LGBTQ+ Catholics, permitting an LGBTQ+ pilgrimage to St Peter’s Basilica. Small wonder, then, that Trump confidante and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer branded Leo the “woke Marxist pope.” Trump-aligned Catholic conservatives have denounced him as “secularist,” “globalist” and even “apostate.” Far-right pundit Jack Posobiec has called him “anti-Trump.” “Some popes are a blessing. Some popes are a penance,” Posobiec wrote on X. PONTIFF FROM CHICAGO There were early hopes that Leo might build bridges with U.S. hardliners. He’s an American, after all: He wears an Apple watch and follows baseball, and American Catholics can hardly dismiss him as as foreign. The Argentine Francis, by contrast, was often portrayed by critics as anti-American and shaped by the politics of poorer nations. Leo can’t be waved away so easily. Early in his papacy, Leo also showed signs he was keen to steady the church after years of internal conflict, and threw some bones to conservatives such as allowing a Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and wearing more ornate papal vestments. But the traditionalists were not reassured. Benjamin Harnwell, the Vatican correspondent for the MAGA-aligned War Room podcast, said conservatives were immediately skeptical of Leo. “From day one, we have been telling our base to be wary: Do not be deceived,” he said. Leo, Harnwell added, is “fully signed up to Francis’ agenda … but [is] more strategic and intelligent.” After the conclave that appointed Leo, former Trump strategist Bannon told POLITICO that Leo’s election was “the worst choice for MAGA Catholics” and “an anti-Trump vote by the globalists of the Curia.” Trump had a long-running feud with Francis, who condemned the U.S. president’s border wall and criticized his migration policies. Francis appeared to enjoy that sparring, but Leo is a very different character. More retiring by nature, he shies away from confrontation. But his resolve in defending what he sees as non-negotiable moral principles, particularly the protection of the weak, is increasingly colliding with the core assumptions of Trumpism. Trump loomed large during the conclave, with an AI-generated video depicting himself as pope. The gesture was seen by some Vatican insiders as a “mafia-style” warning to elect someone who would not criticize him, Vatican-watcher Elisabetta Piqué wrote in a new book “The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis.” NOT PERSONAL Leo was not chosen expressly as an anti-Trump figure, according to a Vatican official. Rather, his nationality was likely seen by some cardinals as “reassuring,” suggesting he would be accountable and transparent in governance and finances. But while Leo does not seem to be actively seeking a confrontation with Trump, the world views of the two men seem incompatible. “He will avoid personalizing,” said the same Vatican official. “He will state church teaching, not in reaction to Trump, but as things he would say anyway.” Despite the attacks on Leo from his allies, Trump himself has also appeared wary of a direct showdown. When asked about the pope in a POLITICO interview, Trump was more keen to discuss meeting the pontiff’s brother in Florida, whom he described as “serious MAGA.” When pressed on whether he would meet the pope himself, he finally replied: “Sure, I will. Why not?” The potential for conflict will come into sharper focus as Leo hosts a summit called an extraordinary consistory this week, the first of its kind since 2014, which is expected to provide a blueprint for the future direction of the church. His first publication on social issues, such as inequality and migration, is also expected in the next few months. “He will use [the summit] to talk about what he sees as the future,” said a diplomat posted to the Vatican. “It will give his collaborators a sense of where he is going. He could use it as a sounding board, or ask them to suggest solutions.” It’s safe to assume Leo won’t be unveiling a MAGA-aligned agenda. The ultimate balance of power may also favor the pope. Trump must contend with elections and political clocks; Leo, elected for life, does not. At 70, and as a tennis player in good health, Leo appears positioned to shape Catholic politics well after Trump’s moment has passed. “He is not in a hurry,” the Vatican official said. “Time is on his side.”

OPTICS IN VALENCIA, FLEEING TRUMP The stories of disillusioned and fearful U.S. families seeking refuge from MAGA in Spain. Text and photos by MICHAEL ROBINSON CHÁVEZ in Valencia, Spain Mira Ibrisimovic, above, moves into her new apartment in Valencia, Spain. She left Colombia with her husband and children when her contract with U.S. Agency for International Development was terminated. Below, a naturalized U.S.-citizen who declined showing her face for this article fearing retaliation from the Trump administration. She recently moved to Valencia with her husband and their two children. In the first photo, Matt and Brett Cloninger-West shop at a local market. They left the U.S. early this year with their daughter. Matt and Brett Cloninger-West are getting a passionate crash course in the finer points of Spanish ham from the vendor at the public market. What part of the leg produces the leanest meat? The tastiest? What kinds of acorns are the pigs eating? They then move on to the produce stand, the bakery loaded with fresh bread and the cheese seller who had dozens of varieties from across the country on display.  This Old World shopping style has become one of the new joys of living in Valencia, Spain, where they moved from Washington, D.C., earlier this year. According to international real estate websites, Spain’s third-largest city has eclipsed Barcelona and Madrid as the top destination for American buyers and renters seeking to settle permanently. The Mediterranean city has long been included in lists of the “best cities to retire.” But a new group of residents is arriving — younger families with children fleeing what they see as the creeping authoritarianism of President Donald Trump’s America. Advertisement Brett Cloninger-West, 56, and his husband, Matt, 52, were both born in the United States and had well-paying, seemingly stable jobs in Washington. That all fell apart soon after Trump’s inauguration. Brett, a successful real estate agent for the past 18 years, and Matt, an IT specialist focused on strategic planning for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saw their livelihoods evaporate within weeks of the inauguration. “Within three weeks of the inauguration new business was down 75 percent,” Brett said. “Everyone was being fired.” Meanwhile, Matt received one of Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” emails. Musk was tearing up the federal government, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs, as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Matt realized his position was on the chopping block and reluctantly took a buyout. Unemployed and living in an increasingly tense and hostile city where soldiers patrolled the streets, they knew they had to leave the U.S. “The D.C. that I grew up in and spent my entire adult life in, no longer exists,” said Brett holding back tears. “I loved the place, even with all of its warts and hostilities. It really felt like home. “We didn’t want to leave, we had to,” said Brett. “It feels like an occupied city,” added Matt. “Why Valencia? Just walking outside and breathing the air,” explained Brett, “there is no tension in it. There is no hostility in it.” Mira Ibrisimovic and her husband, Mario Sanginés, oversee movers and boxes in their newly rented apartment. They recently arrived from Bogotá, Colombia, where Sanginés, now retired, worked for the Inter-American Development Bank, and Ibrisimovic was a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. That contract ended days after Trump’s inauguration. “It has been really traumatic,” said Ibrisimovic as she sipped a cappuccino. “The ending of 24 years of working for USAID … It was complete obliteration.” Ibrisimovic has faced obliteration before. She was born in Belgrade when it was still part of Yugoslavia. She remembers viewing the United States as a symbol of democracy, a place she once hoped to be part of. That hope has now been shattered: “For me, it’s the disillusionment with the United States. I always had the drive to go there, no matter the problems. I believed in what it stood for. My belief that the country believed in doing right has been shattered with Trump being elected twice.” Sanginés, who is originally from Bolivia, retired from the IDB this year. Spain had always been on the couple’s radar as a potential retirement spot and Sanginés has family in Barcelona. They didn’t expect it to be so soon.  “We still have a house in D.C. and the kids were born there, so there are still ties,” said Ibrisimovic, “but we did not want to go back and live there and raise our kids there for many reasons — the quality of life, safety, to be away from the toxic environment. It is not the right time with what is going on politically, but also culturally, socially and racially.”  Advertisement Many new arrivals in Valencia were afraid to speak out against Trump and his policies, fearing retaliation from the U.S. government. One of them, a middle-aged woman with two children, grew up in the Philippines during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Her family was outspokenly opposed to the dictator and fled to the U.S.  “I remember that at dinner time we would watch the news and watch the chaos happening in Manila. My mom and dad would be really worried,” she said. “I remember being that young and being scared.” Those memories flooded back after Trump’s reelection and inauguration. Her husband and friends told her not to worry, that the government was set up with checks and balances. “There won’t be this time,” she replied. “They are going to come for people who are here and who are not criminals. They are going to come for naturalized citizens. My kids said, ‘You’re crazy.’ Everything I said came true.” Her husband had never been to Spain. In March he visited Valencia and, after reading more headlines about ICE raids and detentions on the streets of American cities, decided they really needed to leave. She hadn’t been waiting for his green light: She had already taken care of all the paperwork for the move. She chose Valencia because she already had friends living there who praised the city: safe, easy to get around, excellent schools, and affordable, quality health care. Any concerns about how their two children would adjust to their new home quickly disappeared. Both children are thriving academically and socially and the youngest already has a girlfriend. “It’s not like vacation any more,” her oldest child said. “It feels like home.” The family did not want any identifying details to be included in this report or photographs, fearing repercussions. Advertisement At a trendy café in Russafa, a neighborhood popular with expats and experiencing rising housing prices, the sounds of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young drifted from the speakers as patrons sipped matcha lattes and enjoyed homemade gluten-free cakes. Most spoke in American-accented English. At one table, another naturalized citizen and his wife, who was born in the United States, discussed their decision to leave the country after Trump became president-elect in November 2024. They asked to remain anonymous for this article. “We often worry for our family and friends who are there,” one of them said. “If someone told me years ago that this would be happening, I’d say they lost it, that it was a conspiracy theory. It is just bizarre.”  “We thought about moving for a long time, more to see the world than to leave the U.S.,” one of them explained. They didn’t want their children growing up in what they called a “toxic atmosphere” in Texas. One of them worked for a company linked to the government. Politics was never brought up at work until after Trump’s inauguration, when the owner and managers started to boast about their support for the MAGA movement.   “We became fearful about going out. Our kids aren’t naturalized citizens since they’re born in the U.S., but I am. Our fear was for my citizenship, and therefore, my passport to be revoked, leaving me without a country to belong in.” A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR AFRAID TO SPEAK, FOR THE FIRST TIME I have covered civil wars and authoritarian regimes across five continents, but this is the first time I have heard such fear from U.S. citizens about their own government. While reporting this story in Valencia, I met many Americans who were unwilling to speak and declined to be interviewed for this report, fearing retaliation from Trump’s administration. A few others were willing to go on the record, but anonymously and without their photos in the story. This was especially true for people of color and naturalized citizens. Some worried their families back home would be “rounded up” or that they would lose their jobs, while others feared their passports wouldn’t be renewed or even confiscated. Some said they had scrubbed their social media accounts. I had encountered similar testimonies in places such as Russia, Iraq or Congo — but never about the U.S. Advertisement