Can Trump Force Blue Cities to Cooperate With ICE?

Feb. 2, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ET

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, Featuring Hamed Aleaziz and Ernesto Londoño, Produced by Anna FoleyAlex SternRikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie, Edited by Michael Benoist and Liz O. Baylen, Contains music by Rowan Niemisto Elisheba Ittoop and Dan Powell, Engineered by Chris Wood.

Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, traveled to Minneapolis a few days ago with a message: the faster local officials cooperate with federal immigration agents, the faster those agents will leave.

Hamed Aleaziz and Ernesto Londoño, New York Times reporters, explain why that kind of cooperation is so difficult to pull off.

On Today’s Episode

Hamed Aleaziz, who covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy in the United States for The New York Times.

Ernesto Londoño, a reporter for The New York Times based in Minnesota.

Background Reading

• Can Mr. Homan de-escalate tensions in Minnesota?
• Minneapolis police officers caught between the Trump administration and city residents face difficult choices.

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The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon M. Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez, Brendan Klinkenberg, Chris Haxel, Maria Byrne, Anna Foley and Caitlin O’Keefe.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam, Nick Pitman and Kathleen O’Brien.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

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Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.

Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.

The Daily – The New York Times – Feb 2, 2026 – via Spotify…

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/podcasts/the-daily/ice-minnesota-minneapolis-homan.html

Shock and awe

This is what I would describe what I felt when hearing the news that the #US invaded #Venezuela and took #Maduro as a #hostage. It is nothing short of something comparable to what happened when #Russia invaded #Ukraine with the same purpose - of triggering a regime change and turning it into a #puppetcountry - by force.

I remember even today that I took a day off from work, waiting for a desk to be delivered to my place. I woke up relaxed in that morning and I turned on the mobile data on my phone, waiting patiently to be bombarded by notifications. I got a message from a friend of mine, telling me that Russia was fighting in Ukraine. I replied to him that yeah, I know, in Donbass, right? (or something like that) - to which he replied something along the lines of "no, bro, they literally attacked Ukraine, they're in Ukraine" and sent me a link to some live reporting.

It was just as the #pandemic was getting over, most people got their shots, and we were hoping to go back to normal. We were hoping the world would go on with the ensuing post-war system that held largely well and ensured some prosper (albeit unequal) economies. The fact that a permanent member of the UN Security Council directly invaded a sovereign nation - even more so, for land grabbing reasons - changed that. I remember walking in the University Square here in Bucharest and trying to figure stuff out of what happened - my first thought was, "this world will simply not return to what it was. The old order and everything I learned about conflicts was no longer applicable".

#Trump's invasion (as I cannot really say America's invasion since the Congress didn't authorize this) of Venezuela, followed by the swift capture of its leader had an expectable outcome - not only the latter was smaller and not really surrounded by allied countries, but the #USArmy is a better trained, gunned and more effective army than that of the #Russians - but still equally shocking, given that outcome. Regardless of the motives of Trump's action (be it #drugs, #oil and whatnot), this paints a gloomier picture. What we're seeing in #Venezuela is the practical, real world application of Trumpo-Putinist doctrine, so far only expressed in words by the #POTUS when it came to #annexing #Greenland, #Canada or #Panama. It is the doctrine that was the standard in the #internationalsystem until #WW1 and the doctrine that was only starting to be abandoned after WW2, when a (apparently) more solid international organization - the UN, that is - was created to keep the order and make wars preventable. It is the doctrine that says that #mightisright and whoever has the weakest army risks being swallowed by the one that has the strongest. It is the very opposite of what our #postwar world was built on.

Maduro is not a leader to cry about. Even far from it. He's been ruling his country with an iron fist, suppressing dissent, repressing opposition and getting human rights to a low that probably even Putin would only dream about, let alone Trump himself. Yet what happened in Venezuela does not guarantee it a stable democracy, freedom, human rights. Because Trump cares nothing about these things - he showed it at home, he showed it in US #bluestates and #bluecities, he showed it by allying and bending down to dictators like Xi and Putin. What happened in Venezuela was a display of force. And it will inadvertently be a positive signal for #dictators around the world that they can do whatever they like on other countries' lands.

Right now, #EU is the strongest remaining guarantor of a #lawbasedorder. Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and the democracies of the Far East are more like regional players.

Beyond these events, a couple of questions arise: What did we do to end up in this terrible situation? Could the US Democrats come back to power this year and successfully flip the situation? Or Europe? Or at least will Europe be able to keep the rule-based order to some extent at least? Or are we doomed already?

#Trump admin says it's freezing #childcare funds to #Minnesota after series of “fraud” schemes

Deputy Secy of #RFKJr’s #HHS Jim O’Neill posted on X that the step is in response to “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota & across the country.”

“We have turned off the money spigot & we are finding the fraud,” he said.

#law #BlueStates #BlueCities #RevengePolitics
https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-child-care-funds-fraud-b511941de10f02fbb7349eff6738f748?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-12-30-Breaking+News

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