Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams

Over 70 Democratic US lawmakers on Tuesday demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement—which critics say violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unwarranted search and seizure.

In a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, 72 congressional Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) wrote, “Public contracting documents indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently resumed buying Americans’ location data from a shady data broker” after the agency “ended a previous program to purchase Americans’ cellphone location data in 2023, following an investigation by your office and scrutiny from Congress.”

“Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time,” the lawmakers’ letter states. “It is for that reason that ordinarily, the government must obtain a warrant from a judge in order to demand such data from phone or technology companies.”

While the Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the government from searching or obtaining Americans’ private information without a warrant, federal agencies have circumvented the proscription by buying sensitive personal data from private brokers.

“Public reports indicate that ICE has resumed its location data purchases, even though DHS has yet to adopt all of the recommendations from your prior review,” the lawmakers noted in their letter.

The letter continues:

"ICE issued a no-bid contract to the surveillance company PenLink in 2025, which included licenses for its location tracking product, Webloc, according to press reports. Webloc was developed by the controversial surveillance company Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with Nebraska-based PenLink as part of a $200 million private equity deal in 2023. Cobwebs gained notoriety when Meta banned the company in 2021, as part of a crackdown on surveillance mercenaries after detecting the company’s customers targeting activists, opposition politicians, and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico."

"ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data. Sen. Wyden’s office requested a briefing from ICE soon after this contract was revealed in the press, in October, which was scheduled in December, for February 10, 2026. One day before that briefing was to take place, ICE canceled it with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule."

The letter asks:

• Whether ICE and other DHS components are purchasing illegally obtained location data about Americans;
• If so, why does DHS not have policies in place to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to contractors that have invaded Americans’ privacy in violation of federal law;
• How ICE and other DHS components have used location data and whether they have used it to investigate Americans for engaging in constitutionally protected activities, including protesting or monitoring ICE operations;
• Whether ICE and other DHS components are auditing employee access to commercial location data to identify likely patterns of abuse; and
• Why has DHS still not adopted a policy for the use of commercial location data, as you recommended in 2023?

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently explained, ICE has spent $5 million on Webloc and Tangles, another location and social media surveillance product made by PenLink.

According to EFF:

Webloc gathers the locations of millions of phones by gathering data from mobile data brokers and linking it together with other information about users. Tangles is a social media surveillance tool which combines web scraping with access to social media application programming interfaces. These tools are able to build a dossier on anyone who has a public social media account. Tangles is able to link together a person’s posting history, posts, and comments containing keywords, location history, tags, social graph, and photos with those of their friends and family. PenLink then sells this information to law enforcement, allowing law enforcement to avoid the need for a warrant. This means ICE can look up historic and current locations of many people all across the US without ever having to get a warrant.

There have been several attempts to solidify restrictions on government purchase of Americans’ personal data in recent years, most notably the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act (FANFSA), which failed to pass.

Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but is also intended to protect Americans from warrantless spying, including by closing the data broker loophole that lets law enforcement buy their way around the Fourth Amendment.

Also last month, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) led 13 Democratic lawmakers who sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seeking answers about ICE’s use of PenLink surveillance technology “designed to collect and analyze cellphone location data across entire neighborhoods.”

“Mass surveillance of entire communities or city blocks raises serious questions about data privacy and potential violations of civil liberties,” Brown wrote.

“Americans should be able to trust their government to uphold the Constitution and respect fundamental rights,” she added. “Instead, DHS appears to be engaging in broad surveillance practices to monitor entire communities, violating Americans’ fundamental civil rights and civil liberties to punish dissent and advance the president’s cruel and unconstitutional mass deportation agenda.”

President Donald Trump raised eyebrows and angst among democracy defenders Friday for saying he deserves an unconstitutional third term in office, remarks that came a day after reporting that right-wing activists are drafting an executive order that could empower him to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“Maybe we do one more term. Should we do one more?” the 79-year-old Republican president asked attendees of an event at the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas on Friday to roaring applause. “Do one more term. Well, we are entitled to it.”

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump rehashed his thoroughly debunked claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election for former President Joe Biden, saying this “should be my third term.”

A third term would require a constitutional amendment, as the 22nd Amendment restricts US presidents to two terms in office.

Extensions of presidential terms or abolition of limits are hallmarks of dictators and backsliding leaders of erstwhile democracies. After Chinese President Xi Jinping lifted constitutional term limits in 2018, Trump marveled, “He’s great,” adding, “He’s now president for life.”

Trump has made cryptic allusions to a third term in office on multiple occasions.

While many Trump supporters believe he should also be president for life, his allies in actual positions of power—including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and political strategist and convicted fraudster Steve Bannon, whom Trump granted clemency—have backed a third term for his administration.

A constitutional amendment enabling a third Trump term is not under any consideration and is all but impossible by the 2028 election. So Trump and his allies are working on other ways for the president to remain in office, focusing heavily on voter suppression. The Washington Post reported Thursday that a group of right-wing activists is writing a draft decree that would give the president “extraordinary power over voting.” On Friday, Democracy Docket published an April 2025 version of the draft order provided by a Trump ally, which the outlet described as “riddled with errors.”

According to the Post, the draft executive order would cite the pretext of alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 election. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that there was no such interference.

MS NOW national security contributor Marc Polymeropoulos called the draft order “bats--- authoritarianism.”

Child safety advocates renewed calls for tighter gun control measures following a Monday mass shooting at a high school hockey game in Rhode Island that left three people including the gunman dead and three others injured.

