2026-01-28 06:00:00
2026年1月13日，美国联邦执法机构在明尼苏达州南部明尼阿波利斯进行突袭时，拘捕了一名示威者。| Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
在上任不到一年的时间里，特朗普的新的、军事化的移民执法力量已经显露无遗。戴着面罩和防弹背心的特工似乎无处不在，从去年在芝加哥的行动，到如今在明尼阿波利斯的行动，他们已导致两名美国公民死亡，并让无数人感到恐惧。其中一部分原因是美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）工作方式的改变：正如我的同事克里斯蒂安·帕兹所报道的，特朗普第二届政府上台后，该机构从以往较少直接逮捕移民，转变为尽可能快速地逮捕更多人。此外，由于现在有更多的特工，也加剧了这种现象。特朗普政府优先考虑为ICE和海关与边境保护局（CBP）——包括边境巡逻队——招聘人员。特朗普的政策副幕僚兼实际上的移民事务负责人斯蒂芬·米勒据说每天都会要求更新ICE的招聘数据。
这一大规模招聘行动得到了去年特朗普支持的“财政协调法案”（他称之为“一个美丽伟大的法案”）带来的大量资金支持。以下是这笔资金投入的具体情况，以十亿美元为单位。查看链接
ICE和CBP都隶属于国土安全部（DHS），但为了提供背景信息，美国司法部（DOJ）的年度预算也一并列出。司法部不仅包括联邦调查局（FBI），还包括缉毒局（DEA）和酒精、烟草、枪支和爆炸物管理局（ATF）。这些机构的年度预算远低于通过财政协调法案获得的ICE和CBP的预算。
部分资金用于ICE的1亿美元招聘计划，该计划被《华盛顿邮报》报道为“战时招聘”。此外，新入职的ICE和CBP员工还能获得高达5万美元的奖金和6万美元的福利，甚至可能获得学生贷款减免。从数据来看，ICE的招聘似乎取得了成效。根据人事管理办公室（OPM）的数据，过去一年中，该机构新增了数千名员工，截至2025年11月，其员工总数已接近27,000人。查看链接
然而，ICE的真实员工人数可能更高，但需要注意的是，目前尚无最新数据。虽然我们没有更新的OPM数据，但国土安全部在1月初的一份声明中表示，他们已成功招聘了“10,000名新警员和特工”，在收到超过220,000份申请后。不过，由于国土安全部在ICE相关事务上屡次不诚实，这些数据目前仍需谨慎对待。
正如《大西洋》杂志的尼克·米罗夫本周报道的那样，这些新雇员可能还需要一段时间才能全部部署到一线，因为许多仍在接受培训。但为了追求招聘人数，培训和招聘标准也大幅下降：新ICE特工的培训时间从五个月缩短至42天，而该机构几乎是在街头直接招募人员。
一位记者劳拉·杰迪德曾为了报道项目尝试加入ICE，尽管中途放弃了申请，但她告诉《 slate》杂志，她被标记为已接受ICE的录用通知，而实际上她并未完成任何必要的文件或背景调查（她最终拒绝了这份工作）。杰迪德的经历或许最能体现当前ICE的处境：在大量资金支持下，该机构急于达成高远的招聘目标和严厉的遣返配额。然而，正如明尼苏达州的混乱所证明的那样，它在这两方面都做得并不好。
Just a year into his second term, Donald Trump’s new, militarized immigration force is on full display.
Agents in masks and plate carriers are seemingly everywhere, first in Chicago last year and now in Minneapolis, where they have killed two US citizens and terrorized uncounted more.
Some of that is because of a change in how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does its work; as my colleague Christian Paz has reported, under the second Trump administration, the agency has shifted from conducting relatively few direct arrests to trying to arrest as many people as possible, as fast as possible.
And some of it is due to the fact that there are simply many more agents now: The Trump administration has prioritized hiring for both ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which includes Border Patrol. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and de facto immigration czar, has reportedly demanded daily updates on ICE’s recruitment numbers.
This hiring blitz has been facilitated by a huge influx of new money from last year’s Trump-backed reconciliation package (what he branded as his “One Big Beautiful Bill”).
Here’s what that funding infusion looks like, in billions of dollars.
ICE and CBP are both part of the Department of Homeland Security, but for context, the annual budget of the US Department of Justice, which houses many other federal law enforcement agencies, is also included. (The DOJ includes not only the FBI, but also the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Collectively, they receive far less funding annually than either ICE or CBP did via the reconciliation package.)
In part, that money has gone toward a $100 million recruitment campaign to bring in new ICE officers, which the agency has described internally as “wartime recruitment,” according to the Washington Post.
It has also meant new benefits for current and prospective ICE and CPB employees: Up to $50,000 in bonuses for new ICE agents and $60,000 for CBP, as well as possible student loan forgiveness.
ICE’s spending is working, seemingly. The agency has added thousands of new employees in the past year, pushing its workforce to almost 27,000 people as of November 2025, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
ICE’s true workforce may be even larger, however, though there are caveats. While we don’t have more recent OPM numbers, DHS said in an early January press release that it had successfully hired “10,000 new officers and agents,” after receiving more than 220,000 applications. (Those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt until backed up by OPM, given DHS’s serial dishonesty around ICE and its operations.)
As the Atlantic’s Nick Miroff reported this week, it may take time for all of those new hires to reach the field, as many are still in training. But in the drive for raw numbers, training and recruiting standards have reportedly also fallen precipitously: The training course for new ICE recruits is now only 42 days, down from five months, and the agency is all but pulling people off the street.
One journalist, Laura Jedeed, pursued a potential job with ICE as a reporting project; despite abandoning the process midway through, she writes for Slate that she was marked as having accepted a job offer with the agency without completing any of the requisite paperwork or a background check (she ultimately rejected the job).
Jedeed’s experience is maybe the perfect encapsulation of where ICE now finds itself: Flush with money, it’s rushing to meet lofty hiring goals and draconian deportation quotas.
As the chaos in Minnesota proves, it’s doing both badly.
