This story was co-published with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. On December 31, in the waning hours of 2025, the Washington Post reported on an internal ICE document that concerned the agency’s “wartime recruitment” strategy, or rather its attempt to expeditiously swell its ranks of deportation officers. The memo, according to the Post, had in mind a pool of ideal candidates who lead a “patriotic” lifestyle and have an interest in “military and veterans affairs,” “physical training,” “gun rights organizations,” and “tactical gear brands.” The memo’s logic was easy enough to understand, since what it described, if you read between the lines, was an informal paramilitary that was waiting to be tapped. Over the last month—as a violent federal occupation has unfolded in Minneapolis, where veteran immigration agents brutally killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti—both the memo and the new recruits it would draw into the fold began to take up outsized space in my mind. For a long time now, the gun rights movement has been animated by the promise of a violent reckoning, a sentiment nurtured by the groups that represent it and Republican politicians, who seek to channel a wild, truculent energy into votes and profits. It seemed the promise was being fulfilled in Minneapolis, like the fatal denouement of a production that had one harbinger after another. > “Any mission, any condition, any foes, at any range.” During the 2016 election cycle, when as a reporter I attended my first National Rifle Association annual meeting, I began to see that the promised reckoning could not be delayed forever. At the convention, in Louisville, Kentucky, there was the tradeshow floor, akin to a medieval arms bazaar and containing some 520,000 square feet of guns and tactical accessories. There were seminars covering “Defensive Shooting Skills Development,” “Methods of Concealed Carry,” “Current and Emerging Threats,” and “The Bulletproof Mind For The Armed Civilian.” And there was a line of some 7,000 people, leading into an arena called “Freedom Hall,” where there would be speeches by the emerging Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, and Mark “Oz” Geist, a member of the Benghazi diplomatic compound’s security team that had come under siege in 2012. Three middle-aged white men stood in line in front of me making confident assertions about Barack Obama and “government cover-ups.” One informed the others that Obama, still president, had purchased a “$10 million mansion in Saudi Arabia,” where he and his family would flee after leaving the White House to “evade charges.” Trump would of course chase him down, the man assured everyone, while the United States reembraced frontier justice and flourished under his rule. The line then moved inside, 7,000 people took their seats, and the Republican presidential candidate promised them: “I will never let you down.” Based on the ecstatic response from the crowd, it seemed to me that the message Trump had transmitted was about power—raw power—and who would wield it during his administration.   Going back to at least the early nineties, when President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was in office, gun rights organizations, led by the NRA, and various prominent Republicans pushed an argument for the Second Amendment that was disguised as a historical one. The right to bear arms, they said, was intended to be unfettered because its purpose was to provide citizens with the means to fight a tyrannical government that had turned against its own people. Federal agents, under Clinton, were “jack-booted government thugs,” according to a notorious fundraising letter signed by former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. These thugs, he said, had the power to “take away our Constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us.” It was often implied that such arguments, which grew in prominence during Barack Obama’s tenure, applied only to the Democratic Party, which posed a vague yet persistent threat to “freedom,” while the Republican party would preserve it. Republican values were antithetical to tyranny, whereas Democrats were inherently tyrannical, and therefore any actions taken by the former were in service of saving the country from the latter. In 2016, while sitting in “Freedom Hall,” I began to feel a sense of alarm that I’d never before felt. Under Trump, this contingent would feel it had permission to act against the enemy. The carrot that was dangled during each election cycle—in fundraising pitches by gun rights groups and the sale of military-style firearms to civilians—was finally being fed to the horse. There would be no more “couch commandos,” as gun industry executives referred to their most enthusiastic customers in the years after 9/11. This was the period in which soldiers were in American streets, and the industry, en masse, had seized on a marketing opportunity to blur the line between soldier and civilian.  What the industry was selling was theatrical participation, the thrill of COSPLAY, except the props were real. “As close as you can get without enlisting,” one gun company, in 2010, boasted as it advertised its “semi-auto only version of the U.S. Special Operations Command’s newest rifle.” “Any mission, any condition, any foes, at any range,” said another manufacturer about its latest assault weapon. In the ad it was equipped with a scope and propped on a tripod, as if intended for a sniper, which of course was the point. Companies were selling military-style weapons with a “combat-proven design,” that provided “versatility on the range or during patrol,” and were a symbol of “bravery on duty.” To enhance the feeling of a simulated combat experience, manufacturers of AR-style firearms cut product placement deals with video game designers. An executive at the gun company Sig Sauer told authors Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, who co-wrote the book American Gun, that featuring the weapons in games was tantamount to “seed planting.”  