home country

President Trump’s administration said Tuesday it will end temporary protected status for immigrants from Somalia, the latest move in the president’s mass deportation agenda.

The move affects hundreds of people who are a small subset of immigrants with TPS protections in the United States. It comes during Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many native Somalis live and where street protests have intensified since a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed a U.S citizen who was demonstrating against federal presence in the city.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that affected Somalis must leave the U.S. by March 17, when existing protections, last extended by former President Biden, will expire.

“Temporary means temporary,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, adding that the decision puts “Americans first.”

The Congressional Research Service last spring said the Somali TPS population was 705 out of nearly 1.3 million TPS immigrants. But Trump has rolled back protections across multiple countries in his second presidency.

Congress established the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990 to help foreign nationals attempting to leave unstable, threatening conditions in their home countries. It allows the executive branch to designate a country so that its citizens are eligible to enter the U.S. and receive status.

Somalia first received the designation under President George H.W. Bush amid a civil war in 1991. The status has been extended for decades, most recently by Biden in July 2024.

Noem insisted circumstances in Somalia “have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status.”

Located in the horn of Africa, Somalia is one of the world’s poorest nations and has for decades been beset by chronic strife exacerbated by multiple natural disasters, including severe droughts.

The 2025 congressional report stated that Somalis had received more than two dozen extensions because of perpetual “insecurity and ongoing armed conflict that present serious threats to the safety of returnees.”

Trump has targeted Somali immigrants with racist rhetoric and accused those in Minneapolis of massively defrauding federal programs.

In December, Trump said he did not want Somalis in the U.S., saying they “come from hell” and “contribute nothing.” He made no distinction between citizens and non-citizens or offered any opinion on immigration status. He has had especially harsh words for Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who emigrated from Somalia as a child. Trump has repeatedly suggested she should be deported, despite her being a U.S. citizen, and in his rant last fall he called her “garbage.”

Omar, who has been an outspoken critic of the ICE deployment in Minneapolis, has called Trump’s “obsession” with her and Somali-Americans “creepy and unhealthy.”

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.

Ever since Donald J. Trump descended from a gold escalator at his eponymous Manhattan tower in 2015, he has sworn that a scorched-earth campaign against “illegal immigrants” would make life safer for Americans and that citizens had nothing to worry about.

Well.

In 2025, Trump’s campaign vow to target “the worst of the worst” was set aside in the name of not just going after all undocumented immigrants and limiting legal migration but even the goal of remigration — the idea that immigrants of any status should return to their home countries. Now, U.S. citizens Keith Porter Jr., shot at a Northridge apartment complex, and Renee Nicole Good, whose shooting sparked large protests in Minneapolis, are dead.

ICE is about to storm American streets and neighborhoods with thousands of new recruits who received just eight weeks of training instead of what used to be five months. The Fourth Amendment bans the government from subjecting Americans from “unreasonable searches and seizures” yet we now have a vice president promising that they’re forthcoming across the country.

“I think … we’re [going] to see those deportation numbers ramp up,” JD Vance told Fox News’ Jesse Watters, “as we get more and more people online working for ICE going from door-to-door.”

He repeated his boast the following day during a news conference while adding that the killing of Good — shot while trying to drive away from an agent who stood in front of her SUV during an immigration enforcement operation — was justified, adding that the 37-year-old mother of three was “brainwashed” and “radicalized in a very, very sad way.”

The beginning of 2026 now shows even those in the United States legally are targets for for the too often Keystone Kops-like, eager beaver, trigger happy federal immigration enforcement force I like to call la migra.

This isn’t anything new, of course. Since June, when ICE, Border Patrol and their sister agencies used Los Angeles as a testing ground for what they have inflicted on the rest of the country, the government has treated citizens who dare oppose mass-scale deportations — veterans, Democrats or Republicans, old and young, Latino and not — as an enemy of the “homeland.” Citizens have had their front doors blown out, been hit with pepper balls for praying outside government facilities, been wrongfully charged with assaulting agents, and have seen their identification papers dismissed as fake and thus grounds for detainment.

With the Trump administration’s accelerated recruitment drive for immigration officers and rhetorical bloodlust, don’t be surprised if these masked Bizarro Barney Fifes knock on your door or demand to see your papers. In fact, expect it.