2026-01-28 05:30:00
2026年澳大利亚网球公开赛上，美国网球选手表现突出，其中本·谢尔顿和李·特恩是进入八强的男选手，而四位美国女选手——阿曼达·安西莫娃、科科·高夫、伊娃·洛维奇和杰西卡·佩格拉——也闯入了四分之一决赛。这些成绩引发了另一个重要话题：美国网球选手如何看待目前代表美国参赛的意义？
在赛后采访中，记者多次询问他们对代表美国参赛的感受，这背后似乎暗指美国国内的一些政治事件，如联邦执法人员在明尼苏达州杀害美国公民、关于获取格陵兰岛的争议、以及美国在委内瑞拉和伊朗的军事干预。记者似乎在问：在美国当前局势下，你们是否还为自己是美国人感到自豪？
虽然网球选手可能是今年首批在国际大赛上面对此类问题的美国运动员，但这种关注不会持续太久。两周后，冬奥会将与超级碗同时举行，届时许多运动员也将面临同样的问题。
在网球界，国家代表通常具有重要意义，尤其是在ATP和WTA巡回赛中。例如，由于俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，俄罗斯和白俄罗斯的选手目前被禁止代表国家参赛，且比赛名单中没有他们的国旗。这些选手也经常被问及对乌克兰战争的看法，如白俄罗斯选手阿丽娜·萨巴伦卡曾多次表示自己支持和平。
然而，美国选手通常不会被问及类似问题。但随着美国国内和国际上一系列政治事件的发生，这种状况发生了变化。例如，世界排名第三的高夫被问及对特朗普政府的看法，她表示自己感到疲倦，因为作为黑人女性在美国生活并不容易，而且她看到边缘群体受到伤害。她希望未来美国能更加团结，回归其核心价值观。
同样，2025年冠军麦迪逊·凯斯也表达了类似的观点，强调希望美国能重新团结起来，回归其多元和包容的特质。然而，这些言论被一些右翼媒体和个人批评，认为这是在煽动反特朗普情绪。
谢尔顿在获胜后在镜头前写下“USA till it's backwards”（美国直到变得倒退），引发争议。他后来澄清，这并非政治表态，而是为了庆祝美国年轻选手在澳大利亚的表现，以及他的女友首次代表美国参赛。
在所有美国选手的回应中，安西莫娃的发言最为引人注目。她拒绝回答具体的政治立场，称“这与我无关”。尽管她试图保持中立，但这一回应却引发了两极的反应。一些球迷认为她支持共和党，而一些共和党人则认为她没有被政治利用。
安西莫娃后来解释说，她认为这个问题只是为了制造话题和点击率，而不是真正想了解她的政治立场。她表示，自己有权拒绝回答这种明显带有偏见的问题。
事实上，美国运动员在体育领域中的成就和影响力往往反映了国家的文化和价值观。然而，当前特朗普政府的政策使美国在国际舞台上的声誉下降，这使得美国运动员在面对政治问题时更加复杂。例如，关于跨性别运动员的争议、ICE（移民与海关执法局）在超级碗期间的出现，以及美国签证政策对国际赛事的影响，都表明美国体育与政治密不可分。
随着冬奥会即将在米兰举行，美国运动员也可能会面临类似的问题。美国队在冬奥会中表现强劲，有望在多个项目中获得奖牌。届时，他们将不得不面对如何在政治敏感的环境中表达对国家的支持。
One of the biggest stories coming out of the 2026 Australian Open is how well the American tennis players are doing. Four US women — Amanda Anisimova, Coco Gauff, Iva Jovic, Jessica Pegula — are in the quarterfinals and two men — Ben Shelton and Learner Tien — also made the final eight. (Gauff, Jovic, and Tien lost their quarterfinal matches on Tuesday.) Those accomplishments have led to the other big American story coming out of the Aussie Open: How do US tennis players feel about representing their country at this moment?
In post-match interviews, they’ve been asked, some of them multiple times for clarification, what it means to play under the American flag. Implicitly, these questions are referring to federal agents killing American citizens in Minnesota, or perhaps the increasingly strange and heated threats about acquiring Greenland, or the military intervention in Venezuela and threats to launch military strikes on Iran.
Essentially, reporters are asking: Are you proud to be an American in a moment and time when so many Americans aren’t?
While tennis players may be the first US athletes on a major international stage this year to deal with this attention, they won’t be the last. In two weeks, the Winter Olympics will begin and coincide with the Super Bowl, the most-watched sporting event in the US. Many of those athletes will face the same question about what parts of America they are or aren’t celebrating.
Country representation can be a big deal in tennis when its governing bodies — the ATP and WTA tour — want it to be. For example, Russian and Belarusian tennis players are currently not allowed to represent their countries on tour and do not have flags next to their names, a decision made in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The intent is to represent neutrality despite the countries’ international aggression toward Ukraine.
Russian and Belarusian players have also, on multiple occasions, been asked what their stance on the Ukraine invasion has been. Aryna Sabalenka, the current women’s number one who happens to be from Belarus, has clarified her stance several times. This week, after a Ukrainian player said Sabalenka and other Russian and Belarusian players playing in grand slams was “wrong,” Sabalenka told reporters: “I’ve been clear before that I’m pro-peace. Nothing has changed. That’s all I can say about that.”
Asking tennis players about international and personal politics isn’t uncommon, but these queries usually aren’t on American tennis players. The aforementioned political events unfolding stateside and internationally have changed that.
Coco Gauff, the third-ranked player in the world, was asked about the state of the US under the second Trump administration and told reporters this week, “At this point, I feel a bit fatigued talking about it, just because of the fact that it is hard being a Black woman in this country and having to experience things, even online, and seeing marginalized communities being affected.” She added, “I hope that as time continues that we can reach a state that we’re not currently in, and we keep moving forward.”
2025 champ Madison Keys was also asked the same question this week, and responded similarly to Gauff. “I think it’s pretty obvious where I stand, and I am hopeful that we, as a country, can come together and get back to the values that I think make our country great. I am not a fan of divisiveness, and I think the beauty of the US is we are a mixing pot, we are very diverse, we are a home of immigrants,” she told reporters. “I hope that we can get back to those values.”
Both Gauff and Keys’s comments were picked up by right-wing sites and personalities, some of whom criticized the reporter for goading anti-Trump sentiment out of the players.
On the other side of the political spectrum, Ben Shelton endured sharp scrutiny after scribbling “USA till its backwards” on a camera in a post-win celebration. Critics questioned why he was seemingly celebrating his country while there was violence happening in Minnesota.
Shelton later clarified, saying that his message wasn’t meant to be political. He posted on Instagram: “Literally no underlying message with my camera sign… a lot of young Americans killing it in Australia this year. And my girlfriend played for team USA for the first time in a year this morning. Thought they deserved a shoutout.”
Out of all the American players’ comments, it was Amanda Anisimova’s that made the most noise. It wasn’t because of her views, but because she declined to tell reporters her specific political views. “I don’t think that’s relevant,” Anisimova told the reporter who asked the same question posed to Gauff and Keys.
Even though Anisimova tried to claim neutrality, her comments ignited a sharp reaction from both political wings. Some fans criticized her and jumped to the conclusion that she was Republican. At the same time, some Republicans assumed her allegiance and cheered her on for not taking what they saw as anti-Trump bait.
Anisimova clarified her statement on January 25, telling reporters that she felt like the question was asked just to create a spectacle and a distraction. “In my other press conference…I didn’t want to answer a question that was obviously intended for a headline and clickbait; that was my right,” she told reporters. “It had nothing to do with my political views or anything like that. The fact that people assume that they know my stance on certain important topics is just wrong. It’s not factual. It’s tough but I’ve learned to get used to it.”
Anisimova has a point in that a brief, post-win press conference isn’t likely to be a place where you’re going to get a serious, thoughtful answer from tennis players about politics.
At the same time, there’s a history of American achievement and activism in sports that has been pivotal to shaping political moments, especially in tennis. At the moment, star athletes in other sports, particularly basketball, have been outspoken in their opposition to the Trump administration’s actions.
The insistence on figuring out how these players feel about the US is part of a longer, continuous debate about how sports figures respond to politics. The viral reaction from both sides to Anisimova’s “no comment” seems like enough evidence that people do want politics from athletes — just not politics they disagree with. Many fans decide to root for or against an athlete or team based on politics. And while athletes’ achievements are straightforward (they win or lose), how famous they become, their legacies, and their impact on sport are often reflections of the culture at large and what we value.
