Gestapo USA

The comments celebrating Renee Good's death reveal a pattern familiar to anyone who has studied authoritarian movements. It's the same impulse that filled Roman coliseums & medieval execution squares.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7342647

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/19977

Amid heated protests in Minneapolis following the killing of Renee Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross, federal agents have repeatedly invoked Good’s death to threaten the lives of observers and demonstrators in Minnesota.

In multiple confrontations in the Minneapolis area, agents repeatedly referred to civilians learning their lesson — in an apparent nod to the use of deadly force in Ross’s killing. In a video posted to Reddit, a masked ICE agent can be heard repeatedly admonishing a driver to “go home to your kids.”

“Stop fucking following us,” the ICE agent screams.

Phil Maddox, a local resident, told The Intercept he recorded the video on Sunday morning during a quick drive around his neighborhood to keep tabs on federal agents in the area. After briefly following one unmarked car, he said another car boxed him into an alley, and he found himself surrounded by agents, including at least one with his gun drawn.

As the video continues, Maddox pans his phone camera to reveal another agent standing by the passenger-side door with a handgun drawn. Stomping back past the car, the first agent continues his tirade, telling Maddox that he won’t “like the outcome” if he follows the agents.

“You did not learn from what just happened?” the ICE agent asks. “Go home to your kids.” Maddox said he immediately interpreted the question as a threat.

“They’re saying, ‘Get in our way and we’ll shoot you,’” Maddox said. “‘We have immunity, we can do what we want, and you should fear us.’”

Understanding what “learning your lesson” means as a warning goes beyond Maddox.The phrasing has been widely interpreted as a threat by protesters, activists, and advocates on the ground in Minneapolis.

“That’s a veiled threat, 1,000 percent,” Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for the immigrant rights group Unidos Minnesota, told The Intercept. “They can’t exactly say it, but the way they reference Renee Good — they’re using that to strike fear.”

“That’s a veiled threat, 1,000 percent.”

The threats have come amid broader scenes of violence inflicted against protesters in the Twin Cities by roving bands of ICE and Border Patrol agents. Thousands of agents have been deployed in phases by President Donald Trump as part of a massive immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities. Over the weekend, agents were captured on camera pepper-spraying observers and smashing car windows while followed closely by protesters blowing whistles and yelling at them. (The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE and Border Patrol, did not respond to a request for comment.)

“This is a classic situation of overreacting, over-policing, and ultimately use of excessive force,” said Andrew G. Celli Jr., an attorney specializing in police misconduct and constitutional rights. “It’s tragic but predictable that the reaction has been as strong as it has been. And of course, when you have that kind of reaction that gets provoked, then the police, whose job it is to oversee and control crowds and demonstrations — they can sometimes overreact, and so it becomes a vicious cycle.”

On Sunday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that hundreds more federal agents would be deploying to the region, adding to the more than 2,000 agents who made up the surge that began on January 6. The violence continued on Monday as federal agents unleashed clouds of tear gas on a residential street, according to footage posted to social media.

Monday’s clashes set the stage for a lawsuit filed by state and local officials in Minnesota seeking to end Trump’s surge of federal agents, which the administration claims is aimed at combating social-services fraud in the state.

In an 80-page complaint filed in Minnesota District Court, the state of Minnesota, joined by the city governments of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, detailed a litany of abuses by federal agents under the aegis of what the Trump Administration has dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” and the social, political, and economic impact it has had on the state. The suit, led by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, demands an end to the operation.

[

Related

We Asked for ICE Bodycam Footage. DHS Claims They Don’t Have It.](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/09/dhs-kristi-noem-ice-bodycam-records-foia/)

“When the federal government itself violates legal rights and civic norms on such a broad scale and public panic is high, state and city governments bear the costs—both tangible and intangible,” the complaint read. “Defendants’ agents’ reckless tactics endanger the public safety, health, and welfare of all Minnesotans. Additionally, Defendants’ agents’ inflammatory and unlawful policing tactics provoke the protests the federal government seeks to suppress.”

More than one agent has been caught on camera in recent days invoking the idea of “learning” a “lesson.” In a video posted to TikTok, one federal agent warns two separate people in separate vehicles that they have not learned the lessons of recent days — an apparent allusion to the killing of Good.

@milaisconfused44♬ original sound – mila⸆⸉

“You don’t fucking learn — what’s fuckin’ happened in the last couple of days,” the agent says to someone as two other agents pat down the occupants of a car. Seconds later, the agent approaches a woman filming from a second vehicle and issues a similar warning.

“Listen, have y’all not learned from the past couple of days?” says the agent, who was clad in tactical gear without any insignia identifying his agency. “Have you not learned?”

“Learned what?” the woman responds. “What’s our lesson here? What do you want us to learn?”

In response, the agent appears to swat at the phone in the woman’s hand.

“Following fucking federal agents,” he says, before the video cuts out.

It was unclear what happened after the apparent swat at the phone, but the original poster of the video later said on TikTok that both she and the woman filming were safe.

Numerous other videos have captured agents violently attacking protesters, including one agent who appeared to tackle a man filming an interaction in the street, another chasing down and tackling a man at a gas station, and multiple agents piling onto a Richfield Target employee in the store entryway.

In multiple instances, agents can be heard accusing protesters of impeding their efforts. Filming the police, though, is not a crime. A majority of courts repeatedly and across jurisdictions have held that there is a constitutional right to record police and other law enforcement carrying out their duties in public places, so long as an observer doesn’t interfere with officials and complies with reasonable orders, such as keeping a safe distance.

[

Read our complete coverage

Chilling Dissent ----------------](https://theintercept.com/collections/chilling-dissent/)

“You can follow them around, you can film them, you can say, ‘Hey, fuckhead,’” said Celli, who is a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP. “But I will tell you, after 25 years of representing people who do just that: You will likely get arrested. The Constitution is only as good as the people willing to follow it.”

Adding to the chaos, Celli said, is the fact that the agents from ICE and Border Patrol may be out of their depth when it comes to street-level enforcement.

“These guys are not street cops,” Celli said. “They’re not accustomed to this, and they’re not trained for this. This isn’t what they’re supposed to be doing.”

Maddox, who remained calm throughout the recorded interaction on Sunday, said only later did fear set in over what could have happened. He remained angry, however, about the impact that the raids were having on his children and on his neighbors, many of whom are Latino.

“No one feels safer with [ICE] here,” he said. “My kids are scared their friends are going to get nabbed, or that their friends’ parents or relatives or their neighbors will get nabbed.”

The post Federal Agents Keep Invoking Killing of Renee Good to Threaten Protesters in Minnesota appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7329957

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/19533

President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday that "reckoning and retribution is coming" to the state of Minnesota as new reports documented the brutal actions of federal immigration agents throughout the US.

In a Truth Social post that was amplified by the official White House rapid response account on X, Trump addressed Minnesota residents and asked them if they "really want to live in a community in which their (sic) are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts,removeds, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign asylums and mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention."

In reality, the operations being done in Minneapolis and across the US by federal immigration agents have little to do with taking violent criminals off the streets.