Buying a gun had become a way to serve at home, and serving at home came to mean preparing for Democratic tyranny. In 2015, for instance, while Obama was still president, the Pentagon prepared for a training exercise across the American Southwest called Jade Helm 15. It was here that the performative, paranoid politics of the right during the Obama years reached something of a fever pitch. Conservative bloggers and commentators created widespread hysteria by alleging that the exercise was a veil for imposing martial law, confiscating firearms, arresting dissidents, and taking over Texas. The state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called on the Texas State Guard to monitor developments. It was “important,” he said, that Texans know their “rights” and “liberties” would not be “infringed.” The last word did not seem like an accidental allusion to the Second Amendment. For conservative elites, the preservation of power requires giving those beneath them a taste of it, without actually surrendering anything substantial, such as higher tax payments. In the meantime, they have created a shadow army, empowering them not with wealth but with the alluring prospect of crushing their opponents. A few months after the 2016 NRA convention, Trump said at a rally that Hillary Clinton “wants to abolish” the Second Amendment. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” he went on. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is.” Trump for much of his career had been the paragon of vapid wealth, but unlike other leaders of the right who came before him, he was signaling that he would take the army off standby, out of the realm of theater, and move the violent plot forward. The 2020 anti-lockdown Covid protests were a stark indicator of the new paradigm under Trump, who directed blame for restrictions toward Democrats such as Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. After state lawmakers voted to extend her state of emergency, a large group of men carrying assault rifles packed the Michigan Capitol rotunda and attempted to barge into the legislature, where a line of police guarded the doors. They screamed in the faces of the officers, who looked on impassively. > The lurid fantasy at the heart of the gun rights movement is playing out, but > the leading roles, as they were previously imagined, have been reversed. As the year wore on, Trump told the Proud Boys during a televised presidential debate to “stand back and stand by.” His loss to Joe Biden then set into motion the January 6 insurrection. Oath Keepers stashed an arsenal of weapons at a hotel in Arlington, Virginia. One member imagined a scenario in which “millions die resisting the death of the 1st and 2nd amendment.” A week later, a middle-aged white man named Ian Rogers, a California resident and proud NRA member, was arrested with his best friend for planning to attack the state’s Democratic headquarters. He owned roughly 50 firearms, including four illegal automatic weapons, and had stockpiled 15,000 rounds of ammunition. Writing to me from prison last year, he said that the Democratic Party was “the greatest threat facing the United States today.” He went on, “Just as Rome was brought down by enemies within, we have such traitors amongst us now,” adding, “These people fundamentally hate the country and they will do anything to impose their vision on the nation.” Now, in Minneapolis, masked federal agents, dressed as soldiers, have fatally shot two American citizens. Both were victims of an occupation, in which the Trump administration has unleashed a savage campaign of terror against civilians. The lurid fantasy at the heart of the gun rights movement is playing out, but the leading roles, as they were previously imagined, have been reversed. The party in power is not a Democratic regime, but a Republican one, prompting accusations of hypocrisy against gun rights organizations, who have had little to say and have not called on their followers to face down tyranny in Minneapolis. Following the merciless second killing, of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, federal officials, led by Stephen Miller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, concocted a false narrative alleging that Pretti had murderous intentions. Pretti had a sidearm on his waist, and they shamelessly pointed to it as evidence, even though the gun was holstered, he was legally carrying it, and agents shot him after they had removed the weapon.  Officials also tried to argue that, owing to the firearm’s presence, Pretti’s death was justified. This assertion presented an existential quandary for gun rights organizations, which have spent decades working to dismantle carry restrictions. One by one, the groups issued statements about how a holstered handgun did not give law enforcement the right to kill a person. That was the wrong message, the groups said, but the tyranny of the occupation itself was treated as legitimate. Gun Owners of America stated that “the Left must stop antagonizing @ICEgov and @CBP agents who are taking criminals off the streets and play a crucial role in protecting communities and upholding the rule of law.” The NRA similarly declared, “For months, radical progressive politicians like Tim Walz have incited violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs.” What is happening now, in other words, is a reminder that the argument about government tyranny was always a canard. Beneath it lurked what was really at stake, which was the right to assert control through force. Over and over, conservatives and Second Amendment stalwarts have claimed that right as their own, with Minneapolis being the latest example. The story they have told for decades is a binary one—good versus evil. In that framing, they are righteous and have but one job: Vanquish the enemy. Hold power. Save America. The same day Pretti was shot, video surfaced of federal agents pointing their weapons at civilians. “It’s like ‘Call of Duty,’” someone could be heard saying, referencing the blockbuster military-style video game series. Since then, Trump has suggested he will deescalate in Minneapolis. But whatever happens, the players have had a taste of the real thing, and there’s no going back.

