Camps
Week of January 30-February 5, 2026
Welcome to TRACKING THE CRISIS, a weekly round-up from The Democracy Collaborative tracking the administrative, legislative, and other actions of the Trump Administration as well as the many forms of legal and movement response from across a broad range of social, political, and economic actors. TDC is providing this service for collective informational purposes, as a tool for understanding the times during a period of disorientingly rapid flux and change in the U.S. political economy. This round-up is produced by humans, not by Artificial Intelligence. TDC should not be understood as endorsing or otherwise any of the specific content of the information round-up.
TRUMP TRACKER: Administration actions
Trump suggests federal government ‘take over’ 2026 midterm elections as Georgia probe raises alarms of interference, voter suppression. The battle over control of Congress saw a significant escalation nine months ahead of schedule as Trump recommenced his rhetorical strategy around ‘rigged’ elections, sowing doubt on state election systems amid rising alarm around his actions and statements. Last week, the FBI conducted a raid on election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, reportedly executing a search warrant related to a probe of the 2020 election. The FBI removed at least 700 boxes containing Fulton County’s votes in the 2020 election, which had been preserved per ongoing litigation between the DOJ and Fulton County. An unnamed source mentioned that not all ballots were taken by the DOJ, which may have broken the chain of custody and destroyed their provenance as evidence; legal experts have also questioned the legitimacy of the search warrant. Special Agent Paul Brown, head of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, was reportedly removed just prior to the raid for expressing his concerns. Many observers’ initial speculations centered on Trump’s personal hatred of losing and insistence on the ‘rigged’ result of the 2020 election,’ but others have warned that the raid could very well be part of a plan to interfere in the 2026 and 2028 elections, either through ‘sowing doubt’ ahead of time to undermine their legitimacy, or by gaining access to voter data for the purposes of voter suppression. There was much speculation around Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s presence at the raid, and why the nation’s top spy official tasked with investigating foreign threats would accompany a domestic law enforcement action. Senator Mark Warner said at a hearing on Wednesday, February 4 that there were only two possible explanations that she would be there: if she had suspected foreign interference in the 2020 elections, at which point she should have consulted the Intelligence Committee, or if she were part of a “domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy.” Trump said at a prayer breakfast this week that “Pam [Bondi] wanted her [Gabbard] to do it, and she’s smart”; although Gabbard testified to Congress that Trump asked her to go, and that she had facilitated a call for Trump to speak directly to agents at the scene. Fulton County announced that they will file a new lawsuit challenging the legality of the seizure, which has raised serious questions among election law experts.
Trump critics and election integrity experts were sent into an uproar after Trump called in to ousted FBI deputy Dan Bongino’s podcast on Monday to exhort Republicans to “take over” and “nationalize the voting” in at least 15 places, citing the unverified claim that many non-citizens had voted fraudulently in those heavily-Democratic states’ districts. On Tuesday at an Oval Office press briefing, Trump doubled down on his controversial statements, again calling to “nationalize” elections in cities he claimed were “riddled” with corruption. On Wednesday, when asked by NBC News if he would respect the outcome of the midterm elections later this year, Trump replied that he would only accept them if he saw them to be “honest.” Many speculate that Trump’s accelerating push for federal control and interference in elections is a bid to stay in power as he seeks to defy the weight of historical precedent and retain control of Congress post-midterms. On Tuesday, Steve Bannon suggested that “we could have ICE surrounding the polls coming November,” sparking fears of what a ‘nationalized’ election would look like. Trump’s poll numbers have taken a nosedive among Republican voters this week as the Administration’s violations of Constitutional rights continue to pile up and the economy takes a sharp downturn. Trump’s approval rating is at its lowest point since he was accused of inciting the January 6th riots, and a top Republican strategist sounded the alarm of a potential blowout in November’s 2026 elections after a Texas special election’s shock result this weekend, wherein Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a ‘safe’ Republican seat in the Texas state senate, winning 57% of the vote in a district that went for Trump by 17 points in 2024. The president and ruling party were hit by a setback this week as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of California’s redistricting map; over a dozen other states, both red and blue, are now scrambling to gerrymander their own district maps before November. Trump has said that he expects to be impeached if Republicans lose control of the Senate in the midterms; last month’s campaign filings show that Trump’s political committees and the RNC combined have built a massive $483 million war chest for the midterms, including huge sums from the tech, AI and crypto industries, vastly outpacing the Democrats. State election officials have expressed concern about November and are reportedly exploring various ‘doomsday scenarios’ to gird themselves against potential voter suppression and/or interference.
