ICE agents in California detained several residents, including a US citizen, amid a surge in immigration raids under the Trump administration. Protests under the ‘ICE Out of Everywhere’ campaign erupted across southern California, where demonstrators faced arrests and injuries.
Published On 2 Feb 20262 Feb 2026
Share
In speech after speech, this year’s Grammy-winning artists returned to one message—ICE is a menace that must be stopped.
After dramatic, violent escalations in federal raids on immigrant communities and their supporters in Minneapolis and across the country, Americans have been shocked into despair and action. Many artists up for top Grammys have been vocal about their opposition to these raids, but at Sunday’s Grammys, the topic was front and center for many winners in their speeches.
“I want to dedicate this to all the people who had to leave their home, their country, to follow their dreams,” Bad Bunny said in his mostly-Spanish acceptance speech for the Grammys top prize, Album of the Year.
Earlier in the night, he joked with host Trevor Noah about Puerto Rico not being a great place for Noah should flee to, the island still being an American territory and all. But Bad Bunny made his point clearly even before taking home his biggest prize yet. “Ice out,” he said. “If we fight, we have to do it with love.”
With a Super Bowl halftime show coming next week, he’ll take the stage as the most important musician on earth right now, an urgent message brought to the heart of the most aggressively American live event.
As musicians around the country and the globe use their platforms to organize and speak out against the ICE raids, many acts wore pins on the red carpet Sunday—from Joni Mitchell and Carole King to Olivia Rodrigo, Brandi Carlile and Justin and Hailey Bieber.
Yet it was striking just how many artists used the acceptance speeches to decry the agency’s actions under President Trump.
Billie Eilish, an upset winner with brother Finneas for song for “Wildflower,” was even more direct. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said. “It’s hard to know what to say and what to do, but we need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting. Our voices really do matter.” Then came a long, bleeped moment on the CBS broadcast—presumably something urgently profane directed at a similar target.
That sentiment spanned genres and cultures. New artist winner, the U.K. R&B singer Olivia Dean, acknowledged the gifts of being “the granddaughter of an immigrant. I’m a product of bravery and I think these people deserve to be celebrated.”
“Immigrants built this country, literally,” said country star Shaboozey, a descendant of Nigerian immigrant parents, winning for country duo/group performance. “This is also for those who came to this country in search of better opportunity to be part of a nation that promised freedom for all and equal opportunity to everyone willing to work for it. Thank you for bringing your culture your music, your stories and your traditions here.”
Kehlani, a winner for R&B song and performance, said that “Together, we’re stronger in numbers to speak out against all the injustice going on in the world right now. I hope everyone is inspired to come together as a community of artists ad speak out against what’s going on.”
” F— Ice,” Kehlani added, walking off the stage.
Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr. also used his speech to underscore the “uncertainty and real trauma,” of the environment in America now. “It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, even helpless in challenging times. But music never stands still,” he said. “When we’re exhausted, music restores us. When were grieving, music sits with us.”
Alongside the night’s words of warning and rage, singer SZA offered what amounted to reassurance in her speech after winning record for “Luther,” her Hot 100-dominating collaboration with Kendrick Lamar.
“Please don’t fall into despair,” she said. “I know algorithms tell us it’s so scary and all is lost. But we can go on, we need each other. We’re not governed by the government, we’re governed by God.”
Luis Martinez was on his way to work on a frigid Minneapolis morning when federal agents suddenly boxed him in, forcing the SUV he was driving to a dead stop in the middle of the street.
Masked agents rapped on the window, demanding Martinez produce his ID. Then one held his cellphone inches from Martinez’s face and scanned his features, capturing the shape of his eyes, the curves of his lips, the exact quadrants of his cheeks.
All the while, the agent kept asking: Are you a U.S. citizen?
The encounter in a Minneapolis suburb this week captures the tactics on display in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which it describes as the largest of its kind and one that has drawn national scrutiny after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens this month.
