target

The opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Friday was marked by audible boos from the crowd as delegations from the US and Israel entered the San Siro stadium, Anadolu reports.

US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the American delegation.

As Vance appeared on the stadium’s big screen, waving the US flag, the crowd responded with jeers, according to live coverage of the event.

“There is the Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha. Oops — those are a lot of boos for him,” an announcer was heard saying during the broadcast.

The reaction followed days of tension surrounding the participation of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Olympic security.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the presence of Homeland Security Investigations personnel in Milan, prompting widespread protests and opposition from Italian lawmakers and citizens.

READ: Israel’s Netanyahu again dodges responsibility for Oct. 7 failures, blames army, past governments

“They’re not welcome in Milan,” said Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala in a radio interview, calling ICE a “militia that kills.”

Thousands gathered in Piazza 25 Aprile last weekend to demonstrate against the agents’ presence and raise concerns about civil rights violations.

International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry responded to concerns ahead of the ceremony, saying: “I hope that the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful of each other.”

The Israeli delegation, which included nine Olympians and one Paralympian, also faced a “smattering of boos” as they entered the stadium, though the crowd noise was largely drowned out by music.

Additional protests were reported in Cortina d’Ampezzo and Predazzo, where simultaneous parades were held.

Security remains a top concern for several delegations, with increased attention to political sensitivities throughout the Games.

More than 800 athletes have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s offensive on Oct. 7, 2023, as the sports community continues to suffer under bombardment, famine, and the collapse of infrastructure, according to Palestinian officials.

READ: US lawmaker calls for halt to weapons transfers to Israel amid Gaza violence

The U.S. Air Force has released details of a live-fire test of the Rusty Dagger, one of two new Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) being developed under a crash program. The milestone suggests that Ukraine is a step closer to getting its hands on thousands of air-launched ERAMs that will provide the country with a powerful new and relatively low-cost standoff strike capability. The event is also significant in terms of the Pentagon’s focus on rapidly developing and bringing into operational service new, less-expensive weapons that can be built at scale.

The Air Force recently confirmed that the ERAM standoff cruise missile was tested at the Eglin Test and Training Range in Florida on January 21, 2025, less than 16 months from the program’s initial contract award. The service’s statement doesn’t mention the Rusty Dagger by name, but the weapon is clearly seen in a sequence of photos that show the missile heading vertically down to engage a static target before its live warhead detonates. It’s unclear what platform was used to launch the missile during the test.

ERAM is understood to have a range of between 150 and 280 miles. It is in the 500-pound class and has a blast/fragmentation warhead with at least some degree of penetrating capability.

Alongside industry, the Eglin test was run by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Armament Directorate and the 96th Test Wing, a unit that you can read more about in this TWZ article.

The manufacturer of the Rusty Dagger, Zone 5 Technologies, also announced the test on its LinkedIn page.

“The event, which met all primary objectives including a full warhead detonation, gathered critical data to mature a new, cost-effective, long-range strike capability,” the Air Force said.

“Moving from a contract to a live-fire demonstration in under two years proves we can deliver lethal, cost-effective capability at the speed of relevance,” said Brig. Gen. Robert Lyons III, Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Weapons, in an Air Force statement. “This is how we rebuild our military — by empowering our teams and industry partners to cut through bureaucracy and deliver the tools our warfighters need to prevail.”

“The future fight demands we create an asymmetric advantage by developing cost-effective, attritable systems like ERAM that give commanders the ability to generate mass,” added Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, 96th TW commander. “This test is a critical milestone on that path. The expert teams who executed this complex mission provided the high-fidelity data we need to validate this system, ensuring that when it reaches the warfighter, it is a proven and ready tool for the right target. This is the cornerstone of building a more lethal and effective Joint Force.”

In January 2024, the U.S. Air Force issued its first public contracting notice regarding ERAM, a request for information (RFI), but made no mention at that time about any connection to Ukraine.

It was reported in August 2025 that Washington had approved the sale of 3,350 ERAM missiles to Kyiv. That package is said to be worth around $850 million, with most of the funds coming from Ukraine’s European allies.