Recently released data flagged by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, shows that a plurality of people detained by ICE in recent months have no prior criminal convictions.

Trump ended his message with an all-caps declaration to "FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!"

Trump's vow of retribution came just hours after ProPublica published a lengthy investigation documenting 40 instances in which federal immigration agents across the country used "chokeholds and other moves that can block breathing," including nearly 20 instances where agents "appeared to use chokeholds and other neck restraints that the Department of Homeland Security prohibits 'unless deadly force is authorized.'"

The publication also identified several videos in which federal immigration agents were kneeling on the backs of people's necks, similar to the way that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd as he suffocated to death in 2020.

Eric Balliet, a former law enforcement official who worked at both Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol, told ProPublica that he has never seen immigration agents use such tactics before, even if they were arrested people suspected of serious crimes.

"I arrested dozens upon dozens of drug traffickers, human smugglers, child molesters—some of them will resist," he said. "I don’t remember putting anybody in a chokehold. Period."

Arnoldo Bazan, a 16-year-old US citizen who was put into a chokehold by federal immigration agents last year, told ProPublica that he "felt like I was going to pass out and die" because of it.

MPR News reported on Tuesday that immigration agents in Minneapolis have apparently been using license plate readers to identify local activists who have been observing and documenting operations in their neighborhoods.

John Boehler, a policy counsel with the ACLU of Minnesota, told MPR News that the agents' actions appear to violate Minnesota state law, which says accessing people's personal data in this manner can only be done if they are suspects in an active criminal investigation.

There is no reason, Boehler emphasized, that observers should be under any kind of criminal probe.

“Following or observing or reporting on federal agencies or federal activities is not a criminal activity—it's protected First Amendment activity,” Boehler explained. "To be using those cameras, to use those license plate readers, to surveil protesters has a chilling effect on First Amendment rights, and that's what we think the goal is."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7329908

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/19544

Since the murder of Renee Nicole Good and the U.S. attack on Venezuela, an emerging movement has taken the streets to oppose Trump’s reactionary and authoritarian agenda.

This weekend saw thousands of people mobilize across the country — including in Detroit — to demand justice for Good, no war on Venezuela, and for ICE to get out of our communities.

Detroit Will Breathe (DWB) brought together a coalition to organize a press conference and rally to bring the voice of the movement to the doorsteps of Detroit City Hall. The organization is hoping to turn up the heat on city officials while uniting different groups across the city.

The press conference and rally is supported by the People’s Assembly/Asamblea Popular, Detroit Justice Center, Black Lives Matter Detroit, the Metro Detroit DSA, We The People Dissent, The Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability, Moratorium NOW!, and Anti-Fascist Organizing Committee.

The press conference also featured clergy, legal and civil right advocates, and elected officials who want an end to ICE activity in Detroit and across the state.

Throughout the speeches, political activists and elected officials described the fear that many in the immigrant community feel of ICE deporting their families. One notable example was from State Senator Chang, who tearfully described numerous instances of people being detained due not having the proper paperwork, being shuffled to different facilities to a point where families could not locate their family members and even those who have died while under ICE detention.

Labor, Churches, and Major Social Justice Organizations Must Act

A central aspect of the press conference was to call for action by labor, churches, and traditional civil rights groups in Detroit to mobilize to fight Trump. The only time Detroiters have made meaningful gains is when they have mobilized. It was workers fighting in Detroit that helped build the labor movement in the early 20th Century. And it was Black workers and community members mobilizing against police brutality that got the violently racist S.T.R.E.S.S. police squad disbanded in the 1970s.

Today, we need the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), The Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and others to mobilize their base to join the movement against Trump. As Left Voice member and SEIU member Julia Wallace from Los Angeles explains, we need the combativeness of BLM, the internationalism of the pro-Palestine movement, and the workers power of Italy’s “Block Everything” general strike.

Coalition Work Based on Class Independence

DWB believes the current moment calls for broad unity against Trump’s reactionary attacks. The group seeks to amplify anyone prepared to speak out against the president and call on people to mobilize, even progressive elected officials. However, the movement must have space where it can organize itself collectively, democratically, and on a politically independent basis — even when it shares space with politicians ready to speak out. Many have been frustrated by the Democrats’ failure to be a strong and consistent opposition to Trump.

The Democrats who run Detroit City Hall should have banned ICE from operating on city property, stopped sharing information and co-operating with ICE years ago. And it should do it now.

If ICE is kicked out of Detroit, it will be because of our organizing and mobilizing from the bottom up. That is why DWB is part of Detroit People’s Assembly/Asamblea Popular and is promoting mass meetings where organizations and individuals can get together to organize and discuss and debate strategy for the movement.

The next mass meeting is January 17, 3-5pm at Central United Methodist Church on 2026 Woodward Ave. in Detroit. For more information, follow DWB’s on Instagram.

The post Activists Hold Press Conference and Rally to Demand “ICE Out of Detroit” appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7339574

text before section

North End resident describes ICE asking about Asian neighbors

Elizabeth Lugert-Thom, of St. Paul, warned people on social media last week that two men came to her door in the North End on Wednesday. One had a badge hanging around his neck and she could make out “HS” on it and may have said “Homeland” on it, leading her to believe it was a Homeland Security badge.

“They did not identify themselves,” she said Monday. “They just starting asking questions and showed me a picture and asked if I knew who this person was.” She didn’t and told them so.

“They said, ‘This is for your safety. We need to find this person,’” according to Lugert-Thom, who said she doesn’t know why they came to her home.

“They specifically asked me if I knew where the Hmong families lived on my street and in the neighborhood.”

Lugert-Thom responded, “I don’t know anything about that” and she said they then asked, “Well, what about the Asian families?” She also told them she didn’t know, so they would leave.

She said she posted about it on Facebook because “I was a bit shaken and a bit shocked of what I was asked to do.”

text after

City Council Member HwaJeong Kim, who is a volunteer with the Immigrant Defense Network and who represents Lugert-Thom’s ward, said she’s hearing frequently from neighborhood networks about people being taken into custody.

“They took someone walking on the sidewalk this morning in my ward before 9:30 this morning,” Kim said Monday. “… Rolled up, took them, gone.

“We already knew that they were doing it, and now they’re just not even hiding. … If you are Black, if you’re Brown, if you are Asian, Latina, even Indigenous, if you are just not white, at this point, you are a target.”

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7310209

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/19016

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem sat for a live interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday morning about the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration agent last week and lied straight through her teeth to the American public about what happened.

Since Good was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross on Wednesday, members of the Trump administration have consistently tried to portray the shooting as justified despite indisputable video evidence contradicting their false claims and narratives.

Noem, who released her first statement on the shooting within three hours of Good's killing, has joined Vice President JD Vance as the leading liars and propagandists—with plenty of help from people like Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the US Department of Homeland Security, and Border Czar Tom Homan—within the Trump administration.

In her exchange with Tapper, who confronted Noem over the blatant chasm between her claims about what happened—she called Good a "domestic terrorist" who "attacked" federal agents—and what anyone with two good eyes who watches the variety of videos made public of the shooting can plainly see for themselves.

Tapper: Why did you not wait for an investigation before making your comments?