U.S. citizens detained by ICE testify to traumatic human rights abuses before Congress. On Tuesday, February 3, the House and Senate Oversight Committees held an ‘unprecedented’ joint forum to receive testimony from U.S. citizens and community members on the “violent tactics and disproportionate use of force” by DHS agents (including ICE, Border Patrol, and Customs and Border Protection). The hearing, convened by Rep. Robert Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, stayed unofficial due to the lack of quorum; not a single Republican lawmaker attended the forum to hear the accounts by victims, witnesses, and experts who spoke to the personal and collective trauma experienced by migrants and citizens alike when ICE comes to town. In a separate hearing, Sen. John Hickenlooper also testified that “death cards,” a type of ‘calling card’ commonly used by white supremacist groups, have been found in the cars left behind by people who had been taken by ICE. Among the witnesses at the Garcia-Blumenthal hearing were two brothers of Renee Good, the Minneapolis resident who was murdered in her car by ICE agent Jonathon Ross on January 7. Luke and Brent Ganger, Good’s brothers, said they came to Congress to ask for lawmakers’ help in ending the nightmarish situation that has caused “feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation” not only among their family but also in other cities and families across the country. They implored Democrats to take action, with Luke saying: “In the last few weeks, our family took some consolation, thinking that perhaps [Renee’s] death would bring about change in our country. It has not. The completely surreal scenes taking place are beyond explanation… This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents. These encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours.” Following the brothers were the testimonies of Marimar Martinez, Aliya Rahman, and Martin Daniel Rascon, three U.S. citizens who suffered physical assaults at the hands of immigration agents.
Marimar Martinez, a Chicago Montessori teacher, was shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum last October after she spotted him in an unmarked car and followed him, honking her horn to warn neighbors of ICE’s presence. Exum allegedly sideswiped her to force her to stop, then shot her five times as she tried to drive away. In bodycam footage played in a DHS hearing, Exum can be heard saying “do something bitch” before shooting at her. At the time, DHS had described the incident as a “terrorist ambush” where she tried to “ram” CBP agents “with her car,” an explanation which bears a remarkable resemblance to Renee Good’s shooting and at least 15 other DHS- involved shootings since July. She testified further that Exum had taken pictures of her as she was being treated in the hospital and kept them on his phone, likely as a ‘trophy.’ Also included in her testimony were several text messages Exum had sent to fellow agents appearing to brag about having shot her, one of which said: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” Martinez testified, “My own government attempted to execute me and when they failed at that, to vilify me.” A judge this week granted Martinez’s request to release the full batch of text messages and bodycam footage to the public. Viral pictures and videos of Aliya Rahman’s arrest as she was dragged from her car by ICE agents in Minneapolis shocked the world in January. Rahman, who is disabled and autistic, described her harsh treatment in ICE detention at the Whipple Building, testifying that ICE agents in the facility referred to detainees as “bodies” in a dehumanizing manner. She said, “You have no reason to think you will make it out alive if you are being called a body.” She said as she endured the treatment in detention, she thought of George Floyd and other disabled people of color who have suffered injury or death at the hands of police. Martin Daniel Rascon, from San Bernadino, CA, described how immigration agents boxed in his brother-in-law’s truck with him and his father-in-law inside. As agents broke the windows and tried to grab them, his father-in-law attempted to drive through the roadblock, at which time multiple gunshots were fired at them. Later that night, agents stormed his home at gunpoint, taking his father-in-law who was detained for several months.