What’s made it more complicated for US athletes today is that the US’s reputation on the international stage has declined under the second Trump administration. If Russian and Belarusian players’ opinions about their leaders are fair game, as they currently are in tennis, it’s not beyond the pale to ask Americans questions about how they feel about theirs.
The plea to keep tennis and other sports away from politics also feels a bit hollow when there are policies within the US directly affecting sports. From the ongoing debate and litigation about trans athletes, to the administration’s assurance that ICE — after killing two American citizens in Minneapolis in January — will be at the Super Bowl in two weeks, to how the US’s visa bans will affect who can and can’t come to attend the World Cup, there is no cleaving away US politics from US sports.
One would also expect Team USA athletes to field similar questions in Milan when the Winter Olympics begin in February.
Team USA is poised to have a big presence at the Games and are favorites to medal in multiple events. With those wins come traditions like playing the national anthem and extensive interviews with medalists. The Olympics are also a place where politics are already a storyline. The US intends to send ICE officers to the Games, but Giuseppe Sala, the mayor of Milan, told reporters this week that ICE was a “militia that kills” and that it would not be welcome in his city.
Unlike the American tennis players, Olympic athletes may not be able to just ignore how complicated it is in this moment to simply celebrate the US.
2026-01-28 04:05:00
《你的里程可能不同》是一档建议专栏，它提供了一个独特的框架，帮助我们思考道德困境。该专栏基于价值多元主义——即每个人都有多种价值观，这些价值观虽然同样有效，但常常彼此冲突。如果你想提交问题，请填写这个匿名表格。以下是本周读者提出的问题（已进行简化和编辑以提高清晰度）：我越来越担心美国的政治局势。然而，即使在明尼苏达州发生了一系列事件后，我的一些朋友似乎仍然对政治漠不关心。他们没有谈论如何参与，而是继续过着“一切照旧”的生活——举办晚宴、在社交媒体上随意发帖等。也许他们认为自己不是目标，所以这与他们个人无关。或者他们只是忙于自己的家庭和工作，不确定是否应该参与政治斗争。我的强烈直觉是，我们所有人都有责任参与其中。但我不知道如何向他们传达这一点，也不知道他们应该扮演什么样的角色。我该如何说服他们，我们已经无法再回到“一切照旧”的状态，并与他们讨论他们对整个国家应尽的责任？
亲爱的积极参与政治的你，你真正想要的是一个框架——一种理解我们在极权体制下的责任的方式，以及为什么并非所有人都能清楚地看到这种责任。因此，我想向你介绍一位名叫恩斯特·弗伦克尔的人。弗伦克尔是一位德国犹太政治学家和劳工法专家，他敏锐地观察到了纳粹政治体制。在1930年代目睹希特勒崛起后，他写了一本关于当时德国情况的手稿。后来他移居美国，并于1941年出版了名为《双重国家》的书。幸运的是，我们目前所面临的状况远没有纳粹时期那么严重：今天的美国并非1940年代的德国。然而，弗伦克尔的分析正在经历一个小范围的复兴，它为我们理解当前美国正在展开的极权主义提供了一些有用的工具。
弗伦克尔的主要观点是：在极权体制下，大多数人的生活实际上是非常正常、甚至有些无聊的。普通人可以像往常一样上学、上班，甚至举办晚宴。你生活在弗伦克尔所说的“规范性国家”中，从这个角度来看，如果你保持低调、避免惹事，你就会觉得一切都很正常。然而，弗伦克尔的书名为《双重国家》是有原因的。第一个国家，即“一切照旧”的国家，其存在是为了让你产生一种安逸感，从而不会意识到另一个国家——弗伦克尔称之为“特权国家”——也在同时运作。只有当你做了某些不被掌权者喜欢的事情时，这个“特权国家”才会显现出来。然后，你就会发现自己处于一个法律不再起作用、公民可以随意被杀害、甚至你——一个原本认为自己不会受到威胁的人——也可能成为目标的境地。
这种体制的黑暗之处在于，大多数人只有在“特权国家”的黑暗面触及到他们自己时，才会意识到它正在运作。正如弗伦克尔所说：“双重国家依靠掩盖其真实面目而存在。”因此，你的朋友政治冷漠并不令人意外。如果他们认为自己不是目标——比如他们是公民、是白人、没有说错的口音或表达错误的政治观点——那么他们很容易认为一切都很正常，因为整个政治体系就是为了让他们产生这种想法的。
当然，你是对的。一切并不正常。因此，我认为我们首先要做的，是认识我们所处的现实。只有在意识到我们生活在“双重国家”中后，才能明白顺从并不能拯救我们，而必须采取某种行动。对于你来说，关键的问题是：如何让朋友意识到他们正处于“双重国家”中，而其黑暗的一面尚未影响到他们个人？
首先，你可以给他们一个框架，而弗伦克尔对“双重国家”的解释是我找到的最有帮助的框架之一。但你也可以通过一个具体的例子来增强这个框架的力量——比如谈论蕾妮·妮可尔·古德（Renee Nicole Good）的故事。这位37岁的女性被美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）射杀，她并未携带武器，只是坐在车里观察一次ICE行动。她是一位白人女性，也是美国公民，按理说并不是人们预期会成为目标的人。然而，她还是被杀，这使她成为弗伦克尔观点的悲剧性例证：极权主义看起来就像正常、可预测的生活，直到它不再如此。存在一个隐藏的触发点，你可能在不知不觉中触碰了它，直到你发现自己面对枪口。
最近，俄罗斯裔美国记者M. Gessen在《纽约时报》的一篇文章中也提出了类似的观点，她认为正是明尼阿波利斯发生的不可预测性，揭示了美国正在经历的国家恐怖——类似于弗伦克尔所说的“特权国家”——而不仅仅是普通的压制。Gessen写道：“随机性是恐怖统治与普通压制之间的区别。即使在残酷压制的政权下，比如东欧的苏联加盟共和国，人们也知道自己哪些行为是可接受的……而基于恐怖的政权则会使用暴力来传达一个信息：任何人都可能成为暴力的受害者。”
换句话说，如果古德遭遇了这样的事情，那么其他人也可能会遭遇。通过在弗伦克尔的分析框架中谈论古德，你可以尝试让朋友意识到，采取某种行动对每个人来说都是有益的。这并不是出于某种抽象的道德义务，而是因为在这样的时刻，我们选择成为什么样的人，以及留下什么样的遗产，将影响下一代。
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Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form. Here’s this week’s question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity:
I feel increasingly alarmed by what’s happening politically in America. And yet, even in light of everything in Minnesota, some of my friends seem very apolitical. Instead of talking about ways to get involved, they’re going on with business as usual — hosting dinner parties, posting random stuff on social media, etc. Maybe they think they’re not the target so this isn’t urgent for them personally. Or maybe they’re just busy with their own families and jobs and don’t know if it’s their role to get involved in a political fight.
My strong intuition is that we’re all obligated to play some role in this. But I don’t know how to convey that to them or how to articulate exactly what that role should be. How can I convince them that we’re past the point of “business as usual” and talk to them about what they owe the rest of the country?
Dear Politically Active,
What you’re really grasping for here is a framework — a way to think about what our duty is under authoritarianism, and a way to understand why not everyone is seeing that duty clearly.
