Many residents in metro Detroit — home to the nation’s largest Lebanese community — are mourning as the war between Israel and Hezbollah brings devastation to Lebanon.
Since March, relentless fighting has left southern towns and villages in ruins. By May, at least 62,000 buildings were destroyed, more than 1 million people were displaced, and over 4,000 have been killed.
In Israel, four civilians have died and 32 soldiers have been killed in the conflict.
There’s a shaky ceasefire now, but it’s only days old, and Israeli forces still occupy parts of southern Lebanon.
For many in metro Detroit, the pain is personal.
What does it look like to be forced from home, only to return to rubble? How does all the violence and instability ricochet among friends and loved ones here in metro Detroit, where many have family and community ties to Lebanon?
Mirvet Makki is the owner of Divine Dine Detroit, a catering business in Dearborn. She immigrated to Michigan from Lebanon in 1990, and she’s been using earnings from her business to make donations to folks in Lebanon. She says she’s constantly reflecting on the devastation in the country where she was born.
“Seeing the rubble on the side of the road, I was thinking to myself, ‘whose son was lost here, whose father was here, whose child died on this road?’” she says.
Makki joined host Robyn Vincent on The Metro to reflect on the heartbreak unfolding in Lebanon and how it reverberates through metro Detroit’s Lebanese community.
Hear the full conversation using the media player above.
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Plans for a federal immigration detention center in Romulus appear to be dead.
The Department of Homeland Security planned to house up to 500 detainees at a warehouse. But local residents and immigrants’ rights groups opposed those plans.
The New York Times is reporting the Romulus location is one of seven nationwide ICE is looking to sell. The agency spent more than $700 million buying warehouses to house detainees rounded up as part of a nationwide crackdown on undocumented individuals.
Back in March, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed suit to block the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
“Together we showed the federal government that they cannot come into Michigan, break our laws, disrupt our communities and expect us to sit on our hands,” Nessel said in a video statement on Thursday.
ICE’s decision to scrap its plans for a Romulus detention center is being greeted warmly by local officials.
“We want to thank DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin for listening to us and taking into consideration the issues that would have made this the wrong location for a detention facility,” said Romulus Mayor Robert McCraight in a press release.
Protesters wait to be let in at the Romulus City Council meeting. Most are turned away, told that the room already reached capacity.
“The City’s position should not be confused with opposition to responsible enforcement of our country’s laws. Instead, the facility’s proximity to residential neighborhoods, schools, and wetlands made it the wrong location. Locating a facility like this in our community would have been an incredible burden on our already limited public safety resources and a violation of our zoning ordinance,” McCraight said.
Nessel said the AG’s office will keep the lawsuit against ICE active until the paperwork for the sale of the property is complete and it’s official that DHS and ICE will not use the property for a detention center.
State Representative Dylan Wegela represents Romulus. He says this is a win for are residents, but the fight isn’t over.
“We are still seeing increased funding. We are still seeing ICE operate in ways that we do not want to see. They’re taking illegal actions, repeatedly losing in court, and we got to keep fighting back,” he said in an interview with WDET on Thursday evening.
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The Gordie Howe International Bridge is widely interpreted as strengthening the connection between Canada and the United States, making travel easier and cheaper. It’s seen as a win-win project that Canada paid for and jointly owns with the Michigan.
But President Donald Trump has tried to block the bridge’s opening until Canada meets certain trade-related demands with the U.S. and compensates America for it, even though Canada already paid for the bridge.
The upcoming opening of the bridge has now been delayed. In an email statement Thursday morning, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said, “Although we would all like the Gordie Howe International Bridge to open, Canada need not fall on bent knee to make it happen.”
Producer Sam Corey spoke with Dilkens yesterday before the ribbon cutting was canceled. He says the bridge is “the ultimate symbol of connection” and friendship.
Hear the full conversation using the media player above.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand.
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For the past few years, Michigan Republicans have been fractured between the historically small government variety and the Trump fanatics who lean into conspiracy theories.
State GOP conventions have been a flashpoint for controversy and fighting.
“We have had fisticuffs, kicking in the groin—you name it, all videotaped and spread all over the nation,” said Jim Runestad, Michigan Republican Party Chair.
