United States | News & Politics

Internal ICE planning documents propose spending up to $50 million on a privately run network capable of shipping immigrants in custody hundreds of miles across the Upper Midwest.

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What Would a #Trump Deal With Cuba Look Like?
https://belly-of-the-beast.kit.com/posts/what-would-a-trump-deal-with-cuba-look-like

[from weekly newsletter about Cuba (with YouTube video links) from the Belly Of The Beast news/video collective.]

January 15, 2026

Also:

• Marco Rubio: President of Cuba?
• No plans for invasion against “tough Cubans”
• Cuba ramps up combat training
• Venezuela and Cuba reaffirm solidarity
• Cuba is not yet receiving more #Mexican oil
• US Ambassador to Cuba...or Miami?
• US sends hurricane aid to Cuba — two months later

Two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states,” and one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter rolls, the Justice Department revealed in newly disclosed court papers.

Elizabeth Shapiro, a top Justice Department official, said SSA referred both DOGE employees for potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government employees from using their official positions for political purposes.

Stewart Huntington
ICT

The wave of federal immigration agents swarming the Minneapolis area might be unprecedented in law enforcement history, but the response in the Indigenous community is not.

Half a century ago, the American Indian Movement was founded on Franklin Avenue, the heart of the urban Indian diaspora in South Minneapolis, to counter overzealous municipal policing.

Today, AIM patrols are back, watching over elders, youths and aunties along the same avenue in what is now known as the city’s American Indian Cultural Corridor.

“History shows us time and time again, it doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes,” said Heather Bruegl, an activist, historian and Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin citizen who has studied the American Indian Movement. “So you can look throughout history and see different examples of what we see today happening in the past.”

And if the history rhymes, some of the names do even more. Some are the same.

Crow Bellecourt, Bad River Band of Chippewa, has been out on the recent patrols. His father, the late Clyde Bellecourt, was a founding member of AIM in 1968 along with Russel Means and Dennis Banks.

“I grew up in the movement,” said Bellecourt, executive director of the Indigenous Protector Movement, a group with AIM roots. “I always like to say, ‘I’m second-generation American Indian Movement.’ It’s, like, full circle for me.”

AIM members attend a demonstration in 2020 in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. Credit: Photo by John Arthur Anderson

The confrontations between law enforcement and protestors in Minneapolis – including the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good – have brought reports that Indigenous people have also been swept into custody.

A cohort of Indigenous patrollers has now reached close to 100, Bellecourt said.

“We’re running from seven in the morning to seven in the evening,” he said. “And even more. We still have some patrollers going out until like 11 or 12 at night.”

And just like in 1968, the patrollers are on the street to help community members feel safe.

“It’s really scary here,” said Mary LaGarde, executive director of the Minneapolis American Indian Center, which operates from its base on Franklin Avenue.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have surged into the Twin Cities area to counter what the Trump administration has called corruption and criminality in area immigrant populations. At this point, there are more federal law enforcement officers in Minneapolis than metropolitan police.

The dramatic presence has prompted widespread protests and rebukes from state and local officials. There have been at least two shootings involving the federal officers.

“We woke up and we had all these ICE agents everywhere,” said Bellecourt. “They’re all over our neighborhood. I’m scared for our old people and the young ones who just wanted to catch the city bus to go to the grocery store. … I worry about them getting picked up from ICE.”

LaGarde, White Earth Band of Chippewa, knows the feeling.

“It’s like you don’t want to leave the house,” LaGarde told ICT. “That’s how most of our people are feeling right now. Our elders are scared. Our young people, too. This is really impacting our kids.”

LaGarde said the patrols — by AIM members and other groups such as the Many Shields Warrior Society — are needed.

“it’s really important that we’re out protecting,” she said.

The numbers of volunteers out patrolling are growing.

“We have relatives coming in from South Dakota, Wisconsin and neighboring states,” Bellecourt said. Some have come from as far away as Oklahoma, he said.

Just like in the old days, AIM members are gathering along Franklin Avenue just as they gathered for occupations of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco in 1969, the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in 1972, and the Wounded Knee massacre site in 1973.

American Indian Movement leaders watch as the U.S. Department of Justice removes government forces from around Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on March 10, 1973. Shown in foreground are AIM leaders from left, Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, Russell Means and Carter Camp. Credit: AP Photo/FILE

AIM members also turned out in force in Minneapolis in 2020 after the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement.

What’s different from the early years? Modern communication tools.

