We’re starting the week with a contradiction the White House can no longer hide: the spectacle of power is still there, but so are the cracks. From the largest single day of protest in U.S. history to a sudden retreat on Cuba oil and a Pentagon argument that edges toward criminalizing journalism itself, here’s the news we’re watching as the week begins.

The country kept showing up

The third No Kings protest drew more than 8 million people across more than 3,300 events in all 50 states and more than a dozen countries, according to organizers cited by The Guardian. That makes it the largest number of protests in a single day in U.S. history.

What stands out is not only the scale but the geography. Organizers said nearly half of the events took place in traditionally red or battleground states, and more than two-thirds of people who RSVP’d were outside major urban centers. In other words, this was a national warning flare.

The issues pulling people into the street were also tellingly broad: ICE raids, the war in Iran, voting rights threats, trans rights, labor rights, Palestinian solidarity, and the basic question of whether the country is sliding toward something openly authoritarian. In Minnesota, where federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year, the protest carried the weight of mourning as much as resistance. In New York, the theme was democracy. In Chicago, it was anti-fascism and protection for immigrant and trans communities. Across cities and rural towns alike, the throughline was simple: people are seeing the connections.

That is why the White House response felt so brittle. Dismissing millions of people as participants in “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions” fell, well, short. It is the language of an administration that knows the backlash is no longer a partisan issue.

Trump blinked on Cuba

After months of trying to choke off fuel to Cuba, Trump said Sunday he would not stop a Russian tanker carrying oil to the island. According to The Washington Post, the Hong Kong-flagged tanker was nearing Cuba with Russian-origin fuel when Trump abruptly said he had “no problem” with a country sending oil there.

This comes after the administration had spent months building an effective fuel blockade meant to weaken the Cuban government. Trump had threatened tariffs on countries that supplied Cuba with oil. He had also already cut off Venezuelan fuel exports to the island. The result, according to the Post, was diesel and gasoline shortages, island-wide blackouts, and the closure of schools and hospitals.

Then, in the now trademarked style of this administration, came the reversal.

On one level, Trump tried to brush it off by claiming Cuba is finished anyway. On the other hand, the climbdown exposed the limit of trying to run a war in Iran, manipulate global energy markets, antagonize Russia, and tighten the screws on Cuba all at once. When your foreign policy is scattershot and overextended, eventually one front gives way.

That is the more interesting part here. The administration wanted the blockade to appear to be a display of dominance. Instead, it ended up looking like another reminder that coercion has consequences, especially when oil prices are already under pressure, and Russia is still willing to test Washington’s nerve.

The Pentagon wants fear to do the censoring

The administration’s assault on the press also kept moving.

According to The Intercept, a federal judge struck down the Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists seeking “unauthorized” information, siding with The New York Times. The Pentagon responded by reissuing essentially the same restrictions with cosmetic changes and pledging an immediate appeal.

The more chilling part is the legal theory underneath it. As The Intercept reported, the Justice Department argued that while journalists may ask authorized Pentagon personnel questions, they can be accused of soliciting a crime if they ask nonpublic information from officials who are not supposed to disclose it. Put plainly, the government is pushing the idea that asking the wrong question to the wrong official could itself be criminal.

For years, administrations have tried to route journalists through official spokespeople and choke off unscripted access. This move, however, goes further. It tries to shift the burden of censorship onto reporters themselves, forcing them to behave as if the government’s internal gag rules are now their legal problem, too.

And January 6 keeps coming back dressed as public service

Meanwhile, in Florida, one of the men most closely associated with the visual humiliation of January 6 is trying to turn notoriety into office.

The Washington Post profiled Adam Johnson, the man photographed carrying Nancy Pelosi’s lectern through the Capitol Rotunda on January 6, 2021. After serving jail time and receiving a presidential pardon, he is now running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners in Manatee County.

The profile is disturbing for reasons that go beyond one race. Johnson has rarely voted, still doubts the 2020 election was fair, and now treats his role in January 6 as both a joke and a brand asset. His campaign logo is a silhouette of him carrying the lectern. He calls that day “a good day.” He says it offers “free marketing.”

And that sums it up. January 6 is no longer something many on the right feel compelled to explain away. It is becoming a credential, a meme, a low-level launching pad into public office. What was once supposed to disqualify someone from democratic life is being folded back into politics as a matter of personality.