As well as the Rusty Dagger from Zone 5 Technologies, CoAspire developed the Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile (RAACM) under the ERAM program. It’s unclear if Ukraine will receive only one of these designs or a mixture of both types. You can read more about the implications of the ERAM for Ukraine and the Ukrainian Air Force platforms that might be in line to carry the munitions here.

Two candidate weapon prototypes competing for the US Air Force’s Extended-Range Attack Munition program 👇. Both Coaspire and Zone 5 Technologies were awarded contracts late last year in support of the #ERAM program. Both are expected to enter testing this year. https://t.co/9cGBuB9z3s pic.twitter.com/gc3ZDtX54m

— AirPower | MIL-STD (@AirPowerNEW1) February 9, 2025

RAACM Cruise Missile Video Long Range Flights Summer 2025 Cleared for Public Release

Suffice it to say, the ERAM will provide the Ukrainian Air Force with an important new capacity to strike targets beyond the reach of many of the weapons currently in its arsenal, including Western-supplied precision-guided bombs. It will make Ukraine better able to hold at risk a range of Russian targets far from the front lines — command-and-control facilities, air defenses, logistics hubs, military-industrial capacity, and airfields, for example — helping offset Russian advantages in terms of manpower, weaponry, and resources.

However, it remains unclear whether or not Kyiv will be able to use ERAM to strike targets deep within Russia, with these previously having been designated off-limits, at least for the U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

In addition to what it will provide Ukraine, the ERAM effort could well prove to be a big deal for other U.S. allies and partners, and the U.S. military itself.

In the RFP, it was said that ERAM would be “pivotal for accelerating Ukraine’s capability to meet warfighter needs efficiently and effectively and provides an affordable mass weapon to be produced at scale.” The Air Force added: “The Government is seeking to prototype and adapt commercial autonomous modular open-architecture vehicle [sic] that can deliver affordable long-range effects. The resultant prototype will provide a platform that is mass producible.”

Exactly the same concerns are increasingly at the front of war planners’ minds in the United States, too.

When it comes to planning around a potential future high-end conflict with China, the U.S. military is now looking closely at new kinds of weapons with standoff range. Importantly, these need to be rapidly developed and then their production capacity and stockpiles scaled up.

A number of U.S. efforts are now underway with the aim of reducing costs and speeding up large-scale production of weapons systems, especially uncrewed platforms. In parallel to these are plans to prepare missile stockpiles resilient enough for any future high-end conflict, especially one against China.

The original RFI for ERAM included the requirement that 1,000 examples of the new missile could be built within two years, for an average production output of around 42 missiles per month.

As such, ERAM is very much a test case for this kind of program.

Notably, Zone 5 is also involved in the U.S. Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). Under this program, four companies — the others are Anduril, Leidos subsidiary Dynetics, and Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc. — were tapped to design and deliver prototype ETVs. Ostensibly low-cost cruise missiles, the designs in question skirt an increasingly blurry line separating traditional cruise missiles from uncrewed aerial systems, especially longer-range kamikaze drones, as well as decoys.

Looking at the same kind of space more broadly, it is clearly a growth area among defense contractors, both well-established ones like Lockheed Martin and relative newcomers such as Anduril and Kratos.

In August of last year, it was reported that the first ERAM missiles were expected to be delivered to Ukraine “in around six weeks.”

So far, there’s no sign that the missiles have arrived, but that possibility cannot be ruled out, especially bearing in mind an end-to-end test of the Rusty Dagger a little more than a year ago.

Whether it’s now in Ukrainian hands or not, the combat experience of ERAM in Ukraine will be hugely valuable, not just in terms of the technology that will be employed, but also as a prototype program for how the U.S. military might develop and field its next generation of weapons in this class.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

It all began after a viral video alleging fraud in Somali-run child-care centers in Minneapolis: strangers peering through windows, right-wing journalists showing up outside homes, influencers hurling false accusations.

In San Diego, child-care provider Samsam Khalif was shuttling kids to her home-based center when she was spooked by two men with a camera waiting in a car parked outside, prompting her to circle the block several times before unloading the children.

“I’m scared. I don’t know what their intention is,” said Khalif, who decided to install additional security cameras outside her home.

Somali-run child-care centers across the United States have become targets since the video caught the attention of the White House amid the administration’s immigration crackdown. Child-care providers worry about how they can maintain the safe learning environments they have worked to create for young children who may be spending their first days away from their parents.

