last week

MINNEAPOLIS — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance.

But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain.

He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again.

He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” the Mexican immigrant recounted last week to the Associated Press, which recently reported on how his case contributed to mounting friction between federal immigration agents and a Minneapolis hospital.

Castañeda Mondragón, 31, is one of an unknown number of immigration detainees who, despite avoiding deportation during the Trump administration’s enforcement crackdown, have been left with lasting injuries following violent encounters with ICE officers. His case is one of the excessive-force claims the federal government has thus far declined to investigate.

He was hurt so badly he was disoriented for days at Hennepin County Medical Center, where ICE officers constantly watched over him.

A dubious claim

The officers told nurses Castañeda Mondragón “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” an account his caregivers immediately doubted. A CT scan showed fractures to the front, back and both sides of his skull — injuries a doctor told AP were inconsistent with a fall.

“There was never a wall,” Castañeda Mondragón said in Spanish, recalling ICE officers striking him with the same metal rod used to break the windows of the vehicle he was in. He later identified it as an ASP, a telescoping baton routinely carried by law enforcement.

Training materials and police use-of-force policies across the U.S. say such a baton can be used to hit the arms, legs and body. But striking the head, neck or spine is considered potentially deadly force.

“The only time a person can be struck in the head with any baton is when the person presents the same threat that would permit the use of a firearm — a lethal threat to the officer or others,” said Joe Key, a former Baltimore police lieutenant and use-of-force expert who testifies in defense of police.

Once he was taken to an ICE holding facility at Ft. Snelling in suburban Minneapolis, Castañeda Mondragón said officers resumed beating him. Recognizing that he was seriously hurt, he said, he pleaded with them to stop, but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.”

“They were very racist people,” he said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the last two weeks on Castañeda Mondragón’s injuries.

It is unclear whether his arrest was captured on body-camera video or if there might be additional recordings from security cameras at the detention center.

In a recent bid to boost transparency, Homeland Security announced a broad rollout of body cameras for immigration officers in Minneapolis as the government draws down ICE’s presence there.

ICE deportation officer William J. Robinson did not say how Castañeda Mondragón’s skull was smashed in a Jan. 20 declaration filed in federal court. During the intake process, it was determined he “had a head injury that required emergency medical treatment,” he wrote in the filing.

The declaration also stated that Castañeda Mondragón entered the U.S. legally in March 2022, and that the agency determined only after his arrest that he had overstayed his visa. A federal judge later ruled his arrest had been unlawful and ordered him released from ICE custody.

‘Hope they don’t kill you’

A video posted to social media captured the moments immediately after Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest as four masked men walk him handcuffed through a parking lot. The video shows him unsteady and stumbling, held up by ICE officers.

“Don’t resist!” shouts the woman who is recording. “‘Cause they ain’t gonna do nothing but bang you up some more.

“Hope they don’t kill you,” she adds.

“And y’all gave the man a concussion,” a male bystander shouts.

The witness who posted the video declined to speak with AP or provide consent for the video’s publication, but Castañeda Mondragón confirmed he is the handcuffed man seen in the recording.

At least one ICE officer later told staff at the medical center that Castañeda Mondragón “got his [expletive] rocked,” according to court documents filed by a lawyer seeking his release and nurses who spoke with AP.

AP interviewed a doctor and five nurses about Castañeda Mondragón’s treatment at Hennepin County Medical Center and the presence of ICE officers inside the hospital. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care and feared retaliation. AP also consulted an outside physician, who affirmed the injuries were inconsistent with an accidental fall or running into a wall.

Minnesota state law requires health professionals to report to law enforcement any wounds that could have been perpetrated as part of a crime.

A hospital spokeswoman declined to say last week whether anyone at the facility had done so. However, after the Jan. 31 publication of AP’s initial story about Castañeda Mondragón’s beating and arrest, hospital administrators opened an internal inquiry seeking to determine which staff members have spoken to the media, according to internal communications viewed by AP.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted a link to AP’s prior story about Castañeda Mondragón, but his office has not said whether state authorities would pursue answers.

“Law enforcement cannot be lawless,” Walz wrote in the post on X. “Thousands of aggressive, untrained agents of the federal government continue to injure and terrorize Minnesotans. This must end.”

Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest came a day after the slaying of Renee Good, the first  of  two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by immigration officers, triggering widespread public protests.

