What Lawmakers Saw When They Visited 5-Year-Old Liam Ramos
Why Trump suddenly sounds softer on ICE. Plus: A vote that defines this moment. How ICE is building a "24/7" surveillance system. Trump warns Iran "time is running out." Welcome to Project 2026.
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Donald Trump and his media allies are trying to change the narrative around Alex Pretti’s death and the lawless ICE operation in Minnesota. The New York Post is running a story headlined “Alex Pretti appears to spit at ICE.” It’s centered on a video — now shared by Donald Trump Jr — that purportedly shows Pretti kicking a vehicle’s taillights in an angry confrontation with ICE agents on January 13, eleven days before his death. Importantly, though the Post claims the BBC verified the video, the BBC isn’t running it. At this time we don’t know if the video is authentic. But we can tell you there are fake images circulating claiming to show Pretti in drag and there was a false rumor he was fired from his job for inappropriate behavior. Those have been debunked.
Here’s what matters: Nothing Pretti may have done in the weeks before his death makes his killing justifiable. The verified videos from that day show federal agents disarming him before shooting him approximately ten times while he was pinned to the ground.
Today Trump and his team are working overtime to distract you. He’s rattling sabers at Iran. His FBI raided a Georgia elections office. The DOJ is suddenly volunteering updates on the Epstein files. Trump keeps insisting he wants to “de-escalate” in Minnesota — while maintaining the federal force on the ground with no new policies, blocking Minnesota officials from investigating the Good and Pretti deaths, and continuing federal probes into Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey.
Watch the clock. In the next 48 hours, the Senate votes on a government funding bill with $10 billion for ICE. Trump needs every Republican vote. So he sounds like he’s rethinking ICE strategy — while ICE agents continue their lawless brutality on the streets of Minneapolis. We understand what’s happening. This is a good time to call your senators, no matter which party they belong to, and let them know how you feel about giving more funding to ICE. This is the Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121.
Here Are Your Headlines
Liam Ramos: Today Democratic Reps Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Jasmine Crockett (R-TX) visited the Dilley, Texas detention center, where they saw 5-year-old Liam Ramos, his father, and others held there. After the visit, Castro said, “Liam Ramos should be released immediately.” In a post on social media, Castro shared that Liam was sleeping during the visit and his father told Castro he is not eating well and is “depressed and sad.” According to Castro, Ramos has been asking about his mother and classmates and wants to know if he can have his hat and backpack. Castro said none of the 1,100 people held at Dilley has a criminal record — criminals are sent elsewhere. Among the detainees: a two-month-old baby. During their three-and-a-half-hour visit, Castro and Crockett spoke with hundreds of parents who described their detained children as experiencing “deep depression.” You can learn more about this detention center here, here, and here.
Ice and Fire: DHS has confirmed that two agents fired guns during the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. As of Wednesday, both have been placed on administrative leave. Is this a sign Trump is following through on his pledge to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota? Don’t hold your breath. On Wednesday, after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey reiterated that the city will not change immigration policies nor will local police enforce federal immigration laws, Trump warned he is “PLAYING WITH FIRE!” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he is done with talk: “We just need them out of here, and we need accountability.”
That Didn’t Last Long: Trump is already undermining his own attempts to convince the country he wants to de-escalate in Minnesota. On Tuesday he told Fox News the personnel changes aren’t a “pushback,” just “little changes” like those made by businesses. “You know, Bovino’s very good,” he said, “but he’s a pretty out there kind of a guy. In some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here.” He also repeated his baseless claims that protestors and observers are “paid insurrectionists” and “agitators,” while denigrating immigrants as “monsters,” “murderers,” and “criminals.”
Ice Cold: Trump arrived in Iowa for a rally on Tuesday greeted by thousands of anti-ICE protestors. In his speech, he managed to largely stick to his theme of affordability, with a series of dubious and false claims. When he did touch on immigration, things got ugly. Trump wildly alleged that immigrants may “blow up our shopping centers, blow up our farms, kill people.” He falsely claimed that ICE is targeting hardened criminals whose removal will cut crime. “Two percent of the population causes 90 percent of the crime,” he claimed, without evidence. “So when you start decimating that tw o percent, boom.” Reminder: studies have repeatedly shown that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crime at far lower rates than US-born citizens. And this kind of heated rhetoric isn’t exactly “lowering the temperature.”
Reality Check: ICE’s high-profile raids in Minneapolis are netting fewer criminals than its nationwide operations, according to new data. In Operation Midway Blitz, in Illinois, two-thirds of those detained had no criminal charges. In DC, 84% had no charges. And that’s against a backdrop where ICE is already detaining far more people without charges than in prior years. In 2024, 15% of those detained had violent convictions. By October, that percentage had declined threefold.
Where’s DOGE? According to a new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to six cities ovemr the last six months has cost taxpayers almost $500 million.
Law 101: ICE agents on Tuesday attempted to gain access to the Ecuadorian embassy, prompting the country’s foreign ministry to issue a formal protest. Thanks to diplomatic inviolability, foreign embassies are off-limits to US law enforcement. Period. In one verified video, an agent can be seen arguing with embassy staff blocking them from entering. “If you touch me,” the agent threatens, “I’ll grab you.” According to an eyewitness, agents were chasing someone who entered the consulate.
Attack at Town Hall: The Minneapolis Police Department on Wednesday said the FBI has taken charge of the investigation into the man who assaulted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on Tuesday. That man has been identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, a vocal Trump supporter. Omar was holding a town hall in Minneapolis when Kazmierczak rushed at her and sprayed her with a liquid that’s since been identified as apple cider vinegar before being tackled by security. Omar went on with the town hall, telling people “please don’t let them have the show” and saying she “learned at a young age that you don’t give in to threats.” When Trump was asked about the incident, he dismissed Omar as a “fraud” who “probably had herself sprayed.” Omar is a frequent target of Trump’s verbal attacks and the day before she was assaulted, Trump announced the “DOJ and Congress” were renewing an ongoing investigation into Omar’s finances.