Across Minnesota and other states where the Department of Homeland Security has surged personnel, officials say enforcement efforts are targeted and focused on serious offenders. But photographs, videos and internal documents paint a different picture, showing agents leaning heavily on biometric surveillance and vast, interconnected databases — highlighting how a sprawling digital surveillance apparatus has become central to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Civil liberties experts warn the expanding use of those systems risks sweeping up citizens and noncitizens alike, often with little transparency or meaningful oversight.
Over the past year, Homeland Security and other federal agencies have dramatically expanded their ability to collect, share and analyze people’s personal data, thanks to a web of agreements with local, state, federal and international agencies, plus contracts with technology companies and data brokers. The databases include immigration and travel records, facial images and information drawn from vehicle databases.
In Martinez’s case, the face scan didn’t find a match and it wasn’t until he produced his U.S. passport, which he said he carried for fear of such an encounter, that federal agents let him go.
“I had been telling people that here in Minnesota it’s like a paradise for everybody, all the cultures are free here,” he said. “But now people are running out of the state because of everything that is happening. It’s terrifying. It’s not safe anymore.”
Together with other government surveillance data and systems, federal authorities can now monitor American cities at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago, advocates say. Agents can identify people on the street through facial recognition, trace their movements through license-plate readers and, in some cases, use commercially available phone-location data to reconstruct daily routines and associations.
When asked by the Associated Press about its expanding use of surveillance tools, the Department of Homeland Security said it would not disclose law enforcement sensitive methods.
“Employing various forms of technology in support of investigations and law enforcement activities aids in the arrest of criminal gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug dealers, identity thieves and more, all while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests,” it said.
Dan Herman, a former Customs and Border Protection senior advisor in the Biden administration who now works at the Center for American Progress, said the government’s access to facial recognition, other personal data and surveillance systems poses a threat to people’s privacy rights and civil liberties without adequate checks.
“They have access to a tremendous amount of trade, travel, immigration and screening data. That’s a significant and valuable national security asset, but there’s a concern about the potential for abuse,” Herman said. “Everyone should be very concerned about the potential that this data could be weaponized for improper purposes.”
On Wednesday, Homeland Security disclosed online that it has been using a facial recognition app, Mobile Fortify, that it said uses “trusted source photos” to compare scans of people’s faces that agents take to verify their identity. The app, which Customs and Border Protection said is made by the vendor NEC, uses facial comparison or fingerprint-matching systems.
The app was in operation for CBP and ICE before the immigration crackdown in the Los Angeles area in June, when website 404Media first reported its existence.
In interactions observed by reporters and videos posted online, federal agents are rarely seen asking for consent before holding their cellphones to people’s faces, and in some clips they continue scanning even after someone objects.
In two instances seen by an AP journalist near Columbia Heights, Minn., where immigration officials recently detained a 5-year-old boy and his father, masked agents held their phones a foot away from people’s faces to capture their biometric details.
The technology resembles facial recognition systems used at airports, but unlike airport screenings, where travelers are typically notified and can sometimes opt out, Martinez said he was given no choice.
According to a lawsuit filed against the department by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago this month, Homeland Security has used Mobile Fortify in the field more than 100,000 times. The Department of Homeland Security told AP that Mobile Fortify supports “accurate identity and immigration-status verification during enforcement operations. It operates with a deliberately high-matching threshold,” and uses only some immigration data.
Without federal guidelines for the use of facial recognition tools, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights warned in a September 2024 report their deployment raises concerns about accuracy, oversight, transparency, discrimination and access to justice.
Last year, the Trump administration scaled back a program to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials body cameras, but administration officials said some agents tied to the fatal shooting of Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti were wearing them and that footage is now being reviewed.
Gregory Bovino, who was the administration’s top Border Patrol official charged with the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis until Monday, began wearing a bodycam in response to a judge’s order late last year.
Body-camera video could help clarify events surrounding federal agents’ killing of Pretti, who was filming immigration agents with his cellphone when they shot him in the back.