In the Minneapolis area, child-care providers, many of them immigrants, say they’re being antagonized, exacerbating the stress they face from immigration enforcement activity that has engulfed the city.

One child-care provider said she watched someone emerge from a car that had been circling the building and defecate near the center’s entrance. The same day, a motorist driving by yelled that the center was a “fake day care.” She’s had to create new lockdown procedures, is budgeting for security and now keeps the blinds closed to shield children from unwanted visitors and from witnessing immigration enforcement actions.

“I can’t have peace of mind about whether the center will be safe today,” said the provider, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Video’s claims disproved

The day after Christmas, right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a lengthy video with allegations that members of Minneapolis’ large Somali community were running fake child-care centers so they could collect federal child-care subsidies.

The U.S. occasionally has seen fraud cases related to child-care subsidies. But the Minneapolis video’s central claims — that business owners were billing the government for children they were not caring for — were disproved by inspectors. Nonetheless, the Trump administration attempted to freeze child-care funding for Minnesota and five other Democratic-led states until a court ordered the funding to be released.

President Trump has repeatedly targeted Somali immigrants with dehumanizing rhetoric, calling them “garbage” and “low IQ” and suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who was born in Somalia, should be deported: “Throw her the hell out!” In Minnesota, 87% of foreign-born Somalis are naturalized U.S. citizens.

Trump has zeroed in on a years-old case in which a sprawling network of fraudsters — many of them Somali Americans — bilked Minnesota of an estimated $300 million that was supposed to help feed children and families. His rhetoric intensified after Shirley’s video was posted.

Activists take it upon themselves to investigate

In Federal Way, Wash., and Columbus, Ohio, both home to large Somali communities, right-wing journalists and influencers began showing up unannounced at addresses for child-care operations they pulled from state websites.

In one video, a man arrives at a bungalow-style building in Columbus. He films through the glass front door, showing a foyer with cheerful posters that read “When we learn, we grow” and “Make today happy.”

“It does not look like a child-care center at all,” the man says.

Ohio dispatched an inspector to the address and found that it was, in fact, a legitimate child-care center. The center’s voicemail was hacked, so parents calling heard a slur-laden message calling Somalis “sand rats” and saying they “worship a false religion of baby-raping terrorists,” according to WOSU-FM.

In Washington state, child-care workers called police on the right-wing journalists who kept appearing outside their homes.

Journalists with the right-leaning Washington outlet Center Square filmed themselves pressing a woman for proof that she ran a child-care center for which she was collecting federal subsidies. She refused to answer questions.

“Are you aware of the Somali day-care fraud? We’re just trying to check out if this is a real day care,” one of the journalists said. “Where are the children?”

Local officials speak out

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson posted a statement on X saying she would not tolerate anyone trying to “intimidate, harass or film Somali child care providers.” Then, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, issued her own warning: “Asking questions/citizen journalism are NOT HATE CRIMES in America — they are protected speech, and if Seattle tries to chill that speech, @CivilRights will step in to protect it and set them straight!”

In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine held a news conference to debunk a right-wing influencer’s fraud claims about a Columbus child-care center and assured people the state diligently monitored centers that receive public money. He said a child-care provider refusing to let in a stranger should not be read as a sign of fraud.

“It shouldn’t be a shock when someone sees something on social media, and someone is going, ‘I can’t get into this place, no one will let me in,’” DeWine said in a news conference in January. “Well, hell, no! No one should let them in.”

Even after DeWine refuted the claims, Republicans in the Statehouse introduced legislation to more closely monitor child-care centers, including one measure that would require those that take public money to provide live video feeds of their classrooms to state officials.

Advocates say fraud claims are a distraction

Child-care advocates say the fraud allegations are detracting from more pressing crises.

Child-care subsidy programs in many states have lengthy waiting lists, making it difficult for parents to return to work. The programs that subsidize child care for families that struggle to afford it are also facing funding threats, including from the Trump administration.

Ruth Friedman, who headed the Office of Child Care under President Biden, accused Trump and Republicans of manufacturing a crisis for political gain.

“They are using it to try to discredit the movement toward investing in child care,” said Friedman, who is now a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank Century Foundation.

Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that the department “rejects the claim that concerns about child care program integrity are manufactured.” He urged people to report suspected fraud to the government.

Balingit and Kramon write for the Associated Press.

Israeli occupation authorities have intensified their campaign of forced displacement across the occupied West Bank, issuing expulsion orders to an entire Bedouin community east of Ramallah and escalating demolition policies in occupied East Jerusalem.

The measures come amid a surge in settler violence targeting educational institutions in the Jordan Valley and residential homes in Qalqilya, further shrinking the living space for Palestinians under military occupation.

‘Zone of expulsion’

On Sunday morning, Israeli forces raided the Abu Najeh al-Kaabneh Bedouin community in al-Mughayyir village, east of Ramallah.

Local sources confirmed to the Wafa news agency that soldiers delivered a military order requiring the community’s 40 residents to dismantle their homes and leave the area within 48 hours. The army declared the site a “closed military zone”, a tactic frequently used to clear Palestinian land for settlement expansion.

During the raid, Israeli troops arrested three foreign solidarity activists attempting to document the eviction order.

The expulsion order is part of a widening campaign of ethnic cleansing in the region. It follows the complete displacement of the Shallal al-Auja community north of Jericho, which concluded on Saturday. After years of systematic harassment, the last three families of the community were forced to leave, marking the erasure of a presence that once included 120 families.

Al-Aqsa provocations

In occupied East Jerusalem, Israel’s municipal policies of urban restriction continued to displace Palestinians.

On Sunday, Yasser Maher Dana, a Palestinian resident of the Jabal Mukaber neighbourhood, was coerced into demolishing his 100-square-metre (1,076-square-foot) home. The structure, located in the al-Salaa district, housed four family members.

Israeli authorities routinely force Palestinians in East Jerusalem to execute their own demolition orders to avoid paying exorbitant fees charged by municipal crews and forces if they carry out the destruction themselves. These demolitions are justified by a lack of building permits, which rights groups say are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain in the city.

Simultaneously, in Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the municipality issued a demolition order for a residential room belonging to the al-Taweel family, granting them a 10-day deadline. This follows notices issued three days before demolishing two homes belonging to brothers in the Wadi Qaddum neighbourhood.

Tensions also rose at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, stormed by dozens of Israeli settlers under heavy police protection. According to the Jerusalem governorate, the incursion included a provocative “wedding blessing” ritual performed by settlers for a bride in the courtyards, a violation of the site’s status quo.

Settlers attack schools and homes

In the northern Jordan Valley, Israeli settlers, backed by the military, disrupted the school day at the al-Maleh School.

Azmi Balawneh, the director of education in Tubas, reported that settlers blocked teachers from reaching the school, which serves children from the vulnerable Bedouin communities of al-Hadidiya, Makhoul, and Samra.

This harassment coincides with the establishment of a new illegal settlement outpost in the al-Maleh area just a week ago. In the nearby Khirbet Samra, settlers erected a new tent on Sunday morning to seize more pastoral land.

Meanwhile, in the village of Faraata, east of Qalqilya, settlers from the illegal “Havat Gilad” outpost attacked the home of Hijazi Yamin.

Yamin told Wafa that settlers pelted his house and unleashed an attack dog on his family, trapping his wife and seven children inside.

“We live in a constant state of insecurity,” Yamin said, noting this was the second attack in a week. “I am afraid to leave my wife and children alone or let them go to school.”

Military raids and closures

Israeli forces conducted multiple raids across the West Bank on Sunday, arresting at least four Palestinians. In Hebron, two brothers were arrested following a raid on their family home. More arrests were reported in the village of Duma, south of Nablus, and in the town of al-Ubeidiya, east of Bethlehem.

In the northern city of Jenin, military vehicles stormed the city centre and the Jabel Abu Dhuhair neighbourhood. During the incursion, troops deliberately destroyed street vendors’ carts at the Cinema Roundabout, targeting the local economy.

Movement restrictions also tightened significantly. For the second consecutive day, the Israeli army closed the main entrance to Turmus Aya, north of Ramallah, and blocked the Atara military checkpoint since the early morning hours, severing connections between northern and central West Bank cities. According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Israel now operates 916 military checkpoints and gates throughout the West Bank.

