United States | News & Politics

The U.S. attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president Nicolás Maduro was proof that after months of threats, the Trump administration’s talk of hemispheric hegemony isn’t just bluster. The administration is clearly reorienting the U.S. military toward power projection in the Western Hemisphere, as it plots a reorganization that would make it easier to launch strikes across the Americas.

President Donald Trump has touted the “Donroe Doctrine” — a bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. Whereas President James Monroe’s policy sought to prevent Europe from colonizing and meddling in the Western Hemisphere, Trump views his as license for America to do exactly that. The new U.S. National Security Strategy, released last month, decrees the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine a “potent restoration of American power and priorities,” rooted in the “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere … and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”

With this reshuffling of American military priorities in mind, senior War Department officials have developed a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major overseas combatant commands and curtail the power of their commanders. The revised Unified Command Plan would shrink the number of geographic combatant commands, combining Northern and Southern Commands into a single American Command, or AMERICOM, and would merge the European, Central, and African Commands into a single International Command, according to three government sources. Indo-Pacific Command would remain a standalone command. (The proposed reorganization was first reported by the Washington Post.)

One of the government officials said that the new plan would “streamline” U.S. military efforts abroad while “reorienting” U.S. combat power to bring it into line with the new National Security Strategy, which makes clear that the U.S. will be “avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments” in Africa and “avoiding the ‘forever wars’ that bogged us down in” in the Middle East.

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After 9/11, as the U.S. fought brutal and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it also ramped up military efforts across the African continent. The number of troops, programs, operations, exercises, bases, low-profile Special Operations missions, deployments of commandos, drone strikes, proxy wars, and almost every other military activity in Africa jumped exponentially. At the same time, terrorism took firmer root and spread across the continent, with fatalities caused by terror groups jumping nearly 100,000 percent over two decades, according to the Pentagon.

In the wake of this abject failure, experts told The Intercept that reconfiguring America’s military posture and swapping interventions in Africa for those in the Western Hemisphere is likely to result in the same types of setbacks, stalemates, and failures due to what Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, termed “Washington’s persistent disinterest in understanding the societies it purports to protect and its reliance on a one-size-fits-all, militarized approach.”

The U.S. military has a dismal record in Africa.

The Intercept has been chronicling its futile counterterrorism efforts on the African continent for thelast decade, including increases in the number and reach of terror groups, rising militant attacks, spikes in fatalities, destabilizing blowback from U.S. operations, humanitarian disasters, failed secret wars, coups by U.S. trainees, human rights abuses by allies, massacres and executions of civilians by partner forces, civilians killed in drone strikes, and a litany of other fiascos and failures.

Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted 23 deaths from terrorist violence in 2002 and 2003, as U.S. counterterrorism efforts began to ramp up on the continent. By 2010, two years after AFRICOM began operations, fatalities from attacks by militant Islamists had already spiked to 2,674, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. The situation only continued to deteriorate. Last year, there were 22,307 fatalities from militant Islamist violence in Africa. This represents an almost 97,000 percent increase since the early 2000s, with the areas of greatest U.S. involvement — Somalia and the West African Sahel — suffering the worst outcomes.

“Africa has experienced roughly 155,000 militant Islamist group-linked deaths over the past decade,” reads a report issued in July by the Africa Center. “Somalia and the Sahel have now experienced more militant Islamist-related fatalities over the past decade (each over 49,000) than any other region.”

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A separate Africa Center report found that the “Sahel has held the designation of the most lethal theater of militant Islamist violence in Africa for 4 years in a row,” accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all noncombatants killed by militant Islamist groups in Africa. The report also found that “security has deteriorated under each of the military juntas that seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.” Left unsaid was at least 15 officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance were key leaders in a dozen coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel, including Burkina Faso (in 2014, 2015, and twice in 2022), Mali (in 2012, 2020, and 2021), and Niger (in 2023), according to a series of reports by The Intercept.

“In West Africa, the U.S. ‘war on terror’ model — and the military training, funding, and equipment for foreign forces that went with it — only intensified the spiral of violence in the region,” said Stephanie Savell, the director of Brown University’s Costs of War Project who has conducted extensive research on U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel. “Amidst all the complexities, one thing is resoundingly clear: A war paradigm does not provide an effective solution to the problem of terror attacks. It leads to blowback and fails to address any of the root causes, including poverty. And it has a tremendous human and financial toll.”