Administration officials shifted their tone after independent video footage emerged raising serious questions about some Trump officials’ accusations that Pretti intended to harm agents.
Homeland Security and affiliated agencies are piloting and deploying more than 100 artificial intelligence systems, including some used in law enforcement activities, according to the department’s disclosure Wednesday.
Congress last year authorized U.S. Customs and Border Protection to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems and add in AI and other emerging technologies.
In recent weeks, Homeland Security requested more information from private industry on how technology companies and data providers can support their investigations and help identify people.
Meanwhile, longtime government contractor Palantir was paid $30 million to extend a contract to build a system designed to locate people flagged for deportation. On Wednesday, the Trump administration disclosed it’s using Palantir’s AI models to sift through immigration enforcement tips submitted to its tip line.
Homeland Security has also been exploring partnerships with license-plate reader companies like Flock Safety to expand their tracking capabilities.
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, who directs the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said more funding for government surveillance tools changes the landscape.
“We are developing these technologies for immigrant enforcement,” she said. “Are we also going to expand it or wield it against U.S. citizens who are engaging in entirely lawful or protest activity?”
Burke and Tau write for the Associated Press. AP freelance photojournalist Adam Gray contributed to this report from Minneapolis.
At a recent training session for 300 immigration activists in Los Angeles, the main topic was Minnesota and the changes to federal immigration tactics.
For the last few months, federal law enforcement officers have intensified their efforts to locate and deport immigrants suspected of living in the country illegally. They have used children as bait, gone door-to-door and at times forcibly stormed into people’s homes without judicial warrants.
But it was the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens protesting immigration raids in Minnesota, that sparked a growing backlash of the federal government’s aggressive actions and caused activists to reconsider their own approach when monitoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“One quick note about de-escalation,” Joseline Garcia, the community defense director for City Council District 1, told a crowd at St. Paul’s Commons in Echo Park. “What we would do when it came to de-escalation is we’d tell people their rights, try to get their information and try to reason with the ICE agents and pressure them to leave.”
“Things have changed a ton in the past two months, so that’s not something we’re willing to put you all at risk to do,” she added. “There is risk here and we are always encouraging people to stay safe and please constantly be assessing the risks.”
The immigration crackdown began in Los Angeles last summer but has continued in the region even after the national focus shifted to Chicago and now Minneapolis. The last month has seen a new series of arrests and actions that have left local communities on edge.
While the scope of the sweeps and the number of arrests in Los Angeles appear to be down overall compared with last summer, daily immigration operations are being documented across the city, from street corners in Boyle Heights to downtown L.A.’s Fashion District.
Federal agents carry less-lethal projectile weapons in Los Angeles in June.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Times’ requests for comment. In a previous statement the department said Border Patrol agents were continuing to operate in the city to “arrest and remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”
Earlier this month, renewed fears spread among shoppers in the Fashion District after federal agents conducted an immigration sweep that shut down local commerce to check vendors’ proof of citizenship. Days later a federal agent opened fire at a suspect, who the Department of Homeland Security said rammed agents with his vehicle while attempting to evade arrest, during a targeted operation in South Los Angeles.
Local immigration activists say they have noticed a change in immigration agents’ tactics. The change has forced activists to also adjust their tactics.
“What we’re seeing now are large numbers of officers to grab anywhere from one to five people, not necessarily questioning them, and then moving out as quickly as possible,” said Juan Pablo Orjuela-Parra, a labor justice organizer with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
Maribel C., associate director of Órale, a Long Beach-based immigrant advocacy group that was established in 2006, said rapid response volunteers in Long Beach have reported similar tactics by immigration agents.
“In as fast as 30 seconds” a target can be “literally taken off the streets” by federal agents, leaving no time for a rapid response volunteer to relay “know your rights” information or get the detainee’s name, said Maribel, who is not providing her full name to protect her safety.
Immigrant rights advocates say one thing that has not changed is federal officials continue to detain immigrants with no criminal history.