“We didn’t have these cell phones and all this social media back in them days,” Bellecourt said. “Everybody called on house phones and it was amazing how many people would show up. My dad called it the ‘moccasin telegraph’ and people would just call one another and, wherever they needed people to be, everyone would show up.”

They came to help the people.Then and today.

“One of the first acts that AIM did when they were forming was patrolling the streets and making sure that if their community members were stopped or pulled over by the police, that their rights were being followed, like, you know, ‘Hey, you have the right to this, you have the right to that,’” Bruegl said.

“And we see that now happening again [because] people’s rights are being violated. We see Indigenous folks, tribal members being detained,” Bruegl said. “It’s important that groups like AIM and other groups are coming out again, working in community and making sure that we’re protecting each other.”

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7394149

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/21151

*When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents brought a detainee to a California hospital in 2025, they didn’t know they would leave empty-handed. Using capacity they built over months of organizing, Healthcare workers intervened quickly to protect and ultimately free their patient from the clutches of federal secret police.

Based on an interview with local healthcare worker, organizer, and Black Rose/Rosa Negra member Morgan****,*** this article breaks down how hospital staff launched campaigns and won victories that pushed ICE out of their workplace. Although steps are listed numerically, in reality they feed off and into one another at any given time.

by Juan Verala Luz

1. Build the Culture

---

A big hurdle to pushing law enforcement out of healthcare settings is the normalized culture of collaboration. “We have all different kinds of cops in the hospital all the time,” Morgan explained. Like many similar settings, management forces staff to cooperate with police mandates often “beyond what is necessary in the law.” For example, workplace policies prevent workers from helping patients in custody to contact their families. Those kinds of requirements are often taken-for-granted.

Trump’s barbarous attacks on immigrant communities created openings to challenge that. In a “sanctuary city” that serves many immigrants, management quickly put out basic know-your-rights information about warrantless entries and other gross violations of the law. Without clear procedures for responding to real-world scenarios, staff across the health center felt this inadequate response left them unprepared and confused about what to do if ICE came to the hospital.

A core of organizers seized the opportunity to reshape the culture. They passed out informational flyers about interacting with ICE and partnered with local legal clinics to host healthcare-specific “Know Your Rights” training. They also adapted for their workplace “What to Do if ICE Comes” badge buddies–a small card outlining common procedures, codes, and other need-to-know parts of the job that people could wear everyday under their hospital IDs.1

Questioning ICE’s presence with everyday parts of the job not only increased awareness about workplace rights, but it also permitted coworkers to imagine a different way of interacting with them. It showed one another that they could have the workplace they want–one that protects themselves and their patients.

2. Grow Networks and Strengthen Relationships

---

The core of organizers didn’t materialize out of thin air. The group, which drew in “a mix of people with different jobs like medical residents, nurses, dieticians, physical therapists,” and more, met in no small measure thanks to years of organizing against the genocide of the Palestinian people. A local Healthcare Workers for Palestine chapter deepened their connections with each other, other healthcare workers in the region, and allies outside their industry.

Following Trump’s reelection, they began planning how they could keep ICE out of their workplace. This small group couldn’t stop ICE on their own, but they knew that their committee’s diverse membership could activate coworkers across their institution.

To do that, they began adding all their coworkers to a WhatsApp chat. Here, they invited one another to upcoming “Know Your Rights” training and planned to alert each other if ICE is in the building. This chat is generally open for any coworker to join with a focus on spreading the word instead of tight security. There is one exception: they keep out management because, however well-meaning individuals are, “they have different pressures on them than we do, and some of those pressures come from above that are going to be reactionary forces.”

Relationships didn’t stop at the hospital doors though. Healthcare workers developed ties with a neighborhood rapid-response network. They also learned from colleagues at nearby facilities frequented by ICE about how they created a powerful policy to protect patients in ICE custody. And connections with lawyers who trained staff about their rights would later provide pro bono legal support for a patient’s release from ICE.

3. Set Goals and Make Demands

---

Growing arrests at courthouses and brutal conditions in ICE detention centers put more detainees in medical emergencies. In 2025, the deadliest year to date, 32 people died in ICE custody. Although Morgan’s coworkers hadn’t treated patients in ICE custody during this uptick, they didn’t want to panic when they inevitably arrived at the hospital’s doorsteps. With a wider reach and a growing culture of resisting ICE, coworkers began setting goals, formulating demands for management, and committing themselves to defending one another and their patients.

“Our real demand is that we should not even allow ICE in our hospital at all,” Morgan emphasized. But because that was “going to be a harder one to win,” hospital workers began formulating interim demands. In the medium term, healthcare organizers drafted a workplace policy that would restrict the agency’s reach within their hospital. Modeled after another California hospital’s policy shared with them through organizing networks, their version demanded protections to help detained patients exercise basic, constitutional rights, like access to legal counsel, and allow them to contact families about medical concerns.