“A war paradigm does not provide an effective solution to the problem of terror attacks. It leads to blowback and fails to address any of the root causes, including poverty.”

The Africa Center report also found that the “expansion of militant Islamist violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger has resulted in an increased number of attacks along and beyond the borders of coastal West African countries, from Mauritania to Nigeria.” The possible role of U.S. counterterrorism failures was also ignored by Trump when he announced Christmas Day airstrikes in Nigeria by Africa Command against those he called “ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”

AFRICOM claimed to have struck targets in “Soboto state,” an apparent reference to Sokoto state, on December 25. The Africa Center report noted that “militant Islamist cells” have moved into Sokoto state in recent years and that the “emergence of violent extremist groups in northwest Nigeria implies the long-feared convergence of militant Islamist groups with organized criminal networks.”

AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how it could be sure who it attacked when it was unclear about where it attacked.

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On the east side of the continent, the U.S. military has been at war in Somalia for almost a quarter-century. U.S. forces began conducting airstrikes against militants in Somalia in 2007. That same year, the Pentagon recognized that there were fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa, and Somalia became another post-9/11 stalemate, which AFRICOM inherited the next year.

U.S. airstrikes in Somalia have skyrocketed when Trump is in office. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 43 declared airstrikes in Somalia. During Trump’s first term, AFRICOM conducted more than 200 air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State.

Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. military conducted 39 declared strikes in Somalia over four years. The U.S. conducted more than 125 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025, according to the New America Foundation. (This includes an attack in Somalia that one top U.S. commander called the “largest airstrike in the history of the world.”) Previously, the highest number of strikes in the command’s history was 63, under Trump in 2019.

The massive number of airstrikes under Trump during his first term and the record number this year have not translated into success in America’s longest African forever war. The metrics are, in fact, more dismal than ever. A December Africa Center report found that Somalia had the second-highest number of fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence, accounting for 28 percent of the continental total. The 6,224 fatalities linked to al-Shabab over the past year are double that of 2022. In fact, an al-Shabab offensive this year saw militants push within 32 miles of the capital, Mogadishu.

Earlier this year, during his farewell tour, then-AFRICOM chief Gen. Michael Langley, implored African ministers and heads of state to help save his embattled command. That effort appears to have foundered.

In the wake of the Christmas attacks in Nigeria, AFRICOM’s current chief, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, said the command’s “goal is to protect Americans and to disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.” AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how attacks in northwest Nigeria protect Americans.

AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how attacks in northwest Nigeria protect Americans.

When asked for additional information on plans to subordinate AFRICOM to a new command and how Trump’s new war in Nigeria might affect the command, a Department of War spokesperson replied: “We have nothing to offer on either of your questions.”

Condensing the geographic combatant commands will reduce the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to War Secretary Pete Hegseth, one of his major efforts to remake the military. AFRICOM and the other targeted commands are expected to see their funding and resources slashed, but lawmakers have required the Pentagon to submit detailed plans on the reorganization as well as its potential impacts.

The Pentagon refused to comment on the reorganization plans or how they will affect AFRICOM and other targeted geographic combatant commands. “As a matter of Department of War policy, we will not comment on leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and rumored internal discussions, as well as specifics of architectural discussion or pre-decisional matters,” a War Department official told The Intercept.

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With the U.S. threatening to subject Venezuela to additional attacks, conduct regime change in Colombia, carry out military strikes in Mexico, and invade Greenland, it’s clear that the Western Hemisphere is now America’s preeminent military priority. But experts say U.S. military efforts in Africa offer a clear warning. “The experience in West Africa holds an essential lesson for U.S. actions in the Western Hemisphere — waging war against so-called ‘narco-terrorists’ will cost many human lives and taxpayer dollars, with no strategic benefit,” Savell told The Intercept.