WPRI reported that the father of a North Providence High School senior shot five members of his family at a hockey game at Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket at around 2:30 pm local time. The student’s mother was killed at the rink, while his sister died after being rushed to a local hospital. Three other relatives are reportedly in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital.

“We realized pretty quickly that it was a gunshot. It was very scary,” hockey player Silas Core said during an interview with WCVB, adding that he and his teammates rushed into a locker room.

“We barricaded the locker room with our bodies. We were all pressing up against it,” he said. “Everybody was, you know, worried about our parents and everybody.”

Core’s mother told WCVB that everything “just happened so fast.”

“You don’t even know. You know, you just see everybody else on the ground and you kind of get on the ground,” she said. “This is really disturbing, you know? And it’s the other team’s senior day. Like, it was supposed to be a special day for the team.”

Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves said the shooting appeared to be “a family dispute,” a “tragic” but “isolated” incident.

A woman who said she was the shooter’s daughter told WCVB that the man suffered from mental health problems.

“He shot my family, and he’s dead now,” she said.

FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the agency “will provide state and local law enforcement any and all resources necessary and keep the public updated as we are able.”

“In the meantime,” he added, “please pray for the victims and their families.”

Democratic Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said that “as governor, a parent, and a former coach, my heart breaks for the victims, families, students, and everyone impacted by the devastating shooting at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket.”

McKee added that he is “praying for our communities.”

Gun control advocates demanded more than the customary thoughts and prayers.

“As a native Rhode Islander who has played many games in that very rink, this tragedy hits especially close to home,” Stop Gun Violence board chair Brian Lemek said. “That space holds memories of community, competition, and joy—and now it’s filled with pain no community should have to carry.”

“The only thing young athletes should worry about is the scoreboard—not their safety,” he continued. “Our kids deserve spaces that bring communities together, they deserve to be safe, and they deserve a future free from this constant fear.”

“This is no way for our kids to live,” Lemek added. “We need to stop this madness.”

Monday’s incident follows December’s mass shooting at Brown University in Providence—which is less than 10 miles from Pawtucket—that left two people dead and nine others wounded.

“We can and should work together to promote responsible gun ownership and pass legislation like safe storage laws and red flag laws—widely supported measures that keep guns out of dangerous situations while respecting responsible ownership,” Lemek asserted Monday.

“I’m holding the victims and their loved ones in my heart,” he added, “and I’m more determined than ever to build a future where our kids are safe in the places meant for joy.”

A Mexican man beaten within an inch of his life last month by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is on the mend and on Saturday spoke out to refute what one nurse called the agency’s “laughable” claim that his injuries—which include a skull shattered in eight places and five brain hemorrhages—were self-inflicted.

Alberto Castañeda Mondragón told the Associated Press that ICE agents pulled him from a friend’s car outside a shopping center in St. Paul, Minnesota—where the Trump administration’s ongoing Operation Metro Surge has left two people dead and thousands arrested—on January 8.

The 31-year-old father was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and then savagely assaulted with fists and a steel baton.

“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” he said.

Castañeda Mondragón was then dragged into an SUV and taken to a holding facility at Ft. Snelling in suburban Minneapolis where he says he was beaten again. He said he pleaded with his attackers to stop, but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.”

“They were very racist people,” he said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”

Castañeda Mondragón was taken to the emergency room at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) suffering from eight skull fractures, five life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and multiple broken facial bones.

ICE agents told HCMC nurses that Castañeda Mondragón “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” a claim his caretakers immediately doubted. A CT scan revealed fractures to the front, back, and both sides of his skull—injuries inconsistent with running into a wall.

“It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about,” one of the nurses told the AP last month on the condition of anonymity. “There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.”

“There was never a wall,” Castañeda Mondragón insisted.

Castañeda Mondragón was hospitalized for nearly three weeks. During the first week, he was minimally responsive, disoriented, and heavily sedated. His memory was damaged by the beating—he said he could not initially remember that he had a daughter—and he could not bathe himself after he was discharged from the hospital.

In addition to facing a long road to recovery, Castañeda Mondragón, who has been employed as a driver and a roofer, has been relying upon support from co-workers and his community for food, housing, and healthcare, as he is unable to work and has no health insurance. A GoFundMe page has been launched to solicit donations “for covering medical care and living expenses until he can begin working again.”

“I don’t know why ICE did this to me,” Castañeda Mondragón said in translated remarks on the page. “They did not detain me after the hospital, I am not a criminal, and the doctors say they were untruthful about how the injuries occurred. But I prefer not to fight, I only want to recover, pay my bills, and go back to work.”

On January 23, US District Judge Donovan W. Frank ruled that ICE was unlawfully detaining Castañeda Mondragón and ordered his immediate release.

Frank’s ruling noted that “ICE agents have largely refused to provide information about the cause of [Castañeda Mondragón’s] condition to hospital staff and counsel for [him], stating only that ‘he got his shit rocked’ and that he ran headfirst into a brick wall.”

The ruling also stated that “despite requests by hospital staff, ICE agents have refused to leave the hospital, asserting that [Castañeda Mondragón] is under ICE custody.”

“Two agents have been present at the hospital at all times since January 8, 2026,” the document continues. “ICE agents used handcuffs to shackle [Castañeda Mondragón’s] legs, despite requests from HCMC staff that he not be so restrained. Petitioner is now confined by hospital-issued four-point restraints in an apparent compromise between the providers and agents.”