Even if management wouldn’t accept the policy wholecloth, healthcare workers promised one another they would act as if it was in place. They readied a petition that would urge management to provide the protections they wanted for their patients.

Demands gave shape to the growing anti-ICE sentiments among hospital workers, showing one another that they weren’t alone and, together, they could envision the workplace they wanted.

4. Act Courageously, Ethically, and Innovatively to Win

---

The first time ICE brought in a sick patient, on-duty personnel pinged the WhatsApp chat about agents’ presence. Attending staff and coworkers “immediately started putting pressure on management,” gathering hundreds of signatures in a few short hours on the prepared petition. Despite the healthcare workers’ best efforts, administrators failed to act and the patient was eventually discharged back to ICE.

Bolstered by their powerful but ultimately unsuccessful efforts, organizers pushed even harder for a clear, strong anti-ICE policy. To turn up the pressure, they scheduled a public forum about the dangers of ICE in the hospital where they invited management to answer for the facility’s inadequate protections. This proved a turning point in their struggle.

Shortly before the forum began, management quietly posted to the hospital’s intranet the demanded “ICE interactions” policy. Emboldened, healthcare workers and community organizers grilled management about further strengthening the protections. They had no better proof-positive of their needs than when ICE hauled in another patient that same day.

Upon the patient’s arrival, hospital staff moved quickly. They sought support from lawyers they got to know from the healthcare worker legal trainings who, with little hesitation, agreed to take on the patient’s case. Meanwhile, attending physicians provided maximum care to the patient, ordering numerous tests that slowed their discharge. Those delays allowed lawyers to petition the court that the patient was unlawfully detained – an injunction the judge upheld. Beaming with pride, Morgan concluded “the ICE officer who had been accompanying them had to walk out of the hospital and leave and this person was able to be discharged back to their home.”

On their own, demands weren’t enough to change hospital policy and secure their patient’s freedom. Collective action grounded in cunning, courage, and a commitment to control over their workplace–and, in a small measure, society writ large–carried hospital workers to victory.

5. Keep Fighting

---

Morgan—and an increasing share of coworkers—won’t isolate ICE from other police agencies. “I think the goal should be to make our policies for anyone incarcerated to have these protections.” Federal agents and municipal police alike, they proclaim, should be kept out of their hospital. Hospital workers have issued another deadline for management to update all their policies on interactions with law enforcement, and are ready to act if they don’t respond.
To be certain, these gains build on nearly a decade of organizing. Without rank-and-file union reformers challenging stodgy leadership with a successful strike that secured a stronger contract years ago, many of today’s organizers would not have gotten to know one another. Without prior workplace organizing and struggle against genocide in Gaza, many healthcare workers would not have come to know they can reshape the culture and policies at their institutions.

Even though you and coworkers may not have been building for years, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still win nor that you shouldn’t start fighting today. ICE is not slowing its fascistic spread–and neither should our defense of each other, patients. As Morgan reminds us:

You’re not always going to win things. When you don’t, you’re making relationships and learning skills that you can use next time to win things. It feels impossible right now, but you definitely will not win anything unless you fight.

Notes

1. Although not used in this campaign, we have collected some examples of the kinds of flyers, know-your-rights information, training, and badge buddies described above. ↩︎

If you enjoyed this piece, we also recommend Organizing to Keep ICE Out of Your Workplace and How Everyday Organizing Stopped Trump’s Bay Area ICE Surge.

The post Healthcare Workers Freed a Patient From ICE – You Can Do the Same appeared first on Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation.

From Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7394645

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/21086

After receiving President Donald Trump's latest demand for Greenland via text message Sunday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was among the European leaders who signaled they aim to meet with Trump at this week's World Economic Forum in Switzerland to dial down European-US tensions that have been stoked by Trump's persistent threats.

In his message to Gahr Støre, Trump announced that his desire to control Greenland was partially motivated by his anger over being passed over last year for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is handed out in Norway annually—but not by the country's government.

"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America," Trump wrote in his message, which was reportedly forwarded by the National Security Council staff to numerous European ambassadors in Washington, DC.

— (@)

He repeated his claim that Denmark, which has counted Greenland as part of its kingdom for hundreds of years, "cannot protect" the Arctic island from Russia and China, and said that the "World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland." Security experts in Europe say Russia and China do not pose any immediate threat to Greenland.