Noem: Well, everything that I've said has been proven to be factual, and the truth.

Tapper: With all due respect the first thing you said was not what happened.

Noem: It absolutely is pic.twitter.com/0yGeWSr9aa
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 11, 2026

Various angles of the video, including audio from Good's final moments, have shown that she was not "yelling" at officers or "attacking" them in any way. Video shows several vehicles driving around her car in the minutes prior to the shooting. Good has a visible smile on her face when she says, directly to Ross as he circles her car, "That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you." Detailed analyses of the footage shows Ross could just as easily have stepped aside—without drawing and firing his weapon—in order to dodge the moving car, which he did—even with firing the fatal shots—without injury or harm to others.

Asked by Tapper why she did not wait for the full facts before speaking out publicly to demonize Good and defend the officer, Noem falsely claimed that "everything that I've said has been proven to be factual, and the truth."

That's a lie.

"With all due respect," Tapper responded, "the first thing you said was not what happened."

"It is absolutely what happened," Noem said, lying once again about her initial comments and their relationship to what factually transpired.

"It should be terrifying to every American how Noem lies," said James Abrenio, a criminal defense attorney, in a social media post on Sunday. "She doesn't sweat or move uncomfortably. She just doesn't care. This is what Trump has created. An environment where you only get in trouble if you don't lie. Even about an officer shooting a woman in the face on video."

Noem, in the interview, goes on to claim that Good's behavior fits the textbook definition of "domestic terrorism," despite scores of law enforcement and civil liberties experts who have reviewed the video saying that Ross' behavior betrayed basic police training about how to deal with a routine traffic stop or de-escalate a situation involving a motor vehicle in a roadway.

When Tapper tries to pin Noem down, asking her to explain what she thinks Good was trying to do when she moved her car, the secretary deflects by saying the real "question" should be why are people—in this case a broadcast journalist—"arguing with the president who is trying to keep people safe?"

— (@)

Noem's overt gaslighting—telling the public something objectively contrary to available facts—has become part and parcel of the Trump administration's Orwellian approach in the president's second term.

"Kristi Noem is a stone-cold liar who has zero credibility," said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the minority leader in the House, on Friday in reaction to her earlier comments about the case. "There is nothing to suggest the shooting of an unarmed woman in Minneapolis was justified. This heinous killing must be criminally investigated to the full extent of the law."

On Friday, T**he Guardian documented a litany of false claims made Noem, Trump, McLaughlin, and others, comparing them against what is factually known based on video evidence and eye-witness accounts:

The claim

“ … rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them – an act of domestic terrorism” – post on X by the Department of Homeland Security.

The reality

There is simply no evidence that Good was “a violent rioter” or “domestic terrorist”. No riot was taking place before her encounter with the ICE agents, and the department could not yet have been certain of her identity at 12.43pm, the time the message was posted. There is no evidence that Good – a poet and mother – was a terrorist.

The claim

“ … the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer” – post on Truth Social by Donald Trump.

The reality

Video of the incident shows that Good was not “disorderly”, and had reversed her car and allowed at least one ICE vehicle to pass before other agents confronted her. A separate video clearly shows that the officer who fired the fatal shots walked up to the front of Good’s car, which was turning away from him as it began to move forward, and he remained on his feet as the vehicle passed him.

The claim

“An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots … The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries” – Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security assistant secretary, in a post on X.

The reality

The officer who killed Good was not in the pathway of her car when he began firing, analysis of the video shows. Two other officers were beside the car, and no members of the public were seen to be in harm’s way. There is no evidence that any ICE officer was injured.

According to The Atlantic's Adam Serwer, such "blatant lies" by the administration in the wake of Good's killing serve various purposes:

They perpetuate the false narrative that federal agents are in constant peril and therefore justified in using lethal force at the slightest hint of danger. They assure federal agents that they can harm or even kill American citizens with impunity, and warn those who might be moved to protest Trump’s immigration policies of the same thing. Perhaps most grim, they communicate to the public that if you happen to be killed by a federal agent, your government will bear false witness to the world that you were a terrorist.

Following the DHS secretary's latest comments on Sunday, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, also speaking on Tapper's show, said Noem "needs to resign or be impeached."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7301401

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18747

Amelia Schafer
ICT

At least five Native American men have been detained and an unknown number questioned by immigration officers across the Minneapolis area in the midst of what a top official called the “largest immigration raid ever.”

After 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived in Minneapolis early this week, Indigenous residents on the city’s southside have witnessed agents question and even detain community members. Blocks away from a local Native American housing community, a 37-year-old mother was shot by ICE agents Wednesday, sparking nationwide protests.

“I think some of them [ICE] don’t even know what they’re doing or where they’re at,” said Little Crow Belcourt, White Earth Ojibwe and the director of the Indigenous Peoples Movement. “They’re just pulling people over at random, if you’re Brown. Some of our Native (American) people get mistaken for our relatives south of the border.”

Minneapolis’ southside, particularly around Franklin Avenue East, has historically been an area for Indigenous people to gather and live. South Side Housing was first taken over by the Indigenous community in 1975, when it became Little Earth, and since then the area has become the center for the Indigenous community. Community members often call Little Earth an urban reservation, Belcourt said.

On Tuesday, ICE agents attempted to enter Little Earth Housing Project property. Little Earth is the first Native American community housing project in the United States. Property managers told ICT they informed ICE that they were not welcome and turned agents away.

Early Friday morning, ICE agents attempted to detain another Native American community member, Rachel Dionne-Thunder, co-founder of the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement, who was sitting in her car down the street from the Powwow Grounds coffee shop.

Coffee shop workers told ICT they ran outside to stop the agents and protect Dionne-Thunder, who recorded the incident on Facebook live.

Under a bridge near Little Earth, agents detained four Native American men, all citizens of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, according to tribal President Frank Star Comes Out. At least one of the men has been freed after a 12-hour hold, but the community is unaware of his whereabouts, a community advocate from Homeward Bound, a southside homeless advocacy center, told ICT on Friday.

On Thursday, a Red Lake Nation descendant, Jose Roberto “Beto” Ramirez, was detained by ICE in a northern Minneapolis suburb as he was driving to visit his aunt.

Star Comes Out said the tribe’s attorneys have reached out to Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, White Earth Ojibwe, to learn more about where the Oglala Lakota men are being held. The names of the four men are not yet available.

Right now, the tribe is working with Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, Democratic-Farmer-Labor-Farmer-Labor, her office told ICT.

“Native people have been here since time immemorial – there’s no one that has been a citizen of this country longer than us,” Flanagan told ICT. “The obvious racial profiling happening to our community is disgraceful. My heart breaks to hear about what’s happening and it pisses me off. ICE is doing nothing but making our communities less safe. They need to get out of Minnesota and leave us alone. To Indian Country – take care of each other, protect each other, and continue to have each other’s backs. I’m with you. This won’t be the last you hear from me on this.”

Star Comes Out said once tribal attorneys can locate the four men they plan to provide documentation of their citizenship and tribal membership status. The tribal president said the men were homeless and therefore unable to supply sufficient documentation of their own during the interaction.