The hearings highlight how ICE and Border Patrol’s practices have extended beyond the few high-profile events that have captured global media attention. DHS had implemented mandatory annual use-of-force reporting requirements in 2022 per a Biden executive order, but the last available report is from fiscal year 2023. Some media outlets have been attempting to track incidents on their own; The American Prospect this week began their “Running Count of How Many People ICE Has Killed and Injured” based on local media reports, and The Trace, which had been keeping track of ICE-related shootings before 2024, is now soliciting citizen reports to document as comprehensive a database as is possible on gun incidents involving immigration enforcement. The Conversation highlights how up until now, Congress has had constitutional power of oversight over DHS but has rarely exercised its powers, and where the House committee has trained its eye on DHS, none have focused on ICE or Border Patrol. This lack of oversight has allowed Border Patrol in particular to operate and develop their highly aggressive tactics under the radar of public or government scrutiny. The Southern Border Coalition has documented 367 fatal encounters with Border Patrol since 2010, and has long advocated for stricter enforcement of departmental reporting requirements.
ICE purchasing ‘mega-warehouses’ for expanding detention camp network; detainee conditions in ICE custody spark Congressional scrutiny. In her testimony to Congress, Marimar Martinez asks the question: “Thankfully, I survived Exum’s attempted murder and I was able to shine a light on his lies. But what about all the others who either did not survive or were not fortunate enough to have video proving the agent’s lies?” It is a question that may bear some relevance to ICE’s “expanding and increasingly unaccountable” detention system. Municipalities around the country are learning that ICE is quietly purchasing ‘mega-warehouses’ across the country – reportedly funded by a $55 billion Navy grant repurposed by DHS – with the purpose of converting them into what journalist Pablo Manriquez termed “a nationwide ‘ghost network’ of concentration camps.” At least 23 purchases of large industrial sites have been tracked across the country, although there may be more. Local governments say they were never informed by the federal government, or find they lack legal authority to stop the private purchases of sites, such as a massive abandoned industrial park in El Paso, that are being purchased by ICE from liquidating hedge funds and other asset holding companies. ICE is believed to currently be holding around 73,000 detainees – a record in its 23-year history – and of that population, at least 74% have no criminal record. As the number of detainees has surged under the Trump Administration (approximately 78% more in 2025 over 2024), federal inspections of ICE facilities have dropped by 36.25% over the same period. Concerns regarding treatment of detainees in ICE facilities are mounting amid reports of horrifying conditions; at least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, the highest annual total on record, and another six deaths occurred just in the first three weeks of January. Sen. Tammy Duckworth revealed this week that DHS’ general counsel sent ‘tacit threats’ to the agency’s independent watchdog at the Inspector General’s office, ‘reminding’ him that Noem can ‘kill’ any investigation. A court ruling struck down the DHS policy implemented in July 2025 that required advance notice of inspections after Rep. Monica McIver was indicted on assault charges when trying to access an ICE facility in June. A December court ruling blocked that policy, after which DHS instituted a ‘new’ policy identical to the first one on January 11.
Over a dozen lawmakers filed a lawsuit against DHS, asserting the constitutional right of Congress to conduct inspections; and on Monday, February 2, a federal court granted emergency relief, reaffirming the right of lawmakers to make unannounced visits to detention facilities and investigate detainee conditions. After the ruling, several House members conducted inspections of ICE facilities. Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Norma Torres visited the facility in downtown Los Angeles, which they found nearly empty, but were able to inspect a basement area of the facility called ‘B-17’ that had been rumored to exist to detain families but had not been disclosed to lawmakers; Gomez saw signage relating to family detention and a staff member disclosed that detainees had been moved to a facility in Texas prior to their visit. ICE continues to freeze other lawmakers out of facility inspections despite this week’s ruling. Oregon lawmaker Maxine Dexter went to the facility and was denied access, but is advocating for the return of the entire Crespo-Gonzalez family, who were taken last month from Portland while seeking medical care for 7-year-old Diana Crespo. On Friday, Rep. Juan Vargas was denied access to the Otay Mesa detention center in San Diego for an inspection he initiated after the publication of a note from a detainee that had been hidden in a bottle and thrown over the fence. The note described being held in a cold room with no doors or windows, constant sickness and lacking fresh food. Minnesota Rep. Kelly Morrison was the only one out of three MN lawmakers who was able to get inside the detention facility at Minneapolis’ Whipple Building, where U.S. citizens and protestors are being held along with migrants. She described conditions as “horrifying and heartbreaking,” citing cold temperatures, a lack of beds, blankets and sufficient food, no medical staff or protocols, and people held in leg shackles. Dozens of Minnesota detainees, including U.S. citizens who were detained at protests, have been shipped out of state to facilities in Texas and New Mexico; Rep. Veronica Escobar sounded the alarm after meeting with several women from Minnesota being held in an El Paso facility, some of them still wearing the clothes and snow boots they had been arrested in three weeks earlier.