Sperling, of Just Foreign Policy, echoed similar sentiments. “It’s clear that U.S. counterterrorism policy in Africa has been a failure at best and counterproductive at worst, often exacerbating the very extremism it claims to combat,” he told The Intercept. “As the U.S. increasingly turns its attention to the Western Hemisphere, it is likely to reproduce the same outcomes for the same reasons. U.S. policy on both continents will continue to fail in the medium to long-term unless policymakers learn to engage with other nations with genuine respect and as equals, rather than as problems to be managed by force.”

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7300229

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18526

On Friday morning, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would get the Department of Energy out of the business of energy standards for mobile homes — also known as manufactured homes — and could set the efficiency requirements back decades.

Advocates say the changes will streamline the regulatory process and keep the upfront costs of manufactured homes down. Critics argue that less efficient homes will cost people more money overall, and mostly benefit builders.

“This is not about poor people. This is not about working people,” said Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), who grew up in a manufactured home, on the House floor before the vote. “This is about doing the bidding of corporations.”

The average income of a manufactured home resident is around $40,000 and they “already face disproportionately high energy costs and energy use,” said Johanna Neumann, senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy at Environment America. That, she said, is why more stringent energy codes are so important. But the Energy Department, which oversees national energy policy and production, didn’t always have a say over these standards.

Starting in 1974, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, became tasked with setting building codes for manufactured homes. But HUD last updated the relevant energy efficiency standards in 1994, and they have long lagged behind modern insulation and weatherization practices. So, in 2007, Congress assigned that task to the Department of Energy. It still took 15 years and a lawsuit before President Joe Biden’s administration finalized new rules in 2022 that were projected to reduce utility bills in double-wide manufactured homes by an average of $475 a year. Even with higher upfront costs taken into account, the government predicted around $5 billion in avoided energy bills over 30-years.

At the time, the manufactured housing industry argued that DoE’s calculations were wrong and that, regardless, the upfront cost of the home should be the primary metric of affordability. Both the Biden and now Trump administrations have delayed implementation of the rule and compliance deadlines, which still aren’t in effect.

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This house legislation would eliminate the DoE rule and return sole regulatory authority to HUD. Lesli Gooch, CEO of the Manufactured Housing Institute, a trade organization, describes it as essentially a process bill aimed at removing bureaucracy that has stood in the way of action.The paralysis is because you have two different agencies that have been tasked with creating energy standards,” Gooch said. “You can’t build a house to two different sets of blueprints.”

Jake Auchincloss, a democrat from Massachusetts, agreed and called the move “common-sense regulatory reform” in a letter urging his colleagues to support the bill. Ultimately 57 democrats joined 206 republicans in voting for the bill — and it now moves to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain.

If the bill becomes law, however, the only operative benchmark would be HUD’s 1994 code and it could take years to make a new one. While more than half of the roughly 100,000 homes sold in the U.S. each year already meet or exceed the DoE’s 2022 efficiency rules, ACEEE estimates that tens of thousands are still built to just the outdated standard.

“Families are struggling,” said Mark Kresowik, senior policy director at the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and he does not expect HUD, under Trump, to move particularly quickly on a fix. “I have not seen this administration lowering energy bills.”

For now, though, it’s the Senate’s turn to weigh in.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Mobile homes already have huge utility bills. Congress may make it worse. on Jan 9, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7300264

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18421

On Thursday, Republicans in the House failed to override President Donald Trump’s first two vetoes in office: a pipeline project that would bring safe drinking water to rural Colorado, and another that would return land to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida. Their inability to block the president’s move signals their commitment to the White House over their prior support for the measures.

The Miccosukee have always considered the Florida Everglades as their home. So when Republicans in Congress voted to expand the tribe’s land base under the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act – legislation that would transfer 30 acres of land in the Everglades to tribal control – the Miccosukee were thrilled. After years of work, the move would have allowed the tribe to begin environmental restoration activities in the area, and better protect it from climate change impacts as extreme flooding and tropical storms threaten the land.

A portion of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida’s Everglades known as a tree island, Thursday, July, 11, 2024. Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo

“The measure reflected years of bipartisan work and was intended to clarify land status and support basic protections for tribal members who have lived in this area for generations,” wrote Chairman Cypress in a statement last week. “Before the roads and canals were built, and before Everglades National Park was created.”

The act was passed on December 11th, but on December 30th, President Donald Trump vetoed it; one of only two vetoes made by the administration since he took office. In a statement, Trump explained that the tribe “actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” after the tribe’s July lawsuit challenging the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration detention center in the Everglades.