The MAGA excuse for those caught up in la migra‘s crackdown — the way to stay out of trouble is by avoiding it — doesn’t work when the trouble comes to you.

That’s why it seems that the deaths of Porter and Good in the last week, coupled with Vance’s authoritarian promise, seems to be waking up Americans into resisting the deportation Leviathan like never before.

A woman is taken into custody by Border Patrol agents after she was accused of using her vehicle to block their vehicles while they were patrolling in a shopping center in December in Niles, Ill.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Anti-ICE protests are happening across the country this weekend. On social media, conservatives and libertarians who largely stayed silent on Trump throughout 2025 are criticizing him over Good’s death and his administration’s insults against her. Trump’s approval rating has slipped since the start of his presidency, even among supporters — and ICE’s out-of-control conduct is becoming a bigger and bigger factor.

A YouGov poll conducted on the day of Good’s killing found 52% of Americans surveyed don’t like how ICE is operating, while the agency’s approval rating has gone from plus-16% to negative 14% in a year. While the poll unsurprisingly splits on partisan lines — Democrats overwhelmingly oppose ICE, Republicans still think they’re Trump’s Hardy Boys — the independents who delivered the 2024 election to Trump oppose ICE’s actions by a healthy majority.

If he’s losing the middle, he’s losing America.

Unless, of course, Trump goes full banana republic dictator and decides his regime isn’t leaving office — no matter what. And honestly, would you be shocked if this administration tried to make its wet dream a reality?

Every movement needs martyrs, and if the deaths of Porter and Good prove to American citizens and permanent residents once and for all that they’re not safe from ICE, then their deaths weren’t in vain. That’s why the Trump administration and its lackeys are straining so hard to slime Good’s name — because they know the public isn’t having its lies.

Their smears don’t have the same effect they used to, thankfully. Just look at what happened recently with Grok, Elon Musk’s AI creation on X.

You have to take what it digitally blurts out with a grain of salt — Grok once started calling itself “MechaHitler” and spewed anti-semitic conspiracies after an update that Musk swore “improved [it] significantly.”

But consider what Grok did when the billionaire Trump enabler “tweeted” of Good: “She tried to run people over.”

When asked whether it “would have authorized lethal forced based solely on this video evidence” even Musk’s creation, even Grok, replied (while noting that “ICE claims differ”):

“Based on descriptions from multiple sources… it shows the vehicle moving slowly backward and forward without clear evidence of attempting to ram officers. Under objective standards like [the Supreme Court decision] Graham v. Connor, which require an imminent threat for deadly force, I would not authorize lethal force solely on this footage.”

I guess even Grok is capable of calling out Trumpworld’s BS when it “sees” what millions of other people across the U.S. have seen with their own eyes.

LAAX, Switzerland — Two-time Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim said Thursday that she dislocated her shoulder in training and doesn’t know whether she will be able to compete at the Winter Games in Italy next month.

Kim posted footage of her fall from earlier this week on the halfpipe in Laax, Switzerland, where the world’s top snowboarders compete later this month in a key pre-Olympic tune-up. She landed a jump cleanly but lost an edge and went skittering across the pipe, face down.

Kim, who did not say which shoulder she hurt, said she is “trying to stay optimistic” about competing at the Olympics but “[doesn’t] have much clarity now.” The 25-year-old said she has an MRI scheduled for Friday that will reveal the extent of the damage.

“The positive thing is, I have range, I’m not in that much pain. I just don’t want it to keep popping out, which has happened,” she said. “I’m just trying to stay really optimistic. I feel really good about where my snowboarding is at right now, so I know the minute I get cleared and I’m good to go, I should be fine.”

Kim’s absence would deprive the Winter Games of one of its biggest stars and one of its best storylines. She is trying to become the first action-sports athlete to win three straight gold medals. Shaun White took home three golds, but they were spread out over five Games.

Kim was the breakout star of the 2018 Olympics, a bubbly teenager taking gold in her parents’ home country of South Korea. Four years ago in China, she won again, with that victory punctuated by her messages about the ups and downs of success and fame.

If healthy, she would be the heavy favorite to win again, but this injury off “the silliest fall,” as she called it, puts all that in question. Qualifying for the women’s halfpipe begins Feb. 11.

