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Category: Law/Crime

ICE tried to justify a Minneapolis shooting. Then its story unraveled

ICE tried to justify a Minneapolis shooting. Then its story unraveled

The New York Times reports: When an immigration agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in the leg last month in Minneapolis, touching off hours of tense protests, the Trump administration rushed to sell a version of events that demonized the wounded man and defended the agent. About two hours after the gunfire, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman claimed that three people had attacked an agent with a broom and snow shovel. She said the agent “fired a defensive shot to…

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Daniel Dennett was right: We URGENTLY need a federal law forbidding AI from impersonating humans

Daniel Dennett was right: We URGENTLY need a federal law forbidding AI from impersonating humans

Gary Marcus writes: The night before I testified in the US Senate in May, 2023, the late philosopher Daniel Dennett sent me a manuscript that he called “counterfeit people”. It was published a few days later in The Atlantic. Here the first paragraph. Money has existed for several thousand years, and from the outset counterfeiting was recognized to be a very serious crime, one that in many cases calls for capital punishment because it undermines the trust on which society…

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ICE operations increasingly resemble Israeli occupation. That’s no coincidence

ICE operations increasingly resemble Israeli occupation. That’s no coincidence

Sophia Goodfriend writes: As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have swarmed cities across the United States, American politics has appeared to enter a new phase, one in which armed federal forces turn civilian neighborhoods into active conflict zones. Part of what is driving this political shift is a potent technical infrastructure: ICE operations are now expedited by mobile surveillance and targeting systems, where agents’ most powerful weapon can fit in the palm of their hands. Recent reporting has…

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ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into concentration camps

ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into concentration camps

The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects to spend $38.3 billion on its plan to acquire warehouses across the country and retrofit them into immigrant detention centers that can hold tens of thousands of immigrants, according to documents the agency provided to New Hampshire’s governor and published on the state’s website Thursday. ICE plans to buy and convert 16 buildings across the country to serve as regional processing centers, each holding 1,000 to 1,500 immigrant detainees at…

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DHS sending hundreds of administrative subpoenas to social media companies to suppress political dissent

DHS sending hundreds of administrative subpoenas to social media companies to suppress political dissent

The New York Times reports: The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency. In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials…

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In the Kristi & Corey Show, she gets to become president and he gets a gun — or at least a badge

In the Kristi & Corey Show, she gets to become president and he gets a gun — or at least a badge

The Wall Street Journal reports: Kristi Noem knew she needed a reset. It was two days after federal agents had shot and killed Alex Pretti, and Noem was facing fire from all sides. Even some inside the administration were pushing President Trump to remove her from her position for her handling of the chaotic immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis and comments she’d made saying Pretti committed an act of domestic terrorism. So Noem’s top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, messaged Trump’s pollster…

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UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule

The Guardian reports: The co-founder of Palestine Action has won a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws. The proscription of Palestine Action, which categorised it alongside the likes of Islamic State, was the first of a direct action protest group and attracted widespread condemnation as well as a civil disobedience campaign defying the ban, during which more than 2,000 people have been arrested. From 5 July last year, being a member of…

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The Epstein files and the hidden world of an unaccountable elite

The Epstein files and the hidden world of an unaccountable elite

The New York Times reports: Journalists and researchers will spend the next months ferreting through the Epstein files in search of further criminal conduct or a new conspiratorial wrinkle. But one truth has already emerged. In unsparing detail, the documents lay bare the once-furtive activities of an unaccountable elite, largely made up of rich and powerful men from business, politics, academia and show business. The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling…

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‘Outright fascist’: How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees

‘Outright fascist’: How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees

Politico reports: Courts across the country have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s effort to round up thousands of immigrants and lock them up without a chance for bond — even if they have no criminal records and have lived in the United States for years. But the Trump administration has slow-walked or outright defied judges’ orders demanding the release of people scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at an increasingly rapid clip. Sometimes, ICE has raced detainees across state…

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Tallying the damage of ICE’s assault on Minneapolis

Tallying the damage of ICE’s assault on Minneapolis

Rolling Stone reports: The federal government is retreating from Minneapolis, Minnesota. White House border czar Tom Homan announced on Thursday that the Trump administration will end the immigration enforcement surge it launched in January after a right-wing YouTuber highlighted allegations of fraud at Minneapolis-based child care centers. Leaders in Minnesota were sober in their response. Speaking to reporters after Homan’s announcement on Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz cataloged the damage. “This surge of untrained, aggressive federal agents are going to leave…

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How the 9/11 terrorist attacks shaped ICE’s immigration strategy

How the 9/11 terrorist attacks shaped ICE’s immigration strategy

Tear gas fills the air in south Minneapolis on Jan. 24, 2026, after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti. Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune By Pawan Dhingra, Amherst College Stephen Miller’s January 2026 announcement to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers – telling them that they have “immunity to perform your duties” and that no “illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist” can stop them – may seem like an extreme statement outside the political mainstream. And when ICE agents…

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ICE is crashing the U.S. court system in Minnesota

ICE is crashing the U.S. court system in Minnesota

Wired reports: The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in Minnesota is pushing the United States court system to its breaking point. Since Operation Metro Surge began in December, federal immigration agents have arrested some 4,000 people, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The result is an avalanche of cases filed in the US district court in Minnesota on behalf of people challenging their imprisonment by federal immigration enforcement agents. According to WIRED’s review of court records and…

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Trump allies near ‘total victory’ in wiping out U.S. climate regulation

Trump allies near ‘total victory’ in wiping out U.S. climate regulation

The New York Times reports: In the summer of 2022, Democrats in Congress were racing to pass the biggest climate law in the country’s history and President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declaring that global warming posed a “clear and present danger” to the United States. But behind the scenes, four Trump administration veterans were plotting to obliterate federal climate efforts once Republicans regained control in Washington, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with more…

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Working for ICE is actually less dangerous than being an elementary school student in America

Working for ICE is actually less dangerous than being an elementary school student in America

Garrett Graff writes: This week, Congress is debating what reform might be acceptable for the masked fascist secret police currently occupying major American cities in Democratic-run states — a supposedly civilian law enforcement agency that, in any other country, US journalists wouldn’t hesitate to label breezily “a right-wing paramilitary militia loyal to the regime that is staging a terror campaign against separatist regions led by key figures of the political opposition.” Today, the leaders of ICE and CBP will be…

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Immigrants who say their detention is illegal have filed more than 18,000 cases. It’s a historic high

Immigrants who say their detention is illegal have filed more than 18,000 cases. It’s a historic high

By Pratheek Rebala and Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica, and Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune This story was originally published by ProPublica The Trump administration’s push for mass deportations has resulted in more than 18,000 challenges in federal court from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal, more than were filed under the last three administrations combined — including President Donald Trump’s first term. So far this year, immigrants are filing on average more than 200 of these cases, known as…

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ICE plans to lease offices throughout the U.S. as part of a secret, monthslong expansion campaign

ICE plans to lease offices throughout the U.S. as part of a secret, monthslong expansion campaign

Wired reports: Federal records obtained by WIRED show that over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are…

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