The ICE officers descended on Compton, targeting immigrants convicted of theft, child abuse and selling drugs.

There were no protesters. No whistles alerting targets to the officers’ presence. No face masks. In some cases, residents opened their doors to let the officers inside their homes. One man thanked them for not arresting him in front of his children.

The Los Angeles area operation ended with 162 arrests, including a Mexican national convicted of rape and a Salvadoran national convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said almost 90% of the people arrested had criminal convictions.

It was June 2018, more than a year into Donald Trump’s first term as president. More than seven years later, carrying out the same operation in L.A. or other U.S. cities feels almost impossible without drawing angry crowds and requiring multiple officers, at times across federal agencies, to detain a single target.

In the years since Trump’s first term, ICE and the government’s immigration enforcement apparatus expanded raids well beyond those against known criminals or suspected ones. Increasingly, immigrants with no criminal records and even legal residents and U.S. citizens found themselves stopped and sometimes arrested.

The uncertainty over who is being targeted has fueled a growing pattern of community protests and rapid response mobilizations, even when officials say they are targeting convicted felons, reflecting a widening gap between how enforcement is described and how it is experienced. That gap has become most visible on the ground.

In recent months, sightings of ICE or other federal agents have drawn crowds of protesters, legal observers and community organizers. In many cases, residents say they can’t distinguish between targeted enforcement actions — against child molesters, human smugglers and other serious criminals — and broader sweeps, responding instead to the mere presence of agents whose role and authority are no longer clearly understood.

Experts say the Trump administration’s hostile rhetoric against immigrants and often seemingly indiscriminate targeting of people in neighborhoods has hurt the reputation of its immigration enforcement agencies, including ICE and Border Patrol, like never before. And it has inspired a mass movement of resistance that has seen Americans shot by federal immigration officers. In the last month, two U.S. citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti — were shot dead by ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.

The fatal shootings forced Trump to recalibrate his immigration enforcement tactics, in part by sidelining Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, who first launched the aggressive raids in California, and putting border policy advisor Tom Homan in charge.

“I’m not here because the federal government has carried out this mission perfectly,” Homan said during a Thursday news conference. “Nothing’s ever perfect, and anything can be improved on. And what we’ve been working on is making this operation safer, more efficient, by the book.”

He said street operations in Minnesota would “draw down” if the agents were given access to local jails and that agents would focus on specific targets.

“We will conduct targeted enforcement operations — targeted,” he added. “That has traditionally been the case and that’s what we’re going to continue to do and improve upon that with the priority on public safety threats.”

An internal memo reviewed by Reuters showed ICE officers operating in the state were directed to avoid engaging with “agitators” and only target “aliens with a criminal history.”

Even if the Trump administration were to pull back ICE and Border Patrol’s aggressive tactics to focus more on known criminals, experts question whether too much damage has been done to their reputations.

“The brand of the agency is becoming so toxic,” said John Sandweg, who headed ICE under President Obama. “It’s going to impact the agency for years to come. It’s going to take a long time for that trust to rebuild.”

Another former ICE official, who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation, said the agency used to be able to say it was focused on criminals and wasn’t conducting random sweeps.

“For years we always said, ‘We don’t have the resources to go after everybody, so we’re going to focus on just the worst of the worst,’” he said. “They can’t say that now. They’re still trying to do that, but it’s getting overshadowed by Home Depot and car washes and all this other stuff and Border Patrol’s heavy-handed tactics. Now it’s leading to shootings and all these other things. It’s just horrible.”

In Willowbrook, an unincorporated neighborhood nestled in South L.A., just blocks from Compton city limits, federal agents found themselves locked between angry crowds recording them last week. Two people held a sign that read: “ICE / Soldiers off our streets.”

Federal agents clear the way for an authorized car to pass while investigating a shooting involving a federal agent in Willowbrook.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The agents were there to arrest a man they say had been “involved in human trafficking” and had a final removal order. They alleged the man had two prior arrests for domestic violence. Homeland Security officials later said the man used his vehicle to ram federal agent vehicles in an attempt to evade arrest, prompting an agent to open fire.