And if that sounds familiar, it should. The administration is doing something similar in court this week as it asks the Supreme Court to revisit birthright citizenship using arguments, The Washington Post reports, that rely in part on figures steeped in anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism.

That is the broader story right now. This is not just a government trying to govern badly. It is a government trying to normalize the ugliest parts of its project by laundering them through repetition, legal process, and spectacle.

One more thing to keep in mind this week

We’ll also be publishing a Survival Guide on what travelers need to know about ICE officers at airports, as the administration continues folding immigration enforcement into ordinary public life.

That is where we are. Millions in the streets, a blockade that wobbled, a Pentagon trying to scare reporters out of doing their jobs. And a January 6 meme candidate asking voters to call it all “normal.”

We’re kicking off the week with half the world captivated by the Oscars while the rest of it continues to burn. From what’s really happening in American television to the latest news out of Iran, here’s the news we’re watching as the week begins.

Not even the Oscars can escape politics

Before all the artists arrived at the Dolby in their finest attire, hundreds of anti-ICE protests erupted across Los Angeles. Amid slogans like “history will remember” and “ICE won’t quit,” activists called for the expulsion of the government’s paramilitary agents from cities including Minnesota and Portland.

While stars like Javier Bardem demanded an end to the war and freedom for Palestine, U.S. networks are now under direct threat.

Just before the Academy Awards ceremony, the current Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, threatened that TV broadcasters must “course correct” their coverage of the Iran war or “they will lose their licenses.” Carr’s threat came just one day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth openly called for CNN to be taken over by Paramount, and just one hour after the president posted an image outlining his plan to “reshape the media” by defunding public news, firing late-night hosts and news anchors, and waging war on media companies.

Waco teacher fired for giving kids art supplies for ICE protest

Steve Gaines, an English teacher at the Harmony School of Innovation in Waco, was fired a month after students in his class organized a walkout to protest ICE. Gaines helped students make signs out of cardboard boxes and paint during school hours and said the principal did not instruct him to stay out of the protest until third period.

Gaines, who has 11 years of teaching experience, says he takes responsibility for the lost class time, but believes his dismissal was a disproportionate consequence and stands by his decision to support his students.

Finally, Iran’s long game

As the U.S.-Israel war on Iran escalates, Trump is urging NATO nations to help reopen shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz through military support. Daily oil exports from the Persian Gulf, home to top exporter Saudi Arabia and other major producers, have dropped by at least 60%, driving up prices and intensifying fears of long-term economic fallout.

However, only 2% of the total petroleum products fueling the United States passes through the Strait of Hormuz, while 20% goes to Europe. That could push countries around the world to negotiate with Iran before joining the deranged and unsustainable quest the United States has launched on Israel’s behalf.

Good morning from the incongruous reality that now seems to be ours. This week, we have our eye on the alliance of Latin American right-wing leaders with Trump, the impact of the war in Iran, and what our taxes are financing.

The Latin American right bends the knee

While the world freezes, wondering if we are already in World War III, Donald Trump gathered Latin American right-wing leaders at his golf club in Miami. At what he called the “Shield of the Americas” Summit, Trump announced a coalition to eradicate cartels in Latin America.

In front of leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago, Trump outlined his agenda for the region.

“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate ISIS, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told the 12 regional leaders. “We must recognize that the epicenter of cartel violence is Mexico,” he said, adding that this is where “the cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere.”

Kristi Noem, who resigned Thursday as DHS secretary, became the first cabinet secretary to leave the second Trump administration and spoke later that afternoon in her new role as US special envoy to the coalition.

“This is intended to be a group that works together to ensure we’re defending our own sovereignty, we’re each defending our own security and economic prosperity,” Noem said, adding that the organization would be a “powerful example to the rest of the world about what’s possible.”

The summit took place less than two months after the US military intervention in Venezuela, less than two weeks after US law enforcement provided intelligence assistance in Mexico to capture Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, and one week after US military activity in Ecuador.

Notably absent were the leaders of Mexico and Colombia.

Trump announced that Cuba is “at the end of the line”

Trump also used the summit to repeat his prediction that the Cuban regime has “few days left,” especially now that it no longer has access to Venezuelan oil.

“We’re looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump said, asserting that the Caribbean nation was “at the end of the line.”

“They have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy and bad regime,” the US president said, while also claiming the regime wanted to negotiate with the United States. “Cuba is in its last moments of life as it was, but it will have a great new life.”