Immigration lawyers are also sounding the alarm on ICE’s surging detention of children amid national shock at the arrest of 5-year-old Liam Cornejo Ramos in Minneapolis; lawyers in Minnesota say that the Trump Administration’s ‘flood the zone’ tactics, filling headlines with murders and street-level confrontations, have obscured the development of an ‘ICE conveyor belt’ that is illegally taking children and moving them out of state faster than the courts can process them to evade judicial accountability. Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, returned home this week to Minneapolis from an ICE facility in Dilley, Texas where they had been held since January 20. Adrian described conditions in the facility as “not good,” telling ABC that Liam had fallen sick shortly after they arrived at the facility and was denied medical care. Erika Ramos, Liam’s mother, commented last week that Liam had gotten sick “because the food they receive is not good quality,” prompting a visit from Rep. Joaquin Castro. Three other children from Liam’s school were at the facility; a pair of brothers and 10-year-old Elizabeth Caisaguano, who was taken with her mother by ICE on January 9, also returned home this week. Hundreds of children remain at the Dilley facility, many suffering from nightmares and psychosomatic signs of distress as their families recount unsafe and unsanitary conditions such as food contaminated with worms and mold, putrid drinking water, and inadequate medical care. Families and experts report healthy children falling ill within days of arriving, including an 18-month-old infant who was hospitalized for life-threatening pneumonia and was denied vital medication upon returning to detention. On February 1, Texas health officials confirmed a measles outbreak at the facility, which at this time of writing still holds over 400 children. Rep. Castro said that because of “close-quarter conditions at Dilley, lack of prompt medical response and capacity, and lack of expertise with diseases such as measles, Dilley is not equipped to combat any spread.” Dr. Lee Rogers, a public health expert at UT San Antonio, said the outbreak “has the potential to quickly overwhelm local health resources” in the wider south Texas area, and implored ICE and Texas officials to “establish a public health incident command” at the site. Dr. Benjamin Mateus slammed the Trump Administration’s “colonial policy” of “criminalizing immigrant families and confining children in camps,” of which he said disease was a “predictable outcome.”
Trump pulls 700 ICE agents from Minnesota, DHS funding headed for showdown among flurry of court decisions; demand grows to oust Noem. Trump announced a partial drawdown of 700 ICE agents from ‘Operation Metro Surge’ this week, after protests in Minneapolis spread across the country and significant numbers of the Republican rank-and-file began to withdraw their support over ICE’s tactics. As Trump Administration border czar Tim Homan announced the news on Wednesday, February 4, he claimed the operation in Minnesota “has been very effective so far” in terms of public safety, but acknowledged there were problems, including those that led to the murder of two U.S. citizens, numerous physical assaults and detentions of many other community members. Over 300 ex-DOJ lawyers wrote Pam Bondi this week in an open letter urging her to allow local investigators to establish transparency in investigating the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Trump had softened his tone on the immigration crackdown early last week, expressing regret for the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of federal immigration agents and agreeing to ‘de-escalate a bit’ on ICE tactics. Senate Democrats held out on passing the budget stopgap bill until late on Thursday, January 29, leading to a partial shutdown over the weekend. Trump struck a deal with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Senate voted Friday to fund five other agencies in the bill but extend funding for DHS for only two more weeks, pending a debate over its fate for the rest of the year. Hours after the deal was made, Trump changed his tone again, reneging on his pledge to de-escalate and reinforcing critics’ skepticism.The 700 agents being withdrawn from Minneapolis as of this week represent about one-quarter of the 3,000-plus agents that have been conducting raids in the city over the last several weeks; around 2,000 will remain active in the operation. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said, “2,000 ICE officers still here is not de-escalation”; raids around the state continue to stoke fear as immigrants and activists describe “a profound sense of being hunted.”