“Prior to this case, ICE had not provided any explanation for [Castañeda Mondragón’s] arrest or continued detention,” Frank added.

Castañeda Mondragón legally entered the United States in 2022 but reportedly overstayed his visa.

Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest came a day after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old legal observer Renee Good in Minneapolis. Seventeen days later, Customs and Border Protection officers fatally shot nurse Alex Pretti, who was also 37, in South Minneapolis after disarming him of a legally carried handgun.

The Department of Homeland Security has not announced any investigation into the attack on Castañeda Mondragón, sparking criticism from civil rights advocates and some Democratic elected officials.

Castañeda Mondragón told the AP that he considers himself lucky.

“It’s immense luck to have survived, to be able to be in this country again, to be able to heal, and to try to move forward,” he said. “For me, it’s the best luck in the world.”

But he suffers nightmares that ICE is coming for him.

“You’re left with the nightmare of going to work and being stopped,” Castañeda Mondragón said, “or that you’re buying your food somewhere, your lunch, and they show up and stop you again. They hit you.”

A divided federal appellate panel ruled Friday in favor of the Trump administration’s policy of locking up most undocumented immigrants without bond, a decision that legal experts called a serious blow to due process.

A three-judge panel of the right-wing 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled 2-1 that President Donald Trump’s reversal of three decades of practice by previous administrations is legally sound under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). The ruling reverses two lower court orders.

“The text [of the IIRIRA] says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations,” Judge Edith Jones—an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan—wrote for the majority. “That prior administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority... does not mean they lacked the authority to do more.”

Writing in dissent, Judge Dana M. Douglas, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, asserted that “the Congress that passed IIRIRA would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people. For almost 30 years there was no sign anyone thought it had done so, and nothing in the congressional record or the history of the statute’s enforcement suggests that it did.”

“Nonetheless, the government today asserts the authority and mandate to detain millions of noncitizens in the interior, some of them present here for decades, on the same terms as if they were apprehended at the border,” Douglas added. “No matter that this newly discovered mandate arrives without historical precedent, and in the teeth of one of the core distinctions of immigration law. The overwhelming majority elsewhere have recognized that the government’s position is totally unsupported.”

Past administration generally allowed unauthorized immigrants who had lived in the United States for years to attend bond hearings, at which they had a chance to argue before immigration judges that they posed no flight risk and should be permitted to contest their deportation without detention.

Mandatory detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was generally reserved for convicted criminals or people who recently entered the country illegally.

However, the Trump administration contends that anyone who entered the United States without authorization at any time can be detained pending deportation, with limited discretionary exceptions for humanitarian or public interest cases. As a result, immigrants who have lived in the US for years or even decades are being detained indefinitely, even if they have no criminal records.

According to a POLITICO analysis, more than 360 judges across the country—including dozens of Trump appointees—have rejected the administration’s interpretation of ICE’s detention power, while just 26 sided with the administration.

While US Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed Friday’s ruling as a “significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn,” some legal experts said the decision erodes constitutional rights.

“AWFUL news for due process,” American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said on social media in response to Friday’s ruling. “This decision will wipe out the availability of release through bond for tens of thousands of people detained in or transported to Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi by ICE.”

While Friday’s ruling only applies to those three states, which fall under the 5th Circuit Court’s jurisdiction, there are numerous legal challenges to the administration’s detention policy in courts across the country.

The US Environmental Protection Agency on Friday announced its anticipated reapproval of dicamba for two key crops, a move which, given the pesticide’s proven health risks, places the EPA at apparent odds with President Donald Trump’s vow to “Make America Healthy Again.”

“The industry cronies at the EPA just approved a pesticide that drifts away from application sites for miles and poisons everything it touches,” Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in response to Friday’s announcement.

“With the EPA taking aggressive pro-pesticide industry actions like this, it’s hard to see how Making America Healthy Again was anything but another broken campaign promise,” Donley added. “When push comes to shove, this administration is willing to bend over backward to appease the pesticide industry, regardless of the consequences to public health or the environment.”

The EPA said in a statement that the agency “established the strongest protections in agency history for over-the-top (OTT) dicamba application on dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean crops,” and that “this decision responds directly to the strong advocacy of America’s cotton and soybean farmers.”

While scientific studies have linked exposure to high levels of dicamba to increased risk of cancer and hypothyroidism and the European Union has classified dicamba as a category II suspected endocrine disruptor, the EPA said Friday that “when applied according to the new label instructions,” it “found no unreasonable risk to human health and the environment from OTT dicamba use.”

This is the third time the EPA has approved dicamba for OTT use. On both prior occasions, federal courts blocked the approvals, citing underestimation of the risk of chemical drift that could harm neighboring farms.

The agency highlighted new restrictions on dicamba use it said will reduce risk of drift.

“EPA recognizes that previous drift issues created legitimate concerns, and designed these new label restrictions to directly address them, including cutting the amount of dicamba that can be used annually in half, doubling required safety agents, requiring conservation practices to protect endangered species, and restricting applications during high temperatures when exposure and volatility risks increase,” it said.

Critics noted that the EPA during the Biden administration published a report revealing that during Trump’s first term, senior administration officials intentionally excluded scientific evidence of dicamba-related hazards, including the risk of widespread drift damage, prior to a previous reapproval.

Others pointed to the recent appointment of former American Soybean Associate lobbyist and dicamba advocate Kyle Kunkler as the EPA’s pesticides chief.