Gasoline prices skyrocket

Since the United States joined Israel in the attack on Iran, gasoline prices have skyrocketed. This week, it is reported that prices have increased by 17% since the conflict began.

This is partly due to disruptions in oil supplies in the Middle East, long considered a major source of the world’s energy.

According to The New York Times, the average price of gasoline in the US reached $3.48 per gallon, based on data from the AAA automobile club. That represents an increase of nearly 17% since the first US and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28. Gasoline had not reached these levels since 2024.

The price of oil exceeded $100 on Monday after the attacks intensified, and Iran announced it would launch more missiles against Israel in response to the expansion of US and Israeli attacks.

The sudden rise in energy costs, from jet fuel to diesel for trucks and tractors, stems from crude oil supplies from the Persian Gulf. Oil tankers that normally transport oil out of the region are not sailing, leaving the world without about a fifth of its oil supply.

TSA staff shortages at airports cause chaos

Since the Department of Homeland Security entered a partial shutdown, US airports have been in chaos. Queues at security checkpoints at airports across the country lasted more than an hour on Sunday, according to CNN.

The department, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration, posted photos of long lines on its social media pages, blaming Democrats for holding spring break travel “hostage for political points.” Funding for the department lapsed in mid February amid a standoff between Republicans and Democrats over federal immigration reform.

An explosive device was thrown outside Zohran Mamdani’s residence

New York police confirmed that an improvised explosive device was thrown in front of the official residence of the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, on Saturday. The incident occurred when anti-Islamic protesters, led by influencer and right-wing activist Jake Lang, clashed with counter-protesters.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said a preliminary bomb squad analysis of the device, which was ignited and thrown during the protest, had “determined that it is not a hoax device or a smoke bomb.”

“It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death. Further analysis will be conducted, including on a second device,” Tisch said in a social media post.

Tisch added that two men, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, who were arrested at the scene, are in custody in connection with the incident, and that New York police are working with federal prosecutors and the FBI through a terrorism task force.

The United States is responsible for bombing schools in Iran

The bombing of the elementary school in Minab, Iran, where more than 168 people, mostly children, were killed, shook the world. Now, a video appears to confirm that the United States carried out the bombing.

The video, published by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated at the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, shows the missile striking the Minab complex on the morning of February 28, when the US and Israeli attacks on Iran began.

Along with other evidence from the site, including videos verified by The Guardian, photos of the aftermath, and satellite images of the attack, the new footage indicates that the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school was hit during a series of US strikes, as the target was an adjacent naval complex belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The attack destroyed approximately half of the school and killed dozens of girls between the ages of 7 and 12 who were attending morning classes.

It is only the first week of March, and we are already in another global war, sponsored by men with an insatiable thirst for power.

From Donald Trump and Israel’s illegal war against Iran to the hell that detainees are experiencing at the Adelanto detention center, these are the news stories we are starting the week with.

And then Trump decided to attack Iran

After negotiations without any real intention to reach a deal, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu decided to launch attacks against Iran in what they call “Operation Epic Fury.” Since Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, many of us anticipated that this was just another excuse to attack when Israel was ready.

There is no evidence that Iran has nuclear missiles, and much of its uranium supply has been for domestic energy. However, after Israel invaded Palestine in 2023, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the US Congress that the region needed to be “cleansed,” many knew that this was a long-term campaign.

It began in June 2025, when Israel attacked nuclear facilities and killed top military leaders. Although the US said it would negotiate, we all knew the intention was to attack when Trump threatened Iran with retaliation if it continued to oppress social protests. Last Saturday, the US and Iran launched attacks in Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran responded by attacking all U.S. military bases in the region, bringing the conflict to global dimensions.

Marco Rubio declares war on “nonwhite people worldwide”

In his speech last week to European leaders at the Security Conference in Munich, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared “war on all non-European nonwhite people inside the US and around the world.”

“Our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe,” Rubio said. “We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.”

Lest Europe forget, Rubio reminded it of its own Christian identity: “The United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The man who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.”

He spoke directly of the threat that African, Asian, and Latin American immigrants constitute to Europe, as well as to the “fabric” of white America: “But we must also gain control of our national borders. Controlling who and how many people enter our countries, this is not an expression of xenophobia. It is not hate. It is a fundamental act of national sovereignty. And the failure to do so is not just an abdication of one of our most basic duties owed to our people. It is an urgent threat to the fabric of our societies and the survival of our civilization itself.”