Calls for accountability

Minnesota congressional leaders and other elected officials, including St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, called last week for an investigation of Castañeda Mondragón’s injuries.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office, which oversees St. Paul, urged Castañeda Mondragón to file a police report to prompt an investigation. He said he plans to file a complaint. A St. Paul police spokesperson said the department would investigate “all alleged crimes that are reported to us.”

While the Trump administration insists ICE limits its operations to immigrants with violent rap sheets, Castañeda Mondragón has no criminal record.

“We are seeing a repeated pattern of Trump Administration officials attempting to lie and gaslight the American people when it comes to the cruelty of this ICE operation in Minnesota,” U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement.

Rep. Kelly Morrison, another Democrat and a doctor, recently toured the Whipple Building, the ICE facility at Ft. Snelling. She said she saw severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and an almost complete lack of medical care.

“If any one of our police officers did this, you know what just happened in Minnesota with George Floyd, we hold them accountable,” said Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, whose district includes St. Paul.

A native of Veracruz, Mexico, Castañeda Mondragón came to Minnesota nearly four years ago on a temporary work visa and found jobs as a driver and roofer. He uses his earnings to support his elderly father, who is disabled and diabetic, and his 10-year-old daughter.

On the day of his arrest, he was running errands with a friend when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by ICE agents. The agents began breaking the windows and opening the doors of the vehicle. He said the first person who hit him “got ugly with me for being Mexican” and not having documents showing his immigration status.

About four hours after his arrest, court records show, Castañeda Mondragón was taken to an emergency room in the suburb of Edina with swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. He was then transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where he told staff he had been “dragged and mistreated by federal agents,” before his condition deteriorated, court records show.

A week into his hospitalization, caregivers described him as minimally responsive. As his condition slowly improved, hospital staff handed him his cellphone, and he spoke with his child in Mexico, whom he could not remember.

“I am your daughter,” she told him. “You left when I was 6 years old.”

His head injuries erased past experiences that for his daughter are unforgettable, including birthday parties and the day he left for the United States. She’s been trying to revive his memory in daily calls.

“When I turned 5, you taught me how to dance for the first time,” she reminded him recently.

“All these moments, really, for me, have been forgotten,″ he said.

He showed gradual improvement and, to the surprise of some who treated him, was released from the hospital on Jan. 27.

Long recovery lies ahead

He faces a long recovery and an uncertain future. Questions loom about whether he will be able to continue to support his family back in Mexico. “My family depends on me,” he said.

Though his bruises have faded, the effects of his traumatic brain injuries linger. In addition to the problems with his memory, he also has issues with balance and coordination that could prove debilitating for a man whose work requires going up and down ladders. He said he is unable to bathe himself without help.

“I can’t get on a roof now,” he said.

Castañeda Mondragón, who does not have health insurance, said doctors have told him he needs ongoing care. Unable to earn a living, he is relying on support from co-workers and members of the Minneapolis-St. Paul community who are raising money to help provide food, housing and medical care. He has launched a GoFundMe.

Still, he hopes to stay in the U.S. and to provide again someday for his loved ones. He differentiates between people in Minnesota, where he said he has felt welcome, and the federal officers who beat him.

“It’s immense luck to have survived, to be able to be in this country again, to be able to heal, and to try to move forward,” he said. “For me, it’s the best luck in the world.”

But when he closes his eyes at night, the fear that ICE officers will come for him dominates his dreams. He is now terrified to leave his apartment, he said.

“You’re left with the nightmare of going to work and being stopped,” Castañeda Mondragón said, “or that you’re buying your food somewhere, your lunch, and they show up and stop you again. They hit you.”

Brook, Biesecker, Mustian and Attanasio write for the Associated Press and reported from Minneapolis, Washington, New York and Seattle, respectively.

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday signed off on a plan to give financial relief to Palisades fire victims who are seeking to rebuild, endorsing it nearly 10 months after Mayor Karen Bass first announced it.

On a 15-0 vote, the council instructed the city’s lawyers to draft an ordinance that would spare the owners of homes, duplexes, condominium units, apartment complexes and commercial buildings from having to pay the permit fees that are typically charged by the Department of Building and Safety during the recovery.

Forfeiting those fees is expected to cost as much as $90 million over three years, according to Matt Szabo, the city’s top budget analyst.

The vote came at a time of heightened anxiety over the pace of the city’s decisions on the recovery among fire victims. Bart Young, whose home was destroyed in the fire, told council members his insurance company will cover only half the cost of rebuilding.