“It is rare for an administration to veto a bill for reasons wholly unrelated to the merits of the bill,” said Kevin Washburn, a law professor at University of California Berkeley Law and former assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs for the Department of the Interior. Washburn added that while denying land return to a tribe is a political act, Trump’s move is “highly unusual.”

When a tribe regains land, the process can be long and costly. The process, known as “land into trust” transfers land title from a tribe to the United States, where the land is then held for the benefit of the tribe and establishes tribal jurisdiction over the land in question. When tribal nations signed treaties in the 19th century ceding land, any lands reserved for tribes, generally, reservations, were held by the federal government “in trust” for the benefit of tribes—meaning tribal nations don’t own these lands despite their sovereign status.

Almost all land into trust requests are facilitated at an administrative level by the Department of Interior. The Miccosukee, however, generally must follow a different process. Recognized as a tribal nation by the federal government in 1962, the Miccosukee navigate a unique structure for acquiring tribal land where these requests are made through Congress via legislation instead of by Interior.

“It’s ironic, right?” said Matthew Fletcher, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “You’re acquiring land that your colonizer probably took from you a long time ago and then gave it away to or sold it to someone else, and then years later, you’re buying that land back that was taken from you illegally, at a great expense.”

While land into trust applications related to tribal gaming operations often meet opposition, Fletcher says applications, like the Miccosukee’s, are usually frictionless. And in cases like the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act which received bipartisan support at the state and federal levels, in trust applications are all but guaranteed.

On the House floor on Thursday before the vote, Florida’s Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said “this bill is so narrowly focused that [the veto] makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance that seems to have emanated in this result.” The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, did not respond to requests for comment. In July last year, Gimenez referred to the Miccosukee Tribe as stewards of the Everglades, sponsoring the bill as a way to manage water flow and advance an elevation project, under protection from the Department of Interior, for the village to avert “catastrophic flooding.”

“What you’re asking is for people in the same political party of the guy who just vetoed this thing to affirmatively reject the political decision of the President,” Fletcher said.
The tribe is unlikely to see its village project materialize under Trump’s second term unless the outcome of this year’s midterms invites a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Studies show that the return of land to tribes provides the best outcomes for the climate.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land. on Jan 9, 2026.

From Grist 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.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

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...

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— 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.

Khanna said he spoke with 47 detainees during his visit on January 5. “One man with blood in his urine had not been able to see a doctor, another complained of rocks in the food, another of not having a long sleeve shirt, shivering at night,” he said.

He later told KQED the conditions amounted to “systemic neglect”.

“We’re treating these people like animals, not like human beings … It’s an embarrassment for the country,” Khanna said.

Late last year, most major U.S. telecoms were the victim of a massive, historic intrusion by Chinese hackers who managed to hack into U.S. communications networks and then spy on public U.S. officials for more than a year completely undetected. The “Salt Typhoon” hack was so severe, the intruders spent another year rooting around the ISP networks even after discovery. AT&T and Verizon, two of the compromised companies, initially didn’t think it was worth informing subscribers this happened.

Like most hacks, the scale of the intrusion was significantly worse than originally stated. And it keeps expanding. This week, lawmakers finally revealed that they only recently realized that the same Chinese hackers accessed email systems used by some staffers on the House China committee in addition to aides on the foreign affairs committee, intelligence committee, and armed services committee: “The attacks are the latest element of an ongoing cyber campaign against US communication networks by the Ministry of State Security, China’s intelligence service. One person familiar with the attack said it was unclear if the MSS had accessed lawmakers’ emails.”

Which means that they almost definitely had access to confidential lawmakers’ emails, something it will take our Keystone-Cops-esque government another six months to admit.

...

It can’t be overstated what a complete and massive hack this was. The Chinese government had broad, historic access to the sensitive phone and email conversations of a massive number of sensitive U.S. public and government figures, for years. Thanks, in large part, to big telecoms like AT&T leaving key network access points “secured” with default administrative usernames and passwords.

...