Ian Austin, the Army veteran who was arrested in Minneapolis on Friday by federal agents for participating in an anti-ICE protest, has been released without conditions. Austin was featured in a viral Mother Jones video last week in which he was protesting outside the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE is based and detainees are held. “When they say, ‘Why would you be out here?’ How the fuck could I not be out here?” he said at the time. “My nation is under attack.” > “He loves his country so much, and he sees coming here and standing up for the > values that he truly believes in as an extension of that act of service.” Austin was one of nine defendants, including journalist Don Lemon, who were taken into custody for participating in or reporting on a demonstration last month at a St. Paul church where a local ICE official serves as a pastor. They face federal charges, including for interfering with religious freedom in a place of worship.  The arrests have alarmed free speech advocates, who say the protesters were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights. “He loves his country so much,” says Sarah Gad, the defense attorney representing Austin, “and he sees coming here and standing up for the values that he truly believes in as an extension of that act of service.” Gad said that the gallery at Monday’s hearing was full of observers supporting Austin, including many veterans supporters, many of whom he didn’t know.  Austin said on Monday that he appreciated the support, but he felt uncomfortable that his case was getting so much attention. “As a white person, and as a veteran, it’s like, ‘Oh, some big deal,'” he said. “Meanwhile, families are being ripped apart.” He said that he plans to continue protesting in the days to come, though he wants to make sure he’s not arrested again. “I’ve been pretty vocal and very willing to be on the front lines,” he said. “Now, I sort of have to shift my tack.”

A peaceful protest in Portland, Oregon on Saturday broke into chaos as federal agents deployed tear gas on demonstrators—including families with young children.  Thousands of protesters marched through the city and gathered in the blocks surrounding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. According to the Oregonian, just minutes after the crowd arrived at the facility, federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and flash-bang grenades after some demonstrators approached the security gate.  Labor leaders from over 20 unions led the march to the ICE building, with many protesters participating as part of the “Labor Against ICE” rally.  > Video shared with me by attendee at the ICE protest in Portland, OR earlier > this evening where federal agents tear gassed peaceful protestors—including > children, disabled and elderly: > > — Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T04:09:52.219Z Portland City Councilor Mitch Green wrote in a social media post that he was tear gassed in the crowd: “Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions. I expect to see enforcement of our city code prohibiting the use of tear gas.” > I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had > their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed > children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions. I expect to > see enforcement of our city code prohibiting the use of tear gas. > > — Mitch Green (@councilorgreen.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T01:23:34.948Z Portland’s city code bans selling, furnishing, transporting, carrying, possessing, or using tear gas weapons within the city limits. The code does not apply to “members of the armed forces of the State of Oregon and the United States in the performance of their official duties,” but federal agents are not exempted under the statute. The Portland Police Bureau posted on X on Saturday night that they closed a major street to prevent drivers from being affected by the tear gas.  Portland Mayor Keith Wilson released a statement late Saturday night, saying that it was a “peaceful daytime protest” that “posed no danger to federal forces.”  “To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” he continued. “To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children. Ask yourselves why you continue to work for an agency responsible for murders on American streets.” Wilson said later in the lengthy statement that the city would carry out an ordinance that went into effect in January that imposes financial penalties on facilities where chemical agents are deployed. The crackdown against protesters in Portland comes one day after a nationwide uprising where hundreds of demonstrations took place across the country to demand federal agents leave American towns and cities.