So I want to introduce you to a man named Ernst Fraenkel. A German Jewish political scientist and labor lawyer, Fraenkel was a keen observer of the Nazi political system. As he watched Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, he wrote a manuscript about what he was noticing on the ground in Germany. Then he moved to the US and, in 1941, he published his book under the title The Dual State.
Thankfully, we are not currently facing a situation as grave as Nazism: Today’s America is not 1940s Germany. Yet Fraenkel’s analysis, which is enjoying a mini resurgence, offers us some helpful tools for getting our heads around the authoritarianism we see unfolding in the US right now.
Here’s his main insight: Life under authoritarianism is actually, for the most part, weirdly normal. It’s often even, well, boring. The average person can go about their day as usual. You take your kids to school, you head to the office, and yes, you even host dinner parties. You live in the realm that Fraenkel referred to as “the normative state,” and from within that realm, it’s easy to think that if you just keep your head down and avoid making waves, you’ll be perfectly fine, thank you very much.
But Fraenkel’s book is called The Dual State for a reason. This first state, the business-as-usual one, actually exists to lull you into a sense of complacency such that you don’t realize that another state is also operating in parallel with it. That second state, which Fraenkel calls “the prerogative state,” only becomes visible to you when you do something that the powers that be don’t like. Then suddenly you’re in a realm where the rule of law does not exist, where citizens can be killed with impunity, where you — even you, who thought you were invulnerable — can become a target.
The dark genius of this setup is that most people don’t realize that the prerogative state is active until it’s too late. They only wake up when the knock comes on their very own door — or when the door is forcefully broken down.
“The Dual State lives by veiling its true nature,” Fraenkel wrote.
That’s why it’s not surprising to me that your friends have been politically inactive. If they think of themselves as “not the target” — if they’re citizens, if they’re white, if they don’t speak with the “wrong” accent or express the “wrong” political views in public — it’s extremely easy for them to think everything is mostly normal, because the whole political apparatus is designed to make them think exactly that.
But, of course, you’re right. Everything is not normal.
And so, I would argue, the first obligation we all have is an epistemic one: It’s to know what kind of reality we are actually inhabiting. All other obligations will then flow from that knowledge. Because once we discern that we are living in a dual state, it becomes obvious that compliance won’t save us, and that some kind of action is called for.
For you, the tricky question is: How do you get someone to realize that they’re in a dual state, when its darker half has not yet touched their life personally?
To start with, you can give them a frame, and Fraenkel’s explanation of the dual state is the most helpful one I’ve found. But you can also make it more powerful by placing a particular picture inside the frame — a concrete illustration of the dual state dynamic.
And here is where you might want to talk about Renee Nicole Good.
The 37-year-old who was shot to death by ICE was not armed. She simply sat idling in her car and observing an ICE operation. And she was a white woman. And a citizen. By all accounts, not someone you’d expect to be targeted.
She was killed anyway, and that makes her, tragically, an illustration of Fraenkel’s insight: Authoritarianism feels a lot like normal, predictable life — until it doesn’t. There’s a hidden tripwire you can step on, but you often don’t realize you’ve stepped on it until you find yourself with a gun in your face.
The Russian American journalist M. Gessen made this point in a recent New York Times column, which argues that it’s precisely the unpredictability that we’re seeing in Minneapolis that reveals that state terror — something like Fraenkel’s prerogative state — is happening in the US, not just run-of-the-mill repression.
“The randomness is the difference between a regime based on terror and a regime that is plainly repressive,” Gessen writes. “Even in brutally repressive regimes, including those of the Soviet colonies in Eastern Europe, one knew where the boundaries of acceptable behavior lay… A regime based on terror, on the other hand, deploys violence precisely to reinforce the message that anyone can be subjected to it.”
In other words, if it happened to Good, it can happen to more or less anyone.
By talking about Good in the context of Fraenkel’s analysis, you can try to bring this home to your friends.
And if that fails? Try what I call “the grandkid test.”
Feel free to email me at [email protected] or fill out this anonymous form. Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here.
I grew up in a Jewish community that focused heavily on Holocaust education; many of our grandparents were Holocaust survivors. And I remember that my peers and I used to always ask ourselves: If we were non-Jewish Germans in 1940s Germany, how would we have acted? Would we have hidden Jews in our attics? Would we have stood up to the Nazis? Or would we have complied in hopes of saving our own skin?
Again and again, we came back to this: We hope that we would have acted as the brave people in our grandparents’ generation acted. We hope that we would have done something that would make our grandkids proud.
You can present this thought experiment to your friends. Tell them that one day their grandkids may ask them what they did in the wake of Minnesota, or under this administration more broadly. Will they be able to answer in a way that makes that young, upturned face beam?
To pass the grandkid test, people don’t necessarily need to put their bodies in the street in Minneapolis. Everyone exists at a different risk level, and we shouldn’t expect a noncitizen or someone who is undocumented, say, to put themselves at risk to the same degree as someone with more privilege.
For some, taking action will mean attending a peaceful protest in their own city; for others, it might mean making donations so that Minnesotans can afford safety equipment, dash cams, or legal aid; for others still, it might mean bringing groceries to a family that feels extra vulnerable and is afraid to leave the house.
But the grandkid test is a powerful way to bring home the realization that taking some kind of action is in everyone’s best interest — not because of an abstract moral obligation, but because it’s in moments like these that we choose what kind of people we will be, and what kind of legacy we’ll leave behind for the next generations to follow.