Last June, NextGov reported that lawyers at big telecoms had started advising their engineers to stop looking for signs of Salt Typhoon intrusion because they were worried about bad press and liability. Due to this coverup and a lack of transparency by the dying U.S. government, it’s likely we still don’t know the full scope of the intrusions.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has responded by gutting government cybersecurity programs (including a board investigating the Salt Typhoon hack), dismantling the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) (responsible for investigating significant cybersecurity incidents), and firing oodles of folks doing essential work at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Trump’s courts have made it impossible to hold telecoms accountable for privacy violations. His earlobe nibbler at the FCC, Brendan Carr, constantly undermines efforts to improve security in Chinese-made smart home devices, and is dismantling what little telecom oversight we had. Their big “win” on “national security” was transferring TikTok ownership to Trump’s unethical billionaire friends.

The Chinese hacked into most of our sensitive systems and spied on powerful people, across the entirety of U.S. governance, for years. The companies involved covered it up and the Trump administrations’ “fix” was to destroy our cybersecurity protections and corporate oversight.

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At least two more detained immigrants have died in ICE custody: Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres (42) and Luis Beltrán Yáñez-Cruz (68), both from Honduras.

Núñez died on Jan. 5 of congestive heart failure in intensive care in a hospital in Conroe, TX.

Beltrán died the following morning at a hospital in Indio, CA, also due to heart-related complications. He had repeatedly applied for temporary protected status (TPS) between 1999 and 2012, but was denied each time.

ICE hasn't offered much more info than that. Their public reporting mostly emphasizes their "illegal" status while talking up how much the agency does for the health of the people in its custody. So there's not really any info about whether or not their detention contributed to their deaths: stress, lack of access to medications, and/or other factors may well have played a role, but who's to say when there's no accountability?

It's worth noting that both were awaiting deportation to Honduras, where just in the past few months the Trump administration has interfered with presidential elections and helped install another compliant, far-right authoritarian leader. So these detainees were scheduled to be sent back to a place that has again been destabilized through US intervention, thus making both decent work and free expression harder to find, thus creating more incentive for people to seek refuge elsewhere.

Not unrelated: when Telemundo asked ICE for figures on how many people have died in their custody in the past year, ICE responded in part by saying that "For a lot of illegal immigrants, this is the best health care they've had in their entire lives" (that's a back translation from the Spanish posted by Telemundo, so the exact wording might be slightly off). Cool story.

Reposting from original on Mastodon

Posobiec, speaking from Minneapolis, insisted that "Bolsheviks" were "radicalizing the moms out in the suburbs, out in middle America."

"Think about these two women who showed up yesterday," he said of Good and her wife, Rebecca Brown Good. "One is dead. One, by the way, I would argue, is complicit in the killing, is complicit in the killing of Renee Good........ This was a planned operation under the felony murder rule,"

"Not to get political, but it's a real indication of how flawed our healthcare system is," says the candidate for US Senate in Maine who supports Medicare for All.

Read the use of “deadly force” documents laying out the logic

cross-posted from: https://toast.ooo/post/11599589

By Nick Lentz, WCCO Staff

The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe said Thursday that he's been "made aware" that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained four of its members in Minneapolis.

President Frank Star Comes Out in a Facebook post said the four men are homeless and were living under a bridge near the Little Earth housing complex in the East Phillips neighborhood.

Attorneys who represent the tribe were "instructed" reach out to Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan about where they are being detained and what their names are, he said.

The social media post also has a statement for Tribe members to give to ICE members who approach or detain them.

According to the Tribe, any member who is detained by federal officials should not speak without an attorney present and should call Frank Star Comes Out or other Tribe officials.

[…]

The Tribe said on its website that it "maintains a membership" of more than 52,000 enrolled members. Many live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska.

The Navajo Nation said that dozens of Native Americans were questioned or detained by ICE agents last year, even though Indigenous people can't be deported.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7283787

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18358

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday lashed out at the media and "left-wing" activists whom he blamed for the death of Minneapolis resident Renee Good at the hands of a federal immigration enforcement agent.

During a press conference at the White House, a reporter asked Vance if there was anything he could say to unite America in the wake of Good's killing by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, and Vance responded by immediately attacking the media.

"The reporting over this has been one of the biggest scandals I've ever seen in media," Vance complained. "I've never seen a case so misrepresented and misreported. We have a guy who was defending himself, who is now being treated as some sort of federal assassin by so many of the people in this room."