Hegseth does not want educated military personnel

The Pentagon will ban military personnel from attending universities such as Columbia, Yale, and Brown starting next school year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced. This is part of his campaign to cut ties with institutions that Hegseth has called “factories of anti-American resentment.”

Hegseth announced the policy in a video posted to social media on Friday, three weeks after he said the military was cutting ties with Harvard University. Without citing evidence, Hegseth said the universities have become “breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination” that undermine military values.

“For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars, only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain,” he said. “They have replaced the study of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of wokeness and weakness.”

Other news we will be covering this week

Amid all the global scandals, ICE is massively transforming warehouses into detention centers. This is alarming not only because of its similarities to concentration camps, but also because of the news coming out of the detention centers.

Hundreds of pregnant migrant girls are being moved to Texas so they do not have access to abortions, and in Adelanto, a lawsuit claims that inhumane and degrading conditions inside the center “are pushing people to self-deport.”

Stay tuned to our channels for more.

We start the week with our eyes on Mexico, a person shot by the Border Patrol in New Hampshire, the Epstein Truth Commission in New Mexico, and a glimpse of good news in New Brunswick.

A wave of violence breaks out in 20 Mexican states after the assassination of “El Mencho.”

Mexican military forces in the west of the country killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho.” According to The Associated Press, the move “decapitates the most powerful cartel in the country.” Similarly, this is the first time that the Mexican government has taken such significant measures in the fight against drug trafficking.

On the other hand, and what concerns many of us, international analysts associate the assassination of “El Mencho” with a way for the Mexican government to “show” President Donald Trump that they are willing to take action.

Worse still, it is also, in part, a U.S. intervention. According to NBC News, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday night that the U.S. “provided intelligence support to the Mexican government to assist with an operation in Talpalpa, Jalisco, Mexico,” in which Oseguera Cervantes was killed.

“President Trump has been very clear — the United States will ensure narcoterrorists sending deadly drugs to our homeland are forced to face the wrath of justice they have long deserved,” Leavitt said.

She said the Trump administration “commends and thanks the Mexican military for their cooperation and successful execution of this operation.”

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said on X that the operation was carried out by Mexican special forces “within the framework of bilateral cooperation, with U.S. authorities providing complementary intelligence.”

The aftermath was the unleashing of a wave of violence in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states. National media reported burnings and looting, 252 roadblocks, and at least 14 deaths, including seven members of the National Guard, and 64 arrests.

Similarly, many anticipate that the death of “El Mencho” will not resolve anything. “The big question is, in the coming weeks and months, how the cartel itself will reorganize and how it will fare in its battles against smaller local groups in different states. The cycles of violence in Guanajuato, Michoacán, and elsewhere can be explained by these conflicts,” researcher David Mora explained to the BBC.

Border Patrol shoots and kills another person in New Hampshire

(This is a developing story)

At the time of writing, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Boston office said that the U.S. Border Patrol shot and killed a person after allegedly shooting at a federal agent early Sunday morning in Pittsburg, New Hampshire, near the U.S. Canada border.

According to NBC News, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Boston office said they are investigating the incident, which occurred around 1 a.m., during which the federal agent was allegedly shot at and returned fire, hitting the person.

The person who was shot was taken to a local hospital for treatment. The severity of their injuries is unknown at this time, and authorities have not released their name.

The agent was not injured, the spokesperson added. His name has also not been released.

Authorities have not disclosed what led to the shooting.

The Trump administration takes Tom Homan’s “immigration manual” to the whole country

After the bloody and terrible events in Minneapolis, the Trump administration does not intend to back down. The government announced that it plans to redouble its efforts “in the enforcement of specific immigration laws” by applying them to several cities across the country, according to CNN. These specific measures were developed by Tom Homan, a 180-degree turn from the visible and aggressive tactics of Gregory Bovino. “Enough of Bovino’s nonsense. That program is canceled,” a Homeland Security official told CNN.

The return to ICE’s “typical tactics” of immigration control includes identifying targets in advance, rather than conducting broad raids in areas of immigrant trafficking. As CNN explained, by the end of last year, agents had focused more on locating targets rather than limiting themselves to street encounters.

But that changed with the unprecedented deployment of thousands of federal agents to Minneapolis following a welfare fraud scandal that affected the Somali community.

Two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by federal agents.

Two other officials are under investigation for their accounts of what happened in an operation in which one of them shot a Venezuelan man in the leg.

