ICE Has Cut Its Detainees Off From Medical Care

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has stopped paying for immigrant detainees to receive health care—and isn’t planning on paying for months, independent journalist Judd Legum reported Tuesday.  

ICE Health Service Corps, the entity that provides immigrants in detention with health care, quietly posted last week that Acentra, the agency’s new third-party administrator for medical claims, would not begin processing claims until at least April 30. “Please continue to hold all claim submissions while IHSC works to bring the new system online in the interim,” the post read. 

ICE had previously paid the Veterans Association Financial Services Center to process claims for reimbursement—but abruptly ended that contract on October 3, 2025. According to government documents reviewed by Legum, ICE was left with “no mechanism to provide prescribed medication” and no way to “pay for medically necessary off-site care.” Immigrants in detention could no longer receive dialysis, prenatal care, oncology, or chemotherapy.

To be clear, ICE is not simply not paying for detainees’ medical treatment: Multiple reports suggest they are not providing it at all, even though federal law requires them to do so. Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff released a report in October documenting at least “85 credible reports of medical neglect” at U.S. detention centers. 

Internal administration data obtained by Legum suggested that ICE has potentially accrued hundreds of millions of dollars of unpaid medical claims. In 2024, the VA processed $246.42 million in medical claims, but despite a significant increase in the detainee population, the VA processed only $157.2 million in claims in 2025.   

“Assuming the medical needs of a typical ICE detainee remain constant, the data suggests nearly a $300 million gap between needed care from third-party providers and what ICE paid,” Legum wrote. “This gap is a combination of unpaid bills since October 3 and ICE detainees who are simply being denied necessary medical treatment.”

As ICE has upended health care access for immigrants in detention, national detentions have hit record levels, and the numbers of people dying in ICE custody have risen with them. 

Seven immigrants died in ICE custody in December, making it the deadliest month since Donald Trump returned to the White House. And 2025 was the deadliest year for immigrants in detention since 2004. 

So far, January is on track to be even worse: At least six people have already died in ICE custody this year, including one man who reportedly was choked to death by an ICE agent. 

At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, President Trump was asked just how far he’d be willing to go to acquire Greenland. His response: “You’ll find out.”

His apparent threat only further reinforces what has been feared for weeks—that Trump will completely fracture U.S. diplomacy with the European Union, or worse, try to take over Greenland regardless of the risk or respect for sovereignty.

“If a consequence of your determination to take control of Greenland is the ultimate breakup of the NATO alliance, is that a price you’re willing to pay?” a reporter followed up later in the press conference.

“I think something’s gonna happen that’s gonna be very good for everybody. Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have.... Getting them to go up to 5 percent of GDP was something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump replied. “I think that we will work something out where NATO’s gonna be very happy and we’re gonna be very happy. But we need it for security purposes.”

That notion of happiness was quickly questioned, as well.

“Mr. President, you said you’re confident something’s gonna get worked out in Greenland, but Greenlanders have made it clear they don’t wanna be part of the U.S. What gives the U.S. the right to take away that self determination—”

“When I speak to them, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”

While Democrats and even some Republicans are perplexed and alarmed by Trump’s imperialistic goals, others have thrown their full weight behind them. As Trump himself promised, it seems like only a matter of time before this situation escalates further.

Two employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency may have been misusing Social Security data.

The Social Security Administration referred two DOGE employees to the Justice Department for being in contact with an advocacy group that hopes to “overturn election results in certain states,” Politico reports, citing court documents. One of them allegedly signed an agreement that could have involved using Social Security data to match with state voter rolls.

The SSA referred the two employees for violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their jobs for political purposes, according to DOJ official Elizabeth Shapiro. The court filings, disclosed Friday, were part of a list of “corrections” on testimony from SSA officials in the legal fight over DOGE gaining access to Social Security data.

The disclosures also show that DOGE team members shared information on unauthorized third-party servers and could have accessed data prohibited by court orders at the time. Shapiro said that two employees referred to the DOJ were the only known members involved with the political group, which wasn’t identified in court papers.

“At this time, there is no evidence that SSA employees outside of the involved members of the DOGE Team were aware of the communications with the advocacy group. Nor were they aware of the ‘Voter Data Agreement,’” Shapiro wrote, noting that it’s unclear whether the two DOGE employees actually shared data with the group.

However, Shapiro said emails “suggest that DOGE Team members could have been asked to assist the advocacy group by accessing SSA data to match to the voter rolls.”

The news seems to confirm some of the fears surrounding DOGE’s access to sensitive government information: that the data could be used for illegal and nefarious purposes. DOGE’s access went far beyond the SSA to different government agencies including the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Treasury Department. Who knows if Musk and DOGE are also using that information illegally?

