Attention to the Unseen

The New Republic reports: Fear of increased ICE raids have already negatively affected the nation’s agricultural sector, causing alarm that food prices could skyrocket in the near future as a result of Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies. Bakersfield, California, saw a massive drop-off in the number of field workers showing up for work Tuesday while ICE agents in unmarked Chevy Suburbans rounded up and detained immigrants in the area, profiling individuals they believed to be field workers, reported CalMatters. The…

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Axios reports: Police departments across the country are pushing back against President Trump’s hardline immigration policies, saying they won’t take part in the administration’s deportation raids. Why it matters: Just days into the new administration, Trump’s campaign pledge to oversee mass deportations of immigrants is taking shape, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids expected. Driving the news: Trump has already declared a national emergency at the border and rolled back longstanding protections that restrict immigration enforcement in sensitive locations, like churches and schools. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan told…

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Ankush Khardori writes: Even though President Donald Trump had vowed to deliver pardons to those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the Capitol, his sweeping clemency for roughly 1,500 people was stunning. The recipients of Trump’s incredible generosity included Enrique Tarrio, a onetime leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of sedition and serving a 22-year sentence; Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, who was serving an 18-year sentence for his involvement; and about…

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  Wired reports: “WE ARE FUCKING BACK,” the administrator of a Nazi meme channel on Telegram wrote under a clip of Musk giving the salute. Members of the group responded with the lightning bolt emoji, a well-known neo-Nazi reference to the SS. “I don’t care if this was a mistake, I’m going to enjoy the tears over it,” Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the American neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, wrote on his Telegram channel under a gif of the Musk salute. Keith Woods,…

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  Elon Musk has defended making an ‘awkward hand gesture’ at Trump’s inauguration that some have likened to a Nazi salute. James O’Brien and his listeners are broadly unconvinced. While addressing a crowd of MAGA supporters during a celebration of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the influential billionaire made a gesture putting his right hand on his chest before raising it it in the air (01:22). Then he turned and made the same hand gesture to the crowd behind him. He…

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Politico reports: Elon Musk has already achieved his first cut at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency: his co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk, the tech tycoon and Donald Trump confidant, made it known that he wanted Ramaswamy out of DOGE in recent days, according to three people familiar with Musk’s preferences who, like others for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss them. An ill-received holiday rant on X by Ramaswamy about H-1B visas apparently hastened his demise. Just 69 days…

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Reuters reports: Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday. The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the U.S. as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former U.S.-backed Afghan government,…

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