A federal judge on Saturday ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from an immigration detention facility outside San Antonio. Ramos, in the blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, who became another symbol of the cruelty of ICE agents, was detained by federal agents earlier this month in a suburban Minneapolis neighborhood—an incident that has since drawn immense outrage. Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas has ruled that the detention of Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, was unconstitutional. They are both asylum seekers.  In a scathing opinion, the judge wrote that the father and son “seek nothing more than some modicum of due process and the rule of law,” adding that immigration agents were “traumatizing children.” The father and son’s case “has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” the judge noted. Biery wrote of the detainment: “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency.” According to school officials in Minnesota, on January 20, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the father as he and Liam were on their way home from school pickup. Agents then reportedly used the child as “bait” to knock on his front door to see if anyone else was home, Zena Stenvik, the superintendent for the Columbia Heights Public Schools district said. A photo of a federal agent holding onto the backpack of Liam went viral, sparking intense criticism. Writing in the Washington Post, Phillip Kennicott noted, “This is an image of universal moral urgency, akin to a small number of photographs that once upon a time had the power to change our behavior, away from cruelty or indifference and in the direction of basic decency.” Related THEY WANT TO TELL YOU A KID WITH A SPIDER-MAN BACKPACK IS EVIL The father and son were quickly sent to the Texas detention center, where Liam reportedly has been sick, according to his mother.  Judge Biery accused the federal government of “ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence” and “that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment.” At the end of the ruling, he includes that now indelible photo of Liam with two Bible verses. Matthew 19:14, which quotes Jesus: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”

Many thousands of protestors across hundreds of demonstrations around the country on Friday once again took to their streets to tell President Donald Trump’s federal immigration agents a simple message: Get out of our towns and cities.  Friday’s nationwide mobilization is only the most recent in a string of demonstrations demanding justice for those targeted in the Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing, and violent, operations. Many of them focused on the brutality in Minnesota, including the killings of two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, by federal agents, and the apprehension of Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old boy with the Spider-Man backpack and the blue hat, who is currently sick in a Texas detention center after being picked up by DHS officials.  There’s no clear sign of when agents will leave the Twin Cities, as a US District judge on Saturday declined to order the Trump administration to immediately scale back its operations. As the Washington Post reported, she argued “Minnesota and the Twin Cities had not definitively shown that the administration’s decision to flood the state with agents was unlawful or designed to force local officials into cooperating with the administration’s objectives.” And, even if some agents leave Minneapolis, scores of immigration officials around the nation continue to target people in their cars, at home, and while working.  In addition to protests, the widespread actions included refraining from economic participation—no shopping, no working—and a school walkout, organized by students around the country.  Here are just some of the places where immigrants and their allies—many of them schoolchildren—took to the streets across the US: TWIN CITIES Protests in Minnesota have continued unabated for weeks as locals face subzero temperatures, yet come out en masse around the Twin Cities area. Stephen Maturen/GETTY Anadolu/GETTY Stephen Maturen/GETTY John Moore/GETTY John Moore/GETTY ROBERTO SCHMIDT/GETTY CALIFORNIA Demonstrations took place in major California cities, including Los Angeles, where prominent journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested by federal agents late Thursday night in connection with his appearance at a church protest in St. Paul, which he reported on earlier this month. Los AngelesGenaro Molina/GETTYProtesters descended on City Hall Friday, Jan. 30, 2026 as part of a nationwide day of action to stop funding for ICE and the shooting deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Los AngelesPATRICK T. FALLON/GETTY San FranciscoSan Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/GETTY PasadenaMediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images/GETTY NEW YORK CITY Starting at Foley Square near City Hall, a large crowd of demonstrators marched toward Washington Square Park. Earlier this week, dozens of protestors were arrested after going into the lobby of a TriBeCa hotel where they said federal agents were being housed. Spencer Platt/GETTY Spencer Platt/GETTY NurPhoto/GETTY MIAMI Anadolu/GETTY Anadolu/GETTY CHICAGO Anadolu/GETTY Anadolu/GETTY BOSTON JOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY JOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY LIVINGSTON, MONTANA As with previous nationwide mobilizations, residents of smaller cities or towns gathered near the side of a road to protest. These are demonstrators in Livingston, Montana. William Campbell/GETTY William Campbell/GETTY COLORADO DenverMark Makela/GETTY DenverTimothy Hurst/GETTY BoulderMatthew Jonas/Boulder Daily Camera/GETTY CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA Peter Zay/Anadolu/GETTY Peter Zay/Anadolu/GETTY WASHINGTON, DC Anadolu/GETTY Anadolu/GETTY Tom Brenner/GETTY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And, demonstrations are not just in the United States. Anti-ICE protests in cities around the world, including Paris and Milan, took place this week in solidarity with demonstrators in the United States. Those in Milan were focused on protesting the possible presence of ICE at the Olympic Games. There’s another US-based nationwide mobilization planned for March 28. That action is being organized by the No Kings coalition, which has put on several mass demonstrations across the nation in the past year. Though it is unclear if another cross-country day of outrage will take place before then, as people remain ready to respond to whatever news alert about DHS comes across their phones next.

