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    Man accused of plot to murder US border patrol’s Bovino found not guilty

    Acquittal of Juan Espinoza Martinez in Chicago marks latest major federal prosecution to fall apart in courtA man accused of a murder-for-hire plot targeting a top US border patrol leader was found not guilty on Thursday in Chicago, the latest high-profile prosecution by the Department of Justice to fall apart in court.The government alleged that Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, had offered a $10,000 bounty over Snapchat in October for the killing of Gregory Bovino, the border patrol official who has spearheaded aggressive immigration operations in cities across the country. Defense lawyers argued Espinoza Martinez was sharing an innocuous social media message that did not constitute a threat. Continue reading… More

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    ‘It’s like they’re hunting’: US citizens and legal residents report increase in racial profiling by ICE

    Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has led some people to take drastic measures to ensure their safetyIt was a normal Tuesday morning for Mohamed when he left his San Diego, California, house for his daily exercise in mid-January. But as he walked around the Colina del Sol park, four US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents approached and encircled the middle-aged father, who is using a pseudonym out of fear of retaliation from federal agents. The officers, Mohamed said, who wore jackets with ICE emblazoned on them and balaclavas that obscured their faces, asked for his green card before they began drilling him with questions about what he was doing in the park.“I was terrified,” Mohamed, a lawful permanent resident from Somalia, said through a translator. The ordeal ended shortly thereafter, but the experience has left a lasting impact on him. “I have high blood pressure,” Mohamed said about the encounter he believes was based on racial profiling. “I used to do my daily exercises; now I don’t even do that any more because I’m scared.” Continue reading… More

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    Greenlandic lawmaker says Nato has no mandate to negotiate nation’s status – as it happened

    This blog is now closedTrump declaration of Greenland framework deal met with scepticism as doubts persistTrump news at a glance: at Davos, president rambles, backs down and touts ‘future deal’ on GreenlandHouse Republicans are starting a push on Wednesday to hold former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, opening the prospect of the House using one of its most powerful punishments against a former president for the first time.The contempt proceedings are an initial step toward a criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice that, if successful, could send the Clintons to prison.They’re not above the law. We’ve issued subpoenas in good faith.For five months we’ve worked with them. And time’s up. Continue reading… More

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    ICE detains five-year-old Minnesota boy arriving home, say school officials

    Superintendent says Liam Ramos and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway and sent to TexasUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy on Tuesday as he returned home from school and transported him and his father to a Texas detention center, according to school officials.Liam Ramos, a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, said at a press conference on Wednesday. Liam, who had recently turned five, is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks, the district said. Continue reading… More

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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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    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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    Second man dies at Texas ICE detention facility in two weeks

    Victor Manuel Diaz was found unresponsive at Camp East Montana in what ICE officials claim is ‘presumed suicide’Who is on the frontline of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown?A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release. Continue reading… More

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    Rashida Tlaib on fighting billionaire oligarchs: ‘The American people overwhelmingly want to tax the rich’

    The Democratic representative plans to introduce a bill halting subsidies and tax advantages for the super-richThey had the best seats in the house. When Donald Trump was sworn in as US president a year ago this week, tech titans Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg were sitting closer than even some of his cabinet picks, living symbols of the US’s new gilded age.“It was so gross,” Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic representative from Michigan, recalled in a phone interview. “It was like a reunion of all the billionaires. Some of them didn’t even like each other, but boy, did they come together for Trump.” Continue reading… More