“When I first went to the RNC, they said ‘you’re the groin kickers’ and I was saying, ‘well, this isn’t really a good reputation for a state party to have,’ particularly when people decide where they’re going to put their donations.”
In an interview at the Mackinac Policy Conference, Runestad—who is also a state senator—tells WDET’s Russ McNamara that he feels like the in-fighting has largely stopped.
Listen: MI GOP Chair Sen. Jim Runestad talks to Russ McNamara at the Mackinac Policy Conference
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Russ McNamara: What brought about this change from fighting to relative peace?
Jim Runestad: I said I’m not going to engage in (factional infighting), I won’t tolerate it. We’re going to run a unified party, and the people who want to have drama and fights are going to get thrown out or ostracized. Everybody liked that message. They’d seen what it was like in the past, and it was, it was very unifying. So I’ve been really pleased. That’s what I ran on. This is what I’ve been able to accomplish when I’ve been in front of the convention or the state committee.
McNamara: You’re fairly prolific in getting bills passed through the state legislature. Do you think you brought some of those skills of negotiation to bring everybody together within the Republican party?
Runestad: You’re the first person that I’ve talked to who mentioned that. The last year Republicans were in control (of the state legislature) with the Democrat in control (of the governor’s office), I had the second most number of bills signed into office.
Frankly, I wasn’t exactly the favorite of the majority leader Republican (Mike Shirkey) at the time. That adds to the complication, but a lot of it was reaching out to members of committees, chairs of committees and explaining why this is a good bill.
Sometimes it’d have 20 to 30 people in a meeting, all stakeholders to get them to either yes or neutral. And when a chair sees you have a very complex bill that’s a great idea, and you have no opposition, that’s how you get a bill through. And that’s what I really specialized in doing over the last 10 years in office.
McNamara: You don’t have a lot of control over what happens nationally, but the national perception of the Republican Party, of President Trump, can affect how people vote in the state of Michigan. What are you kind of doing to overcome some of that, because these are the worst poll numbers that we’ve seen for the president since his second term started.
Runestad: A lot of it comes down to the candidates you have running for these particular offices. I’ve never been more excited for what we have in terms of the candidates coming out of our convention. We have just such a great cadre of candidates. Mike Rogers is running by himself, and they’re (Democrats) beating themselves up in their primary. Our primary is going to be a tough one on the gubernatorial side, but we’re going to have a fabulous candidate come out of there.
On the national level, I think what we’re seeing is just a result of price of gas. I believe that that can be reversed relatively quickly.
So I think we’re going to be very, very good going into the November elections. We have fabulous candidates, we’ve raised way more money. If you look at the Democrats, (their) party polling is the lowest it’s ever been in its history, so it’s not like, ‘oh, they have some frustration over gas prices, therefore they love the Democrats’. Oh no. The woke policies that they ran on that were they were destroyed by in 2024 is exactly the same policies they are going run again.
McNamara: Can you explain what you mean by woke policies?
Runestad: I love their policy of having boys playing girls sports, it’s a good one for them. They need to continue running on open borders.
Their Attorney General (candidate and current Washtenaw County Prosecutor) Eli Savit was constantly speaking to the Michigan Senate Judiciary committee when the Democrats are in control. (He was in there) with the most woke leftists, ‘free the criminals’, ‘get the criminals out into society’ as anyone I’ve seen coming through the Judiciary Committee.
I think it’s wonderful that they’re doubling down on those woke policies that I just described. I don’t know how they describe them, but that’s how we describe them.
McNamara: In the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat who do you want to face Mike Rogers?
Runestad: Well, Abdul El-Sayed performs the worst in in the polling (head to head vs Rogers), but you know that’s temporary.
I know Haley Stevens was booed by 7,400 people going into the (Democratic) convention. You turn on the TV and all you see is Haley Stevens to try to overcome the negativity within the base of the party, They’re (AIPAC) pumping millions into it.
Listen to the full interview using the media player above.
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A local resident who demanded answers about the city of Taylor's agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was grabbed by three police officers and arrested Tuesday night after she pressed Mayor Tim Woolley on whether the partnership is putting immigrants and people of color in danger.
