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A surprising twist in a New Jersey primary race showed how questions about Israel continue to roil American politics in unpredictable ways.

Feb. 6, 2026
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The group’s allied super PAC spent at least $2.3 million against former Representative Tom Malinowski, who has said that he “would not deny anything Israel needs to defend itself” but left open the possibility of placing limits on aid.

It ran negative ads against him, sending a message that it was willing to punish Democrats seen as insufficiently supportive of Israel. And with the race still uncalled on Friday, Mr. Malinowski was indeed trailing narrowly. But the candidate leading him was not one of the other moderates in the race, but an outspoken critic of Israel: Analilia Mejia, a left-leaning political organizer who has said she believed the country committed genocide in Gaza.

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Feb. 5, 2026

Jan. 18 was a Sunday morning. I was on my 11th straight day of covering the unrest in Minnesota after the fatal shooting of Renee Good. I was exhausted. The 14- and 16-hour days were catching up with me.

But that day, I went to work as a journalist again, documenting a small gathering of community members at Cities Church, in St. Paul, Minn. — they were there taking issue with one of the pastors of that church, who was apparently also working as the acting field director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s St. Paul field office. I was one of the journalists who documented what happened that day.

Twelve days later, I woke up to forceful knocking at 6 in the morning. The men at my door identified themselves as federal agents and claimed they held an arrest warrant for me, Georgia Fort.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42661169

Michelle Goldberg
Feb. 3, 2026

Judge Ana Reyes did not have to go far to discover Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s animus toward Haitians. She just had to read her social media feed. “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies,” Noem wrote on X in December. She added, “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”

Reyes, a Federal District Court judge in Washington, cited Noem’s post at the very beginning of a blistering opinion issued Monday night preventing the administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, at least for now. That status was due to expire on Tuesday, rendering more than 350,000 Haitians who are now legally living and working in America undocumented overnight.

Jan. 31, 2026

The document cites a source linking Jared Kushner and a religious Jewish group accused of seeking to hijack Trump’s presidency

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42585201

Updated 7:53 AM EST, Feb. 1, 2026

GREELEY, Colo (AP) — Like many Donald Trump voters, Miranda Niedermeier is not opposed to immigration enforcement. She was heartened by initial moves from the Republican president in his second term that she saw as targeting immigrants who were in the United States illegally and had committed crimes.

But Niedermeier, 35, has steadily become disillusioned with Trump. Never more so than in recent weeks, when federal immigration officers killed two U.S. citizens during Trump’scrackdownin Minneapolis.

“In the beginning, they were getting criminals, but now they’re tearing people out of immigration proceedings, looking for the tiniest traffic infraction” to deport someone, said Niedermeier. She said she is horrified because the administration’s approach is not Christian.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42579679

Jon Queally
Feb 02, 2026

Progressive critics of Senate Minority Chuck Schumer had fresh reasons to speak out Sunday after the powerful New York Democrat said that “one of many of [his] jobs” in the US Senate was to fight for ongoing taxpayer-funded military and financial assistance to the Israeli government, a position that has been the focus of growing protest among rank-and-file party members and the public at large in the face of Israel’s brutal genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader... and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.

According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42562094

Jan. 31, 2026

The Times reported on Friday that the memo, which was signed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons, “expands the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up people they encounter and suspect are undocumented immigrants, rather than targeted enforcement operations in which they set out, warrant in hand, to arrest a specific person.”

In the past, agents have been granted the power to carry out warrantless arrests only in situations where they believe a suspected undocumented immigrant is a “flight risk” who is unlikely to comply with obligations such as appearing at court hearings.

However, the memo declares this standard to be “unreasoned” and “incorrect,” saying that agents should feel free to carry out arrests so long as the suspect is “unlikely to be located at the scene of the encounter or another clearly identifiable location once an administrative warrant is obtained.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42561306

Jan. 31, 2026

According to a Saturday report in the New York Times, concern over ICE’s brutality has grown to such an extent that many Minnesota residents, including both documented immigrants and US citizens, have started wearing passports around their necks to avoid being potentially targeted.

CNN on Friday reported that ICE has been rounding up refugees living in Minnesota who were allowed to enter the US after undergoing “a rigorous, years-long vetting process,” and sending them to a facility in Texas where they are being prepared for deportation.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42464377

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42464327

Bystanders say they are determined to keep recording federal agents’ actions: ‘There will be absolutely no accountability unless people are documenting’

Rachel Leingang and Maanvi Singh in Minneapolis
Thu 29 Jan 2026 10.00 EST

The killing of Alex Pretti by a federal officer on Saturday, less than three weeks after the killing of Renee Good, brought heightened attention to the brutality observers and bystanders are facing in Minneapolis as they witness and document immigration enforcement. Volunteer observers told the Guardian they have been subjected to violence since the beginning of Operation Metro Surge in early December.

Observers who had been detained by federal agents and released, many without charges, told the Guardian they were denied access to medical care, phone calls and lawyers.

January 28, 2026
2:17 PM ET