“I’m living on Social Security. I’ve lost everything,” he said. “I’m not asking for special treatment. I’m asking for something fair and with some compassion.”

The ordinance must come back for another council vote later this year. Councilmember Traci Park, who pushed for the financial relief, described the vote as a “meaningful step forward in the recovery process.”

“Waiving these fees isn’t the end of a long road, but it removes a real barrier for families trying to rebuild — and it brings us closer to getting people home,” she said in a statement.

Bass announced her support for the permit fee waivers in April as part of her State of the City address. Soon afterward, she signed a pair of emergency orders instructing city building officials to suspend those fees while the council works out the details of a new permit relief program.

That effort stalled, with some on the council saying they feared the relief program would pull funding away from core city services. In October, the council’s budget committee took steps to scale back the relief program.

That move sparked outrage among Palisades fire victims, who demanded that the council reverse course. Last month, Szabo reworked the numbers, concluding that the city was financially capable of covering all types of buildings, not just single-family homes and duplexes.

Fire victims have spent several months voicing frustration over the pace of the recovery and the city’s role in that effort.

Last week, the council declined to put a measure on the June 2 ballot that would spare fire victims from paying the city’s so-called mansion tax — which is levied on property sales of $5.3 million and up — if they choose to put their burned-out properties on the market.

Bass and other elected officials have not released a package of consulting reports on the recovery that were due to the city in mid-November from AECOM, the global engineering firm.

AECOM is on track to receive $5 million to produce reports on the rebuilding of city infrastructure, fire protection and traffic management during the recovery. The council voted in December to instruct city agencies to produce those reports within 30 days.

Bass spokesperson Paige Sterling said the AECOM reports are being reviewed by the city attorney’s office and will be released by the end of next week. The mayor, for her part, said Monday that the city has “expedited the entire rebuilding process without compromising safety.”

More than 480 rebuilding projects are currently under construction in the Palisades, out of about 5,600, the mayor’s team said. Permits have been issued for more than 800 separate addresses, according to the city’s online tracker.

The council’s vote coincides with growing antagonism between the Trump administration and state and local elected officials over the recovery.

Last week, President Trump signed an executive order saying wildfire victims should not have to deal with “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” permitting requirements when rebuilding their homes. On Tuesday, the county supervisors authorized their lawyers to take legal action to block the order if necessary.

Lee Zeldin, Trump’s administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, is scheduled to meet Wednesday with Bass and LA. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger in Pacific Palisades to discuss the pace of the recovery. He is also set to hold a news conference with Palisades residents to discuss the roadblocks they are facing in the rebuilding effort.

In Trevor Noah’s final opening monologue at the Grammys, the joke that got the loudest laugh in the room was directed at Nicki Minaj’s MAGA alliance.

After six consecutive years of hosting the Grammys, the comedian is stepping down from the emcee role. Last year, Noah’s monologue was focused on the resilience of Los Angeles and paid tribute to the victims of the Palisades and Eaton fires. This year, he poked fun at attending celebrities and commented on the country’s political climate.

When he addressed the fact that Nicki Minaj was not in attendance, the audience applauded in response. He joked that “she is still at the White House with Donald Trump discussing very important issues: ‘Actually, Nicki, I have the biggest ass, I have it. Everybody’s saying it, Nicki, I know they say it’s you, but it’s me. WAP, WAP, WAP. Look at it, baby,’” Noah said in his best Trump impression.

Last week, Minaj appeared at a U.S. Treasury event, where she stood on stage with President Trump and said, “I am probably the president’s No. 1 fan, and that’s not going to change.”

While detailing what the night ahead entails, Noah compared this year’s Grammys to the 1999 ceremony.

“The last time Lauryn Hill performed at the Grammys was in 1999,” said Noah. “Back in 1999 the president had a sex scandal, people thought computers were about to destroy the world and Diddy was arrested. Boy, how times have changed.”

Noah also poked fun at Jelly Roll, asking if he was able to unlock fellow face-tatted singer Teddy Swims’ phone. He also mentioned that the arena stuffed with A-listers felt somewhat like billionaire Jeff Bezos’ wedding, “but with way more Black people.”

In addition to it being Noah’s final hosting gig, this year’s ceremony is also the last to air on CBS, its home network since 1973. After tonight, it kicks off a 10-year run with Disney. The Grammys will air on ABC, Hulu and Disney+ beginning in 2027.