Ramirez, the Red Lake man, was detained by ICE sometime after calling his aunt at 11 a.m. Thursday to tell her he was being followed by a black Ford SUV with at least four men inside, according to his aunt, Shawntia Sosa-Clara. Ramirez was driving to visit Sosa-Clark at her home in Crystal, Minnesota, directly outside of Minneapolis.

Jose Roberto Ramirez after graduating high school. (Photo courtesy of Shawntia Sosa-Clara).

On Wednesday, nearly 24 hours before Ramirez reported being followed, Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent outside her residence on the city’s southside. That same morning, residents at Little Earth, a Native American residential neighborhood on the southside, reported ICE agents entering the building and dragging out individuals.

On Thursday evening, Ramirez was released from the Whipple Building in Minneapolis, where relatives were turned away earlier in the day while attempting to locate him and provide his passport and birth certificate.

When Ramirez realized he was being followed, he called his aunt Shawntia Sosa-Clara for help.

Over the phone, Sosa-Clara told Ramirez to stay calm, listen to the agents and stop at the HyVee Grocery Store in Robbinsdale, near where he was currently driving. Sosa-Clara called 911, informed them of the situation and quickly arrived and parked next to her nephew, who entered her vehicle.

Moments later approximately five ICE agents holding firearms exited the vehicle that had been following Ramirez. Sosa-Clara immediately began recording on her cellphone, which she posted to her Facebook page.

“I said, ‘This is my nephew, he’s a citizen, we’re Native,’” Sosa-Clara told ICT. Robbinsdale Police Department had already arrived at the scene, but did not intervene as shown by live footage on Sosa-Clara’s Facebook page.

ICE has not responded to ICT on why they were pursuing Ramirez or where he was taken.

In the video, agents are heard requesting to scan Ramirez’s face when moments later he’s struck by ICE agents on his face and body. Sosa-Clara is shown attempting to shield and pull back her nephew from agents before another ICE agent steps forward and restrains her.

Ramirez is then removed from his aunt’s vehicle and held over a HyVee customer’s vehicle while five agents handcuff him.

“Why couldn’t you help us?” Sosa-Clara said to Robbinsdale police officers.

But the Robbinsdale Police Department couldn’t do anything but observe the situation, said Capt. John Elder.

Elder said Robbinsdale police don’t have jurisdiction over federal investigations, and cannot interfere.

“It was wholly their [ICE’s] incident,” Elder told ICT.

Federal agents stand outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building as protesters gather in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)

Sosa-Clara said the family was later connected to Ramirez through a lawyer who informed them ICE agents are alleging Ramirez struck them first. Red Lake’s legal department was able to provide assistance to Ramirez and his family, Red Lake Nation Chairman Darrell G. Seki Sr. told ICT on Friday.

The family descends from the Red Lake Nation, Sosa-Clara said. While not enrolled, Sosa-Clara and Ramirez’s mother are descendants of the Red Lake Nation through their maternal great-grandparents who were the last to be enrolled. Red Lake Nation requires enrollees to possess one-quarter blood quantum for enrollment.

Because of his status as a descendant, Ramirez does not possess a tribal ID, something that saved another tribal member questioned by ICE in Minneapolis earlier, according to Red Lake tribal employees.

According to Joe Plummer, attorney for the Red Lake Nation, another tribal member had been questioned by ICE prior to this incident and was released when the individual produced a tribal ID.

A search by ICT of US federal inmate records and ICE detainees at Minnesota’s three partner facilities did not produce responsive records regarding Ramirez.

On the south side of Minneapolis, community advocate Jearica Fountain, Karuk Tribe, said she’s heard numerous reports of ICE encounters with Native Americans.

“Native Americans are being detained, but then no one knows where to find them to bring in verification to show they’re Native American,” Fountain said.

The United States Government’s searchable database of ICE detainees does not allow for the selection of “United States” as an individual’s birth country, making it complicated and impossible to search for citizens detained.

On Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at least 100 people have been detained from Minneapolis this week.

Little Earth housing

Fountain, a longtime resident of Minneapolis, said community members at Little Earth reported, and documented video, of at least three individuals being removed by ICE from the facility.

One community member told ICT the agents appeared to be targeting maintenance workers and parents dropping children off at the Little Earth Daycare center, a predominantly Native childcare center.

Minneapolis’s southside is also home to a significant number of Somali refugees, who have recently become the target of a federal probe into childcare fraud, prompting ICE’s recent visit to the city.

Following the killing of Renee Good, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have requested the removal of ICE from the state.

Fountain said she fears that the Native community of south Minneapolis is being targeted by ICE.

“I wasn’t sure if their intention is to go after Native Americans specifically, or maybe there are outsiders who don’t know about the large Native American community here and what tribal identification looks like,” she said.

South Minneapolis is a “cultural corridor,” Fountain said. The area includes Indian Health Service facilities, the American Indian Center and other cultural programs.

Fountain began posting on Facebook about ICE presence in south Minneapolis following the raid of Little Earth. After her initial posts, Fountain said community members began to reach out for help and resources.

“The day started with them going after the Native community and not long after that [the killing of Good] happened,” Fountain said. “A white woman was (killed) and Native Americans were attacked, and that was a shock to the community… anyone can be targeted.”

Fountain said another large concern is that ICE agents are racially profiling Native people, mistaking them for central and South American immigrants.

Demonstrators rally before marching to the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, as they protest against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

In November, Leticia Jacobo, Salt River Pima, was mistakenly flagged as an undocumented immigrant by the Polk County Sheriff’s Department in central Iowa. Jacobo’s family feared the error occurred because of her surname, which is Spanish in origin.

Polk County Sheriff’s Department Officials said Jacobo’s flagging was a “clerical error” as officers were looking for another inmate by that name to slate for deportation.

There’s a lack of data on how many American Indian or Alaska Native people have been stopped, questioned or detained by ICE. This is partially due to a lack of reporting, but also the Homeland Security department’s consistent denial that any U.S. citizen has been detained.

Following the killing of Good and an ICE raid at a public high school, several tribal organizations in Minneapolis have closed for the remainder of the week.

As of Thursday evening, the Red Lake Nation, Fond Du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe have all issued statements condemning ICE’s actions and presence in Minneapolis.

This is a developing story. Check for updates at www.ictnews.org.

Editor’s note: ICT identifies Ramirez as a descendant because his maternal great-grandparents were enrolled members of the Red Lake Nation.

The post Five Native Americans detained by ICE during ongoing raids in Minneapolis appeared first on ICT.

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liberalism <---> fascism

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7310298

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18853

Israel fanatic, “anti-Muslim extremist” Florida congressman Randy Fine has threatened US citizens with murder if they dare to resist Donald Trump’s fascist ‘ICE’ thugs.

Speaking to Newsmax, Fine claimed that the aggressors are ‘the left’ — echoing equally deranged White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. This is an outright lie, one that is entirely in line with Trump’s fictitious ‘antifa terrorist organisation’.