On Tuesday, February 3, the House voted to pass the government funding package and sent it to Trump’s desk to sign, starting the clock on negotiations around DHS and ICE reforms as a condition of funding. Kristi Noem announced that agents on the ground in Minneapolis would immediately begin wearing body cameras, an apparent concession to assuage the Democrats. On Wednesday, Schumer and Jeffries unveiled a list of 10 Democratic demands for reform to DHS programs, including: an end to roving patrols; no masks for immigration enforcement officers; an identification requirement for DHS agents to display their agency, badge number, and name; prohibiting ICE to conduct operations in ‘sensitive locations’ such as churches, mosques, hospitals, and daycare facilities; a stop to racial profiling; and enforcement of DHS Use of Force standards. Democratic rank-and-file lawmakers and primary candidates hurled their ire at Schumer and Jeffries’ ‘underwhelming’ demands, seen as being too milquetoast and not going far enough. Jeffries and Schumer appeared to waver at a press conference Wednesday as they added many qualifiers to their previous statements; lawyer Alec Karakatsanis called it ”one of the great political failures of our time” as others pointed out how many of the demands were cosmetic, already standing policy and thus a matter of enforcement, or in some cases, actually increased harm to communities. Advocates say the demands should have included reducing DHS funding for ‘surge’ operations such as Metro Surge, holding perpetrators accountable and ensuring 4th Amendment rights for community members. On the other hand, the reform demands were rebuffed by Senate Republicans Thursday as John Thune opined that the demands were ‘unrealistic’ and a ‘nonstarter’; which makes the possibility of a shutdown more likely as the Feb. 13 deadline approaches. Schumer in particular faces pressure from the Democratic rank-and-file who have questioned his ability to hold the line after seven Democratic defectors crossed the aisle to end last year’s record-breaking shutdown.
Almost three-fourths of House Democrats have thrown their weight behind a resolution to impeach Kristi Noem, echoing the calls of several local and state governments as new polling showed around 6 in 10 American voters thought Noem should be removed from her job. They were joined by at least two Republican Senators, Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski. Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a federal lawsuit along with the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the raids which have turned the Twin Cities upside down over the last two months. It was denied by District Judge Katherine Menendez on Saturday on the grounds that similar lawsuits have been defeated at the appeals court level. Menendez noted that the higher court has tended to rule in the federal government’s favor, including having set aside her own order attempting to limit the use of force on Minneapolis protestors just two weeks prior. She had harsh words with Trump Administration lawyers over federal conduct; feeling frustrated, she asked them: “Is there no limit to what the executive can do under the guise of enforcing immigration law?” Courts in Minnesota say they are ‘overwhelmed’ with the sheer workload of processing hundreds of immigrant cases at once, along with the many instances of ICE violations of court orders once issued; New York Times reporters say that “The turmoil in the courts has demoralized prosecutors, outraged judges, exhausted defense lawyers – and left many immigrants languishing in detention in violation of court orders.”