For just $95, the acquisitive President Trump could have a replica of the iconic “The Buck Stops Here” sign that sat atop President Truman’s Oval Office desk, gift-boxed from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum Store. But this gewgaw isn’t gold; it’s wood. And yet that’s not the reason it wouldn’t be at home on Trump’s desktop.

Here’s why: As far as Trump is concerned, the buck never stops with him.

That’s never been more evident than this month, in the president’s fly-above-it-all attitude toward his administration’s armed occupation of Minneapolis. Ostensibly a campaign against immigrants who lack legal status, the occupation has (at this writing) killed two U.S. citizens exercising their 1st Amendment rights to protest the anti-constitutional brutality of federal agents.

Trump couldn’t even be bothered to postpone his black-tie White House screening of Amazon’s $75-million gift documentary of his wife, “Melania,” on Saturday, just hours after 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti died and as Minneapolis seethed. When the president did interject, he mostly just escalated tensions. Again.

After the earlier killing of Renee Good, Trump posted to Minnesotans: “The day of reckoning and retribution is coming!” and deployed an additional 1,000 armed, masked agents for a total of 3,000. Further mayhem was widely predicted. And on Saturday, after at least two of those agents pumped 10 shots point-blank at Pretti while he was pinned down, Trump’s first reaction was this escalatory, blame-the-victim post over a photo: “This is the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go.”

Got that? According to the president, Pretti was the gunman in what I and many other Americans saw as his murder by Trump’s militia. The buck, and the bullets, stopped with Pretti.

Trump continued to blame the victim for days, including on Tuesday in Iowa, by repeatedly contending (over the angry opposition of his pals in the gun lobby) that Pretti “shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.” It was a holstered handgun that Pretti legally owned and carried, which he never “brandished” as the feds claimed and which was taken from him before he was shot.

Not once in the year since he loosed this militant deportation campaign in U.S. cities has Trump openly questioned the lawless tactics. Since Pretti’s killing, the president hasn’t publicly upbraided his Department of Homeland Security or his most senior advisors — Stephen Miller, the White House architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies; Kristi Noem, his puppy-killing Homeland Security secretary; and Gregory Bovino, his cruelly performative (former) Border Patrol commander in Minneapolis (after Los Angeles, Chicago and New Orleans) — for their immediate and repeated slanders of Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and “an assassin” who aimed to “massacre law enforcement.”

Those were all lies, as the world soon saw thanks to the courageous protesters on the scene documenting the agents’ lawlessness with cellphone cameras. And now, even some (few) Republicans in Congress are assailing Noem, Miller and Bovino, calling for their resignation, firing or, in Noem’s case, impeachment.

Enough, however, with the focus on Noem, Miller, Bovino or others of Trump’s “best.” It’s good that Republicans are finally rousing to object to administration actions. But they should quit cloaking their complaints in language that absolves the boss. These Republicans would have us believe that Trump is faultless, ill-served and misled by his advisors.

Among the foremost modelers of this behavior is Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who grew a bit of spine in the summer after he announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection. Yet he still blames everyone around Trump, not Trump himself.

What Noem has done in Minnesota “should be disqualifying,” Tillis told reporters Tuesday. “It’s making the president look bad.” Later, he ranted about both Noem and Miller, lamenting that immigration used to be Trump’s and Republicans’ best issue until that duo “destroyed it through their incompetence.” Last week, he blamed Miller for “getting the president in a difficult circumstance” over Greenland, as if it wasn’t Trump himself who insanely demanded that Denmark and NATO allies hand over the island protectorate to the United States — because it’s “psychologically important for me.”

This is Trump’s paramilitary force at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. These advisors are his hires at the White House and in the Cabinet. And these are his policies.

The president is consistently the arsonist who attempts to take credit for putting out his own fires (like last week’s conflagration at Davos over Greenland) when they get out of control. Which is to say, when poll after poll confirms both the policies’ and Trump’s growing unpopularity.

Forget that he won’t accept the buck: It still should stop with him.

As Noem insisted in a statement to Axios on Tuesday: “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen [Miller].”

She and Bovino, heretofore so fond of cosplaying in getups that scream “I’m tough,” are now wearing tire tracks. With Trump’s dispatch of border advisor Tom Homan to Minneapolis, they’ve essentially been designated as scapegoats for the tragedies in Minnesota. But not Miller: “The president loves Stephen,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios.