But then, chillingly, he said that if anyone gets in ICE’s way, “you’re gonna end up just like” Minneapolis mum Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered at point-blank range this week by ICE thug Jonathan Ross:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/fine-renee.mp4

Trump’s fascists are never afraid to say the quiet part out loud. They would then lie and smear to try to avoid scrutiny. Under Trump, the US is a rogue, terrorist state — its victims now include its own people.

Featured image via CAIR

By Skwawkbox

From Canary via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7301383

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18847

Kalle Benalie
ICT

Elected Native officials, business owners and organizers are reacting to the ICE shooting in Minneapolis that left one woman dead on Jan. 7.

Renee Good, 37, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during a raid in a Minneapolis neighborhood. Her death ignited a large crowd of protestors and a call to stop ICE’s operations and the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Jonathan Juarez, Pueblos of Laguna and Isleta, spoke at a vigil for Good at the University of New Mexico bookstore on Jan. 8 as an organizer from the Southwest Solidarity Network, which partnered with the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Juarez said it was important for him to be there to show support from those in Albuquerque to Minneapolis but also as an Indigenous person whose history is connected to colonial violence from the U.S. government like boarding schools.

Signs people used at the vigil for Renee Good at the University of New Mexico bookstore on the evening of Jan. 8. (Photo by Kalle Benallie, ICT)

“I would say as Indigenous people, we need to acknowledge that migration is a right, and it is something that has been practiced here on these lands long before the United States ever had any established borders,” Juarez said. “And more broadly looking at the patterns of fascism throughout history, we know that this is what the beginning stages of every fascist empire regime looked like. We need to be sounding the alarms and telling people today, it is immigrants and it is trans people, and it is these marginalized people, tomorrow it could be anybody.”

He added the turnout for the vigil was “a really beautiful message of solidarity.”

“It was great, especially considering it was snowing and sleeting and hailing, and it was that freezing wind chill,” Juarez said.

A vigil table for Renee Good, who was killed on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis. A crowd of people attended the event to demand justice and end ICE raids in front of the University of New Mexico bookstore on Jan. 8 . (Photo by Kalle Benallie, ICT)

Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, responded on [X] about Good.

“The tragic killing of an American citizen in Minnesota has left her children without a parent. Instead of spreading misinformation or stoking hate, we need a full, transparent, independent investigation to get the facts, ensure accountability, and prevent this kind of heartbreak from happening in communities anywhere in our country,” Davids said.

Senator Markwayne Mullin, Cherokee, from Oklahoma released a video on [X] explaining how the ICE agent responded to Good’s alleged lethal force with lethal force.

“It’s unfortunate but I support DHS and what they had to do to keep their men and women safe to bring federal fugitives to justice,” he said. “It should have never taken place because those people should have never been out there to begin with. We should be supporting our law enforcement.”

The president of Ho-Chunk Nation, which is east of Minnesota, Jon Greendeer, released a statement on Facebook. He asked for justice for Good and her family, as well as saying ICE is not welcome on Ho-Chunk land in Wisconsin.

“I hold a position which requires me to work with government and find solutions. I will not be found sitting anywhere with ICE at the table. When my family is threatened like so many have been by them, don’t expect me to preserve any type presidential decorum. I’ll be with our Bears and Warriors,” Greendeer said.

In North Dakota, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Steve Sitting Bear issued a statement Friday, Jan. 9, addressing public safety concerns. He said his staff is working on establishing a “Know Your Rights” phone line and advised “all First Nations people to carry your tribal information as a practical measure.”

“Any ICE presence or activity within our lands is not authorized, not welcome, and will be addressed,” Sitting Bear said in the statement. “Unauthorized personnel will be escorted off our lands.”

The Owamni restaurant, owned by Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman, said they are donating 10 percent of all sales on Jan. 10 and Jan. 11 to Good’s family. Owamni is located in Minneapolis.

“Sending support for her family during this time of grief feels like the right thing to do. We hold Renee in our hearts and send love, strength, and calm to her family for their horrific unnecessary loss,” the statement said.

The post Indian Country reactions to Minnesota ICE shooting appeared first on ICT.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7283786

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18367

A memorial set up by community members following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis on Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Jaida Grey Eagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It didn’t take long at all for videos to emerge from the scene of the fatal shooting by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during a raid in Minneapolis on Wednesday. And, just as quickly, the videos became a kind of Zapruder film, weaponized by people desperate to misinterpret events everyone can see with their own eyes to justify an innocent woman’s death.

It’s more critical than ever to trust what you’re seeing with your own eyes. The Trump administration’s spin of these events — of a brutal terrorist attack by a 37-year-old mom against a federal agent just out there doing his job to make us safer — is quite plainly not backed up by these videos. Who are you going to believe, they seem to be asking us: Our official version, or your own lying eyes?

The Trump administration’s spin of these events is quite plainly not backed up by these videos.

Here’s what the videos show to anyone able to think critically and with a conscience: Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, was in the driver’s seat of a red car. Good appears to be waving vehicles to pass her, as if she’s directing traffic to proceed past her in an orderly way.

As immigration agents approach the driver’s side door, one can be heard telling her, “Get out of the fucking car.” It’s hard to tell which agent is speaking, given their propensity for masking their faces to avoid public scrutiny or the consequences of their actions. One of the agents then starts pulling at the door handle of Good’s car, and she starts to pull away.

At this point, another agent, whom The Intercept identified as Jonathan Ross, can then be heard firing multiple shots at close range, killing her.

In another video taken in the aftermath of the shots, a woman sits on the snow-covered ground, howling in unimaginable pain, saying, “They killed my wife.” She adds, “They shot her in the head.” She can also be heard saying they have a 6-year-old at school.

A man can be seen in a separate video, identifying himself as a physician, pleading with the officers to be allowed to check Good for a pulse. An officer responds, “I don’t care,” and the doctor is prevented from approaching the victim.

There is real truth in these videos if you trust your own eyes and ears.

[

Related

ICE Agent Who Shot Renee Nicole Good Identified as Jonathan Ross](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/08/ice-agent-identified-shooting-minneapolis-jonathan-ross/)

The preferred video “angle” for conservatives, however, was published by local news station ABC 5. On Truth Social, President Donald Trump pointed to “the attached clip” as evidence that “the woman screaming” — Good’s apparent wife — was a “professional agitator.”

“The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive,” Trump wrote. “The situation is being studied, in its entirety.”

Vice President JD Vance hopped on the bandwagon on Twitter. He reposted someone else’s declaration that the angle of the ABC video “settles it.” “Correct. You can accept that this woman’s death is a tragedy while acknowledging it’s a tragedy of her own making,” Vance chimes in. “Don’t illegally interfere in federal law enforcement operations and try to run over our officers with your car. It’s really that simple.”

In establishing the administration’s official narrative, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem laid out “the facts,” saying Good proceeded to “weaponize her vehicle, and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over. This appears as an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism.”

Noem also said the ICE officer was treated at a local hospital and released, which would seem to indicate that whatever injuries he apparently sustained as he killed a civilian were far from life-threatening.