Latest jobs data reveals weakest labor market since the Great Recession; AI bloodbath hits speculative markets in tech stocks, crypto, gold/silver, and private credit amid clear signs of contraction and financial fragility. Although the official jobs report for January has been postponed until next week due to the partial government shutdown, private sector data from ADP and Challenger, Gray and Christmas released this week paints a grim picture of fundamental economic weakness that working class consumers at the bottom end of the K-shaped economy have already been feeling, but now investor classes at the top end can no longer ignore. According to the Challenger report, U.S. employers announced 108,435 layoffs in the month of January, the highest number since the Great Recession in 2009; representing an increase of 118% from the start of 2025, and 205% from December 2025. Employers announced just 5,309 hiring plans for the month, the lowest on record since Challenger began reporting on the labor market in 2009. ADP reports that private companies added just 22,000 positions for the month, coming in at less than half of market expectations for January 2026. Ahead of the BLS report, it appears now that the long stagnation of the “low-hire, low-fire” economy has begun to shift towards a crisis dynamic. Transportation was the leading sector in shedding jobs, mostly due to UPS’s announcement of 30,000 layoffs as it severs its contract with Amazon, which was also at the front of the pack with 16,000 layoffs announced in January. Also of note from the list of major companies planning to shed jobs: the Washington Post stunned the journalism world by laying off one-third of its staff, and Pinterest shed 15% of its workforce as part of its restructuring plan to lean more heavily on AI integration; included in the layoffs were two engineers who had created an internal software tool to track company layoffs in an attempt to quantify the loss, an activity that CEO Bill Ready called “obstructionist” and many others largely saw as a retaliatory move to keep employees ‘in line.’ On top of AI, tariff costs and uncertainty were cited as major factors in the weakness, as well as ICE’s mass deportation program targeting immigrant workers, which has significantly reduced the total labor pool but has not, as Trump promised, resulted in better prospects for American workers, as small businesses elect to pull back on their overall cost burden instead of putting up competitive wages for new positions.
Companies are also pulling back on ad buying amid historic lows in consumer sentiment, which has now consumed the middle class along with the poor. Economic analysts are highlighting PepsiCo’s announcement this week that it will be cutting prices up to 15% on dozens of its drink and snack products, including Pepsi, Doritos, Lay’s and Cheetos, as a key acknowledgement of the affordability crisis hitting the average U.S. consumer. The unfortunate timing of new SNAP work requirements, which were passed in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ last July and went into effect on February 1, could mean a double-whammy for unemployed and underemployed people on the bottom tiers of the economic hierarchy as U.S. states, 22 of which are already in recession, scramble to shoulder the increased cost share burdens also stipulated in the OBBB. For the majority of U.S. households, however, it is skyrocketing healthcare costs, even more than prices for housing and food, that appear to loom largest in the panorama of economic woes as they grapple with their first month of premiums without enhanced ACA subsidies – another casualty of the OBBB.
At the other end of the economic spectrum, panic selling gripped Wall Street and global exchanges this week as multiple markets in software, crypto, equities, and even the ‘safe havens’ of gold and silver all crashed simultaneously this week, indicating a broad liquidity crisis as investors rushed to shed risks amid the dismal labor market news, widening cracks in the private credit sector, and a definitive pop of the AI bubble. One of the proximate catalysts for the crash was the batch of statements from Big Tech giantsMicrosoft, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet announcing nearly $700 billion in new AI buildout planned for 2026; a capex figure so unprecedented that it spooked investors into realizing AI may never go cash-positive and realize a true return on their investment. Another catalyst was the release of new “software-killing” plugins for Anthropic’s CoWork AI agent with the capability of automating a range of clerical tasks in legal, data analysis, and financial compliance. The realization that this tool could potentially replace entire segments of the legal and financial services industry sent investors in other software companies running for the exits, causing specialized legal services firms like Thomson Reuters, staffing-intensive IT firms in India, and even newer firms in specialized data analytics tools such as Palantir to lose 10% to more than a third of their value in less than 48 hours, wiping out over $1 trillion in value in software stocks alone. Crypto was hit hard in the rush for liquidity as investors moved their money out of speculative digital assets onto safer shores, triggering what ‘Big Short’ investor Michael Burry called a “crypto death spiral” as Bitcoin’s value plunged by 50% to nearly $60,000. The cryptocurrency market as a whole erased over half a trillion dollars of value in less than a week; it also wiped out all the crypto gains facilitated by Trump and his sons during his second presidency, including a drop of over 95% in $Trump stablecoins. Contagion quickly spread to private credit and hedge funds heavily invested in the AI and software sectors; Blackstone, Ares Capital, and KKR all saw double-digit losses as investors feared AI and software-related defaults; Blue Owl Capital in particular nearly tanked due to its outsized position in IT related debt-backed securities, credit default swaps and other shadow banking instruments.