“Kunkler works under two former lobbyists for the American Chemistry Council, Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, who are now overseen by a fourth industry lobbyist, Doug Troutman, who was recently confirmed to lead the chemicals office following endorsement by the chemical council,” the Center for Food Safety (CFS) noted Friday.

The Trump EPA has also come under fire for promoting the alleged safety of atrazine, a herbicide that the World Health Organization says probably causes cancer, and for pushing the US Supreme Court to shield Bayer, which makes the likely carcinogenic weedkiller Roundup, from thousands of lawsuits.

CFS science director Bill Freese said that “the Trump administration’s hostility to farmers and rural America knows no bounds.”

“Dicamba drift damage threatens farmers’ livelihoods and tears apart rural communities,” Freese added. “And these are farmers and communities already reeling from Trump’s [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids on farmworkers, the trade war shutdown of soybean exports to China, and Trump’s bailout of Argentina, whose farmers are selling soybeans to the Chinese—soybeans China used to buy from American growers.”

Popular outrage over President Donald Trump’s deadly campaign targeting immigrants and their defenders sparked a National Shutdown day of protests across the United States on Friday, as people from coast to coast took to the streets demanding an end to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “reign of terror.”

“No school, no work, and no shopping,” the National Shutdown said on its website. “The entire country is shocked and outraged at the brutal killings of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Silverio Villegas González, and Keith Porter Jr. by federal agents.”

“While Trump and other right-wing politicians are slandering them as ‘terrorists,’ the video evidence makes it clear beyond all doubt: They were gunned down in broad daylight simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest mass deportation,” the campaign continued.

“Every day, ICE, Border Patrol, and other enforcers of Trump’s racist agenda are going into our communities to kidnap our neighbors and sow fear,” the protest organizers added. “It is time for us to all stand up together in a nationwide shutdown and say enough is enough!”

One week after an estimated 50,000 protesters marched in downtown Minneapolis for the “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom” rally, at least tens of thousands of people braved subzero wind chill temperatures to protest the ongoing Operation Metro Surge blitz in the Twin Cities.

Rock icon Bruce Springsteen—who this week released a song called “Streets of Minneapolis” to pay tribute to activists fighting Trump’s assault on immigrants and American democracy—made a surprise appearance at a benefit concert for the families of Good and Pretti.

Maine Public Radio reported that over 150 businesses, mostly in the Portland area, closed their doors Friday amid Operation Catch of the Day, during which ICE enforcers have arrested hundreds of people in the Pine Tree State.

“Today, the working class of Portland has sent a clear message to those in power: Your power is derived from our labor, and we are not afraid to withhold our labor for the safety of our neighbors,” South Portland retail worker Keeli Parker told MPR.

In Chicago—where ICE’s Operation Midway Blitz prompted a special commission appointed by Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to recommend the prosecution of federal agents who violate people’s constitutional rights—Nick Mayor, co-owner of Brewed Coffee in the Avondale neighborhood, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the cost of closing his business for the day “pales in comparison to the cost of what is happening to other people and their families, with their lives getting taken and torn apart.”

More than 1,000 people packed into Washington Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, where protesters chanted slogans including “Power to the people, no one is illegal,” and, “No justice, no peace, we want ICE off our streets!”

Three hundred miles southwest of Salt Lake City in St. George, Utah, dozens of demonstrators rallied in the city center, holding signs reading, “ICE Out” and “the wrong ICE is melting.” One disapproving motorist yelled, “Go back to California” while driving by, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

In Los Angeles, Proof Bakery, a worker-owned cooperative in Atwater Village, also shut its doors for the day.

“We want to show solidarity,” Proof Bakery worker-owner Daniela Diaz told KABC. “We’ve seen historically that strikes work. I hope the violence stops. I want ICE out of our communities.”

Hundreds of high school students walked out of their classrooms in Asheville, North Carolina, where sophomore Henry Pope told the Mountain XPress, “We reject the ICE terror that’s sweeping across our communities.”

“We reject everything this far-right, billionaire administration stands for, and we need justice to be brought to Jonathan Ross and every other killer ICE agent in this country,” Pope added, referring to the officer who fatally shot Good earlier this month.

Kelia Harold, a senior at the University of Florida in Gainesville, rallied on campus with around 100 other students.

“Instead of sitting on my own and being helpless, it really helps to come out here,” she told the New York Times, noting Pretti’s killing.

“If that could happen to him,” she said, “I don’t see why it couldn’t happen to anyone else.”

Advocates sounded the alarm Friday over federal agents’ arrest last week of a family of legal asylum-seekers apprehended just outside a Portland, Oregon, hospital where they had rushed their 7-year-old daughter for emergency medical treatment.

Yohendry De Jesus Crespo and his wife Darianny Liseth González de Crespo—Venezuelans with pending asylum claims living in Gresham, Oregon—were rushing their daughter Diana to Adventist Hospital in Portland on Jan. 16 as the child suffered an unstoppable nosebleed.

According to the Oregonian, Diana never got to see a doctor, as three unmarked vehicles and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded their family car in the emergency room parking lot.

“The parents pleaded to let their 7-year-old daughter... be released so she could receive urgently needed medical care, but that request was denied,” Oregon state Rep. Ricki Ruiz (D-50) said on Facebook.

Friend Ana Linares said the family was arrested, driven to a facility in Tacoma, Washington, and then sent to Texas, where they are being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center near San Antonio.