That is simply not what the ABC video, which is low resolution and shot at a greater distance than the others, shows. As the New York Times — which ran the classic both-sides headline “One Video of a Fatal ICE Shooting, Two Opposite Views” — found in its analysis of the videos, Ross was not in the vehicle’s path. He was not struck by the vehicle. Even if you interpret the ABC video in the most generous-to-ICE way, which fewer and fewer Americans are inclined to do, you do not see Ross dragged by Good’s car. You don’t even see him knocked down by the alleged impact of the car.

But we’re being told not to trust our lying eyes.

[

Read our complete coverage

Chilling Dissent ----------------](https://theintercept.com/collections/chilling-dissent/)

This is all part of a coordinated campaign to distort what we know when we refuse to look away from state-sanctioned violence. It’s an effort to misconstrue where the violent act actually resides in the videos. “Sure, a lady was killed,” the Trump administration is telling us, “but first she tried to kill one of our guys, the people who really matter, with her car.” In other words, the ends always justify the means.

The bad actors pushing this alternate version of events couldn’t have more of a vested interest in seeing ICE’s campaign of terror continue at any cost. Violence is inherent in these raids, and the deportation machine is functioning as intended by consuming anyone in its path. 
Good is not the first person to lose her life to this anti-immigrant regime, but it’s only by being honest about what we’re seeing on the streets in our own communities and demanding its end can we make sure she’s the last.

The post Do Not Trust Your Lying Eyes, Trump Administration Decrees appeared first on The Intercept.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7276258

[tweto]

News article

The woman who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Wednesday in Minneapolis seemed “obviously scared” and was trying to leave, an eyewitness to the killing told HuffPost, disputing government claims that the ICE agent acted in self-defense.

Emily Heller, 39, stepped outside her home around 9:30 a.m. after hearing whistles and honking by community members who were alerting their neighbors about ICE agents’ presence. Heller said she saw a woman, since identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in a vehicle blocking a convoy of six or seven ICE vehicles on a one-way street.

“The ICE agents got out of their vehicles and were screaming at her to ‘move, move, move,’” Heller said. “She wasn’t moving at first, and then they came over to her side of the car and tried to open the door, I assume to drag her out.”

“She was obviously scared — she was going to leave,” Heller said. “She reversed a little bit and then started to move forward. And as she was starting to move forward, one of the ICE agents stood in front of her car, leaned across her hood and then fired three or four shots right into, it seemed like, her face.”

Good, was “one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” her mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

Good had a young son, whose father died in 2023, according to the Star Tribune. “There’s nobody else in his life,” Timmy Ray Macklin Sr., the boy’s grandfather, told the paper. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come get my grandchild.”

Other eyewitness videos corroborate Heller’s account of the shooting. One, which shows a clear view of the driver’s side of the vehicle, shows multiple armed agents approaching Good and attempting to open the driver’s door. The vehicle begins to leave when one of the officers fires multiple shots.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Good had committed an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers and “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle.” Noem claimed the officer “acted quickly and defensively” to “protect himself and the people around him.”

“No way,” Heller said of DHS’ claim that the ICE agent acted in self-defense. The masked agent who shot Good “put himself in front of her,” Heller said.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7285035

On Friday morning, cellphone footage originating from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross showing the murder of Minneapolis mother and wife Renee Nicole Good was leaked to right-wing media. The new footage conclusively demonstrates that Ross deliberately positioned himself in front of Good’s vehicle to justify murdering her.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7310210

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18996

With more such events set for Sunday, hundreds of demonstrations took place in cities large and small across the United States on Saturday to denounce the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration enforcement officer last week in Minneapolis.

The wave of "ICE Out for Good" protests arrives as a consolidated expression of outrage directed at President Donald Trump for his authoritarian tactics, cruel policies, and a lawlessness seemingly without end. Just a day after Good was killed in Minnesota, two other people were shot and wounded by federal agents in Portland, Oregon.

“Renee Nicole Good and the Portland victims are just the most recent victims of ICE’s reign of terror,” said the 50501 movement, one of the groups behind the weekend protests, said in a statement. "ICE has brutalized communities for decades, but its violence under the Trump regime has accelerated."

The killing of Good by Jonathan Ross, a 10-year veteran of the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agency, came just days after Trump's unlawful military attack on Venezuela which culminated in the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Many who protested Saturday noted that the two events are deeply related as they epitomize the increasingly violent nature of the president's second term.

— (@)

Also notable is how the act of war against Venezuela and the killing of Good bookended the fifth anniversary of the Trump-backed insurrection that took place on January 6, 2021. While many marked that occasion with solemn remembrances, the Trump administration released a fabricated version of the day that was denounced as Orwellian and gaslighting of the highest form.

As Mother Jones' David Corn wrote on Thursday: "The military assault on Venezuela, the shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent, the launch of the White House’s new revisionist website about January 6—these three events convey a powerful and unsettling message from Donald Trump and his crew: Violence is ours to use, at home and abroad, to get what we want."

Saturday's protests—organized by the Not Above the Law Coalition, MoveOn, the ACLU, Indivisible, and others—took place from Minneapolis to New York and from Chicago to Los Angeles. Demonstrations and rallies also took place in Portland, Oregon as well as Portland, Maine, with hundreds of events and rallies in smaller cities and communities nationwide.

More details about the events, including a growing list of Sunday's demonstrations and rallies, is available here.

After hundreds of nationwide events yesterday, hundreds more marches and vigils are happening today to say ICE Out For Good.Please join us to demand accountability for ICE’s horrific killing of Renee Nicole Good and make visible the human cost of ICE’s terror: mobilize.us?tag_ids=2913...

[image or embed]
— Indivisible ❌👑 (@indivisible.org) January 11, 2026 at 8:22 AM

"It feels like maybe we’re hitting a tipping point," 49-year-old Ben Person, who marched in Minneapolis, told the New York Times.

"We're here to say fuck Trump, abolish ICE, arrest Jonathan Ross, impeach [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem, and bring justice to anyone who's ever been wronged by the patriarchy and fascist communities," another demonstrator in Minneapolis told Status Coup News.

"We're here to say f*ck Trump, abolish ICE, arrest Jonathan Ross, impeach Kristi Noem, and bring justice to anyone who's ever been wronged by the patriarchy and fascist communities," -one of thousands of Minneapolis protesters marching after ICE murdered Renee Good. LIVE NOW ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/9HlpuQntCW
— Status Coup News (@StatusCoup) January 10, 2026

“The shootings in Minneapolis and Portland were not the beginning of ICE's cruelty, but they need to be the end," said Deirdre Schifeling of the ACLU. "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.”

At a rally in Portland, Maine on Saturday evening, Troy Jackson, the Democratic former president of the State Senate now running for governor, said the killing of Good in Minneapolis made clear to him that such violence against regular citizens could indeed happen anywhere:

I believe in law enforcement. I respect law enforcement. Hell, police have covered my butt plenty of times at picket lines, logging blockades, and other peaceful protests over the years.