Trump also asked why Denmark has a "right of ownership" to the semiautonomous territory. The US has recognized for decades in formal agreements with its European ally that Greenland is a part of Denmark's kingdom.

Trump's oft-repeated claim that he has "stopped 8 Wars PLUS" has been heavily disputed, considering hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by US-backed Israeli forces since the "ceasefire" agreement the president brokered was signed in October. He has claimed credit for truces between Cambodia and Thailand as well as India and Pakistan, but the former conflict has seen renewed fighting and India has denied the existence of a ceasefire. Other peace agreements Trump had a hand in mediating have not been finalized or fully implemented.

The president has also invaded Venezuela and killed over 100 people aboard boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as he claimed they were involved in drug trafficking—killings that have been called extrajudicial murder by legal experts—all while harboring anger over the Nobel Committee's refusal to honor his supposed peacemaking efforts.

In the US, the news of Trump's message led Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to write on social media that the president's mental acuity appears to have "degraded significantly in the last year."

"These are the ramblings of a man who has lost touch with reality. He isn’t okay," said Murphy. "And he’s about to get us into a war with our allies."

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) added that Trump's Cabinet must "invoke the 25th Amendment," which allows administration officials to declare a president unable to serve, while advocate Melanie D'Arrigo of the Campaign for New York Health called on reporters to print out Trump’s letter "on a giant poster, and ask Republicans in Congress why we shouldn’t impeach him when he wants to attack our allies because he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize?"

"I’m tired of Republicans saying, 'I didn’t see it,'" said D'Arrigo.

Gahr Støre confirmed Monday that he received Trump's letter via text message and said the missive had been in response to the Norwegian leader's request for a three-way phone call between himself, the White House, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb to deescalate tensions.

European leaders' concerns over Trump intensified over the weekend as the US president said on Saturday he plans to impose new tariffs on longtime allies and North American Treaty Organization (NATO) partners Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, the United Kingdom, and Norway, until the US is allowed to purchase Greenland and take control of its vast minerals as well as ostensibly benefiting from its strategic location in the Arctic.

On Monday, Trump did not rule out using military force to conquer Greenland, home to about 57,000 people, saying only, "No comment" when asked about it by NBC News.

Gahr Støre and other leaders signaled plans to continue trying to handle Trump's threats against his country's own allies diplomatically, with the Norwegian prime minister amending his schedule this week to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos during Trump's planned appearance there. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also said Monday he would try to meet with Trump at Davos on Wednesday, when the president is scheduled to deliver a keynote address.

Despite Trump's comments on the Nobel Prize, “I still believe it’s wise to talk,” Gahr Støre told TV2 Norway Monday.

But Merz emphasized that if European countries "are confronted with tariffs that we consider unreasonable, then we are capable of responding."

The European Union is considering imposing a never-before-used anti-coercion instrument to limit major US companies from doing business on the continent, or implementing its own package of tariffs on $108 billion in US imports starting February 6.

Gahr Støre said in a statement Monday that Norway's position on Greenland, as other European allies' views, "is clear."

"Greenland is a part of the kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the kingdom of Denmark on this matter. We also support that NATO in a responsible way is taking steps to strengthen security and stability in the Arctic," said the prime minister.

"As regards the Nobel Peace Prize," he added, "I have clearly explained, including to President Trump, what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian government."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7394648

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20844

Stewart Huntington
ICT

The wave of federal immigration agents swarming the Minneapolis area might be unprecedented in law enforcement history, but the response in the Indigenous community is not.

Half a century ago, the American Indian Movement was founded on Franklin Avenue, the heart of the urban Indian diaspora in South Minneapolis, to counter overzealous municipal policing.

Today, AIM patrols are back, watching over elders, youths and aunties along the same avenue in what is now known as the city’s American Indian Cultural Corridor.

“History shows us time and time again, it doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes,” said Heather Bruegl, an activist, historian and Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin citizen who has studied the American Indian Movement. “So you can look throughout history and see different examples of what we see today happening in the past.”

And if the history rhymes, some of the names do even more. Some are the same.

Crow Bellecourt, Bad River Band of Chippewa, has been out on the recent patrols. His father, the late Clyde Bellecourt, was a founding member of AIM in 1968 along with Russel Means and Dennis Banks.

“I grew up in the movement,” said Bellecourt, executive director of the Indigenous Protector Movement, a group with AIM roots. “I always like to say, ‘I’m second-generation American Indian Movement.’ It’s, like, full circle for me.”