For the nearly 1,500 immigration detainees at North Lake Processing Center, the large ICE detention facility in Baldwin in northern Michigan, visitation hours are limited.
Each detainee gets two hours a week. And many are being held hundreds of miles from friends and family.
Over the past few months, Julie Cordier has been visiting them.
She keeps a binder filled with notes on the people she’s visited and when. She estimates she’s met between 15 and 20 detainees, none of whom she knew before, who were brought to her corner of Michigan after being detained all across the U.S.
She says the cabin she shares with her husband at the end of along, winding dirt road is “kind of our happy place, out in the middle of the woods on a two track, nobody around.”
Except, it happens to be less than 10 miles from the private prison facility, owned by GEO Group, that’s been operating as a immigration detention center since last summer.
The first time she visited was with her pastor at the Covenant Community United Methodist Church in Baldwin.
They got the idea from a retired pastor in Grand Rapids, who has been driving people out to North Lake to visit detainees ever since a member of his church was detained.
“We knew that there were all these strict rules,” she said. “Your shirt isn’t supposed to have any pockets. You can’t wear an underwire bra because of the metal. They are literally for people who come a long way to see their family members, and if you’re wearing an underwire bra, you’re not going in.
“They’ll give you a pair of scissors. They send you out to the little waiting area, and women wiggle out of their bra and cut out the underwire.”
To get in, she just needs someone’s name and what’s called their “Alien Number” — which is how they’re identified by the government. She calls it an “A” number. She doesn’t like the word “alien.”
The detainee she first met puts her in touch with others.
“He’ll say, this person, here’s a name, a number, he really needs a visit. He’s really struggling. He’s losing hope and could really use a visit.”
Now, Cordier goes most weeks that she can, sometimes multiple times a week. She has been to North Lake so many times that she catches up with the staff at the facility about their weekends, their families, and how they’re doing.
The other day, when she called to ask about visitation hours, the person on the other end of the line at North Lake recognized her voice.
“The gal who answered the phone,” she said, “was like, is this, Julie? I’m like, it is.”
She has helped family members of detainees get their cars back after they were impounded, given advice to people who’ve lost their apartments, and deposited money into commissary accounts on behalf of detainee’s family members who couldn’t do it in person.
If people in detention don’t have family or friends who can come, the only connection they have to the outside world is through visitors like herself.
“You actually feel like, oh my gosh, this is probably one of the very most important things I’ve ever done in my life,” Cordier said.
Baldwin is a very conservative part of Michigan. 65% of Lake County voted for President Donald Trump.
When the facility re-opened back in June, lots of people here were excited about the jobs and traffic coming to this area, where there are very few opportunities for well-paying work.
Cordier is part of a network of people across West and northwest Michigan paying visits to North Lake. It’s called Hope for Neighbors.
But not all of her neighbors want to come with her to support detainees.
“Honestly, not everybody in our church is wanting to get involved with it,” Cordier said. “I think a lot of people have preconceived ideas about the migrant population… and if you don’t take the time to actually get to know the immigrant population, I guess you just believe what you’re told, right?”
She pointed to data from ICE, about 1,200 out of the nearly 1,500 people detained at North Lake have no criminal record.
When people at her church ask her why she continues to go, Julie says it’s simple to explain.
“It’s very easy to just hearken back to the things that Jesus said and say, ‘Hey, I’m welcoming the refugee. I’m loving my neighbor.'”
In the United States, the response has been quiet.
Khadega Mohammed has spent much of her life trying to say something about that silence — through poetry, community organizing, and her work at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, where she is the only Sudanese person and the only Black person on staff.
Born in Sudan, raised in Saudi Arabia, and resettled in the United States with her family in 2007, Mohammed is a spoken word artist whose signature poem, “Between,” opens the PBS AfroPoP documentary “Revolution from Afar.”
She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about the Sudan she remembers, the America she lives in, and the in-between where her poetry was born.
Hear the full conversation using the media player above.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration. President Donald Trump has conducted more ICE raids, signaled tougher security at the border, and has prevented fewer legal immigrants from entering the country.