The facility, which is run by ICE and private prison profiteer CoreCivic, is accused of providing inadequate medical care for children, as well as poor sanitary and health conditions. Detainees also report being served moldy or worm-infested food.

Ruiz said the child “remains ill, reportedly suffering from a fever, and has not received basic medical care.”

The family’s arrest—which took place less than 1,000 feet from where a US Border Patrol agent shot a Venezuelan couple earlier this month—appears to be the first time in Oregon that immigration enforcers have detained an entire family unit.

Heather Pease, a spokesperson for Adventist Hospital, told the Oregonian that “no law enforcement agency contacted us” about arresting the family, “and we did not coordinate with any agency.”

“Adventist Health Portland is here for our community, open, available, and ready to provide care when it’s needed most,” Pease added. “Patient care remains our priority, regardless of circumstances.”

It is unclear why the family was arrested. Neither parent has any known criminal record. Linares said the couple—who met in the Panamanian jungle while making their way to the United States—waited to enter the US legally and applied for an appointment. They were assigned a 2028 immigration court date to plead their asylum cases.

“They are good people, not criminals,” Linares told the Oregonian. “They were looking for stability. They wanted to help their families in Venezuela.”

The Trump administration’s deadly mass deportation blitz has targeted children—among them US citizens, including a 3-year-old cancer patient—for detention and deportation.

As Common Dreams reported Thursday, federal agents seized at least four children from Minnesota public schools over the past two weeks, including a 5-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, who were sent to the Dilley lockup.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security, a record 73,000 people facing deportation are currently being jailed by ICE, including 6,000 family units.

Some of the nearly 5,000 children who were separated from their parents or other relatives during Trump’s first term have also yet to be reunited with their families.

Child welfare advocates worry that Trump administration pressure to increase arrests and the commodification of migrants by for-profit prisons and other private profiteers is incentivizing the arrest and detention of immigrants, including children.

Asserting that “the immediate health and well-being” of Diana Crespo “must be the top priority,” Ruiz said on Facebook, “We urgently call for the child to receive appropriate medical care without delay and for the family to be afforded due process and access to legal counsel.”

“Situations involving children require heightened care, compassion, and coordination,” he added, “and we expect all responsible agencies to act swiftly and humanely to ensure this child’s health and safety are protected.”

The latest in a series of congressional efforts to rein in President Donald Trump’s military aggression against Venezuela failed Thursday as Republican lawmakers again defeated a war powers resolution by the tightest possible margin.

House lawmakers voted 215-215 on H.Con.Res.68—introduced last month by Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.)—which “directs the president to remove US armed forces from Venezuela unless a declaration of war or authorization to use military force for such purpose has been enacted.”

Unlike in the Senate, where the vice president casts tie-breaking votes, a deadlock in the House means the legislation does not pass.

Every House Democrat and two Republicans—Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie of Kentucky—voted in favor of the measure. Every other Republican voted against it. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) did not vote.

The House vote came a week after Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote was needed to overcome a 50-50 deadlock on a similar resolution introduced last month by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The War Powers Resolution of 1973—also known as the War Powers Act—was enacted during the Nixon administration toward the end of the US war on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The law empowers Congress to check the president’s war-making authority by requiring the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours. It also mandates that lawmakers approve any troop deployments lasting longer than 60 days.

Thursday’s vote followed this month’s US bombing and invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife on dubious “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking allegations. Trump has also imposed an oil blockade on the South American nation, seizing seven tankers. Since September, the US has also been bombing boats accused of transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

“If the president is contemplating further military action, then he has a moral and constitutional obligation to come here and get our approval,” McGovern said following the vote.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-NY) lamented the resolution’s failure, saying, “The American people want us to lower their cost of living, not enable war.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said on Bluesky: “Only Congress has the authority to declare war. Today, I voted for a war powers resolution to ensure Trump cannot send OUR armed forces to Venezuela without explicit authorization from Congress.”

Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser at the advocacy group Demand Progress, also decried the resolution’s failure.

“We are deeply disappointed that the House did not pass this war powers resolution, though it’s notable that it failed only due to a tie,” he said.

“As with the recent Senate vote, the administration expended extraordinary energy pressuring Republicans to block this resolution,” Kharrazian added. “That effort speaks for itself: With the American people tired of endless war, the administration knows that a Congress willing to enforce the law can meaningfully curtail illegal and escalatory military action. We urge members of Congress to continue fully exercising their constitutional authority over matters of war.”

Vice President JD Vance left observers scratching their heads Thursday after he touted the Trump administration’s economic policies by comparing them to the doomed ocean liner Titanic.

Speaking at an event in Toledo in his home state of Ohio under a banner reading, “Lower Prices, Bigger Paychecks,” Vance addressed the worsening affordability crisis by once again blaming former Democratic President Joe Biden—who left office a year ago—for the problem.

“The Democrats talk a lot about the affordability crisis in the United States of America. And yes, there is an affordability crisis—one created by Joe Biden’s policies,” Vance said. “You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight. It takes time to fix what was broken.”

Responding to Vance’s remarks, writer and activist Jordan Uhl said on X, “The Titanic, a ship that famously turned around.”

Podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen asked on X, “Does he know what happened to the Titanic?”

One popular X account said, “At least he’s admitting what ship we’re on.”

In an allusion to the Titanic‘s demise and the Trump administration’s deadly Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown, another Bluesky user quipped, “Ice was the villain of that story too.”