The swarm of capital seeking safe havens also destabilized the last-resort market in precious metal commodities, where gold and silver had already been experiencing unprecedented levels of appreciation in recent months due to the increasing risk in other sectors. Speculative buying of gold and silver reached ‘irrational exuberance’ levels last week as Trump’s new Fed pick became official and fears of dollar debasement prompted central banks as well as individual investors to increase their position in ‘safe haven’ investments. In late 2025 into early 2026, speculative financial instruments, particularly in silver, began to surge as investors poured nearly $1 billion into silver-linked ETFs, creating an unusual bubble in metals that collided with the finite nature of physical commodity futures. As the bubble burst, more speculative mania entered the market (as the Wall Street Journal suggests, perhaps coming from automated trading platforms as well as Chinese speculators), resulting in ‘wild swings’ in gold and silver valuation throughout the early part of the week as margin calls triggered more selloffs, eventually erasing an estimated $7 trillion from the market. China suspended some commodity trading in metals and oil to curb speculation as metal prices struggled to stabilize. Major indexes and Bitcoin surged back on Friday, perhaps headed for a dead cat bounce, and ag commodities made modest gains on hopes of a soybean deal with China. Still, uncertainty in financial markets in general remains high, and prompted at least one conservative economist to begin questioning the purpose of extreme financialization in today’s hard times and touch on echoes of progressive ideas such as taxation of trading to re-ground investment in the real economy.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Communities fight back against ICE’s ‘mega-warehouse’ detention camp expansion. ICE’s latest push to buy up warehouses around the country to convert into detention centers is facing fierce opposition from local communities and municipal governments, even in deep-red MAGA country, as the prospect of having a massive ‘concentration camp’ move into the neighborhood proves to be unpalatable to folks across the political spectrum. In Hanover County, Virginia, which went for Trump by 26 points in 2024, hundreds of local residents, including those who supported immigration enforcement, packed a Board of Supervisors meeting on Wednesday, January 29, to voice ‘overwhelming opposition’ to the planned facility. County Supervisors recited a statement that read in part, “Hanover County did not request that DHS select this property, was not involved in the selection process and was not consulted by the federal government prior to being notified.” Local protestors blocked roads and spoke out about the impact on neighborhoods, including a historically Black community about a half mile from the site. Supervisors sided with the community in opposing the proposal, stating: “Based on what we know today, this property is not the right location for this type of operation.” Similar site fights are proliferating across rural America, including in Hutchins, North Texas; Surprise, Arizona; Roxbury, New Jersey; and Chester, New York, among dozens of other towns, and many are succeeding.
Residents are using various tactics, including some learned from anti-ICE movements in larger cities, to mount their opposition to detention centers; and many, though not all, are backed by their local governments. In Oklahoma City, opposition from local residents convinced the warehouse owners to back out of the sale; in Chester, a bipartisan coalition has emerged to fight the project, expressing fears that a facility would stoke fear in their local immigrant community, and bring the kind of violent encounters with agents that has been seen in Minneapolis. In Social Circle, Georgia, a Republican stronghold of 5,000 people is pushing back against an ICE facility that aims to house up to 9,000 detainees. Residents say they support Trump, but that a facility that large would overwhelm their water and sewer systems, and city officials are bristling because of the lack of communication from DHS, having learned about the plan from the Washington Post. Many of these sites are located in economically depressed rural areas, and several municipal governments are concerned with the impact of the loss in tax revenue that federal purchases of warehouses and industrial parks would have on already strained budgets. In Hanover, the warehouse is owned by Canadian billionaire Jim Pattinson; upon hearing about the proposal and local opposition, Canadians in British Columbia mobilized a boycott against Pattinson’s companies, including the BC Green Party, the union representing workers at Pattinson grocery stores, and a large advertising group that suspended all media buying from Pattinson companies. Various members of Congress who have supported Trump’s agenda, such as Senators Roger Wicker and John Fetterman, apparently draw the line at having ICE in their own backyard. Even Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facility is back on the table, where protestors still gather regularly to denounce the detention center; the coalition that sued to stop the project, including the Miccosukee Tribe, filed new evidence showing that DHS misrepresented the facility as a ‘state project’ not subject to NEPA, when the federal government had helped fund, plan and operate the facility from the very beginning. The new findings could revive the original court order to close the facility.