On Friday, federal agents arrested Ian Austin, an Army veteran and ICE protester who was featured in a recent viral Mother Jones video. Austin was among the dozens of protesters who, nearly two weeks ago, interrupted a service at a church in St. Paul, where a local ICE official serves as a pastor. Since then, federal officials have been targeting those involved in the demonstration—including, today, journalist Don Lemon—and arresting them on federal charges. > “It’s fucking emotional as hell, and it’s scary,” he said over the phone > earlier in the week, “but I’m not going to live in fear.” I met Austin last week outside the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE operations are based and where there has been a standing protest for weeks. I was struck by the honesty and vulnerability he brought to the conversation; he was brought to tears by how betrayed he felt by the government he had fought for. “When they say, ‘Why would you be out here?’ How the fuck could I not be out here?” he said at the time. “My nation is under attack.” A few days earlier, Austin had been tackled and arrested for peacefully protesting outside the same building. He was detained for several hours—in shackles—before being released without charges.  In the days after we met, as news broke that some protesters from the church demonstration had been arrested, I checked in with Austin. Was he worried that he’d be next? “It’s fucking emotional as hell, and it’s scary,” he said over the phone, “but I’m not going to live in fear.” He added, “You guys want to arrest me for protesting and expressing our First Amendment rights in a church?…I’ll go down with the ship.” Austin was arrested on Friday outside the Whipple Building. Sarah Gad, a Minneapolis defense attorney who was there to see another client, happened to witness the arrest and was able to speak with him afterwards for a few minutes. “Federal agents just kind of swarmed this young man,” she said. “He wasn’t shouting or being boisterous. It just seemed like they were looking for him and they found him and they just kind of pounced.” Neither Austin nor Gad knew what he was being charged with. Austin is being held at the Sherburne County Jail, about 40 minutes from Minneapolis.

As January comes to a close, it should not just become a harrowing memory. The past four weeks are a harbinger of what is to come under President Donald Trump, as the administration showed exactly the future it is building: One in which the laws are ignored, American life is cheap, and elections are hijacked by FBI raids. This month, Americans have witnessed a lurch toward authoritarianism that cannot be ignored. If January 2026 was any indication, the march toward dictatorship isn’t linear, it’s exponential.  > The Trump administration has reached a point where they believe they can > simply shoot you for opposing its agenda. On January 3, the United States captured Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, and brought him to the US to stand trial. This was illegal. It doesn’t matter that Maduro was a dictator himself; his capture was a show of lawless force. The US is now overseeing the sale of Venezuelan oil, the Qatari bank account that holds the proceeds, and the dispersal of some of that money to Venezuela. Fresh off this literal coup, Trump began saber-rattling about taking Greenland, threatening Europe that he would even take it by force. Trump backed down after Europe rebuffed him, but it’s unlikely that his desire to appear big and strong by taking territory or invading other nations is over. Trump has not shied away from siccing an army on his own people. In Minneapolis, Trump’s immigration forces encountered organized and increasing resistance from protesters in the Twin Cities. In response, the government escalated their tactics. Thus far, armed federal agents have killed two American citizens, demonstrating that the price of opposing this administration can be your life. On January 7, Renée Good told Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross, “I’m not mad at you.” Seconds later, he shot her three times, and followed that by calling her a “fucking bitch.” Outrage and a general strike across the Twin Cities followed. But the Trump administration didn’t back down. His Justice Department attempted to investigate Good, presumably to back up their smear that the mother of three with stuffies in her glove compartment was a domestic terrorist. As the protests continued, the administration grew bolder. On January 24, a group of masked Customs and Border Protection agents shot Alex Pretti in what looked like a state-sanctioned execution from a distant totalitarian country. Pretti is on his knees, surrounded by officers, holding his phone, helpless, when he is shot in the back. At least nine more shots pierced his motionless body as it lay alone on the street. The Trump administration has reached a point where they believe they can simply shoot you for opposing its agenda. Then they set about smearing Pretti, an ICU nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, as a domestic terrorist.  The backlash was predictably fierce. When multiple Senate Democrats began announcing they would not back a DHS funding bill without reforms to ICE, the administration showed a smidge of contrition. It moved CBP commander and Nazi impersonator Greg Bovino, who defended Pretti’s murder with such brazen lies that he proved to be a liability, out of Minneapolis. Nearly a week after his killing, the administration announced it would launch a civil rights investigation into the CBP agents who shot Pretti. This is likely a PR stunt, to be run by the same Justice Department that has contorted the law to harass and smear the president’s opponents. There is no evidence that this administration has any desire to rein in or punish its immigration officers, and Americans should not be fooled by a few days of conciliatory talk. The administration is barreling full steam ahead.  