Homan announced a reduction in federal troops in Minneapolis last week, citing agreements with local officials that allow for additional cooperation.

Current and former members of the Department of Homeland Security emphasized that the recent move toward a more targeted enforcement approach does not mean that crackdowns are diminishing, as some cities may still see an increased presence of ICE agents.

New Mexico takes the lead in the Epstein investigation

After federal agents never searched Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, the state Department of Justice launched what they call the “truth commission.”

“Upon reviewing information recently released by the US Department of Justice, Attorney General Raúl Torrez has ordered that the criminal investigation into allegations of illegal activity at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch be reopened,” the New Mexico Department of Justice posted online on Thursday.

“I was deeply heartened by the unanimous support of our New Mexico House of Representatives to establish the truth commission. As chair, it is my sworn duty to do everything within our power to seek answers for the public about what occurred at Zorro Ranch, and to pursue justice for every victim who was allegedly harmed there,” Democratic state representative Andrea Romero said by email on Friday.

“Our House has spoken clearly: no one is above the law, and we will stop at nothing to establish a full and transparent record of truth.”

The Zorro Ranch was one of several properties where the sex-trafficking conspiracy was conducted. Some accusers have alleged the ranch was the site of sex trafficking.

The New Mexico state Department of Justice said its renewed inquiry will “follow the facts wherever they lead, carefully evaluate jurisdictional considerations and take appropriate investigative action, including the collection and preservation of any relevant evidence that remains available.”

Good news from New Brunswick

This is another one of those stories that unfolds while no one is paying attention. Over the past year, the construction of artificial intelligence data centers has proliferated across the country, affecting many communities’ access to clean water. However, New Jersey is showing the country what we can achieve when we work together.

In a video that went viral on social media, community organizer Ben Dziobek’s voice is heard shouting in victory: “They canceled it! They canceled it!” Dziobek shouts in footage shared by New Jersey’s Climate Revolution Action Network. Loud cheers followed, and then a chant: “The people, united, will never be defeated!”

The New Brunswick City Council had just decided to remove data centers from the list of permitted uses in a plan to redevelop several parcels of land. Although no data center had yet been proposed, the mere possibility of one being built there alarmed city residents.

“The city administration is asking the council to amend the redevelopment plan to remove data centers as a permitted use, and to reinsert the requirement for inclusion of a park on the site that’s provided in the prior redevelopment,” New Brunswick’s city planner Daniel Dominguez said at the meeting.

We begin the week after attempting to take a break from the news, with very little success, to be honest. From the administration’s “Mexico City” proposal to ICE’s $38.3 million budget to expand detention centers, here are the stories we’re watching closely this week.

Liam Conejo Ramos lives with the aftermath of detention

After becoming the face of ICE’s cruelty, five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos is living with the aftermath of his days in detention. According to his father, Adrián Alexander Conejo Arias, who spoke to Telemundo, Liam “hasn’t been the same since this all happened.”

Although father and son are now back in Minnesota, the Trump administration continues pushing to deport them. Meanwhile, the five-year-old, who spent nearly two weeks in a detention center, “now wakes up crying during the night, terrified his family could be separated again,” his father told the outlet.

Vance announces the government will expand the “Mexico City” policy

This is another story that has slipped under the radar amid all the noise. Since the start of his second term, Donald Trump’s administration has imposed the so-called “Mexico City” policy, better known as the “global gag rule” by abortion rights groups. The measure prevents U.S. funds from going to foreign organizations that provide, advise, or refer patients for abortion services in their own countries. This holds even when those activities are legal and funded entirely with non-U.S. funds.

Now, according to Vice President JD Vance, the administration will expand the policy to include advocates of “radical gender ideologies” and diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

“Now we’re expanding this policy to protect life, to combat DEI and the radical gender ideologies that prey on our children,” Vance told the crowd in Washington, D.C.

Vance added that the Mexico City policy was being increased to “about three times as big as it was before, and we’re proud of it, because we believe in fighting for life.”

ICE accelerates construction of detention centers with a multimillion-dollar budget

In what many have called “the accelerated construction of concentration camps,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to spend $38.3 million by the end of the year on detention centers to detain and process “tens of thousands of immigrants,” according to an overview of the plan published by New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s office last Thursday.

Ayotte’s office said the Department of Homeland Security provided the document after she submitted an inquiry following a U.S. Senate hearing on Thursday, according to a press release.