Puns aside, statistics and public sentiment show that Trump has utterly failed to tackle the affordability crisis. The high price of groceries—a central theme of Trump’s 2024 campaign—keeps getting higher. And despite Trump’s claim to have defeated inflation, a congressional report published this week revealed that the average American family paid $1,625 in higher overall costs last year amid tariff turmoil, soaring healthcare costs, and overall policies that favor the rich and corporations over working people.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday found that 49% of respondents believe the country is generally worse off today than it was when Biden left office a year ago, while only 32% said the nation is better off and 19% said things are about the same. A majority of respondents also said they disapprove of how Trump is handling the cost of living (64%) and the economy (58%).

“You know, a thing about a phrase like ‘lower prices, bigger paychecks’ is that you can’t actually fool people into thinking that you’ve delivered these things if they can look at their own bank account and see it’s not true,” Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson wrote on X.

“I know the Trump administration’s standard strategy is to just make up an alternate reality and aggressively insist that anyone who doesn’t believe in it is a domestic terrorist,” Robinson added, “but personal finances are really an area where that doesn’t work.”

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s gifting of her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump raised eyebrows around the world Friday—but it wasn’t the first time that the winner of the prestigious award gave it away.

Last month, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to the 58-year-old opposition leader “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Machado joined a notorious group of Nobel Peace laureates who either waged or advocated for war, as she backed Trump’s aggression against her country. This has included a massive troop deployment, military and CIA airstrikes, bombing of boats allegedly transporting drugs, and the abduction earlier this month of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Trump has ordered the bombing of nine other countries during his two terms, more than any other president in history. US forces acting on his orders have killed thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. While running for president in 2016, Trump vowed to “bomb the shit out of” Islamic State militants and “take out their families,” and then followed through on his promise.

Despite being passed over by Trump for installation in any leadership role in Venezuela so far, Machado presented Trump with her framed Nobel medal along with a certificate of gratitude during a Thursday meeting at the White House. Trump subsequently posted on his Truth Social network that “María presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”

That gesture prompted the Norwegian Nobel Committee to issue a statement noting that the prize cannot be given away.

“Even if the medal or diploma later comes into someone else’s possession, this does not alter who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” the committee said. “A laureate cannot share the prize with others, nor transfer it once it has been announced. A Nobel Peace Prize can also never be revoked. The decision is final and applies for all time.”

The committee’s statement was extraordinary—but this is not the first time that a Nobel winner gave away their prize. In 1943, Norwegian author Knut Hamsun gifted his 1920 Nobel Prize for Literature—awarded for his novel Markens Grøde (Growth of the Soil)—to Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels after a trip to Germany. Other Nobel laureates have donated or sold their medals.

The progressive media outlet Occupy Democrats said on social media: “Clearly, the similarities between Trump and Goebbels extend beyond just a mutual admiration for fascism. Both men possess(ed) the kind of spiritually sick, egotistical temperament that allows one to accept a prize that someone else has earned.”

“Obviously, Donald Trump does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize,” the outlet continued. “He has bombed Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, innocent fishing boats in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and is in the process of turning the United States into a war zone. That said, Machado doesn’t deserve it either.”

“Anyone spineless enough to surrender the prize to an evil man like Trump in the hopes of obtaining power is not someone we should be celebrating,” Occupy Democrats added.

Last month, Wikileaks founder and multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominee Julian Assange sued the Nobel Foundation—the Swedish organization that manages administration of the approximately $1.2 million-per-winner prize—in a bid to prevent Machado from receiving the money.

Machado’s win also sparked protests outside the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

The father of three children who were hospitalized in Minneapolis on Wednesday night accused federal agents of launching flash-bang munitions and tear gas into their family van after they were caught up in protests against the Trump administration’s deadly immigration crackdown.

“Officers threw flash bangs and tear gas in my car. I got six kids in the car,” Shawn Jackson told KMSP. “My 6-month-old can’t even breathe.”

The explosions were strong enough to trigger the car’s airbags.

“They were innocent bystanders driving through what should have been a peaceful protest when things took a turn,” Destiny Jackson, the children’s mother, said.

Destiny Jackson said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “began to start throwing tear gas bombs everywhere.”

“We were trying so hard to get out the way but didn’t want to harm anybody with our car in the process,” Jackson added. “One of the bombs rolled under our truck, and within seconds our truck lifted up off the ground, and the airbags deployed, the car doors locked themselves, and the car began to fill with the powerful tear gas. We fought hard to get the doors open and get all of the kids out. Bystanders had to help.”

Shawn Jackson told KMSP while holding up his child’s car seat: “This was flipped over. My car filled with tear gas; I’m trying to pull my kids from the car.”

Destiny Jackson said she performed CPR on the infant after the baby stopped breathing and lost consciousness.

Three of the children—the 6-month-old infant and two others, ages 7 and 11 years—were taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment.

“My kids were innocent, I was innocent, my husband was innocent, this shouldn’t have happened,” Destiny Jackson told KMSP. “We were just trying to go home.”

Jackson said that neither she nor her husband have ever protested before—but now they feel they have good reason to do so.

“I’m mad as hell,” Shawn Jackson said during an interview with Sky News. “But now there’s gonna be hell on wheels. They’re definitely gonna have to pay for this.”

“This just shows how they don’t care,” Jackson said of the federal agents. “I was arguing with the officers to call the ambulance for five minutes... He knew there were [children] in the car; he didn’t even try and help.”