2026-01-28 03:55:48
2023年3月11日，张又侠在北京人民大会堂与中央军委成员宣誓。近年来，中国领导人习近平一直在系统性地清除高级军事领导人，这是他掌权以来对约20万名官员进行惩处的总体行动的一部分。尽管官方称这是反腐行动，但大多数人认为，这同时也是巩固中国共产党领导权的努力。数百名高级军官被撤职，包括前国防部长。然而，即使经历了这么多，本周宣布中国最高军事领导人张又侠因“严重违纪和违法问题”被调查仍令中国观察人士感到震惊。这表明，即便在对台战争爆发的全球性担忧日益加剧的背景下，我们对高层动态的了解仍然有限。分析人士担心，随着可能具有世界历史意义的决策临近，习近平或许正在清除那些曾敢于对他说“不”的人。
作为中央军委副主席，张又侠是习近平之后的二号人物。他与另一位高级将领刘振立被撤职，使得军委只剩下习近平和一名地位较低的成员。张又侠被视为对党极其忠诚且能力出众，同时也是少数拥有实战经验的中国军事官员之一，曾参与1979年对越作战。他常被描述为习近平最重要的军事盟友。与习近平一样，张又侠是“太子党”成员，其父辈曾在毛泽东领导的西北军队中并肩作战，两人自幼相识，尽管他们之间的私人关系尚不清楚。
换句话说，如果还有谁被认为是不可触碰的，那便是张又侠。前台湾立法机构成员、现胡德林研究所高级研究员杰森·许（Jason Hsu）表示：“这不是一个普通的腐败案件，这是一个特殊案件。” 张又侠被撤职的确切原因可能永远无法知晓。根据《解放军报》的一篇社论，他和刘振立“助长了政治和腐败问题，威胁了党对军队的绝对领导，并削弱了党的执政基础”。这些问题对军队的政治环境和整体战备状态造成了负面影响，对党、国家和军队都产生了严重不良影响。
近年来，中国军力的迅速扩张为腐败提供了大量机会。有报道称，张又侠被指控接受贿赂以换取晋升，或向美国泄露核武器信息。社交媒体上也流传着未经证实的谣言，称张又侠曾参与针对习近平的政变计划。尽管很难判断这些报道和谣言的可信度，但可以确定的是，习近平或其身边人对此非常重视。
与大多数国家的军队不同，中国人民解放军是执政党的武装力量，因此政治忠诚、个人关系和意识形态纯洁度尤为重要。许认为，张又侠的被撤职“表明中国政治领导层内部存在焦虑，认为解放军内部存在系统性的政治风险。” 张又侠的倒台对任何参与中国政治体系的人来说都可能是一个震惊，因为如果他都能被清除，其他人也一样。
然而，对于外界而言，更紧迫的问题是，这对中国在东亚地区发动战争的可能性意味着什么。尽管官方仍坚持“和平统一”政策，但美国官员认为，习近平希望军队在2027年前做好武力收复台湾的准备。然而，对一个山地且人口密集的岛屿进行两栖入侵本身就充满风险，而最大的不确定性在于美国是否会为保卫台湾而开战。美国多个总统政府都维持着对这一问题的“战略模糊”政策。特朗普在任期间的言论、对领土完整问题的交易性态度、将重点放在西半球和边境安全而非“大国竞争”，以及对昂贵军事行动的回避，都加剧了外界对美国是否会介入的怀疑。特朗普曾表示：“他（习近平）认为台湾是中国的一部分，这由他决定。但我告诉他，如果他这么做我会非常不满，我认为他不会这么做。”
郑文彬（Yun Sun）在最近的一篇文章中指出，由于特朗普对台湾问题的漠视，习近平可能会加快统一的时间表。她写道：“中国可能再也没有一个时刻，华盛顿会如此不愿介入台湾事务。”
张又侠的被撤职如何影响这一动态？郑文彬告诉《 vox 》：“张又侠曾与习近平在台湾问题上存在分歧，他从军事角度来看更为保守。随着他和其追随者的被清除，系统内部的阻力大大减少。” 一些分析人士认为，这种阻力可能是张又侠被撤职的原因。在中国政治体系中，这类政治分歧通常不会公开表现。但2024年，张又侠在官方媒体《人民日报》上发表了一篇社论，强调军队在实现现代化和改革目标方面仍需进一步改进，特别是复杂联合行动的能力。一些美国分析人士认为，这暗示张又侠认为军队尚未达到习近平设定的2027年前准备就绪的期限。
台湾分析人士特里斯坦·郑（K. Tristan Tang）则认为，张又侠的被撤职可能与他对军事改革速度的分歧有关，他本人因曾参与失败的对越作战而更倾向于缓慢推进。
张又侠还与国际同行保持良好关系。前国防部官员、中国问题专家德鲁·汤普森（Drew Thompson）在一篇Substack文章中回忆称，张又侠“给人一种能力非凡的印象”，并且“不像其他一些高级军官那样害怕与外国人交流”。关于核泄漏的谣言表明，这种与外国人交流的意愿可能成为他的弱点，但同时也意味着，中美两国在紧张局势下可能更少进行高层军事对话。
政治学者谢瓦·古尼茨基（Seva Gunitsky）和塞穆希·西纳诺卢（Semuhi Sinanoglu）在《外交事务》杂志的一篇文章中描述了“个人主义世界秩序”的出现，即世界三大军事强国——美国、中国和俄罗斯——由“纯粹基于个人兴趣和动机而非国家整体利益”行事的领导人领导。在普京的例子中，2022年对乌克兰的入侵似乎源于他个人的历史情结和恢复俄罗斯伟大的愿景。正如古尼茨基和西纳诺卢所写，“没有人敢告诉普京这个想法是个糟糕的主意，更可能将俄罗斯拖入一场代价高昂、血腥的泥潭，而不是一场迅速而决定性的胜利。”
习近平与普京不同，但他同样明确表示，收复台湾对于“中华民族伟大复兴”是必要的。我们不知道他何时愿意冒险，以实现这一目标，这可能意味着成千上万台湾和中国大陆人民的生命受到威胁，对全球经济造成灾难性后果，甚至可能引发两个拥有核武器的超级大国之间的战争。但我们可以确定的是，他似乎在清除那些可能劝阻他的人。
In recent years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been systematically purging his country’s senior military leaders, part of an overall campaign that has meted out punishment to some 200,000 officials since he took power. It’s officially an anti-corruption program but also, most believe, an effort to consolidate power over China’s ruling Communist Party. Hundreds of senior officers have been removed, including former defense ministers.
But even after all that, this week’s announcement that China’s top general, Zhang Youxia, had been placed under investigation for “serious disciplinary and legal violations” came as a shock to China watchers. It was a sign that we know even less than we thought about what’s happening at the top of the world’s largest military at a time of escalating fears over a catastrophic global war over Taiwan. The concern, among analysts, is that with a potentially world historical decision looming, Xi may be removing the last people with the power to tell him “no.”
As vice chair of the Central Military Commission, Zhang was second-in-command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) after Xi. His removal, along with Liu Zhenli, another senior general, leaves only Xi and one other low ranking member on the commission.
Zhang was seen as both extremely loyal to the party and highly competent, as well as one of the few Chinese military officers with real combat experience, having served in the ill-fated invasion of Vietnam in 1979. He was often described as Xi’s most important military ally.
Like Xi, he is a “princeling,” the son of a senior Communist Party leader. The two men’s fathers even served together in Mao Zedong’s army in Northwest China during the Chinese civil war, and the sons have likely known each other since childhood, though it’s not clear how close they are personally.
In other words, if anyone looked untouchable, it was Zhang. “This is not just another corruption case,” said Jason Hsu, a former Taiwanese legislator who is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “This one is special.”
The exact reasons for Zhang’s ouster may never be known. Officially, according to an editorial published by the PLA Daily, he and Liu “fueled political and corruption problems that threaten the party’s absolute leadership over the armed forces and undermine the party’s governance foundation.” These problems adversely affected “the military’s political environment, and overall combat readiness, posing a serious adverse impact on the party, the country, and the military.”
The massive spending that has accompanied China’s military build-up in recent years has created ample opportunities for corruption. Reports have been leaked to the international media that Zhang had been accused of accepting bribes for promotions or sharing nuclear weapons information with the United States. Unsubstantiated rumors have also circulated on social media that Zhang was involved in a coup plot against Xi.
It’s hard to know how seriously to take these reports and rumors, but it may be enough that Xi or those around him were taking them seriously. Unlike most national militaries, the PLA is officially the armed wing of China’s ruling political party, so there’s a greater premium put on political loyalty, personal relationships, and ideological purity.
In Hsu’s view, Zhang’s ouster “signals internal anxiety” within China’s political leadership that there are “systemic political risks within the PLA.”
Zhang’s downfall likely comes as a shock to the system to anyone involved in China’s political system — if he can be purged, anyone can. But outside China, the more pressing question is what it could mean for the prospect of war in East Asia.
Although officially, China is still committed to a policy of “peaceful reunification” of Taiwan, the de facto independent island nation that it considers a rebellious province, US officials believe that Xi has set a goal for the military of being ready to retake Taiwan by force by 2027.