But as news spread that the operation was targeting a suspected criminal living in the country illegally, most residents shrugged it off. They said federal officials had made false claims against other people they had arrested or shot at, including labeling Good and Pretti as domestic terrorists.

“They’ve shown us that they’re not trustworthy,” Rosa Enriquez, 39, said while holding a Mexican flag.

Similar scenes have played out across the country. This month, a journalist posted a video of agents — who she identified as working for ICE — calling out a driver for honking during an operation St. Paul, Minn.

“We’re here to arrest a child sex offender and you guys are out here honking,” the agent said. “That’s who you guys are protecting. Insane.”

“Just go. You’re lying!” a woman shouts.

Homeland Security has made it a point to tout the arrests of criminals across the country. The “worst of the worst arrests” in L.A. this month, according to the agency, included a man convicted of second-degree murder, another for voluntary manslaughter and one with multiple convictions for driving under the influence and disorderly conduct.

“We will not let rioters or agitators slow us down from removing murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

But experts say the general public has clearly witnessed a shift in who is being targeted.

In May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reportedly directed top ICE officials to go beyond target lists and have agents make arrests at Home Depot or 7-Eleven convenience stores as they sought to crank up their daily arrest numbers to 3,000.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, center, marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The following month, Border Patrol agents led by Bovino were on the ground in L.A., tackling car wash workers, arresting street vendors and chasing down day laborers.

“The pressure of those numbers on enforcement agencies and mobilizing the whole of government and other law enforcement agencies, well beyond the traditional ICE and CBP, has created pressures that have led to extensive overreach,” said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, is the agency that includes ICE and Border Patrol.

At the peak of arrests in L.A in June, around 75% of people had no criminal conviction. A Times analysis found that in the administration’s first nine months, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 15, of the more than 10,000 Los Angeles residents who were arrested in immigration operations, about 45% had a criminal conviction and an additional 14% had pending charges.

In November the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, reported that, nationwide, 5% of detainees from Oct. 1 to Nov. 15 had been convicted of violent crimes. Most detainees with convictions were found guilty of vice, immigration or traffic infractions.

“They’ve painted to the American people that they were going after the worst of the worst, and that is nothing like what is happening,” said Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson), who represents the district where the recent shooting in L.A. unfolded. “We have seen all across America where they have harassed, they have murdered, assassinated not only citizens but also people who have not had any arrest, who have not fit the bill or the description of what they have painted to the American people.

“When you turn on the news right now, the trust is absolutely gone. We don’t trust the White House, we don’t trust ICE, and the people are afraid because the trust is gone.”

Santa Maria Councilmember Gloria Soto echoed that sentiment, in part because she has seen raids in her Central Coast town.

“That’s part of the frustration,” Soto said. “There’s no transparency. There’s no information being shared before or after these enforcements have taken place.”

“We know for a fact that there are individuals who are getting picked up who did not have a criminal record, whose only quote-unquote crime was, you know, either having an expired visa, or crossing without the required immigration documentation that is needed, so it makes it really difficult for us, for me as an elected official, to trust what this agency is doing because so far there is no communication,” she said.

The challenges ICE officers are facing appear to center on cities that have been targeted with surge operations — like in Minneapolis, Sandweg said. Across the country, he said, officers are conducting operations “but not with the same amount of controversy.”

People take part in a vigil at a memorial for Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“In Minneapolis we’re at the point now when, if agents are going to go after someone with a very serious violent criminal history, they’re likely to pick up observers and a lot of attention,” he said. “The way in which they wanted to do these operations in such an overt, in-your-face kind of fashion, has created a dynamic that makes it really hard for the agents to execute their duties. … You have these protests following the agents everywhere they go.”

While there has always been consternation over immigration enforcement, Sandweg said that “the widespread tactics and the targeting of people with no criminal record just really galvanized people in a way they’ve never been galvanized before.”

“To where now it probably is starting to bleed into and impeding operations that most of those protesters are probably not opposed to — the idea of ICE getting someone with a violent criminal history off the streets,” he said. “I think it’s created an environment where it puts the officers and the public in harm’s way.”

This week, protesters came out in force when word spread that ICE officers were eating at a restaurant in Lynwood. A video shows the crowd jeering at the officers as they’re being escorted out of the area by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Almost immediately, Lynwood City Councilmember Luis Gerardo Cuellar posted a video on Instagram to inform the public.