Also on Wednesday in Minneapolis, a federal officer shot and wounded a man who the US Department of Homeland Security said was an undocumented Venezuelan pulled over during a “targeted traffic stop.” DHS said the man fled after exiting his vehicle, that a fight ensued when an officer caught him, and that the agent shot the man in the leg after a pair of bystanders came to the targeted individual’s aid and attacked the officer.

Protests have been mounting in the Twin Cities following last week’s killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross and the Trump administration’s subsequent effort to portray the victim as a domestic terrorist.

Demonstrators are also condemning what many opponents call the invasion and occupation of Minneapolis and other cities, as well as the Trump administration’s wider campaign targeting undocumented immigrants for roundup, detention, and deportation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said that “armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live.”

State and local officials in Minnesota have implored the Trump administration to end its operation in the state. Meanwhile, Trump threatened Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act—which hasn’t been used since the Los Angeles uprising in 1992—to deploy troops to quell Twin Cities protests.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Minnesota, and a trio of law firms on Thursday filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of people “whose constitutional rights were violated” by federal operatives in the state.

“The people of Minnesota are courageously standing up to the reign of terror unleashed by the Trump administration,” plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Fram said in a statement.

The father of three children who were hospitalized in Minneapolis on Wednesday night accused federal agents of launching flash-bang munitions and tear gas into their family van after they were caught up in protests against the Trump administration’s deadly immigration crackdown.

“Officers threw flash bangs and tear gas in my car. I got six kids in the car,” Shawn Jackson told KMSP. “My 6-month-old can’t even breathe.”

The explosions were strong enough to trigger the car’s airbags.

“They were innocent bystanders driving through what should have been a peaceful protest when things took a turn,” Destiny Jackson, the children’s mother, explained.

Destiny Jackson said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “began to start throwing tear gas bombs everywhere.”

“We were trying so hard to get out the way but didn’t want to harm anybody with our car in the process,” Jackson added. “One of the bombs rolled under our truck, and within seconds our truck lifted up off the ground, and the airbags deployed, the car doors locked themselves, and the car began to fill with the powerful tear gas. We fought hard to get the doors open and get all of the kids out. Bystanders had to help.”

“My kids were innocent, I was innocent, my husband was innocent, this shouldn’t have happened,” Destiny Jackson told KMSP. “We were just trying to go home.”

Jackson said that neither she nor her husband have ever protested before—but now they feel they have good reason to do so.

“I’m mad as hell,” Shawn Jackson said during an interview with Sky News. “But now there’s gonna be hell on wheels. They’re definitely gonna have to pay for this.”

“This just shows how they don’t care,” Jackson said of the federal agents. “I was arguing with the officers to call the ambulance for five minutes... He knew there were [children] in the car; he didn’t even try and help.”

Also on Wednesday in Minneapolis, a federal officer shot and wounded a man who the US Department of Homeland Security said was an undocumented Venezuelan pulled over during a “targeted traffic stop.” DHS said the man fled after exiting his vehicle, that a fight ensued when an officer caught him, and that the agent shot the man in the leg after a pair of bystanders came to the targeted individual’s aid and attacked the officer.

Protests have been mounting in the Twin Cities following last week’s killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross and the Trump administration’s subsequent effort to portray the victim as a domestic terrorist.

Demonstrators are also condemning what many opponents call the invasion and occupation of Minneapolis and other cities, as well as the Trump administration’s wider campaign targeting undocumented immigrants for roundup, detention, and deportation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said that “armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live.”

State and local officials in Minnesota have implored the Trump administration to end its operation in the state. Meanwhile, Trump threatened Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act—which hasn’t been used since the Los Angeles uprising in 1992—to deploy troops to quell Twin Cities protests.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Minnesota, and a trio of law firms on Thursday filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of people “whose constitutional rights were violated” by federal operatives in the state.

“The people of Minnesota are courageously standing up to the reign of terror unleashed by the Trump administration,” plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Fram said in a statement.

Progressive advocacy groups are set to lead nationwide rallies this weekend to protest Wednesday’s killing of Renee Good by an immigration officer in Minneapolis and the Trump administration’s wider deadly mass deportation campaign.

Groups including 50501 Movement, Indivisible, the Disappeared in America campaign, MoveOn, the ACLU, Voto Latino, and United We Dream are planning demonstrations across the country to protest the killing of Good and what Indivisible called the “broader pattern of unchecked violence and abuse carried out by federal immigration enforcement agencies against members of our communities.”

Good, a US citizen, was shot multiple times by veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officer Jonathan Ross on Wednesday while driving in south Minneapolis. Bystander video shows Good slowly maneuvering a Honda Pilot SUV in an apparent effort to drive away from officers when Ross draws his pistol and fires at her head.

President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration quickly spread lies about Good, with the president saying she “ran over” Ross and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others accusing the 37-year-old mother of three—one of whose children is now orphaned—of “domestic terrorism.”

“After ICE executed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis and federal agents shot two more people in Portland, the 50501 Movement is demanding the immediate abolition of ICE,” 50501 said in a statement Friday. “Renee Nicole Good and the Portland victims are just the most recent victims of ICE’s reign of terror. ICE has brutalized communities for decades, but its violence under the Trump regime has accelerated.”

