What a week. There is a lot of news flying at us right now from the new federal administration. And the chaos is the point. While it seems impossible to understand and react to everything, we are here to give you weekly downloads of the news you need.

The Trump administration is bulldozing changes and laws past us in an attempt to keep people too overwhelmed to react or know how to engage. It is essential to take a deep breath and focus on what you can. We have put together the biggest news stories from the Trump administration that affect our community this week.

ICE profiled American citizens and Native Americans

Sticking to one of the central tenets of his campaign, President Donald Trump has unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the nation. As border czar, Tom Homan promised that the administration would be taking the handcuffs off of ICE agents. This has led to detention and questioning of Native Americans in the Navajo Nation. 

ICE agents are harassing Native Americans, who are indigenous people of this land. Another story came out of a Puerto Rican family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who ICE agents detained after hearing them speak Spanish at a department store. Agents denied the family any chance to fight the arrest until they were bused to the detention center and were finally released.

President Trump rolled back protections for immigrants in sensitive sites

The Trump administration has rescinded a Biden-era order that prohibited ICE agents from arresting undocumented people at sensitive locations. These locations include hospitals, schools, places of worship, shelters, and relief centers. After years of designating places necessary for people’s safety as sensitive sites, the Trump administration is allowing immigration enforcement to raid schools and hospitals to arrest the most vulnerable.

President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law

The law that Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) cosponsored expands who the government can deport. Under the new law, offenses like shoplifting and minor theft can now give federal immigration officers the ability to arrest and deport migrants. The law is in response to the death of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia who was killed by an undocumented Venezuelan man, José Ibarra. According to NPR, authorities arrested Ibarra in the past, and the Trump administration has argued that the law would have removed him and prevented Riley’s death.

The “Securing Our Borders” executive order ended protections for migrants in the country legally

The “Securing Our Borders” executive order laid out several ways the Trump administration wants to curb immigration. To do this, the executive order ended the Biden-era CHNV program. The program allowed 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the U.S. and stay for up to two years if they had a U.S. sponsor. The move impacts hundreds of thousands of people who are in the U.S. with legal protection that has now been revoked. Additionally, President Trump has also pushed for an expedited deportation process.

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