An amphibious invasion of a mountainous and densely populated island is a dicey proposition on its own, but the biggest unknown for Chinese military planners is whether the United States would go to war to defend Taiwan from an invasion or blockade. Under multiple presidential administrations, the US has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on that question.
President Donald Trump’s statements on the issue, his generally transactional attitude on questions of territorial integrity, his administration’s prioritization of the Western Hemisphere and border security over “great power competition,” and his aversion to costly military engagements (as opposed to quick decisive victories) have added to doubts about whether he would commit the US military to defend Taiwan. In a recent interview, Trump said “He (Xi) considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing. But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that.”
In a recent article, Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, suggested that thanks to Trump’s indifferent attitude, Xi may be speeding up his timeline for reunification. “China may never again have a moment when Washington is so reluctant to intervene on Taiwan’s behalf,” she writes.
How does Zhang’s purge affect this dynamic? “Zhang has disagreed with Xi on acting on Taiwan,” Sun told Vox. “He is much more conservative from the military point of view. With the purge of him and his people, there is much less resistance in the system.”
Some analysts believe this resistance may be the reason why Zhang was purged. In the Chinese political system, political disagreements like these don’t often play out in public. But in 2024, Zhang published an editorial in the state-run People’s Daily highlighting areas where further improvements were needed to meet the China’s military’s goals for modernization and reform — particularly the ability to conduct complex joint operations. Some US analysts interpreted this to mean that Zhang was suggesting the military was not on pace to meet Xi’s deadline for being ready for action on Taiwan.
The Taiwanese analyst K. Tristan Tang suggests that Zhang’s ouster may have actually been related to disagreements over the pace of military reforms, with the general — who had firsthand experience of a failed invasion — favoring a slower timeline.
Does that mean an invasion or blockade is more likely now? In the near-term, at least, not necessarily. A moment when the military’s senior leadership is in turmoil is probably not the best time to launch a risky major operation.
Ming-Shih Shen, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank affiliated with Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, told Vox by email that he believes China is unlikely to use force against Taiwan before 2027 barring a major provocative move from the Taiwanese side.
“Xi Jinping needs time to reorganize the military,” Shen said. “With such a significant replacement of generals, who can plan the offensive war planning against Taiwan, and who will command it?”
Xi has also reportedly sought concessions on Taiwan policy in trade talks with Trump. While these efforts haven’t borne fruit yet, the Chinese may be reluctant to upset US-China relations at a moment when Trump is making it very clear that he’s interested in cutting deals.
In the longer term, however, the picture gets murkier. Zhang’s purge “will likely reduce or eliminate opposition power to Xi Jinping’s attack intent on Taiwan, potentially allowing him to pursue his personal historical achievements,” Shen said.
“It’s not quite ‘truth to power’ in the way we talk about it here in the US, but probably as close as you’re going to get in the Chinese system,” said Brendan Mulvaney, Director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute, a US Air Force think tank that studies the Chinese military. “He may have been that voice of reason or moderation saying, ‘hey, look, we’ve come a really long way. We’ve got a plan. We’re working on it, but no, it’s still going to be a long time till we’re ready.’”
Zhang also maintained good relations with international counterparts. In a Substack post, Drew Thompson, a China analyst and former Defense Department official who had interacted with the general, recalls that he had “an aura of competence about him” and “wasn’t afraid to talk to foreigners unlike some other senior officers who were often afraid or unable to engage.” The rumors about nuclear leaks suggest this willingness to talk to foreigners may have been a liability, but it also likely means there will be even less leader-to-leader contact between the two countries’ defense establishments at a moment of high tension.
In a recent article for Foreign Affairs, the political scientists Seva Gunitsky and Semuhi Sinanoglu described the emergence of a “personalist world order” in which the world’s three preeminent military powers, the US, China, and Russia, are led by leaders “driven purely by their own private fixations and incentives rather than coherent national interests.”
In Putin’s case, his decision in 2022 to launch the disastrous invasion of Ukraine appears to have been motivated by his personal historical fixations and vision of restoring Russian greatness. It was abetted by the fact that, as Gunitsky and Sinanoglu write, “no one dared tell Putin” it was a terrible idea more likely to lead Russia into a costly and bloody quagmire than a quick and decisive victory.
Xi is a very different leader than Putin, but similarly to his Russian counterpart, he has made clear that he believes taking control of Taiwan is necessary for the “rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation.
We don’t know whether or when Xi might be willing to take a gamble to achieve that goal that risks thousands of Taiwanese and Chinese lives, would have disastrous consequences for the global economy and potentially lead to a war between two nuclear armed superpowers. But we do know he appears to be eliminating the kind of people who might be willing to tell him it’s not a good idea.
2026-01-28 02:40:00
2026年1月24日凌晨，明尼苏达州南明尼阿波利斯市的尼科莱特大道上，联邦特工在该地区射杀了亚历克斯·普雷蒂。据《明尼苏达星报》图片报道，明尼苏达联邦地区法院的首席法官帕特里克·席尔茨（Patrick Schiltz）是一位乔治·W·布什任命的法官，曾为最高法院大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚（Antonin Scalia）担任过书记员。他最近发布了一项引人注目的命令，要求美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）负责人托德·洛伊兹（Todd Lyons）亲自出庭，解释为何不应被认定为藐视法庭。
席尔茨法官在“胡安·T·R诉诺姆”（Juan T. R. v. Noem）一案中，曾于本月早些时候下达了一个相对简单的裁决，要求ICE要么在七天内为胡安提供保释听证，要么立即释放他。该裁决日期为1月14日。然而，截至1月26日，胡安仍未获得保释听证，仍被拘留。席尔茨指出，他的1月14日裁决只是最近几周内众多未被遵守的法院命令之一。在一些情况下，特朗普政府甚至在没有正当理由的情况下延长了拘留；在另一些情况下，他们将应留在明尼苏达州的外国人送往德克萨斯州，有时甚至在那里释放他们，并让他们自行想办法回家。
席尔茨在命令中表示，“法院的耐心已经到了极限”，并要求洛伊兹亲自出庭，说明为何不应被认定为藐视法庭。命令还指出，如果胡安在1月30日听证会前被释放，洛伊兹可能可以缺席听证会并避免被认定为藐视法庭。
席尔茨的命令揭示了法院对特朗普政府不作为的不满。他指出，特朗普政府决定派遣数千名特工前往明尼苏达州拘留外国人，却没有为由此产生的数百起保释申请和诉讼做好准备。事实上，自特朗普上任以来，司法部在应对这些案件方面的能力已经明显下降。例如，明尼苏达州的至少六名司法部律师，包括美国检察官办公室的第二号人物，因特朗普政府要求对被联邦移民官员乔纳森·罗斯（Jonathan Ross）杀害的瑞妮·古德（Renee Good）的遗孀展开刑事调查而辞职。
席尔茨并非唯一一位对特朗普政府官员不遵守法院命令而威胁制裁的法官。例如，上周一，法官凯瑟琳·门德兹（Katherine Menendez）在审理明尼苏达州提起的诉讼时，要求司法部解释司法部长帕姆·邦迪（Pam Bondi）的一封信。信中表示，联邦政府在明尼苏达州的行动是为了迫使该州向特朗普做出多项政策让步，包括交出该州的选民名单。然而，联邦政府不能使用武力迫使州政府改变政策，这种行为违反了宪法第十修正案。
此外，洛伊兹并非唯一一位被法官威胁制裁的特朗普政府官员。上个月，一位由特朗普任命的弗吉尼亚里士满联邦法官威胁要对当时在司法部工作的林赛·霍利甘（Lindsey Halligan）进行纪律处分，因为她错误地声称自己是东部弗吉尼亚的美国检察官。此前，联邦法院已裁定她并不担任该职务。据NBC新闻报道，霍利甘随后已离开司法部。
其他法官也已对特朗普的律师在法庭上的陈述产生怀疑，甚至一些通常以支持检察官起诉而著称的大陪审团也开始质疑特朗普政府的主张。例如，仅在2024年9月，华盛顿特区的大陪审团就拒绝了七起刑事案件的起诉。相比之下，在特朗普首次上任前的2016年，联邦检察官当年启动了超过155,000起刑事案件，而大陪审团仅拒绝了其中六起的起诉。
尽管特朗普政府的司法部表现不佳，但尚不清楚这种不作为会带来多大的影响，因为美国最高法院的共和党多数派大多支持特朗普。2024年，最高法院裁定特朗普可以利用总统权力实施犯罪。然而，最高法院只审理联邦法院案件的一小部分。因此，即使共和党大法官继续为特朗普政府辩护，如果这些法院的法官们不信任司法部的诚实性和对法院命令的遵守，那么司法部处理大量案件将面临行政上的困难。
席尔茨在最近的命令中提到，明尼苏达州的占领行动可能引发数百起案件，其中许多涉及联邦法律的明显违反，例如胡安·T·R案。即便最高法院也未必会介入每一起由联邦法官下令释放被特朗普政府非法拘留的人的案件。
The chief judge of Minnesota’s federal district court, a George W. Bush appointee who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, just issued a remarkable order commanding the head of ICE to appear personally before him to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court.
Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz’s order in Juan T.R. v. Noem seeks to enforce a fairly straightforward decision he handed down earlier this month.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested an immigrant man, identified only as “Juan T.R.” in court documents, and sought to detain him under a provision of federal law that calls for detention “in the case of an alien who is an applicant for admission.” But Juan is not applying to be admitted to the United States. According to Schiltz’s original order, Juan arrived in the United States around 1999. So the Trump administration’s legal justification for detaining him is simply inapplicable to this case.
Accordingly, Schiltz ordered ICE to either provide Juan with a bond hearing within seven days, or to immediately release him from detention. That order is dated January 14.
Schiltz’s second order, meanwhile, is dated January 26 — five days after the original seven day deadline expired — and it notes that “Juan has not received a bond hearing and remains detained.” Worse, Schiltz writes that his January 14 order is “one of dozens of court orders with which [the Trump administration has] failed to comply in recent weeks.”
In some cases, according to Schiltz, the Trump administration has instead extended detention without justification. In others, it has flown “an alien who should remain in Minnesota” to Texas — sometimes releasing them there and telling them to “figure out a way to get home.”
And so, after declaring that “the Court’s patience is at an end,” Schiltz ordered “Todd Lyons, the Acting Director of ICE, to appear personally before the Court and show cause why he should not be held in contempt of Court.” Schiltz’s order also states that Lyons may miss this January 30 hearing, and avoid contempt, if Juan is released from custody prior to the hearing.
One of the most striking lines in Schiltz’s order suggests a reason why ICE has been unable to comply with court orders. The Trump administration, the judge writes, “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.”
Indeed, if anything, the Department of Justice has lost capacity to respond to these petitions and lawsuits since Trump’s occupation of Minneapolis began. At least six DOJ attorneys in Minnesota, including the second-in-command lawyer in the US Attorney’s Office, resigned after the Trump administration pressed for a criminal investigation into the widow of Renee Good, who was killed by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross on January 7.
Nor is Schiltz the only judge who has threatened sanctions or other harsh consequences against the Trump administration or its officials because of their incompetence.
On Monday, for example, Judge Katherine Menendez, who is hearing a lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota that seeks to end the occupation of Minneapolis, ordered the Justice Department to explain a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi. That letter indicated that the purpose of the occupation was to coerce Minnesota into making several policy concessions to Trump, including turning over the state’s voter rolls.
While the federal government may sometimes withdraw federal funds from a state that does not comply with certain congressional demands, it may not use force against a state’s citizens in order to coerce the state into changing its policies. Such a use of force violates the 10th Amendment.
Nor is Lyons the only Trump administration official that a judge threatened with sanctions after they failed to comply with a court order. Earlier this month, a Trump-appointed judge in Richmond, Virginia threatened to disbar or otherwise discipline Lindsey Halligan, who was then a Justice Department lawyer, after she falsely claimed in a court filing that she was the US attorney in eastern Virginia. A federal court previously ruled that she does not hold that job.
Halligan has since left the Justice Department, according to NBC News.
Other judges have come very close to accusing Trump’s lawyers of lying to them in court proceedings. Even grand juries — which are normally known for rubber stamping prosecutors’ requests to indict a criminal suspect — have begun to doubt the Trump Justice Department’s claims. Just last September, grand juries in Washington, DC, alone refused to allow seven criminal cases to move forward.
By contrast, in all of 2016 — the last year before Trump took office the first time — federal prosecutors initiated over 155,000 criminal matters, and grand juries only refused an indictment in six of these cases.
It remains to be seen how much the Justice Department’s incompetence will matter, because the seniormost judges in the country are largely in the tank for Trump. In 2024, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority held that Trump may use the powers of the presidency to commit crimes.
Still, the Supreme Court hears only a tiny fraction of all federal court cases. So even if the Republican justices continue to run interference for the leader of their political party, it will be administratively quite difficult for Trump’s Justice Department to process all of the many thousands of cases it brings to federal court if the rank-and-file judges in those courts don’t trust them to be honest or to obey court orders.
Among other things, as Schiltz notes in his most recent order, hundreds of cases are likely to arise from the Minneapolis occupation, many of them involving straightforward violations of federal law, such as the Juan T.R. case. Even this Supreme Court is unlikely to intervene in every single case where a federal judge orders someone illegally detained by the Trump administration to be released.