The Trump administration is also trying to end humanitarian immigration programs. One of those is Temporary Protected Status or TPS.
The administration has revoked deportation protections from about one million people in the U.S. Most of them are from Venezuela and Honduras. It’s trying to revoke TPS from other countries but the courts have blocked the attempt.
The Department of Homeland Security says many countries on the TPS list are no longer in crisis. But many representing immigrants in court say otherwise.
Megan Hauptman is a Litigation Staff Attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project. She is fighting the Trump administration to keep TPS for over 6,000 people from Syria. Over 1,500 of them live in Michigan alone.
What exactly is TPS status? And what would happen if more people were to lose it? Megan Hauptman spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent about this and more.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, federal immigration agents have arrested 4,218 people in Michigan, and less than a quarter had criminal convictions, according to a Metro Times’s review of data from the Deportation Data Project
The State of Michigan and the City of Romulus have sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop them from converting a warehouse into an ICE detention center.
This week on MichMash, Gongwer News Service’s Alethia Kasben talks with Attorney General Dana Nessel to discuss her concerns about the department’s actions and much more.
Why did the State of Michigan and the City of Romulus sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security?
Attorney General Nessel’s take on Pres. Trump attending Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship.
Data centers in Michigan
What Attorney Nessel plans to do after leaving office this term.
Nessel felt that the legality of the Romulus warehouse purchase was in question, and even pointed out the irony of the DHS operation.
“They are taking people who mostly have no criminal records of any kinds and [saying] that these people didn’t come into the state properly so we are going to detain you or deport. Well, DHS didn’t come in to Romulus properly. They are not abiding by the laws. So I think it’s a bit of hypocrisy by the federal government.”
Nessel said they filed a preliminary injunction so that DHS could not proceed with the project while the legal battle evolves.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and the city of Romulus filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking to stop the Trump administration from converting a local warehouse into a large-scale immigration detention center.
Civil rights advocates and health care workers warned Tuesday that growing fears of immigration enforcement are keeping patients from seeking medical care.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, after mounting criticism over her leadership of the department, including the handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.
Trump, who said he would nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, made the announcement on social media on Thursday, two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.
Trump says he’ll make Noem a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.
Noem, took the stage to address a Department of Homeland Security event moments after Trump’s announcement but made no immediate mention of her ouster. Instead, she read from prepared remarks, including reinforcing Trump’s message from the State of the Union last month.
Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Noem’s departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.
Noem’s tenure looked increasingly short-lived after hearings in Congress this week where she faced rare but blistering criticism from Republican lawmakers. One particular point of scrutiny was a $220 million ad campaign featuring Noem that encouraged people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily.
Noem told lawmakers that Trump was aware of the campaign in advance, but Trump disputed that in an interview Thursday with Reuters, saying he did not sign off on the ad campaign.
Noem has faced waves of criticism as she’s overseen Trump’s immigration crackdown, especially since the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement officers. The former South Dakota governor was also criticized over the way her department has spent billions of dollars allocated to it by Congress.
Frustrations over Noem’s execution of the Republican president’s hard-line immigration agenda — particularly her leadership after the shooting deaths of the two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis — as well as her handling of disaster response, paved the way for her downfall. She faced blistering criticism from Democrats, and some Republicans, in Congress hearings this week over those issues and others.
Aside from immigration, Noem also faced criticism — including from Republicans — over the pace of emergency funding approved through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and for the Trump administration’s response to disasters.
Mullin would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but under a federal law governing executive branch vacancies, he would be allowed to serve as an acting Homeland Security secretary as long as his nomination is formally pending.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears for an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, after mounting criticism over her leadership of the department, including the handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.
Trump, who said he would nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin, made the announcement on social media on Thursday, two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.
FILE – Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla. speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Jan. 14, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Trump says he’ll make Noem a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.
Noem, took the stage to address a Department of Homeland Security event moments after Trump’s announcement but made no immediate mention of her ouster. Instead, she read from prepared remarks, including reinforcing Trump’s message from the State of the Union last month.
Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Noem’s departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.