What ICE is doing now isn’t law enforcement. We can’t stand for it, and we can’t be silent. pic.twitter.com/To1C3XIxnY
— Troy Jackson (@TroyJackson207) January 10, 2026

For one demonstrator in Minneapolis, the imperial and authoritarian drive of the Trump administration reminded him of the galactic villains of the Empire in the Star Wars series:

Protester: Well, our current government reminds me of the galactic empire from star wars. You have a guy that wants to be the supreme ruler, the emperor, his second in command that will do whatever he says to do, whether it's right or wrong… pic.twitter.com/GwMh9pghY0
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 10, 2026

The organizers of the weekend protests said that public shows of dissent will remain key in the coming days, weeks, and months.

"We will resist the government's attacks by building community, by documenting atrocities, by protesting nonviolently, by showing kindness and solidarity at all times," said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, another of the organizing groups.

"We will meet them in the streets, in the courts, at the day labor corners. We will meet them everywhere. And we will win. We are not afraid or discouraged. And we will not be defeated," Alvarado added. "The more we stand together as a community of determination and love, the harder it will be for them to divide and destroy us."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7274208

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18003

This a developing story... Please check back for possible updates... WARNING: This post includes graphic footage of the shooting which some people may find disturbing...

Residents of Minneapolis reacted with fury on Wednesday after a woman was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent.

Emily Heller, a Minneapolis resident who witnessed the shooting, told Minnesota Public Radio that she saw a federal agent confronting a woman who was sitting in her car and telling her to leave the area during an immigration enforcement operation in the neighborhood.

"She was trying to turn around, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was in front of her car, and he pulled out a gun and put it right in," Heller told MPR. "And he reached across the hood of the car and shot her in the face like three, four times."

The identity of the woman shot by the agent has not yet been released, but US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) wrote in a social media post that the woman was a US citizen.

The senator also said that "ICE should leave now for everyone's safety."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is also demanding that ICE leave the city, according to a post from the city's official X account.

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) echoed Smith and Frey's calls for ICE to get out of Minneapolis.

"ICE must stop terrorizing our communities and leave our city," she wrote in a social media post.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz released a statement saying that his public safety team "is working to gather information on an ICE related shooting this morning," while vowing to "share information as we learn more."

"In the meantime, I ask folks to remain calm," Walz added.

One witness, who was in the neighborhood to act as a legal observer, described horrifying scenes to local reporters:

This is what an eyewitness said pic.twitter.com/vQrLkMFpdS
— Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) January 7, 2026

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, put out a statement acknowledging that an ICE officer had fatally shot the woman and accused her of engaging in "domestic terrorism."

"ICE officers in Minneapolis were conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism," the agency claimed, without providing any evidence. "An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement, and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots."

Video footage from scene as well as testimony from witnesses, however, betrayed the agency's version of events. As one social media user said, posting the following video, "Does this look like what you’re claiming?"

Does this look like what you’re claiming pic.twitter.com/4rV8n4LuSd
— Mogana (@MoganaPhilips) January 7, 2026

A separate video from a different angle (Warning: graphic footage), also shows that the individual in the car was trying to turn the vehicle away from officers, not harm anyone:

Here's the video for those who don't have Bluesky pic.twitter.com/vM3Bsfk8Uc
— Hussain (@huspsa) January 7, 2026

Federal officials in the past have made statements about incidents involving protesters that have been flatly contradicted by officers' own body camera footage.

In November, federal prosecutors dropped assault charges against Marimar Martinez, a woman who was shot multiple times by a US Border Patrol agent in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, weeks after her attorney claimed to have seen body camera footage that completely undercut officers' claims.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41228296

Source

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7224501

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16758

Activists in the Pacific Northwest are building a database of license plates used by immigration authorities with the hope of keeping tabs on agents’ movements.

The database, put together by an autonomous group of volunteers, currently lists more than 600 plates matched to the make and model of the vehicle they were spotted on. Most of the sightings coming from vehicles involved in enforcement actions in and around Portland, Oregon.

In helping community members to identify unmarked vehicles used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, organizers hope to give people information about the government’s activities in their area, according to one activist involved in the effort.

“It helps reduce the unknown and reduce fear,” the activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from authorities. “ICE is doing whatever they can to be undetected, and so anything we can do to chip away at that obfuscation.”

Rather than hosting the database on a centralized website, which they fear would be vulnerable to subpoenas and takedown orders, the group put their findings out through the InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, a decentralized, peer-to-peer method of file distribution.

The database is built around community submissions of photos of ICE vehicles in action. Once the images come in, volunteers vet each picture to confirm that the plate and vehicle in question are being used by agents. The activist who spoke with The Intercept declined to go into detail about how the volunteers vet the information but said that every plate listed publicly in the database has appeared in at least two sightings.

“The reason we’re confident in what we released is that we have probably twice as many plates as what was published, but we made a decision to only publish those plates that had at least two observations,” the activist said. “And while we’re confident in the rest of the database, this was an extra measure to reduce confusion and inaccuracies. We want people to feel like they can trust what we’re publishing, and we don’t want to accidentally cause harm by releasing inaccurate information.”

[

Related

Kat Abughazaleh on the Right to Protest](https://theintercept.com/2025/11/01/briefing-podcast-kat-abughazaleh-indictment-protest/)

The effort comes amid a dramatic uptick in ICE activity in Oregon. For most of the year, ICE officers had largely contented themselves making targeted arrests, such as picking people up at immigration check-ins or detaining people with existing deportation orders. In October, however, federal agents began taking more sweeping actions, according to Natalie Lerner, a board member with the Portland Immigration Rights Council.

“We’re seeing a number of collateral arrests, where they’re arresting anyone who can’t prove that they have status,” she said, referring to detentions that arise from contact with immigrants who are not the targets of raids. “And I think that’s particularly scary and just super lawless.”

“It’s unimaginable how scary it is for folks,” Lerner told The Intercept. “So many people are calling our hotline saying they’re afraid to leave their homes, or they’re afraid to go to work. They’re not able to do the things they need to do to live their lives.”

Lerner’s organization — which has no connection to the volunteer database project — tallied nearly 800 detentions in the area since the start of October, which she said is likely an undercount. According to the activist involved in the database, ICE’s ramping up of enforcement makes the project even more important.

“It’s getting more and more blatant, and that’s why it’s so important that community safety efforts become more focused,” the database volunteer told The Intercept. “We’re working against this entity that has the most up-to-date technology and money and tools, and so we have to create our own tools.”

The database in Portland is perhaps the most well-organized collection of license plates from vehicles used by immigration authorities, but similar efforts have popped up across the country.

Activist networks have sprung up in various cities organizing know-your-rights workshops, building rapid-response teams and neighborhood watch groups to track the movement of agents, and distributing whistles to people in immigrant neighborhoods to swiftly notify the community of the presence of ICE agents.

[

Related

The Feds Want to Unmask Instagram Accounts That Identified Immigration Agents](https://theintercept.com/2025/09/18/dhs-subpoena-ice-instagram-dox/)

Recent efforts to monitor and unmask ICE agents have caught the attention of top federal officials. In July, Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem issued a warning to “criminals and Antifa groups” seeking to unmask ICE agents and other members of federal law enforcement.

“We will prosecute those who dox ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law. These criminals are taking the side of vicious cartels and human traffickers,” Noem said in a July 11 statement.“We won’t allow it in America.”