With this budget, ICE plans to purchase 16 existing buildings and renovate them to serve as regional processing centers that can hold “1,000 to 1,500 detainees for average stays of three to seven days,” according to the plan. The goal is to deport detainees as quickly as possible.

The agency will also open eight large detention centers capable of holding 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for an average stay of around 60 days. These will serve as the “primary location” for immigrants being deported abroad.

In addition, ICE will acquire 10 more “turnkey” facilities where the agency already operates, according to the plan.

Farewell to civil rights icon Jesse Jackson

At a time when the country is reevaluating its history in real time, the passing of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. lands as a hard blow. Jackson died Tuesday at the age of 84.

The civil rights leader, Baptist minister, and founder of the Chicago nonprofit Rainbow PUSH Coalition spent his life fighting for social justice, human rights, and equality.

A key figure in the civil rights movement alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson began with college sit-ins and demonstrations. Later ran twice as a Democratic candidate for president. He kept campaigning for equity and justice well into his eighties, pushing for stronger diversity and accountability across society, including in tech.

Good morning from Bad Bunny’s love hangover. We start the week collectively healed after Benito’s halftime show, but with our eyes on the ball.

Here are our headlines for this week.

Trump wants to deport Liam Conejo Ramos at all costs

After five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos became a symbol of the government’s cruelty, lawyers for the Trump administration have put all their efforts into deporting him.

Liam returned home to Minnesota early last week after being taken into custody with his father last month. Liam was being held in a detention center in Texas and was released after intervention by legal groups and even members of Congress.

Now, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Friday that “it’s seeking a deportation order for the Ecuadorian boy,” The Guardian reported.

The family’s lawyer, Danielle Molliver, described the move as “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory.”

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who both entered the U.S. legally as asylum seekers, were ordered released from detention on January 31. The government is seeking to end the family’s asylum claims, MPR News reported.

Trump to install a statue of Christopher Columbus near the White House

Lest anyone have any doubts that this administration is racist, President Donald Trump is taking steps toward installing near the White House a replica of a statue of famed explorer Christopher Columbus that had been tossed into Baltimore’s harbor during his first term amid protests against institutional racism, the Associated Press reported.

The decision comes after lobbying by John Pica, president of the Italian American Organizations United, who said his group owns the statue and “agreed to loan it to the federal government at or near the White House.”

“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” said Trump spokesman David Ingle. “And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.”

What the president surely does not know—and if he does, it comes as no surprise—is that Isabella I of Castile had ordered the navigator to “treat the Indians very well and with affection.” Such was Columbus’s barbarity that he was accused of hiding riches and conspiring against the Spanish Crown, as well as of abuse and mismanagement.

Now that we think about it, it makes perfect sense that Trump would want to celebrate such a figure.

The ICE numbers are in, and we were right

A new internal document from the Department of Homeland Security showed that less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump’s first year had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.

The document, made public by CBS News, confirms what we have all been shouting about: the raids have no legal basis. It is a massive Jim Crow-style persecution of a racial minority.

According to CBS, statistics show ICE has dramatically increased arrests since Trump’s return to office. Nearly 60% of ICE arrestees over the past year had criminal charges or convictions, the document indicates. But within that population, the majority of criminal charges and convictions are not for violent crimes.

In other words, the government did not find those “murderers, rapists, and gangsters” that the president talked so much about. Apparently, they are all in the Epstein files, and none of them are ordinary immigrants in the United States.

And then Bad Bunny arrived

It’s not all bad news. In fact, the best news comes from our community. Last Sunday, Bad Bunny performed a collective healing on the most important stage in the United States.

In a 13-minute show, Benito took a symbolic journey through the identity of Latinos in the United States, celebrated the community’s achievements, and gave a master class in geography.

But perhaps most importantly, he gave a serotonin boost to all of us who desperately needed good news to keep fighting.

We’re starting the week with a rare bit of better news, even as the larger picture stays brutal: Liam Ramos is home, the Grammys showed a spine, and the Epstein files contain a detail most people missed.

It’s finally February. After a month that felt like three years, here’s what we’re tracking this week:

Liam Ramos returns home

After becoming a devastating symbol of the political reality in the United States, five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have returned to Minneapolis. They arrived home on Sunday after being released from an immigration detention center in Texas. Both were held there for more than a week after ICE agents used Liam Ramos as bait to arrest his father.