Noem’s tenure looked increasingly short-lived after hearings in Congress this week where she faced rare but blistering criticism from Republican lawmakers. One particular point of scrutiny was a $220 million ad campaign featuring Noem that encouraged people in the country illegally to leave voluntarily.
Noem told lawmakers that Trump was aware of the campaign in advance, but Trump disputed that in an interview Thursday with Reuters, saying he did not sign off on the ad campaign.
Noem has faced waves of criticism as she’s overseen Trump’s immigration crackdown, especially since the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement officers. The former South Dakota governor was also criticized over the way her department has spent billions of dollars allocated to it by Congress.
Frustrations over Noem’s execution of the Republican president’s hard-line immigration agenda — particularly her leadership after the shooting deaths of the two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis — as well as her handling of disaster response, paved the way for her downfall. She faced blistering criticism from Democrats, and some Republicans, in Congress hearings this week over those issues and others.
Aside from immigration, Noem also faced criticism — including from Republicans — over the pace of emergency funding approved through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and for the Trump administration’s response to disasters.
Mullin would need to be confirmed by the Senate, but under a federal law governing executive branch vacancies, he would be allowed to serve as an acting Homeland Security secretary as long as his nomination is formally pending.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies during a House Committee on the Judiciary oversight hearing of the Department of Homeland Security on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Their family spent years opposing Venezuela’s socialist system.
The government retaliated by sending men to beat the father, a state oil company worker whom it accused of being uncooperative. Other relatives were threatened.
The situation became so untenable that the family fled the country for the United States in 2021 after it obtained refugee status, according to one of the daughters, a 24-year-old clothing salesperson who was interviewed by The Associated Press.
The six siblings and their parents settled in Minnesota in 2023, living peaceful lives until the Trump administration said it was casting new scrutiny on refugees. One priority is those admitted to the U.S. under former President Joe Biden, whom the government accuses of prioritizing quantity over detailed screening and vetting, with an initial focus on 5,600 refugees who settled in Minnesota and are not yet permanent residents, making them particularly vulnerable.
Last month, three masked officers got out of a black SUV with tinted windows outside a St. Paul apartment complex, handcuffed the Venezuelan woman and her mother and told them their legal status was under review, according to the woman, who asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation.
In January, a federal judge ordered a temporary halt to the arrest and detention of refugees in Minnesota while a lawsuit challenging the “revetting” continues. The judge ordered the immediate release of all refugees detained in Minnesota, and those taken to Texas.
Three refugees told The Associated Press that whatever happens, the rounds of inconclusive interviews with immigration authorities well after they thought their status was safe has them questioning their futures in the U.S. and living in constant fear.
The young woman from Venezuela hasn’t returned to her job at a clothing factory. A man who fled persecution in Myanmar won’t walk on the streets of Minneapolis without a letter from his church appealing for immigrants to “be treated humanely.” A Congolese refugee arrested in St. Paul despite her refugee status says “everything that’s happened feels like a movie.”
A change in US treatment of refugees
Welcoming refugees has been a source of bipartisan agreement in the U.S. since Congress passed the Refugee Act with overwhelming support in 1980.
The act helped make refugee applications some of the immigration system’s most heavily scrutinized. Government decisions that someone was persecuted for who they are or what they believe are rarely second-guessed, and revisiting refugee status that’s already been granted is a major blow to legal tradition, advocates say.
“They’ve been heavily vetted and were admitted by the government with approval,” said Beth Oppenheim, chief executive officer of HIAS, a major refugee aid group.
Once a refugee is admitted to the U.S. through the resettlement program, the only way to strip them of their status is to prove that they should never have been admitted, Oppenheim said. That is why the Trump administration is interviewing people again, she said.
Matthew Tragesser, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a written statement refugees “are REQUIRED to be subject to a full inspection after a year within the United States.”
“This is not novel or discretionary; it is a clear requirement in law,” he wrote.
While it is correct that refugees must apply for green cards one year after admission — a change of status that brings a renewed layer of scrutiny — the administration is breaking with decades of tradition by revisiting initial decisions to admit people as refugees, and then detaining them while they are under review.
“Arresting, detaining, and rescreening refugees are all new changes which will inflict grave harm on vulnerable populations,” said Smita Dazzo, deputy director of U.S. programs at HIAS.