2026-01-27 23:40:00
在明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯发生ICE（美国移民与海关执法局）枪击事件后，当地居民建立了广泛的社区抵抗网络。帮助移民的方式多种多样。最近几周，明尼苏达州成为特朗普政府强硬移民政策的重灾区，联邦官员拘留了数千人，包括学龄前儿童，有时甚至包括美国公民。当地居民也积极回应，建立了许多令人瞩目的社区抵抗模式，包括志愿者网络监控ICE行动，以及向有需要的家庭提供免费的纸尿裤、食物和其他必需品。
然而，本周末，随着联邦边防巡逻人员又一名平民亚历克斯·普雷蒂（Alex Pretti）被枪杀，紧张局势加剧。这起事件发生在普雷蒂被杀的17天后，当时一名ICE特工杀害了瑞妮·妮可尔·古德（Renee Nicole Good）。这种对移民和抗议者的明显暴力行为，常常被拍摄成令人震惊的视频，让许多美国人感到震惊，但也感到无力应对。甚至一些保守派人士也开始对ICE的行动采取更严厉的立场，近五分之一的共和党人表示支持废除该机构。
在这样的时刻，也许最好的应对方式是将这些情绪转化为实际行动，帮助真正需要帮助的人，不仅限于明尼阿波利斯，也包括你所在社区的其他人。幸运的是，过去一年中，无数组织、宗教团体和互助网络一直在努力保护弱势群体。现在加入他们也并不晚，无论是捐款支持移民团体、志愿服务时间，还是倡导更人道的政策。
如果你希望具体支持明尼阿波利斯的移民及其支持者，两位当地志愿者创建了一个名为“Stand With Minnesota”的全面资源库，其中包含非营利组织、互助网络和针对特定学校、社区和家庭的众筹链接。你可以选择支持一个已有百年历史的移民服务非营利组织，也可以选择支持一个为同一社区中被古德遇害的居民提供租金援助的GoFundMe项目。
如果你希望让别人决定你的捐款去向，明尼苏达州妇女基金会设立的“移民快速响应基金”（Immigrant Rapid Response Fund）是一个汇集慈善资金的基金，可以将你的捐款引导至最需要的地方。
“Stand With Minnesota”还提供了多种资源，包括用于购买安全设备的资金，以及购买执法记录仪（dash cams）的链接，供法律观察员记录ICE的行动。这些资源非常重要，因为它们帮助志愿者安全地记录ICE在社区中的行为，从而揭露其活动，并在发生滥用行为时提供证据。
如果你确实住在明尼苏达州，有很多组织正在培训志愿者成为法律观察员，或者需要志愿者帮助支持那些因ICE活动而不敢出门的移民家庭。一些人甚至已经停止正常上班或上学，甚至不去超市。
在特朗普政府的移民打击行动中，绝大多数被拘留的移民从未有机会见到律师。但根据正义协会（Vera Institute of Justice）的研究，当他们有法律代表时，胜诉的可能性是无律师的10.5倍。以下是一些由当地活动人士推荐的、专注于为全州移民家庭提供法律支持的组织：
如果你会说多种语言，许多组织如移民法律中心和ICOM都需要志愿者帮助陪同或翻译移民在法庭上的事务，即使你没有法律背景。而“Freedom for Immigrants”则需要多语言志愿者来运营其全国热线，为被拘留人员及其家属提供帮助。
明尼苏达州可能是特朗普移民打击行动的中心，但并不是唯一需要支持的地方。再次强调，如果你有资金可以捐赠，那么向本地法律援助组织捐款是确保更多移民能获得公平审判的绝佳方式。事实上，美国各地都有数百个这样的组织在行动。
但我们可以从明尼阿波利斯的情况中学到，支持你的邻居真的很重要。对一些人来说，尤其是那些本身不太可能受到ICE暴力威胁的美国公民，这可能意味着联系本地组织并接受培训成为法律观察员。（虽然拍摄ICE行动是合法的，但成为观察员本身也存在风险，有大量报告指出ICE会进行逮捕或采取身体攻击行为。）
支持也可以意味着为本地由移民主导的非营利组织或互助网络提供志愿服务，确保家庭获得食物、住所和所需支持，从而感到安全。此外，也可以简单地询问你的朋友和邻居现在需要什么，以及在ICE敲门或进入社区时，了解自己的权利。
最后，如果你是美国纳税人，而你对特朗普政府的移民执法政策不满，那么ICE的行动正是用你的税款进行的。因此，不要忘记花两分钟时间联系你的代表表达你的意见。
In recent weeks, Minnesota has borne the brunt of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration strategy, with federal officials detaining thousands of people, from preschoolers to, occasionally, US citizens. Minnesotans on the ground have responded in turn by establishing remarkable models of community resistance, including vast networks of volunteers monitoring ICE activity, as well as handing out free diapers, food, and other essentials to families in need.
But over the weekend, tensions spiked after federal border patrol agents shot and killed yet another civilian, Alex Pretti, which came 17 days after an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) killed Renee Nicole Good.
Such overt violence against immigrants and protesters — often captured in graphic video — has left many Americans feeling aghast, but also powerlessness over how to respond. Even conservatives have begun taking a much harder stance on ICE’s activities, with nearly one in five Republicans voicing support for abolishing the agency in the wake of Pretti’s killing.
At times like these, perhaps the best way to deal with these feelings is to channel them into helping people who need it, not just in Minneapolis, but in your community too. Fortunately there are countless organizations, religious groups, and mutual aid networks that have organized tirelessly over the past year or more to protect vulnerable populations. And it’s never too late for you to join them, whether through donating to immigrant groups, volunteering your time, or your advocacy for more humane policies.
Here’s how to help.
If you want to support immigrants and their supporters in Minneapolis specifically, two local volunteers have created an extensive repository called Stand With Minnesota, filled with nonprofits, mutual aid networks, and crowdfunding links for specific schools, neighborhoods, and families that need support.
You can choose from an immigrant-serving nonprofit that’s over a century old to a GoFundMe offering rent relief in the same neighborhood where Good was killed. If you want someone else to make the decision for you on where to donate, the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund is a pooled philanthropic fund from the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota that can direct your donation to where it’s needed most.
Among the options that Stand With Minnesota offers are funds for purchasing safety equipment or links to buy dash cams for legal observers documenting ICE activities. These resources are important because they help volunteers safely capture the way ICE operates in their neighborhoods, shedding a light on their activities and ultimately offering evidence for accountability if abuse occurs.
If you do live in Minnesota, there are plenty of groups that train volunteer legal observers or need volunteers to help support immigrants who are afraid to leave their homes right now because of ICE activity. Some have stopped going to work or school — or even the supermarket — as usual.
The vast majority of those detained in Trump’s immigration crackdown never get to speak to a lawyer. But when they do have legal counsel, they are up to 10.5 times more likely to win the case, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
Here are some other organizations recommended by local activists that focus on providing legal support to immigrant families across the state:
If you happen to speak multiple languages, many organizations like the Immigrant Law Center and ICOM need volunteers to help accompany or translate for immigrants navigating the court system, even if you don’t have any legal training. Freedom for Immigrants needs multilingual volunteers to help run its national hotline for people in detention and their families.
Minnesota may be ground zero of Trump’s immigration crackdown today, but it is far from the only place in the country where families affected by ICE need your support.
Once again, if you have cash to donate, then giving to a local legal aid organization is a great way to make sure that more immigrants see a fair day in court. There are literally hundreds of organizations doing just that in every state of the country.
But if there’s something that we can learn from what’s happening in Minneapolis, it’s that standing with your neighbors really does matter.
For some people — especially US citizens who are far less vulnerable to ICE violence — that might mean connecting with a local organization and training to become a legal observer. (While it is legal to film ICE activities, keep in mind that becoming an observer does have its own risks, with plenty of reports of ICE conducting arrests or becoming physically aggressive.)
But support can also mean volunteering your time with local immigrant-led nonprofits or mutual aid organizations focused on making sure that families get the food, shelter, and support they need to feel safe. It might also be as simple as asking your own friends and neighbors what they need right now — and brushing up on your rights when ICE knocks on your door or enters your neighborhood in the process.
And finally, if you’re an American taxpayer and you’re unhappy with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, then ICE’s crackdown has been carried out on your dime. So don’t forget to take the two minutes it takes to call your representatives too.