According to U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, “Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack. Thank you to everyone who demanded freedom for Liam,” Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said in a post on X. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”

The Latino politician added that he personally picked them up from the detention center and brought them back to Minneapolis. Their release came after a U.S. judge on Saturday ordered Liam and his father freed. The judge stated, “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

The Grammys are on the right side of history

A week after taking the country’s most important stage, Bad Bunny made history. The Puerto Rican singer won Album of the Year for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” the first Spanish-language Album to win the top prize. The artist also won the Best Urban Album award. Benito used the platform to denounce ICE and dedicated his award to immigrants and Puerto Rico.

“We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans,” Bad Bunny said, after using the phrase “ICE out,” which has been repeated as a call to end the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Other artists, such as Billie Eilish, also used their moments on stage to denounce the government’s anti-immigration policies. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” the singer said. Similarly, the Best New Artist award went to Olivia Dean, who said, “I am up here as the granddaughter of an immigrant.”

Other artists who spoke out included Kehlani and Gloria Estefan. Finally, in her tribute to Roberta Flack and D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill returned to the Grammy stage, filling the scene with Black artists and celebrating their impact on the music industry.

The Sinaloa Cartel in the Epstein files?

In the dump of Epstein documents released by the Department of Justice last week, the Sinaloa Cartel appears as a footnote. While everyone focused on other atrocities revealed in the documents, we couldn’t help but notice a complaint that claims there were “high-profile sex parties and dealings with cartels.”

The news comes a year after several media outlets reported that a Mexican security chief claimed U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration made a deal allowing 17 drug cartel family members to enter the United States.

“Mexico’s security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration,” the Associated Press reported in May 2025.

Independent reporting by journalists such as Luis Chaparro confirmed that Mexico’s security chief, Omar Hamid García Harfuch, said that 17 family members of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is imprisoned in the United States, had crossed into America.

“Seventeen members of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s family, including a daughter and Ovidio Guzmán’s mother, surrendered to the FBI this weekend at one of the international bridges between Mexico and the United States,” Chaparro said in May 2025. “According to reports from our sources, the family surrendered to the FBI at noon last Friday at the San Ysidro border port in Tijuana. And according to the same sources, among these people are Griselda López, Ovidio’s mother, several nephews, a grandson named Archivaldo, and a daughter of “El Chapo”, along with a son-in-law of the drug trafficker. It is currently unknown why they surrendered, but the fact that they turned themselves in to agents who were already waiting for them is probably linked to the deal Ovidio Guzmán allegedly made with the United States government last week. The family reportedly arrived with several suitcases, at least two brand-name suitcases for each member, and between them all, they were carrying more than $70,000 in cash.”

For those of us who have been following the news closely, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. In the complaint within the Epstein files, the people mentioned alongside the Sinaloa Cartel include President Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Robin Leach.

If you have felt a shift in the air since the new year, you are not imagining it. Immigration enforcement is not just “back.” It is bigger, louder, and more politically central than it has been in years, and it is showing up in ways that ripple far beyond immigrant households.

Here is the clearest snapshot of where things stand as we enter 2026, based on what has been reported, filed in court, and funded by Congress.

1) Enforcement is expanding, and it is spilling into public life

The Trump administration has surged federal immigration officers into major operations across the country, including a large-scale push in Minnesota that ICE described as its biggest ever. PBS reported that 2,000 federal agents were sent to the Minneapolis area for the operation.

That surge has already produced a flashpoint that is now shaping the entire national conversation. Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, sparking protests and intense scrutiny of federal tactics. AP reporting has focused on the aggressive crowd control methods federal agents used in the aftermath, and the question experts keep raising is simple: Are immigration officers trained to police protests at all?

Minnesota, Minneapolis, and St. Paul have also sued the federal government over the crackdown, arguing constitutional violations.

2) The backlash is no longer just moral. It is legal and budgetary

Civil liberties groups are not treating this as a vibes problem. They are treating it as a constitutional one.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit accusing DHS, ICE, and CBP of suspicionless stops, warrantless arrests, and racial profiling in Minnesota.

And on Capitol Hill, Democrats are trying to use the one lever Congress always has: money.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged Trump to pull ICE agents out of U.S. cities, saying the raids were “terrorizing communities” and increasing risk.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has said it will oppose funding for immigration enforcement in the DHS spending bill until reforms are enacted. The reforms being floated include guardrails on tactics and accountability measures as lawmakers negotiate a DHS bill under a tight funding deadline.