Venezuelan refugees pose for a photo on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Cottage Grove, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
Venezuela to Minnesota to Houston and back
In January, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took the Venezuelan women to Houston on a flight where migrants were shackled at the wrists and ankles and forbidden from talking. The daughter said she was told she was there for green card interviews and isolated in a cold room with no food, water or anything warm to cover her. She said she refused to sign documents without an attorney present.
“They told us, ‘Your status is worthless. You’re illegal,’” she said. “What we went through is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone … We were supposed to arrive in this country with refugee status, and we thought we would be protected here. But right now, at this moment, it is quite the opposite.”
The women were released after successfully filing habeas corpus petitions in federal court, part of a flood of last-ditch attempts at freedom under a Trump policy denying bond hearings in immigration court. Friends of their attorney drove them back to Minnesota at their own expense. Since then, the younger woman has been too afraid to leave the house.
A Venezuelan refugee poses for a photo on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in Cottage Grove, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
The pastor who received a letter and went to the interview
Saw Ba Mya James, a 46-year-old ethnic Karen father of three who fled military persecution in Myanmar, arrived in St. Paul last year after obtaining refugee status with help from a local church.
Despite a pending green card application, the Anglican pastor did not attend church for weeks after friends advised him to avoid going outside.
“I was told to stay at home, so I listened, and I prayed to God with my family,” James said.
James received a letter Feb. 2 ordering a “post-admissions refugee reverification” at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services St. Paul field office, according to a copy reviewed by The Associated Press.
During an interview that lasted several hours, an officer pressed James with questions he said he already addressed extensively before being admitted to the U.S. The officer said the review was needed because an inexperienced employee handled James’ initial vetting.
Within two weeks of the interview, James got another letter asking that he and his family provide fingerprints, which his attorney took as a positive sign.
Still, James remains wary of being detained. He faithfully carries his church sponsors’ letter appealing for him and other immigrants to “be treated humanely as fellow image-bearers of God.”
The Congolese refugee arrested arriving at work
A Congolese woman settled in the Twin Cities area in November 2024 with refugee status, working in the hospitality business as the breadwinner for her husband and four children.
She said an immigration officer approached her parked car when she arrived for work at 7 a.m. on Jan. 14 in St. Paul, saying he knew her name and that she was a refugee. After telling her to exit the vehicle to answer questions, he handcuffed her despite her efforts to show a work authorization document and identification.
The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she fears reprisals, was flown to Houston to be questioned in detail about her experiences in the Congo, Uganda and the United States. She and other refugees refused to sign documents to be sent back to their home countries. She was released Jan. 18 without any ID documents to book a flight to Minneapolis. A manager at her company flew to Houston and drove her 17 hours back home.
“If I told you I’m feeling OK, I’d be lying to you,” she said.
Salomon reported from Miami.
Saw Ba Mya James, an ethnic Karen refugee from Myanmar, stands for a portrait in St. Paul, Minn., on Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The Trump administration is suing New Jersey over a state order that prohibits federal immigration agents from making arrests in nonpublic areas of state property, such as correctional facilities and courthouses.
The Justice Department lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Trenton, challenges Gov. Mikie Sherrill ’s Feb. 11 executive order, which also bars the use of state property as a staging or processing area for immigration enforcement.
Sherrill, a Democrat who took office Jan. 20, “insists on harboring criminal offenders from federal law enforcement,” the lawsuit said, accusing her of attempting to obstruct federal law enforcement and thwart President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Sherrill’s executive order “poses an intolerable obstacle” to immigration enforcement and “directly regulates and discriminates” against the federal government, said the lawsuit, which misspelled her name as “Sherill.”
Asked about the lawsuit Tuesday, Sherrill said: “What I think the federal government needs to be focused on right now, instead of attacking states like New Jersey working to keep people safe, is actually training their ICE agents.”
The state’s acting attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, said the Trump administration was “wasting its resources on a pointless legal challenge.” New Jersey will fight the lawsuit and “continue to ensure the safety of our state’s immigrant communities,” she said.
The lawsuit is the latest in the Trump administration’s fight against state and local level restrictions on immigration enforcement.