Vance also described Good as "a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator."

JD Vance on the killing of Renee Good: "The reporting over this has been one of the biggest scandals I've ever seen in media. I've never seen a case so misrepresented and misreported." pic.twitter.com/GLWad9g2Qt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2026

In-depth video analyses of Good's killing published by both the New York Times and the Washington Post on Thursday undercut the Trump administration's claims that the she was trying to run over the ICE agent before he fatally shot her.

The Times analyzed footage from three different camera angles and concluded that Good's vehicle "appears to be turning away from a federal officer as he opened fire."

The Post, meanwhile, found that the agent fired "at least two of three shots from the side of the vehicle as it veered past him."

Observers of various footage circulating online have reached similar conclusions.

Elsewhere in the press conference, Vance baselessly asserted that Good had been indoctrinated by left-wing politics.

"There is a part of me that feels very sad for this woman," he said. "And not just because she lost her life, but because I think she is a victim of left-wing ideology. What young mother shows up and decides they're going to throw their car in front of ICE officers who are enforcing law? You've got to be a little brainwashed to get to that point."

Vance also accused unnamed people and institutions of funding violent attacks on ICE agents.

JD Vance on Renee Good: "I think she's a victim of left-wing ideology. What young mother shows up and decides they're gonna throw their car in front of ICE officers who are enforcing law? You've got to be a little brainwashed." pic.twitter.com/7sdh0WT69Y
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2026

"If you are funding violence against our law enforcement officers... my guess is that's not the sort of thing that earns capital punishment, but it should sure as hell earn you a few years in prison," Vance said.

JD Vance: "If you are funding violence against our law enforcement officers, I'm not a prosecutor, my guess is that's not the sort of thing that earns capital punishment. But it should sure as hell earn you a few years in prison." pic.twitter.com/2AklZQtKFh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2026

The vice president's remarks about organizations purportedly "funding" attacks on law enforcement come just weeks after it was revealed that US Attorney General Pam Bondi had written a memo directing the US Department of Justice to compile a list of potential “domestic terrorism” organizations that espouse “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”

The memo identified the “domestic terrorism threat” as organizations that use “violence or the threat of violence” to advance political goals such as “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/45240492

...

US and EU policymakers have launched government initiatives ..., including diversifying their supply chains, establishing stockpiles, investing in private companies and expanding domestic processing and recycling capacities. These efforts seek to mitigate the risk of supply chain disruptions and price fluctuations as Beijing restricts critical minerals supplies for geopolitical leverage.

Government involvement is expected to accelerate in 2026 as recent restrictions on Chinese rare earths exports highlight vulnerabilities and drive the US and EU to reshape the global supply landscape, experts told Platts, a part of S&P Global Energy.

"What we're seeing globally is that the composition of mining companies is getting much more complex where you have a combination of government stakeholders, private equity, private investors and even capital from export and import banks," said Julie Klinger, a University of Delaware professor in the geography and spatial sciences program.

...

In the US, federal agencies launched $134 million in investment opportunities for rare earths and obtained several equity stakes in private companies, including the formation of a public-private partnership between the US defense department and rare earths company MP Materials, which aims to build a secure, end-to-end domestic rare earths supply chain. The deal involved a $400 million equity investment, a $150 million loan and a 10-year offtake agreement.

...

In Europe, the EU ratified the Critical Raw Materials Act in 2024, which aims to enhance the EU's domestic capacities. The law stipulates that no more than 65% of the EU's annual consumption of any strategic raw material should come from a single third country.

The bloc in March 2025 also published a list of 47 strategic and critical minerals projects, accounting for an expected overall capital investment of Eur22.5 billion ($24.35 billion). Other actions include plans to mobilize up to Eur3 billion in funding over the next 12 months to fast-track strategic extraction and processing projects that could reduce EU import dependencies by up to 50% by 2029.

To date, the EU has established 15 critical minerals partnerships with resource-rich countries, such as South Africa, Namibia, Argentina, Chile and Canada, to bolster resilient supply chains. The bloc has also launched negotiations with Brazil, while deepening cooperation with Ukraine and the Western Balkans through the Global Gateway investment initiative.

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