Big Brother: ICE is surveilling legal observers tracking its operations. The FBI has opened an investigation into Signal group chats used in Minnesota to share information about ICE’s movements. Director Kash Patel told podcaster Benny Johnson he ordered the investigation after reading an X post in which a conservative journalist claimed to have infiltrated the groups and accused them of being used to obstruct and assault agents. But a senior official at the Freedom Forum said he didn’t see anything illegal in the X post. “I got the sense the group has been organized for purposes that are fully protected by the First Amendment,” he said: “To observe, to speak, and to alert others of possible dangers.” ICE itself has spent tens of millions of dollars over the last few years building a sophisticated surveillance system. They use a facial recognition tool called Mobile Fortify to judge citizenship; internal guidance reportedly argues nobody can opt out, and the face scans are stored for 15 years. ICE recently purchased two additional programs. Tangles allows it to monitor social media, including adding people to a watchlist to receive notifications when they post. According to WIRED, ICE’s internal contracting documents imply the agency is working on creating “a 24/7 social media surveillance team.” Meanwhile, Webloc is a tool that can map out phone locations and track them through space — such as from a protest to a person’s house.
Not Hiding It: ICE agents have been recorded using these tools and the deaths of people at their hands to threaten peaceful observers. In one video, an agent can be seen scanning an observer’s license plate. When asked why, the agent says, “‘cuz we have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.” In other videos, agents were recorded invoking Renee Good’s death to intimidate people. In one, an agent asks, “Have y’all not learned from the past couple of days?” “Stop fucking following us,” an agent yells in another video. “You did not learn from what just happened? Go home to your kids.”
Put Funding on ICE: Senators are set to vote Thursday on a funding bill for DHS that includes $10 billion for ICE. Democrats, emboldened by new polling showing a majority of voters want ICE reined in, are demanding that DHS funding be stripped from the overall spending package and additional reforms added. Their key demands include no more masks, mandatory body cameras, following the same rules governing force as local police, tighter rules for search warrants, and no more wandering patrols snatching people up at random. But as of this hour Republicans in the Senate insist they will keep the ICE funding in the overall bill. If Democrats vote down the funding bill, we will have a partial government shutdown. To complicate matters, even if Senate leadership agrees to remove the ICE funding from this bill (which they say they won’t do) the updated bill would then head back to the House for another vote. That’s complicated because, first, the House is on recess. And second, a bloc of hard-right House Republicans vowed Tuesday to protect DHS funding and called on Trump to “invoke the Insurrection Act.” That’s where we are today, America.
PR Mess: A circular firing squad appears to have broken out among administration officials, who are scrambling to shift blame for their handling of Pretti’s death. The White House threw Greg Bovino under the bus, blaming CBP for furnishing false information (like the claim that Alex Pretti brandished a gun to “massacre” agents). Bovino’s been stripped of his title and banned from social media. Then Kristi Noem, facing impeachment calls for spreading that lie, rushed to the White House Monday for a two-hour meeting (Stephen Miller was notably absent) and her camp leaked to Axios she was just following orders: “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen.” Miller tried deflecting, claiming agents “may not have been following” his protocol for creating “a physical barrier between arrest teams and disruptors.” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) wasn’t buying it: “Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence.”
The Playbook: Reuters documented five earlier violent incidents involving immigration agents, where Trump officials rushed to defend agents without waiting for facts. “They are trying to control a narrative from the very start,” Trump’s 2017 DHS press secretary said,” and they don’t seem to care when they’re proven wrong.”
Hanging On: Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee warned Tuesday that Noem “needs to be fired, resign, or she will be impeached.” Multiple Republicans on Tuesday called for her to step down. But Trump insisted Noem has “done a very good job.”
All About Optics: Trump seems to have shifted tactics in (large) part due to the coverage of Pretti’s death, which he reportedly complained was overshadowing his achievements. Trump was screening the new Melania documentary at the White House and spent the weekend there — not Mar-a-Lago — watching TV. Coverage centered on the killing of Alex Pretti. “Nobody understands TV better than him,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said. “The visuals were undercutting the idea that the chaos is caused by sanctuary-city police.”
Camp East Montana: The ACLU on Wednesday updated a harrowing report detailing widespread abuse at the nation’s largest immigration detention site. Camp East Montana was hastily built on the site of a Japanese internment camp; the Pentagon refused to release the details of a mysterious $1.2 billion contract to run the place, and its doors opened in August while construction was ongoing. Within 50 days, the site had violated federal detention standards 60 times. According to the ACLU, detainees are given insufficient and often spoiled food, forced to go days without washing, and repeatedly denied medical care. In dozens of horrific accounts, detainees describe being violently abused, often sexually; crushing testicles is apparently a common tactic when trying to force people to accept forced removal.
Lyin’ Lyons: The Trump administration on Tuesday released a man from immigration detention after a judge threatened to hold acting ICE director Todd Lyons in contempt. That means Lyons doesn’t have to appear in court, as the judge demanded he do to explain why the administration failed to follow a court order releasing the man from detention. That order was “one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” the judge noted. “The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed.”
Keep reading for information on… What’s in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2026.” (Yes, it’s real.) Trump’s latest threats to Iran. What the DOJ said about the Epstein files. The Fed’s latest decision. An FBI raid based on a conspiracy theory.
And an update from the monks walking across the country to promote peace.
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