Last year, the Justice Department sued Minnesota and Colorado, as well as cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver over so-called sanctuary laws, which are aimed at prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration agents.
Last May, the Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities — Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken — over such policies. That case is pending.
FILE – New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill waves during her inauguration ceremony in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released records show a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year during a late-night traffic encounter that was not publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.
The death of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, would mark the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers since the start of a nationwide immigration crackdown in President Donald Trump’s second term. On Friday, DHS said the shooting on South Padre Island last March occurred after the driver intentionally struck an agent.
The shooting involved a Homeland Security Investigations team that was conducting an immigration enforcement operation in conjunction with local police, according to documents obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Washington.
The records are part of a tranche of heavily redacted internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the nonprofit obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Though Martinez’s death on March 15, 2025, was reported by local media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI. In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent,” resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”
The department did not respond to questions about why it had made no media release or other public notification of the officer-involved shooting over the last 11 months.
Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, said her son was just days past his 23rd birthday when he and his best friend drove from San Antonio down to the beach for the weekend to celebrate. South Padre Island, located on the Gulf Coast just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, is a renowned spring break destination that attracts tens of thousands of college-aged partiers each March.
Martinez worked at an Amazon warehouse, liked to play video games and hang out with friends. His mother said he had never had any prior run-ins with law enforcement.
“He was a typical young guy,” Reyes told The Associated Press. “He never really got a chance to go out and experience things. It was his first time getting to go out of town. He was a nice guy, humble guy. And he wasn’t a violent person at all.”
Records show federal agents were assisting police
According to an internal two-page ICE incident report included in the newly disclosed documents, shortly after midnight, HSI officers were assisting South Padre Island police by redirecting traffic through a busy intersection after a vehicle accident with several injuries.
A blue, four-door Ford with a driver and passenger approached the officers, who ordered the driver to stop. The report does not say why. Initially, the driver didn’t respond to commands but did eventually come to a stop, according to the report.
Agents then surrounded the vehicle, telling those inside to get out, but the driver “accelerated forward” and struck an HSI special agent “who wound up on the hood of the vehicle,” the report said. An HSI supervisory special agent standing by the side of the car then fired his weapon multiple times through the open driver’s side window, and the vehicle stopped.
Paramedics already on the scene of the accident quickly provided medical aid and the driver was taken by ambulance to a regional hospital in Brownsville, where he was pronounced dead, according to the report. The passenger, also a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody.
The HSI officer who the report says was struck by the vehicle was treated for an unspecified knee injury at a nearby hospital and released.
The names of the two HSI agents involved in the shooting and the names of the two men in the car were all redacted from the ICE report, but Reyes confirmed the dead driver was her son. She said he was shot three times.
State investigation into shooting is still ‘active’
The report says the Texas Rangers responded to the shooting scene and took the lead as the primary agency investigating the shooting.
Reyes said she first learned her son had been shot by a federal agent, rather than a local police officer, about a week after he was killed. She was contacted by an investigator from the Rangers who she said told her there were videos of the shooting that contradicted the account provided by federal agents. DHS did not immediately respond to an email Friday about the claim that there is video showing a different account.
She said she was told by the investigator that the state report into the shooting was completed in October and that the case would be presented to a grand jury for potential criminal charges.
The Texas Department of Public Safety, which includes the Rangers, said in a statement Friday that the investigation into the shooting is still “active” and declined to offer more information.
Messages left with the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, an elected Democrat whose jurisdiction includes South Padre Island, received no response Friday. South Padre Island Police Chief Claudine O’Carroll also did not respond to requests for comment.
Attorneys for the family said Friday they have spent the past year pursuing accountability and transparency.
“It is critical that there is a full and fair investigation into why HSI was present at the scene of a traffic collision and why a federal officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen as he was trying to comply with instructions from the local law enforcement officers directing traffic,” attorneys Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm said in a statement.
Agents involved were part of a border task force
According to the ICE report, the HSI agents involved in the shooting were part of a maritime border enforcement security task force typically focused on combating transnational criminal organizations at seaports. Over the last year, however, officers from across multiple federal agencies have been reassigned to prioritize immigration enforcement.