For months now, ICE, CBP, and their leadership have played fast and loose with federal court orders. Bovino, for example, repeatedly lied to Sara Ellis, a Chicago-based federal judge—and she called him out for it. Notably, that was not the conduct that Bovino’s superiors had a problem with. Now, ICE appears to be disappearing people from Minnesota and refusing judicial orders to either defend the disappearances or return the people they have apprehended. On January 28, Patrick Schiltz, Minnesota’s chief federal district judge, issued an extraordinary order calling out ICE’s refusal to follow court orders. “Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases” in his state alone, he wrote. “The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges.” The violated orders are all habeas petitions, meaning the government has been asked to explain its arrest of an individual or to free that person, but it has simply refused. Schiltz continued: “This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” ICE, he continued, “is not a law unto itself.” But that’s exactly how this administration is determined to act. This week, I decided to look into how the Trump administration was ignoring Minnesotans’ Constitutional rights; the violations are innumerable, mounting to thousands per day. Federal agents are behaving like the First and Fourth amendments, in particular, do not apply to them; that witnessing and documenting their actions is a crime rather than a right; and that they can seize anyone they want—violently if they feel like it—rather than observe constitutional restraints on searches and seizures. The administration is not stopping at arresting protestors. On Thursday night, it arrested two journalists, prominent former CNN anchor Don Lemon and, on Friday morning, independent journalist Georgia Fort, who had both documented a protest at a church in St. Paul. Notably, both journalists are Black. “The nature of oppression in America is that they workshop it first on Black, Latino, Asian & Native people,” Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, posted on Bluesky of Lemon and Fort’s arrests. “But it is always, in the end, coming for everyone.” As if these facts weren’t alarming enough, the DOJ’s obsession with going after the two journalists led it on an unprecedented quest to convince federal judges to issue arrest warrants that the judges found frivolous. First, the government requested eight arrest warrants related to the protest. After a federal magistrate judge in Minnesota declined to issue warrants for Lemon, Fort, and three others, the DOJ asked the chief judge, Schiltz, to issue them. He refused, and the government went to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking it to force Schiltz to issue the warrants. The Eighth Circuit declined. Presumably, the government decided to get an indictment from a grand jury instead, but the source of authority for the arrests remained unclear as of Friday afternoon. President Trump’s second administration has inspired a resurgence of interest in the idea of the “dual state,” a framework for authoritarianism created by German Jewish lawyer Ernst Fraenkel to explain how life for many people in Nazi Germany appeared normal even as authoritarianism took hold. Fraenkel theorized that society had been bifurcated into a normative state, in which the rule of law appears intact, and a prerogative state, in which the state ignores the law to take on its enemies or further its aims. In the 1930s, most Germans could go about their lives assuming the general laws would apply, but the targets of the state, such as the Jews, saw their rights stripped away. At bottom, however, the dual state is only a useful mirage. It lulls people into complacency because their lives continue apace, but at any moment, they can be sucked into the prerogative state where they are at the mercy of the state.  University of Chicago law professor Aziz Huq, who is at work on a book about the dual state, has pointed out several examples from Fraenkel’s time as a lawyer in Nazi Germany that may seem eerily familiar to Americans in January 2026. In one, Fraenkel won a financial settlement for his client against the regime, only to discover that the money had been deposited in the government’s coffers. In another, a man was acquitted in court, only for a Gestapo officer to seize him anyway.  Over the last month, the contours of such a dual state have emerged again and again. When ICE detains people and then refuses to comply with judges’ orders—which happened at least 96 times this month, as Judge Schiltz documented—it is signaling that the targets of its raids have been taken not just into detention but into the prerogative state, where the rule of law cannot not reach them. When the government arrested Lemon and Fort even though multiple judges believed the charges were frivolous and refused to issue warrants, it refused to take no for an answer. Then there’s Juan Espinoza Martinez, who was acquitted by a federal jury of bogus charges that he ordered a hit on Bovino. Rather than let him go home, ICE picked up Espinoza Martinez, a Dreamer who has lived in the US since he was five years old. As of a few days ago, his family didn’t know where he was.  The bedrock of a democracy is the people’s ability to pick its leaders. On Wednesday, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots from the 2020 elections. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present at the scene, despite having no domestic law enforcement authority. She has been investigating the 2020 election, in which Trump lost to former President Joe Biden, to prove it was corrupt. But it would be naive to think that Trump’s obsession with his 2020 loss, and Wednesday’s raid, is just about the past. The administration is normalizing FBI raids on state and local election infrastructure. As election law expert Rick Hasen of the UCLA School of Law warned in Slate, the Fulton raid may be a “test run for messing with election administrators and the counting of ballots in the midterm elections in 2026.” The appearance of Gabbard at the raid is in line, Hasen points out, with election denier Cleta Mitchell’s suggestion that Trump could “declare a ‘national sovereignty crisis’ in a bid to take over the midterm elections.” Mitchell was on the famous 2020 call in which Trump demanded that the Georgia secretary of state “find” him the votes to win the state; this is not her first time trying to illegally overturn an election in Georgia. Trump attempted a chaotic and violent coup on January 6, 2021; it would be illogical to assume that he and his movement would relinquish power again. It is fitting that January was also the month that the world took a look at Donald Trump’s America and saw it for what it is: A bully that cannot be appeased any longer. Through his illegal attack on Venezuela, open designs on Greenland, not to mention murders on the seas and punitive and arbitrary tariffs, Trump has alienated longstanding allies. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called on nations to turn away from the post-World War II world order in which the United States is viewed as a leader and protector. “We are in the midst of a rupture,” he warned. America’s role at the head of international finance is also at stake, including Trump’s attempts to take over the Federal Reserve and US monetary policy, making the American dollar a risky bet for investors. The world is seeing Trump’s destruction of his own country for what it is; Americans should too. January 2026 has given us a frightening look into a future if the Trump administration continues its plans apace. ICE is buying up warehouses to convert into mass detention camps, and deploying dystopian tech tools to identify and track protestors as well as immigrants. ICE and CBP, the president’s violent paramilitary forces, have advertised their a willingness to break the law, to violate people’s rights, to ignore judges’ orders, and now to execute their critics. When they shot a defenseless man in the back in broad daylight, they showed who they were, and where they plan to go next. We’ve been warned.

Students at the University of Minnesota, united with hundreds of groups across the country, are imploring people, young and old, to join a general strike on Friday. No school, no work, no economic participation, all toward the goal of ceasing funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  The strike comes after weeks of the Department of Homeland Security occupying the Twin Cities and targeting immigrants at school, work, and home. And after federal agents on this campaign shot and killed two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti. As a part of the nationwide mobilization, students around the country are walking out of school to stand against President Donald Trump and DHS’s violent operations targeting American towns and cities.  Here’s a look: > I passed these amazing kids in Chamblee walking out of school to protest ICE. > Bravo, future, bravo. #walkoutGA #walkout #studentprotest #protest #abolishICE > > — MollyRoseWalker (@mollyrosewalker.bsky.social) 2026-01-30T06:33:42.793Z > HAPPENING NOW: KNOXVILLE/KNOX COUNTY students walk out to protest ICE (H/T > @votegloriaj.bsky.social ) > > — The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) 2026-01-30T16:07:59.407Z > Happening right now. Many schools, workplaces & businesses are joining in on a > national day of protest called “ice out day of action.” Here are teachers and > students at San Mateo high school before school this morning. Many students > will walk out at lunch to join nearby schools pic.twitter.com/NdsChcPImO > > — Will Tran (@KRON4WTran) January 30, 2026 > @yvonnebravo1 > > Agua Fria High School District students are walking out today, joining high > schools nationwide. They’re speaking truth to power and demanding action on > immigration because silence is no longer an option! > > ♬ original sound – Greatest Hits Ever! > TODAY: Thousands at UCLA walk out of class, calling for solidarity with > Minnesota and to demand ICE out of California. The walkout was organized by > UCLA’s student government along with the Afrikan Student Union and other > student clubs and organizations. > > — BreakThrough News (@btnewsroom.bsky.social) 2026-01-29T00:27:25.320810254Z > @telemundo.az > > En ASU los estudiantes protestan contra ICE como parte del Día de Paro > Nacional. #tempe #asu #paronacional #walkout @valentinasr_news > > ♬ original sound – telemundo.az – telemundo.az > BREAKING: Hundreds of Asheville High School students walk out of class to > demand a general strike, joining the national shutdown today to protest ICE > operations and Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. > > — BreakThrough News (@btnewsroom.bsky.social) 2026-01-30T17:33:36.473017581Z This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Simon and Mike are joined by American anarchist film maker Joel Sucher to chat about resistance to ICE in Minnesota, as well as Cuba’s oil crisis, new blockades of arms factories, and more … The post Anarchist News Review: Drawdown in Minnesota, arms disruption in the UK appeared first on Freedom News.