“This was not ICE, these were … TSA air marshals.”

Here are a couple of points about the business community of Minnesota you may not have known.

First, it’s home to a surprisingly large cadre of 17 major corporations, members of Fortune’s roster of the 500 largest U.S. companies.

Some of America’s best-known consumer companies, including UnitedHealth Group, Target, Best Buy, 3M and General Mills have chosen the windy, cold and snowy — but heretofore tranquil — state for their headquarters.

Second, this collection of elite businesses largely has been silent about the federal government’s assault on the people of Minneapolis, which has been going on since the beginning of December. The silence ended Sunday, when 60 Minnesota businesses issued a joint statement through the state Chamber of Commerce calling for “an immediate deescalation of tensions.”

That so many businesses came together for the statement was an achievement, given the customary reluctance of corporate leaders to address incendiary political issues. But in terms of its actual content, the statement was pretty thin gruel, bristling with public relations-style circumlocution and vagueness.

If anything, the Minnesota statement underscores the quandary facing American corporations in the Age of Trump, when the president viciously and publicly attacks anyone he deems to be a personal adversary. For a business, that can translate into a threat to the top and bottom lines.

Business leaders faced with a choice between going along with Trump, or poking him with a stick, almost invariably have chosen the first path.

That Minnesota’s businesses even went as far as they did does suggests the tide may have turned on challenges to Trump’s policies. Even so, we’re still standing only on the edge of the water.

The refusal of the American business community to take a strong stand against Trump’s policies has been a long-lasting scandal.

“This shows the greatest cowardice in the history of the Business Roundtable,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Yale School of Management’s expert in corporate leadership, referring to the organization of corporate chief executives that should carry the flag of backlash against Trump’s actions.

I asked the Roundtable to comment on the chaos in Minneapolis. It replied with a statement from CEO Joshua Bolten, a former White House aide to George W. Bush, endorsing the Minnesota Chamber’s call for “cooperation between state, local, and federal authorities to immediately de-escalate the situation in Minneapolis.”

Is that sufficient?

What’s needed is for leaders to name names and demand concrete steps, at least as long as our political leaders remain missing in action. In Minnesota — indeed, wherever Trump policies trample norms and values — the situation has become a moral crisis for all American society, including the commercial.

That said, it isn’t surprising that Minnesota’s big corporations, like almost all American corporations, have been gun-shy about confronting a political issue like this head-on. They can properly feel that they’ve been burned before.

Target, the second-largest public corporation headquartered in the state (after UnitedHealth), experienced a front-page blowback from political controversies twice in recent years.

In 2023, as I reported then, the company capitulated when a braying mob of anti-LGBTQ+ reactionaries targeted it for displaying Pride-themed merchandise in its stores during June’s Pride Month observances.

Target, which had proudly displayed such merchandise in previous years, told personnel in many stores to shrink or even eliminate their Pride-themed merchandise displays or move them to less conspicuous sections of the stores. Some LGBTQ+ designers discovered that their products had been taken off the shelves.

Last year, only days after Trump launched his second term with a flurry of antidiversity executive orders, Target announced it was “concluding our three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals.” The company also withdrew from “all external diversity-focused surveys,” including a widely followed Corporate Equality index sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, which tracks corporate policies on LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion.

The backtracking backfired. Target’s sales cratered, in part because consumers were angry about its DEI reversals. During a conference call with Wall Street analysts following its first-quarter earnings report, CEO Brian Cornell attributed the company’s ugly performance to factors including “the reaction to the updates we shared … in January,” an allusion to its ending of DEI initiatives.

The escalating crisis in Minneapolis seems to have been the trigger for the state’s business leaders to issue their joint statement. “To get all 60 of the major CEOs to sign onto a statement was a remarkable feat,” says Bill George, a former CEO of Minneapolis-based medical device maker Medtronic and a former Target board member.

“Maybe some people wanted it to be stronger,” George told me, “but I believe a statement signed by every Minnesota CEO of size represents a turning point in the whole discussion between the federal government and the state government.” He hoped that it would be enough to prompt Trump to simply “declare victory” in Minnesota and “move on to other challenges.”