On Jan. 20, exactly one year into the Trump administration’s second term, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said about 70% of people whom the agency has arrested have been convicted or charged with a crime in the United States.
In the first nine months of the administration’s immigration crackdown, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 15, a Times analysis of nationwide ICE arrests found that percentage to be about the same.
In Los Angeles, the same analyses found that of the more than 10,000 Los Angeles residents who were arrested in immigration operations, about 45% were charged with a criminal conviction and an additional 14% had pending charges.
Between June and October of last year, the number of arrests has fluctuated significantly.
The arrests peaked in June with 2,500 people who were apprehended — including those who have pending criminal charges or were charged with immigration violations — but the following month the number fell to slightly more than 2,000. After further drops, a small spike in arrests occurred in September, with more than 1,000 arrested and then dramatically dropped in October with fewer than 500 arrests.
Officials have not released detailed data since then.
“I think what’s happened in Minnesota is terrifying for everyone in the country because those tactics that are being implemented in Minnesota are going to be the same tactics that are going to be implemented elsewhere,” Maribel said.
After a second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal officers, the Trump administration is moving to scale back its presence in Minneapolis and in the process bumping Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino out of the state, with border advisor Tom Homan taking his place.
Bovino led and participated in highly visible immigration operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and Minneapolis, sparking outrage and mass demonstrations.
At the training event in Echo Park, organizers said the recent events in Minnesota are jarring and forcing them to reconsider the safety of activists who protest or document immigration raids. Those activities will continue, they said, but with a focus on safety.
“Over the past two weeks, we saw that they’re escalating to the point of killing people that are exercising their rights,” Garcia said.
For months, Gregory Bovino has been the public face of President Trump’s sweeping immigration raids across U.S. cities.
When the brash Border Patrol commander charged into Los Angeles last summer with the stated mission of arresting thousands of immigrants, he was unapologetic as agents smashed car windows, concealed their identities with masks, seized brown-skinned Angelenos off the streets, and descended on MacArthur Park on horseback.
In Minneapolis, when a federal officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good on Jan. 7, Bovino’s response to Fox News’ Sean Hannity was, “Hats off to that ICE agent.”
And when a Border Patrol agent shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, on Saturday, Bovino again defended the killing. Pretti, he said, looked like someone who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
But as public outrage has swelled against the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics, Bovino’s future is in limbo. On Monday, Trump deployed border advisor Tom Homan to Minnesota, with Bovino reportedly set to depart the region.
Now, the question remains: will Bovino’s departure really change the Trump playbook?
Ariel G. Ruiz Soto — a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank — said Bovino’s exit, if true, could represent a pivotal moment in immigration enforcement in the nation’s interior.
“I think it signals that the tensions have risen so significantly that there’s beginning to be ruptures and fragments within the Trump administration to try to figure out how to do this enforcement more efficiently, but also with more accountability,” Ruiz Soto said.
Other immigration experts, however, question the significance of sidelining Bovino.
“I think it’s a grave mistake to think the change in the personnel on the ground constitutes a change in policy,” said Lucas Guttentag, a professor of law at Stanford University who specializes in immigration. “Because the policy remains the same: to terrorize immigrant communities and intimidate peaceful protesters.”
Even if Bovino is ousted or given a lesser role, Guttentag said, national immigration policy is still shaped by Stephen Miller — the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor who has embraced hardline enforcement tactics.
“They’re still threatening to use military action,” Guttentag said. “They still want to keep the National Guard on call. All of those fundamental policies, as well as deporting people who had legal status, sending people to third world countries without any due process, adopting detention rules that deprive people of hearings to be eligible for release, all of that’s continuing.”
“Simply changing from Bovino to Homan,” he added, “doesn’t signal anything significant in terms of policy.”
::
So far, the Department of Homeland Security has remained publicly tight-lipped about what’s next for Bovino, and did not respond this week to inquiries from The Times.