In January, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, was killed in the driver’s seat of her SUV by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Trump administration officials initially attempted to paint Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to ram officers with her vehicle before multiple videos emerged of the incident that cast doubt on the government’s narrative.
“You don’t stand in front of the car, you don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a police use-of-force expert at the University of South Carolina. He added that there’s never a scenario where it’s justified, “because you don’t know whether this person is going to flee, and if he flees, you could be dead.”
Alpert said investigators will likely review any available body camera video or other footage to examine how swiftly Martinez moved the car forward, if he merely took his foot off the break or pressed down hard on the accelerator.
Martinez’s mother said she didn’t believe he would ever intentionally assault a law enforcement officer.
“They didn’t give him a chance,” Reyes said. “It’s so excessive. They could have done anything else besides that. It’s like they shoot first and ask questions later.”
Bedayn reported from Denver.
This undated photo provided by Rachel Reyes on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, shows Ruben Ray Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year. (Rachel Reyes via AP)
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Tuesday she is prepared to investigate and prosecute federal immigration officers if they violate the law after news surfaced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is opening an office in Southfield.
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, KEVIN FREKING and SEUNG MIN KIM
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is “incomplete and insufficient” as they are demanding new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and threatening a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they transmitted over the weekend “included neither details nor legislative text” and does not address “the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct.” The White House proposal was not released publicly.
The Democrats’ statement comes as time is running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday. Among the Democrats’ demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.
Earlier Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had expressed optimism about the rare negotiations between Democrats and the White House, saying there was “forward progress.”
Thune said it was a good sign that the two sides were trading papers, and “hopefully they can find some common ground here.”
But coming to an agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement will be difficult, especially as rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were skeptical about finding common ground.
Republicans have balked at the Democrats’ requests and some have demands of their own, including the addition of legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans register to vote and restrictions on cities that they say do not do enough to crack down on illegal immigration.
And many Democrats who are furious about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s aggressive crackdown have said they won’t vote for another penny of Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back.
“Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward,” Jeffries said earlier Monday. “Period. Full stop.”
Democrats made the demands for new restrictions on ICE and other federal law enforcement after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, and some Republicans suggested that new restrictions were necessary. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on Jan. 7.
While he agreed to separate the funding, Trump has not publicly responded to the Democrats’ specific demands.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said late last week that the Trump administration is willing to discuss some items on the Democrats’ list, but “others don’t seem like they are grounded in any common sense, and they are nonstarters for this administration.”
Democratic demands
Schumer and Jeffries have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks, to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centers and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras.
Among other demands, Democrats say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests, “improve warrant procedures and standards,” ensure the law is clear that officers cannot enter private property without a judicial warrant and require that before a person can be detained, it’s verified that the person is not a U.S. citizen.
Republicans have said they support the requirement for DHS officers to have body-worn cameras — language that was in the original DHS bill — but have balked at many of the other Democratic asks.
“Taking the masks off ICE officers and agents, the reason we can’t do that is that it would subject them to great harm, their families at great risk because people are doxing them and targeting them,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday. “We’ve got to talk about things that are reasonable and achievable.”
Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty said on “Fox News Sunday” that Democrats are ”trying to motivate a radical left base.”
“The left has gone completely overboard, and they’re threatening the safety and security of our agents so they cannot do their job,” Hagerty said.
Consequences of a shutdown
In addition to ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the homeland security bill includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration. If DHS shuts down, Thune said last week, “there’s a very good chance we could see more travel problems” similar to the 43-day government closure last year.
Lawmakers in both parties have suggested they could separate out funding for ICE and Border Patrol and pass the rest of it by Friday. But Thune has been cool to that idea, saying instead that Congress should pass another short-term extension for all of DHS while they negotiate the possible new restrictions.
“If there’s additional time that’s needed, then hopefully Democrats would be amenable to another extension,” Thune said.
Many Democrats are unlikely to vote for another extension. But Republicans could potentially win enough votes in both chambers from Democrats if they feel hopeful about negotiations.
“The ball is in the Republicans’ court,” Jeffries said Monday.
Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., center, speaks during a news conference as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. listens, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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