The Laax Open is scheduled for next weekend, and even if Kim were to get a clean bill of health, there is a chance she would head into the Olympics without having competed in the final of a contest this season.

Kim qualified for the U.S. team last year and has kept a light schedule. She fell during warm-ups for the final in Copper Mountain, Colo., last month and pulled out after hurting her shoulder then, as well. That injury was not believed to be serious.

A federal judge this week canceled the trial of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration, and scheduled a hearing on whether the prosecution is being vindictive in pursuing a human smuggling case against him.

Abrego Garcia has become a centerpiece of the debate over immigration after the Trump administration deported him in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee.

Abrego Garcia has denied the allegations, and argued that prosecutors are vindictively and selectively targeting him. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. wrote in Tuesday’s order that Abrego Garcia had provided enough evidence to hold a hearing on the topic, which Crenshaw scheduled for Jan. 28.

At that hearing, prosecutors will have to explain their reasoning for charging Abrego Garcia, Crenshaw wrote, and if they fail in that, the charges could be dismissed.

When Abrego Garcia was pulled over in 2022, there were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. But Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

A Department of Homeland Security agent previously testified that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration had to work to bring Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, where he was deported.

Years earlier, Abrego Garcia had been granted protection from deportation to his home country after a judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. That order allowed Abrego Garcia, who has an American wife and child, to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision.

The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang. He has denied the accusations and has no criminal record.

Abrego Garcia’s defense attorney and the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bedayn writes for the Associated Press.

Masashi “Jumbo” Ozaki, whose 113 worldwide victories were the most of any player from Japan, died Wednesday in his home country after a battle with colon cancer, the Japan Golf Tour said. He was 78.

Ozaki was revered in Japan, a big hitter with a sense of style who won 94 times over 29 years on the Japan Golf Tour, the last one coming at the 2002 ANA Open when he was 55.

He rose to No. 5 in the world ranking in 1996 at age 49. Ozaki often got overlooked for never winning outside Japan except for the New Zealand PGA Championship. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011.

“He is an indispensable, one-of-a-kind figure in discussing men’s golf, both now and in the future,” the tour said in a social media post.

Ozaki competed in 49 majors, his best finish coming in the 1989 U.S. Open at Oak Hill when he finished three shots behind Curtis Strange. He played the Masters for the 19th and final time in 2000 when he was 53 and tied for 28th.

Isao Aoki was the first Japanese player in the World Golf Hall of Fame, and Hideki Matsuyama became the first to win a major at the 2021 Masters. Both were inspired in some fashion by Ozaki, the pioneer in a nation now obsessed with golf.

Ozaki won the Japan Open five times and the Japan PGA Championship six times. He led the Japan Golf Tour money list a record 12 times, including five in a row from 1994 through 1998. He won his final money title in 2002, when he was 55.

When he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Ozaki said his one regret was not playing more outside of Japan.

“But I dedicated my life to Japanese golf and am extremely grateful the voters thought I was worthy of this honor,” he said upon his election. He received 50% of the vote on the International ballot.

Ozaki was looked upon as the Arnold Palmer of golf in Japan with his powerful swing, charisma and sense of style, often wearing silk shirts and baggy pants. And his skill was not limited to just golf. He played the guitar and had three songs reach the pop charts in Japan, according to the Hall of Fame.

His first love was baseball, and he spent three years pitching professionally before turning to golf. That was evident when Ryo Ishikawa, who won his first Japan Golf Tour title at age 15, spoke of Ozaki’s influence. Ishikawa said he would visit Ozaki about 10 times a year to get advice.

“Jumbo used to be a baseball player, so he always tried to teach me the link from pitching or hitting to golf,” Ishikawa said in 2010 interview with the Associated Press. “Jumbo wanted me to hit the ball far.”

Ozaki traveled with an entourage when he did play outside Japan in the majors, usually renting a house and bringing a sushi chef so his people would feel at home.

He has two younger brothers who also played on tour, Naomichi (Joe) and Tateo (Jet).

Ozaki played in the 1996 Presidents Cup, partnering with Vijay Singh to beat the American duo of Fred Couples and Davis Love III. He qualified for the 1998 team but decided against the trip to Australia, and his brother, Joe, played instead.

Ferguson writes for the Associated Press.