However, the Associated Press reported Monday that Bovino and some federal agents were expected to leave Minneapolis as early as Tuesday. The Atlantic, citing DHS sources, reported that Bovino had been demoted from his role of Border Patrol commander at large and would return to his former job in El Centro, Calif.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin disputed that Monday, saying on X that Bovino “has NOT been relieved of his duties.” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt described him as a “wonderful person” and “a great professional” who would “continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country.”
There has been mounting criticism of and public protest against the administration’s activities since the launch of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota last month. Trump said he sent Homan to Minnesota “to de-escalate a little bit.”
“Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out-there kind of a guy,” Trump said Tuesday during an interview on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show.” “And in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good here.”
::
A pugnacious 55-year-old who was born in California but raised in North Carolina, Bovino’s muscle-bound physique, green military greatcoat and gel-spiked hair seemed straight out of MAGA central casting.
Barreling into Los Angeles in June to command the Trump administration’s mass immigration raids, he seemed to relish confrontation as protests erupted and troops were deployed across the city.
“All over … the Los Angeles region, we’re going to turn and burn to that next target and the next and the next and the next, and we’re not going to stop,” Bovino told the Associated Press last summer. “We’re not going to stop until there’s not a problem here.”
When Bovino met legal setbacks, he was defiant.
In August, an appeals court upheld a temporary restraining order blocking his agents from targeting people in Southern and Central California based on race, language or vocation without reasonable suspicion they are in the U.S. illegally.
Bovino responded by posting a video on X that first showed L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” before cutting to himself grinning. As a frenetic mix of drums and bass kicked in, the video transitioned to footage of federal agents jumping out of a van to chase people down.
“When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”
After Bovino led agents in Los Angeles, he pivoted to Chicago to serve as the commander of Operation Midway Blitz. Then, he went to New Orleans before heading to Minnesota to lead what officials called Homeland Security’s “largest immigration operation ever.”
The fatal shootings of Good and Pretti by federal agents this month sparked outrage and protests, both in Minneapolis and around the nation.
Ruiz Soto said that the controversy over the Trump immigration policy was no longer just about immigrants.
“It’s about constitutional rights and it’s about U.S. citizens,” Ruiz Soto said. “For the broader public, it’s now much more immersive. It’s now much more in their face.”
After Border Patrol agents tackled Pretti to the ground and shot him, many Americans were outraged to hear Bovino and other senior Trump administration officials make false statements regarding the incident.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Pretti approached federal officers on the street with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him.
But according to videos taken on the scene, Pretti was holding a phone, not a handgun, when he stepped in front of a federal agent who had shoved a woman to the ground. The agent shoved and pepper-sprayed him and then multiple agents forced him to the ground. In the middle of the scrum, an agent secured a handgun. Less than a second later, the first shot was fired.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserted without evidence that Pretti had committed “an act of domestic terrorism,” and said her agency would lead the investigation into his killing.
Federal officials also denied Minnesota state investigators access to the shooting scene in south Minneapolis, prompting local and state officials to accuse the Homeland Security agency of mishandling evidence.
In the days since the shooting, Democrats in Congress have called for Noem to be removed from office.
“The country is disgusted by what the Department of Homeland Security has done,” Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday in a joint statement. “Kristi Noem should be fired immediately or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House.”
When asked by reporters Tuesday whether Noem would step down, Trump said: “No.”
By sidelining Bovino, Ruiz Soto said the Trump administration appears to be sending a larger message.
“They’re going to try to restrict or home in the Border Patrol’s authority or at least the way they participate in operations and are going to now go back,” he said. “Or at least try to emulate more of the prior ICE model.”
Guttentag, however, said that while the public is seeing a tactical retreat on the part of the Trump administration, the problems went beyond Bovino’s leadership.
“So it’s not just the leadership, it’s the lack of training,” Guttentag said. “It’s the message that we’re getting from the very top, the statements from the vice president and others, that they have legal immunity. It’s the instructions to be as aggressive as they can be, and it’s also the lack of quality in the hiring and training process. All of that continues regardless of who the person on the ground is.”