This is the political fight inside the political fight: Republicans argue for full funding without conditions, Democrats try to attach oversight, and communities live with the consequences while Congress negotiates.

3) Detention is swelling, and deaths in custody are intensifying scrutiny

Detention numbers have climbed sharply. Reuters reported that ICE statistics showed about 69,000 people in detention as of Jan. 7.

Also per Reuters, four migrants died in U.S. immigration custody in the first 10 days of 2026, following what it described as a record number of deaths in custody last year.

And the details of individual cases are fueling the outrage. The Guardian reported on the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at an ICE detention camp in El Paso, where a medical examiner’s preliminary finding suggested asphyxia due to neck and chest compression, raising the possibility of a homicide investigation.

When you put these pieces together, a pattern emerges: more people detained, more pressure on facilities, and more public attention to conditions that advocates have warned about for years.

4) The money behind this is not subtle

A major reason enforcement can scale this quickly is that Congress already bankrolled it.

Multiple analyses describe the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” as a massive infusion of funding for immigration enforcement. The Migration Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council both outline how the law provides roughly $170 billion in immigration enforcement spending and significantly expands detention capacity.

CBS News has also reported that the bill’s ICE funding is unprecedented, with tens of billions of dollars in additional money for ICE.

Whatever anyone thinks about immigration policy, the practical reality is this: enforcement is not just a strategy right now. It is a fully funded federal growth project.

5) Immigration is becoming campaign content, openly

This is not just policy. It is politics about policy, with cameras on.

Madison Sheahan, ICE’s deputy director, resigned to run for Congress in Ohio, and coverage notes that her campaign is leaning into her enforcement record.

This move signals something bigger: immigration enforcement is being packaged as a political credential inside the GOP, and it is becoming a litmus test for Democrats deciding how hard to push back without getting swallowed by “crime” messaging traps.

6) Federal vs. local conflict is escalating, especially in sanctuary states

New York is a case study in how this tension is being staged.

DHS and local reporting describe “Operation Salvo” in New York City as a multi-agency enforcement operation that DHS tied to gang targeting, with DHS saying it resulted in arrests.

At the same time, city and state officials have pushed back against Trump’s threats to cut federal funding over sanctuary policies. Gov. Kathy Hochul publicly framed the threats as intimidation and suggested legal action if funds are touched.

So yes, this is about immigration. It is also about constitutional power, local autonomy, and whether federal dollars can be used as a weapon to force compliance.

7) The bigger migration picture is shifting, too

Here is the part that often gets buried under raid footage: the U.S. may be entering an era of negative net migration.

The Washington Post reported that economists from Brookings and AEI estimate the U.S. experienced negative net migration in 2025, with more immigrants leaving than arriving, and they warned of economic consequences.

Brookings’ own January 2026 update projected that net immigration in 2026 could range widely, from negative 925,000 to positive 185,000, depending on policy and enforcement intensity.

Even if you do not care about economics, policymakers do. And when the labour market starts feeling this, immigration stops being a “border story” and becomes an everything story.

8) Meanwhile, U.S. foreign policy is also choosing chaos

And if you feel like the government is doing the most at home and abroad, that’s because it is.

In late December, the U.S. carried out strikes in Nigeria targeting Islamic State militants, a move the Council on Foreign Relations describes as part of Trump’s second-term military actions and framing around protecting Christian communities. The Washington Post later reported that the strike involved U.S. Tomahawk missiles and raised questions about what happened on the ground versus how it was described publicly.

Then, in early January, U.S. forces struck Venezuela and captured Nicolás Maduro, with Trump saying the U.S. would oversee the country until a “transition.”

At the same time, Trump has revived the Greenland pressure campaign, including threatening tariffs on countries that don’t support U.S. control, even as Danish and Greenlandic leaders reject the idea.

And regarding Iran, U.S. officials told the U.N. Security Council that “all options are on the table,” a phrase that signals escalation even when it’s wrapped in diplomacy.

So yes, this is an immigration and civil rights story. But it’s also a power story. The same posture driving enforcement at home is showing up in how the U.S. is flexing abroad.

So where are we, really?

We are in a moment where enforcement is intensifying, detention is expanding, deaths and tactics are driving lawsuits, and Congress is fighting over whether to attach guardrails to an already supercharged system. Immigration is also being used as campaign fuel, not just as policy. And the world now seems like Donald Trump’s sandbox.

So yeah, this is what we are facing. Still wondering why we need to talk about things that matter?