As the Trump administration continues to violently occupy Minnesota, the role of the defense tech firm Palantir—which continues to sell its data mining, automation, and surveillance technology to ICE—is coming under increasing scrutiny. A new tool, launched Thursday, follows the money making it happen. Palantir Payroll, the product of an effort by the campaign Purge Palantir, compiles data from FEC filings to account for the two-way cash flow: from the government to Palantir via contracts, and from company executives to elected officials.  The campaign’s Jacinta González, head of programs at the progressive communications shop MediaJustice, says the tool helps bring to light Palantir’s business model to “operate in the shadows” through lobbying and political donations. Palantir makes roughly half of its revenue through government sales, including a $30 million deal last April to build an “Immigration OS” to facilitate ICE’s “selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens,” according to the Washington Post. According to internal communications reviewed by WIRED, Palantir then began a six-month pilot supporting ICE in three major areas: “Enforcement Operations Prioritization and Targeting,” “Self-Deportation Tracking,” and “Immigration Lifecycle Operations focused on logistics planning and execution.” The program was renewed in September for an additional six-month period.  Earlier this month, 404 Media reported that Palantir is working on a tool for ICE that “populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a ‘confidence score’ on the person’s current address.” The tool reportedly obtains many target addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services—the White House granted ICE access to data on Medicaid enrollees last summer.   González has been organizing against immigrant detentions and deportations since the George W. Bush administration, under which ICE was founded; she says she’s seen over time how ICE adopted surveillance technology and data, and that Palantir Payroll “gives us the clarity to be able to demand something different.”  There are other valuable kinds of collective action around ICE’s suppliers, González says—she has seen students kicking out technology corporations holding recruiting events on campus and organizing at investor briefings within the financial sector—but even fundamental information about those firms’ funding and relationships with ICE can fly under the radar. In fact, as a Monday report in Wired notes, Palantir’s own employees—some of whom are openly disturbed by the firm’s ICE collaboration—rely on outside news reports for information on their employer’s practices. CTO Akash Jain reportedly responded to one query about Palantir’s work with ICE by saying that the company does “not take the position of policing the use of our platform for every workflow.” That attitude defines the company’s leadership. As Sophie Hurwitz wrote in Mother Jones last February, CEO Alex Karp said on an investor call following stock price surges that the company “is here to disrupt…and, when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” Since Palantir’s founding in 2003—the same year as ICE—by Karp and right-wing megadonor Peter Thiel, its tech has also reportedly been used to help make “kill lists” for the Israel Defense Forces. González says that successive governments, Democrats included, have let the Palantir-DHS relationship grow entrenched: Since 2013, Palantir has provided ICE with the systems it currently uses to look through people’s information through a network of federally and privately-owned databases. Elected officials, meanwhile, continue to take Palantir’s money. The top six Palantir-funded politicians—via the company’s corporate PAC or individual contributors employed there—are Donald Trump, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) The campaign includes a pledge for elected officials to commit to refusing Palantir-linked donations in the lead-up to the midterm elections.  “The only way that we’re able to win against a company that has as much power and influence as Palantir, is if as many people get involved as possible,” she said.