AIM members attend a demonstration in 2020 in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. Credit: Photo by John Arthur Anderson

The confrontations between law enforcement and protestors in Minneapolis – including the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good –  have brought reports that Indigenous people have also been swept into custody.

A cohort of Indigenous patrollers  has now reached close to 100, Bellecourt said.

“We’re running from seven in the morning to seven in the evening,” he said. “And even more. We still have some patrollers going out until like 11 or 12 at night.”

And just like in 1968, the patrollers are on the street to help community members feel safe.

“It’s really scary here,” said Mary LaGarde, executive director of the Minneapolis American Indian Center, which operates from its base on Franklin Avenue.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have surged into the Twin Cities area to counter what the Trump administration has called corruption and criminality in area immigrant populations. At this point, there are more federal law enforcement officers in Minneapolis than metropolitan police.

The dramatic presence has prompted widespread protests and rebukes from state and local officials. There have been at least two shootings involving the federal officers.

“We woke up and we had all these ICE agents everywhere,” said Bellecourt. “They’re all over our neighborhood. I’m scared for our old people and the young ones who just wanted to catch the city bus to go to the grocery store. … I worry about them getting picked up from ICE.”

 LaGarde, White Earth Band of Chippewa, knows the feeling.

“It’s like you don’t want to leave the house,” LaGarde told ICT. “That’s how most of our people are feeling right now. Our elders are scared. Our young people, too. This is really impacting our kids.”

LaGarde said the patrols — by AIM members and other groups such as the Many Shields Warrior Society — are needed.

“it’s really important that we’re out protecting,” she said.

The numbers of volunteers out patrolling are growing.

“We have relatives coming in from South Dakota, Wisconsin and neighboring states,” Bellecourt said. Some have come from as far away as Oklahoma, he said.

Just like in the old days, AIM members are gathering along Franklin Avenue just as they gathered for occupations of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco in 1969, the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters  in 1972, and the Wounded Knee massacre site in 1973.

American Indian Movement leaders watch as the U.S. Department of Justice removes government forces from around Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on March 10, 1973. Shown in foreground are AIM leaders from left, Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, Russell Means and Carter Camp. Credit: AP Photo/FILE

AIM members also turned out in force in Minneapolis in 2020 after the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement.

What’s different from the early years? Modern communication tools.

“We didn’t have these cell phones and all this social media back in them days,” Bellecourt said. “Everybody called on house phones and it was amazing how many people would show up. My dad called it the ‘moccasin telegraph’ and people would just call one another and, wherever they needed people to be, everyone would show up.”

They came to help the people.Then and today.

“One of the first acts that AIM did when they were forming was patrolling the streets and making sure that if their community members were stopped or pulled over by the police, that their rights were being followed, like, you know, ‘Hey, you have the right to this, you have the right to that,’” Bruegl said.

“And we see that now happening again [because] people’s rights are being violated. We see Indigenous folks, tribal members being detained,” Bruegl said. “It’s important that groups like AIM and other groups are coming out again, working in community and making sure that we’re protecting each other.”

The post ‘Full Circle’: AIM patrols back on Minneapolis streets as tensions rise appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41916652

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/156242

From Common Dreams via this RSS feed

This is step 1 in converting concentration camps into death camps.

Right now, they are targeting off-duty non-white cops. It will expand — yesterday, Presidential Adviser Stephen Miller called for local and state police to surrender to ICE. Failing to fight is no protection.

Archived copies of the article

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• archive.today
• ghostarchive.org

Thousands of Minneapolis residents have joined a church-run effort to deliver donated groceries to immigrant families who fear being caught in public by federal agents.

A similar decision in the UK resulted in clear-cutting old growth forests to feed biomass-burning power plants, with all the associated increase in atmosphere CO2

You also get all the same health consequences as burning coal. This is not a good move

There is video

Federal immigration agents have detained a U.S. citizen in Minnesota at gunpoint without a warrant

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/33045190

The decision permitted the Trump administration to continue restricting inspections of the conditions inside immigration detention compounds.

Opinion - Lydia Polgreen
Jan. 19, 2026

https://archive.ph/A01JF

Like many Americans, I had watched the video of the killing of Good by an ICE officer on a residential street in Minneapolis with horror and sorrow. From afar, this tragic and possibly criminal act of violence could plausibly be seen as incidental to President Trump’s mission to deport undocumented people from the country. But when I landed in Minneapolis on Monday and saw the size, scope and lawlessness of the federal onslaught unfolding here, I understood that Good’s killing was emblematic of its true mission: to stage a spectacle of cruelty upon a city that stands in stark defiance against Trump’s dark vision of America.