Still, the text of the Minnesota chamber’s communique illustrates that corporate America still is reluctant to confront Trump directly.

The statement refers, vaguely, to “the recent challenges facing our state,” which “created widespread disruption and tragic loss of life.”

In other words, the statement alludes to something having happened, but doesn’t identify who did it or even what it was. A “tragic loss of life,” after all, can befall people slipping on the ice and cracking their head, as well as someone being shot 10 times in an unprovoked attack.

The statement asserts that “for the past several weeks, representatives of Minnesota’s business community have been working every day behind the scenes with federal, state and local officials to advance real solutions. These efforts have included close communication with the Governor, the White House, the Vice President and local mayors. There are ways for us to come together to foster progress.”

It calls for “an immediate deescalation [sic] of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”

Lacking are specifics. What “real solutions” are on the table in these “close communications” with public officials? Who is in on these behind-the-scenes conversations? What actions would bring about “an immediate deescalation of tensions”?

I asked the Chamber of Commerce to answer those questions, but a spokesman told me the statement would have to stand by itself.

The statement doesn’t even mention Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whose killing finally provoked the Chamber’s members to speak out. Nor does it address the unmistakable discrepancies between how the Trump administration described the killings and their victims, and what millions of people can see in videos.

What’s infuriating is that for many Americans — including, notably, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — the solution to this crisis is crystal clear: Get ICE and the Border Patrol out of Minneapolis neighborhoods. That even occurred to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which on Sunday advised Trump to “pause ICE enforcement in the Twin Cities to ease tensions and consider a less provocative strategy.”

One might have thought that Minnesota companies would be among the leaders pushing back against Trump policies, especially those unfolding in their front yards.

“Minnesota in general has been the hotbed of traditional progressive politics,” Sonnenfeld says. “The Minnesota business community was always the paragon of social investment — very philanthropic and socially responsible — and had soaring performance to show for it. Minneapolis was always the model showing that doing good is not antithetical to doing well.”

Minnesota business leaders clearly were becoming concerned that Trump’s anti-immigrant surge threatened their ability to do well.

“This situation is very harmful to their businesses,” George says. “It’s extremely important that their employees feel that they are safe and secure in their place of work, and that their corporate leaders have their back.”

Some Minnesota companies feared Trump’s immigration crackdown could make it harder to recruit executives.

“If this drags on, it will have a devastating effect on Minnesota companies’ ability to attract people from around the world,” George told me. “They depend upon bringing executives in from New York and L.A., but also from China, Japan and Europe. This situation is really a deterrent to that.”

Whether Minnesota’s corporate pushback will move the needle on Trump’s policy isn’t clear, though there are faint signs that he recognizes he isn’t winning fans on the issue.

On Monday he assigned his border czar, Tom Homan, to take charge of the Minnesota surge — not that Homan has the reputation of a peacemaker on immigration issues.

According to Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, up to now the face of the surge, the agents involved in Saturday’s killing, including the two known to have fired gunshots at Pretti, are still on the job, though he said they were transferred out of Minneapolis “for their safety.” (There were reports Monday that Bovino is being sent out of Minnesota and back to his prior post in California.)

Nor are there signs that the surge is over. ICE and the Border Patrol are still on the streets of Minneapolis, so further mayhem is possible.

Doris, who has made 23 Six Nations appearances, will lead Ireland out against a France side shorn of some high-profile players.

While fit-again captain Antoine Dupont is back, head coach Fabien Galthie opted not to select France’s all-time top try-scorer Damian Penaud, veteran centre Gael Fickou and back row Gregory Alldritt, who skippered the side in Dupont’s absence last year.

Having faced Alldritt on several occasions for both club and country, Doris admits he was surprised by the 28-year-old’s omission.

“If you look at the Top 14 week in, week out, there’s so many quality players at the top level, they’ve got an abundance of talent to choose from,” added Doris.

I was surprised Alldritt wasn’t in it. I obviously faced him and La Rochelle a few weeks ago. I rate him very highly but they’ve got quality across the back row and I’m sure [Anthony] Jelonch will represent the eight shirt very well.

“It’s always a big threat playing against France, especially away from home at a hostile place like Stade de France, so looking forward to it.”