“Marginalized communities have taken the brunt of their force; in 2025, at least 32 people died in ICE custody,” 50501 added. “This past September, ICE shot and killed Silverio Villegas González, a father and cook from Mexico who was living in Chicago. In that same city, a Border Patrol agent celebrated after repeatedly shooting and injuring Marimar Martinez. The American people have had enough.”

The ACLU said in a statement that “an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother, shooting her three times in the head through her car window. This is a reckless, horrific shooting that should have never happened.”

“Renee’s killing came just one day after the Trump administration stormed Minnesota communities with an unprecedented 2,000 federal agents. Children are afraid to go to school and Minnesota families are reeling from fear and a sense of chaos,” the group continued. “For months, the Trump administration has been deploying heavily armed federal agents into our communities. They are smashing car windows, dragging people from their cars, zip-tying children, and physically harming our neighbors—citizens and noncitizens alike.”

“We can’t wait around while ICE harms more people,” the ACLU added. “Congress MUST demand an end to these reckless immigration raids, and oppose any bill that would add to ICE’s already massive budget.”

United We Dream said that Good’s “brutal killing is a horrifying reminder of the threat armed forces pose to our collective safety, especially at a time when local, state, and federal officials have consistently called on the federal government to invest in the resources working families truly need—healthcare, housing, access to food—instead of indiscriminate terror in our communities.”

“In 2025 alone, 32 people died in immigration detention,” the group added. “Billions poured into immigration raids for the sake of ripping apart communities in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis does nothing but lead to irreparable damage, violence, and death. We demand an immediate end to this cruelty and for elected leaders at every level to speak out in defense of immigrant communities and our shared safety.”

MoveOn argued that “the Trump administration is not making anybody safe—they are creating chaos and destroying lives.”

“You don’t raid peaceful cities, schools, libraries, and churches unless your goal is to terrorize communities and silence dissent,” the group added. “MoveOn is outraged and devastated that the unnecessary, reckless, and escalatory deployment of ICE is causing even more senseless killings. Trump’s ICE agents need to follow the advice of local officials and leave Minnesota immediately.”

Represent Maine, an “ICE out for Good” national coalition partner, said in a promotion for a Saturday noon rally in Augusta that “ICE’s campaign of terror is out of control and leading to the murder of our people.”

“Entire communities are being traumatized,” the group continued. “Immigrants, refugees, and American citizens are being targeted. This is not normal border enforcement: This is state violence.”

“We will gather to remember those who have been killed, kidnapped, and disappeared by ICE, and the families and communities devastated in their wake,” Represent Maine added. “We demand ICE out of Maine NOW!”

Dan Harmon of 50501 Minnesota said Friday, “They have literally started killing us—enough is enough.”

“We are a peaceful and community-oriented state that will not allow the violent ICE secret police to continue kidnapping our neighbors and killing our friends,” he said. “Immediately after the shooting, hundreds of Minnesotans gathered to respond on site, just as we did in 2020 after officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.”

“ICE must be removed from Minnesota and permanently abolished,” Harmon added.

ExxonMobil’s CEO told President Donald Trump during a Friday meeting that Venezuela is currently “uninvestible” following the US invasion and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, underscoring fears that American taxpayers will be left footing the bill for the administration’s goal of exploiting the South American nation’s vast petroleum resources.

Trump had hoped to convince executives from around two dozen oil companies to invest in Venezuela after the president claimed US firms pledged to spend at least $100 billion in the country. However, Trump got a reality check during Friday’s White House meeting, as at least one Big Oil CEO balked at committing financial and other resources in an uncertain political, legal, and security environment.

“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable,” ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told Trump during the meeting. “Significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system. There has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

There is also skepticism regarding Trump’s promise of “total safety” for investors in Venezuela amid deadly US military aggression and regime change.

However, many of the executives—who stand to make billions of dollars from the invasion—told Trump that they remain eager to eventually reap the rewards of any potential US takeover of Venezuela’s vast oil resources.

The oil executives’ apparent aversion to immediate investment in Venezuela—and Trump’s own admission that the American people might end up reimbursing Big Oil for its efforts—prompted backlash from taxpayer advocates.

“Trump must not give these companies billions in handouts and stick American taxpayers with the bill,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media Friday. “And oil execs should commit now: no taxpayer subsidies, no special favors from the White House.”

Sam Ratner, policy director at the group Win Without War, said Wednesday that “already today, Trump was saying that US taxpayers should front the money to rebuild Venezuelan oil infrastructure, all while oil companies keep the proceeds from the oil.”

“This is not just a war for oil, but a war for oil executives,” Ratner added.

Noting that “Big Oil spent nearly $100 million to get Trump elected in 2024,” former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich—who served during the Clinton administration—described Friday’s meeting as “returning the favor” and “oligarchy in action.”

According to an analysis by the advocacy group Climate Power, fossil fuel industry interests spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle in support of Trump and other Republican candidates and initiatives.

Reich and others also noted that Trump informed oil executives about the Venezuelan invasion even before he notified members of Congress.

“That tells you everything you need to know: It was never about ‘narcoterrorism’ and always about oil,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said on Bluesky.

The legal watchdog Democracy Forward this week filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding information about any possible Trump administration collusion with Big Oil in the lead-up to the Venezuela invasion.

Other observers shot down assertions by Trump and members of his administration that the attack on Venezuela and Maduro’s ouster are ultimately about restoring democracy.

“Want to know who’s meeting with Trump this morning about Venezuela’s future?” Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) asked on X.

“Not pro-democracy leaders,” she said. “Oil and gas executives.”