Of course he does. Miller is Trump’s Mini-Me. Which brings us back to: Blame Trump.

The imperative to hold Trump accountable is why I’m cool to calls to impeach Noem. Democrats seeking her removal include House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and they’re joined by a few Republicans. It feels good to say it, and such calls are fine as a message of disgust, especially in a midterm election year. But Congress is Republican-controlled, remember, which is to say Trump-controlled.

For the same reason, Trump himself is insured — for now — against impeachment. But as he’s acknowledged, if Democrats take control after November, that would probably change. Forget that the Senate probably wouldn’t convict him, just as it declined to do twice after his impeachments in his first term. But at least, come 2027, he could be forced to take the buck.

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UNION CITY, Ga. — FBI agents were executing a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office near Atlanta on Wednesday, an agency spokesperson confirmed.

An FBI spokesperson said agents were “executing a court authorized law enforcement action” at the county’s main election office in Union City, just south of Atlanta. The spokesperson declined to provide any further information, citing an ongoing matter.

The search comes as the FBI under the leadership of Director Kash Patel has moved quickly to pursue the political grievances of President Trump, including by working with the Justice Department to investigate multiple perceived adversaries of the Republican commander-in-chief.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

Trump has long insisted that the 2020 election was stolen even though judges across the country and his own attorney general said they found no evidence of widespread fault that tipped the contest in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor.

He has long made Georgia, one of the battleground states he lost in 2020, a central target for his complaints about the election and memorably pleaded with its then-secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to overturn the contest.

Last week, in reference to the 2020 election, he asserted that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.” It was not clear what in particular he was referring to.

Fulton County District Atty. Fani Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That case was dismissed in November after courts barred Willis and her office from pursuing it because of an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor she had appointed to lead the case.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who allegedly became the head of a billion-dollar drug trafficking organization, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges against him Monday and was ordered detained as his case proceeds.

Wedding, who authorities say was in hiding for more than a decade and on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, was arrested last week. He faces 17 felonies in two separate indictments.

During the court hearing at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, Wedding, who wore a beige jail uniform and black Crocs, scanned the gallery and occasionally smirked. Hulking and tattooed, the 6’3” Wedding towered over his attorney and the deputy marshals standing guard in the courtroom.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Early ordered Wedding jailed without bond and set the next hearing for February 11.

The judge set a tentative trial date in March, although Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, said it would likely take more time for the case to unfold.

Colombo did not argue for his client’s release on Monday afternoon, later citing “the whirlwind” Wedding had experienced since his apprehension.

“It takes time to put the sureties in place, to have the information for the court to establish that there’s a condition or combination of conditions that could secure his release,” Colombo told reporters. “We were not in the position today to do that and we anticipate addressing that at a later date.”

Colombo said he first met with his client several days ago, after his arrival in the U.S., and described him as being “in good spirits.” Colombo disputed claims from federal authorities that Wedding had been in hiding out in Mexico.

“Hiding out and living somewhere are two different things,” Colombo said. “I would characterize him as living, the government can characterize it their way.”

Colombo added that his client was arrested and “he did not surrender.”

Wedding, who was known by many aliases, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy,” is accused of becoming a major trafficker of cocaine into Canada and the United States and a ruthless leader who ordered killings, including one of a witness in a 2024 federal narcotics case against him. The alleged order resulted in the victim being shot to death in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025, prosecutors said.

The former Olympic snowboarder was charged in a 2024 indictment with running a continuing criminal enterprise, assorted drug trafficking charges and directing the murders of two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.

“Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times,” Patel said in a news conference Friday announcing the arrest. “He is a modern-day El Chapo, he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar. And he thought he could evade justice.”

When questioned about authorities likening his client to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, Colombo said “I think it’s overstated, that’s their spin.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said last week that Wedding’s alleged global drug trafficking organization “used Los Angeles as its primary point of distribution.”

Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office, said after Wedding’s capture that his alleged organization shipped approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine through Southern California on its way to Canada.

Authorities have arrested 36 people in connection with their role in the transnational organization and the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned 19 people, including Wedding, according to Davis.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was responsible for generating more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.

Wedding competed for his home country, Canada, in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

An experienced attorney, Colombo previously represented Rubén Oseguera González, also known as “El Menchito,” the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Oseguera González was sentenced last year to a term of life in prison plus 30 years to run consecutively for his role in a major drug trafficking conspiracy.