A federal judge gave a significant victory to Minnesota protesters and observers of federal officers Friday, granting a preliminary injunction preventing the officers from retaliating against demonstrators. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez prevents the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting or detaining people who are…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 16, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A Texas medical examiner is reportedly planning to classify the recent death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last summer, as a homicide, marking the latest apparent abuse at the hands of an agency that has been rampaging lawlessly through US communities at the behest of President Donald Trump.
As the Washington Post reported Friday, “An employee of El Paso County’s Office of the Medical Examiner told Lunas Campos’ daughter this week that, subject to results of a toxicology report, the office is likely to classify the death as a homicide, according to a recording of the conversation.”
“The employee said a doctor there ‘is listing the preliminary cause of death as asphyxia due to neck and chest compression,’ which means Lunas Campos did not get enough oxygen because of pressure on his neck and chest,” the newspaper added.
In an interview with the Post, one detainee at the sprawling El Paso detention center known as Camp East Montana said he witnessed “at least five guards struggling with Lunas Campos after he refused to enter the segregation unit, complaining that he didn’t have his medications.”
The eyewitness, according to the Post, “said he saw guards choking Lunas Campos and heard Lunas Campos repeatedly saying, ‘No puedo respirar’—Spanish for ‘I can’t breathe.’ Medical staff tried to resuscitate him for an hour, after which they took his body away.”
Jeanette Pagan Lopez, the mother of two of Lunas Campos’ children, told the Post that she was contacted by agents from the
This story was originally published on Truthout on Jan. 15, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
A federal appeals court has reversed a June court decision to release pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil from immigration detention, marking a major win for the Trump administration amid its ongoing push to deport him.
In a two-to-one decision on Thursday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that the lower federal court did not have jurisdiction over the immigration matters in the case, and instructed it to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Khalil that freed him on a temporary basis.
“The scheme Congress enacted governing immigration proceedings provides Khalil a meaningful forum in which to raise his claims later on — in a petition for review of a final order of removal,” or a PFR, the panel’s majority wrote in the judgment.
“The immigration laws enacted by Congress ordinarily require an alien to challenge his deportation in a PFR — unless he raises questions that a court of appeals could not meaningfully review in that context. That scheme ensures that petitioners get just one bite at the apple — not zero or two,” the decision goes on. “But it also means that some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government conduct.”
The order reversed by the panel had found that Khalil’s detention and removal were likely unconstitutional, with his detention causing irreparable harm to the Columbia University activist. Khalil missed the birth of his first child while in prison, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denied his request to be present with his wife.
Khalil’s legal team said that the order does not go into effect immediately, as the
Renee Nicole Good’s tragic murder in Minneapolis at the hands of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent has become a turning point in the criminalization of community-based resistance to the Trump administration’s campaign of neo-fascist state repression. Vice President JD Vance has gone so far as to lionize Good’s alleged killer, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 15, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to put the US military on American streets, unless demonstrations against federal immigration operations in Minneapolis come to an end.
In a Truth Social post, Trump demanded that Minnesota elected officials “stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], who are only trying to do their job.”
If this doesn’t happen, the president said, he would invoke the Insurrection Act and “quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place” in the state.
“The Insurrection Act was always the plan, and Minneapolis is the test case,” said Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. “They sent ICE in to terrorize and attack Black and brown communities to provoke a response that would justify deploying the military domestically in Blue cities. This has never been about immigration.”
“Invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis — and the country — needs right now.” —Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made a similar warning last week, amid protests that erupted after the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent.
“What we are seeing right now,” said Omar, “not only from the surge of 2,000 federal agents—now we have another 1,000 apparently coming in—it is essentially trying to create this kind of environment where people feel intimidated, threatened, and terrorized. And I think the ultimate goal of [Homeland Security Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and President Trump is to agitate