Evelyn Reynolds

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    Minneapolis leaders call the ICE surge a ‘siege’. My reporting from there concurs

    After covering Trump’s immigration policies from Chicago and LA, the Twin Cities operation feels like a marked escalationThe Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial board described the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities as “a military occupation”. Local leaders have used words like “siege” and “invasion”. After a week of reporting in Minneapolis and St Paul, I wouldn’t know how else to describe the scene.I’ve been covering the administration’s immigration policies since Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January last year. I was in Chicago in January last year, when the administration assigned hundreds of federal agents to conduct “enhanced targeted operations” in the city. I was in Los Angeles last summer, when agents began seizing workers at car washes and garment warehouses, grabbing bicyclists and raiding churches. Continue reading… More

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    US treasury secretary cuts awkward figure as Trump’s diplomatic defender

    Scott Bessent’s maladroit efforts to calm European anger and Americans’ puzzlement over Greenland have fallen flatTrump steps up demand to annex Greenland in rebuke to Europe’s leaders Scott Bessent has gained a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s suavest enablers but his dismissal of Denmark as “irrelevant” is likely to earn him a place in the annals of infamy rather than diplomacy.The US treasury secretary’s tactless put-down of a Nato ally has come as the annual World Economic Forum at Davos has cast him into the international limelight at the very moment when Trump is upping the ante to take over Greenland, which is Danish sovereign territory. Continue reading… More

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    Speak hysterically and carry a big stick: Trump’s foreign policy threats

    In his second term, Trump’s bluster has been accompanied by an emotional and aggressive approach to foreign policyThis was originally published in This Week in Trumpland; sign up to receive it in your inbox every WednesdayTheodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, characterized his approach to international relations as “speak softly and carry a big stick”. It was an approach that won him a Nobel peace prize in 1906, for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese war.In recent days, Donald Trump’s own take on diplomacy has come into focus, one that might be characterized thusly: speak hysterically and threaten to use (and sometimes actually use) a big stick. This idiosyncratic approach to statecraft has yet to win Trump a Nobel peace prize, although that is something that the president has said – many, many times – does not bother him at all. Continue reading… More

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    Here’s how to fix America’s immigration system. Trump’s path is not the solution | Kenneth Roth

    A grand bargain on immigration could address problems with both the old approach and Trump’s new approachImmigration is one of the most divisive issues facing the United States, as it is in many countries. An ICE agent’s killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis is only the latest outrage that has brought the issue to the fore.Facing a 30 January deadline to renew funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, Democrats are now insisting on limits on ICE, at risk of another shutdown. It may be a pipe dream, but it is worth asking whether now might finally be a time to forge the long-elusive bipartisan agreement on immigration.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane Continue reading… More

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    ‘Who will stand up and oppose it?’: Trump’s relentless campaign of retribution in his second term

    From firing lawyers and government officials to pursuing indictments – president has created a culture of vengeanceDuring his first year in the White House, Donald Trump has pursued a campaign of retribution unlike any other president in US history.That Trump would pursue such a campaign is not surprising. Since he launched his first run for president in 2015, Trump has channeled the politics of grievance into political success. Returning to the White House after surviving two impeachments and four different criminal cases against him, Trump has used the might of the federal government to punish those he believes have wronged him. Continue reading… More

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    We ran high-level US civil war simulations. Minnesota is exactly how they start | Claire Finkelstein

    Developments in Minnesota closely mirror a scenario explored in a 2024 exercise conducted at the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, which I directSince January 6, roughly 2,000 ICE agents have been deployed to Minnesota under the pretext of responding to a fraud investigation. In practice, these largely untrained and undisciplined federal agents have been terrorizing Minneapolis residents through illegal and excessive uses of force – often against US citizens – prompting a federal judge to attempt to place limits on the agency’s actions. The Trump administration is encouraging the lawlessness by announcing “absolute immunity” for ICE agents. But if the secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, does not heed the court ruling, the consequences may be nothing short of civil war.In just the past week, ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, shortly after she returned from dropping her child off at school. They blinded two protesters by shooting them in the face with so-called “less deadly” weapons. They fired teargas bombs around the car of a family carrying six children, sending one child to the emergency room with breathing problems. They violently dragged a woman out of her car and on to the ground screaming. They have shot protesters in the legs. They have forcibly taken thousands of individuals to detention facilities, separating families and casting people into legal limbo – often without regard to their legal status.Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She is also the founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center Continue reading… More

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    World leaders in Davos must stand up to Trump. This is their chance | Robert Reich

    The world needs global leaders to clearly and firmly denounce the havoc Trump is wreaking on the US and international orderHundreds of global CEOs, finance titans, and more than 60 prime ministers and presidents are in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual confab of the world’s powerful and wealthy: the World Economic Forum.This year’s Davos meeting occurs at a time when Donald Trump is not just unleashing his brownshirts on Minneapolis and other American cities, but also dismantling the international order that’s largely been in place since the end of the second world war – threatening Nato, withdrawing from international organizations including the UN climate treaty, violating the UN charter by invading Venezuela and abducting Nicolás Maduro, upending established trade rules, and demanding that the US annex Greenland.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now Continue reading… More

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    ‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’: Mark Carney is emerging as the unflinching realist ready to tackle Trump

    In a speech at Davos, written by Carney himself, the Canadian prime minister laid out his doctrine for a world of fractured international normsFor much of Mark Carney’s career as an economist and central banker, he existed at the nexus of global thinkers and multilateral institutions. The “rockstar banker” was a fixture at summits, where he spoke beside business leaders and the political elite, espousing the values of international cooperation and the need for open economies and shared rules.But after less than a year as prime minister of Canada, Carney offered a blunter assessment of the world on Tuesday: “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Continue reading… More