The post ICE Drives Unmarked Cars. This Public Database to Tracks Their License Plates. appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7189564

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16182

Grassroots organizations around the United States, with little to no support from local authorities, have spent much of the past year defending themselves against President Donald Trump’s deployments of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the National Guard. While community defense efforts in large urban metropolises such as Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Portland have attracted the most media coverage, anti-ICE activity is also thriving in Republican-controlled states like Texas and North Carolina.

Many grassroots groups in conservative-leaning states are documenting their own work on Instagram, using social media accounts as hubs to update local communities on ICE activity, recruit volunteers, and announce trainings. They may face a more challenging terrain than those organizing in Democratic-controlled states, given the active collaboration of law enforcement agencies with ICE.

While red state anti-ICE organizing may be less likely to feature whistles, bullhorns, and other confrontational tactics seen in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, common themes are emerging, consistent with organizing in liberal cities. The anti-ICE playbook in red states involves creating a hotline for residents to report ICE activity, “Know Your Rights” sessions that give people legal advice on what information they should withhold when confronted by ICE, and ICE-watch trainings for observers documenting arrests. Many groups are also ensuring that the families of those arrested and detained have legal and financial support.

Source

From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/44032506

The political crisis in the United States today is the consequence of economic processes that have been underway for generations. The rise of fascism is not a fluke brought about by the demagoguery of a single individual, but the logical outcome of profit-driven capitalism.

The neoliberal order paved the way for this by deepening the gulf between the rich and poor, militarizing policing in order to preserve those disparities, and creating a downwardly mobile population desperate for scapegoats. In a globalized economy, politicians cannot mitigate the impact of capitalism on their constituents without investors taking their business elsewhere.

Consequently, “left” parties have consistently failed to deliver on their promises, while reactionary parties have pulled public policy and permissible discourse steadily to the right—with centrists serving as a sort of ratchet preventing policy and discourse from shifting back.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7083727

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14447

Policy experts were skeptical Wednesday that the Trump administration could legally or practically carry out its threat to strip more naturalized Americans of their citizenship. Still, they warned that new guidance issued by the White House to immigration officials would ramp up "fear and terror" in immigrant communities and could portend the targeting of naturalized citizens who President Donald Trump views as adversaries.

The guidance was issued Tuesday to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field offices, with officers directed to supply the Department of Justice (DOJ) with "100-200 denaturalization cases per month” in the 2026 fiscal year.

The denaturalization process is "deliberately hard" for the federal government, noted American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, and stripping people of the citizenship is a rare step only taken in cases of fraud when they applied to be a citizen or in other narrow circumstances.

As such, between 2017-25, there have been just over 120 denaturalization cases filed with the Office of Immigration Litigation at the DOJ.

Under the first Trump administration, denaturalization cases peaked at 90 in one year in 2018, and the directive issued Tuesday signaled the White House is aiming for a far bigger escalation as it also continues its mass deportation operation and blocks people from seeking asylum as they are permitted to under international law.

Reichlin-Melnick called the directive for a denaturalization quota "vicious and cruel," and pointed out that the president is asking USCIS and the DOJ to take on an onerous task.

— (@)

"These cases are hard to file and win, and require a lot of DOJ resources, and the DOJ is stretched thin already. So we’ll see; I have serious doubts about their ability to do this," said Reichlin-Melnick.

USCIS refers cases to the DOJ, which must prove in a federal court that it has "unequivocal evidence" that someone obtained their citizenship illegally or fraudulently.

"The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that citizenship and naturalization are too precious and fundamental to our democracy for the government to take it away on their whim. Instead of wasting resources digging through Americans’ files, USCIS should do its job of processing applications, as Congress mandated,” Amanda Baran, a former senior USCIS official who served during the Biden administration, told the New York Times.

Naturalized Americans account for 26 million people in the US, with 800,000 people sworn in last year. In most cases, a person who loses their citizenship status is classified as a legal permanent resident.

Trump has repeatedly called to denaturalize Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and to deport her over her criticism of his policies, and has made the same threat against New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.

In those threatened cases, wrote Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, earlier this month, "it appears that crime isn’t so much a motivation as disloyalty."

"Stripping citizens of their citizenship in the name of making the electorate more 'American' is arguably one of the most un-American acts imaginable," wrote Waldman. "We are a nation of immigrants and also a nation of laws. The courts must continue to ensure that those laws protect naturalized citizens from being punished for speaking out."

Three other Brennan Center experts also recently wrote about the history of denaturalization efforts in the US, including during the "Red Scare" of the 1950s:

Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin led witch hunts, with denaturalization often used as a tool against accused communists or sympathizers. Among those targets was Harry Bridges, an Australian-born, nationally known labor leader accused of being a communist, who faced an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to revoke his citizenship. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor, not once, but twice.

"This is straight-up Nazi stuff and I’m calling on my fellow Jewish Americans who know where this can lead to be in the vanguard against it," said Dylan Willams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, also noting that the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee has endorsed Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who has called for the denaturalization and expulsion of Muslim Americans and immigrants.

Sarah Pierce, a former USCIS official, told the Times that Trump's quota for denaturalization cases "risks politicizing citizenship revocation" as it has been in the past.

“And requiring monthly quotas that are 10 times higher than the total annual number of denaturalizations in recent years," she said, "turns a serious and rare tool into a blunt instrument and fuels unnecessary fear and uncertainty for the millions of naturalized Americans.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

The Department of Homeland Security’s attorneys inside New York’s immigration courts are moving to close asylum claims en masse, arguing that people in deportation proceedings have no right to seek asylum in the United States because they’re eligible to do so in three other countries with which the U.S. has recent agreements: Honduras, Ecuador and Uganda.

Word spread of the new Trump administration tactic among the city’s immigration attorneys in recent weeks, as it’s been rolled out inside immigration courts in San Francisco, according to local media there. In New York City’s immigration courthouses, the novel strategy kicked off in full steam over the last two weeks inside, observers told THE CITY. Hellgate earlier reported on the new Trump administration tactic, which sets the stage for potential third-country removals on a large scale in the coming months.

THE CITY watched a Department of Homeland lawyer make a motion to “pretermit” asylum claims inside the courtroom of Immigration Judge Tiesha Peal in case after case on Thursday morning. The request to “pretermit” the asylum claim is an effort to toss a person’s asylum claim, leaving them defenseless against deportation to a country they are not from and may have never even entered before...

Last year, the pro-Israel regents of University of Michigan (U-M) ignited controversy by recruiting State Attorney General Dana Nessel to crackdown on campus Gaza protesters. Now, members of U-M’s Board of Regents are making large donations to Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, a candidate who may replace Nessel.

McDonald is the prosecutor in a wealthy suburban county north of Detroit. McDonald also received the highest level of corporate donations from the state’s largest businesses and executives, and is viewed as the establishment choice to replace Nessel.

McDonald is also receiving significant backing from donors that include prolific GOP contributors and those connected to pro-Israel organizations in metro Detroit, as well as from national organizations like Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces and AIPAC. The regents and pro-Israel donors have contributed at least $200,000 to McDonald’s campaign, according to state and federal campaign donation records reviewed by Drop Site.