It’s been exactly one year since Donald Trump returned to the nation’s highest office. To mark the occasion, the president secured quality time in front of some of America’s top journalists Tuesday to, apparently, do little other than to talk to himself.

Trump joined the White House press briefing, sidling up alongside press secretary Karoline Leavitt with a large stack of papers that turned out to be more prop than speech. But it was the content of Trump’s remarks—or rather, lack thereof—that caused some onlookers to question whether the president was in a healthy state of mind.

“Hm, I’m just looking at these charges, it’s just pretty incredible,” Trump said, rifling through the stack of papers, intermittently pausing to hold a page up to the camera. “Many murderers. Many, many murderers. People that murdered.”

The president did not stop to name names, or to clarify which people he was targeting in his scrambled monologue, but the entries followed a general template that read at the top: “Minnesota: worst of worst.”

Trump continued to read names and lists of charges, sometimes without even looking at the camera. Instead, it appeared he was simply reading brand-new information aloud to himself.

Mass protests have kicked off in Minnesota since ICE agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, on January 7. Since then, federal officers have ripped people from their homes and families, pulled over school buses, attacked teachers and students at a Minneapolis high school, and even clashed with local law enforcement.

In response, some protesters have opted to openly carry their firearms through the city, brandishing their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Locals have formed neighborhood watches to follow ICE vehicles, banging pots and pans and screaming to alert others when agents enter their residential neighborhoods.

Local politicians—including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—have advised the federal agency to exit their cities and state, arguing that ICE and Border Patrol agents have done more harm than good. In 2025, before Good’s death, the agency killed 32 people—its deadliest year in more than two decades.

But rather than heed the warning, the Trump administration has opted to up the ante, issuing grand jury subpoenas to Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, while placing 1,500 active-duty troops on standby for a potential invasion of Minnesota.

“I’m going through this because I think we have plenty of time. I’m going to a place—beautiful place—in Switzerland, where I’m sure I’m very happily waited for,” Trump rambled. “In Switzerland they don’t know about this. They have other problems, but they don’t have this problem.”

“Look,” Trump said, holding up another page. “Killed someone.”

ICE’s racial profiling and unconstitutional acts in and around Minneapolis are even ensnaring local police.

Mark Bruley, the chief of police in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, said at a press conference Tuesday with other area police chiefs that local police departments have been “receiving endless complaints about civil rights violations in our streets from U.S. citizens,” adding that federal agents were demanding to see paperwork proving U.S. citizenship.

“As this went on over the past two weeks, we started hearing from our police officers the same complaints as they fell victim to this while off-duty. Every one of these individuals is a person of color who has had this happen to them,” Bruley said, narrating an instance from one of his own officers who was boxed in by ICE officers while driving, who even knocked her phone from her hand as she tried to film her interaction with them.

“This isn’t just important because it happened to off-duty police officers.… We know our officers know what the Constitution is, they know when right and wrong is, and they know when people are being targeted,” Bruley continued. “If it is happening to our officers, it pains me to think how many of our community members are falling victim to this every day. It has to stop.”

Bruley’s words show that ICE is not only engaging in racial profiling; they are desperate. It’s now known that the Trump administration feels that it can target just about anyone in its immigration enforcement efforts, contrary to laws and the Constitution. Federal agents began terrorizing the Minneapolis area more than a month ago to target the local Somali community at Donald Trump’s insistence, and those efforts have grown to target people of color more broadly, especially Latinos and Asians.

The revelation that all people of color are in ICE’s crosshairs in Minnesota highlights that the Trump administration shows no signs of stopping and is only escalating its efforts, despite becoming increasingly unpopular. What will it take for all of this to stop, and for Congress to finally intervene?

The Justice Department subpoenaed multiple Minnesota Democrats Tuesday, in what seems to be a clear retaliation against their resistance to President Trump’s aggressive door-to-door deportation campaign. The subpoenas reportedly didn’t cite a specific criminal statute, but the investigation is centered on claims that these leaders conspired to stop the rollout of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents in Minnesota.  

Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty were all served subpoenas. 

Walz responded publicly to the subpoena. 

“The State of Minnesota will not be drawn into political theater. This Justice Department investigation, sparked by calls for accountability in the face of violence, chaos, and the killing of Renee Good, does not seek justice. It is a partisan distraction,” Walz wrote. “Families are scared. Kids are afraid to go to school. Small businesses are hurting. A mother is dead, and the people responsible have yet to be held accountable. That’s where the energy of the federal government should be directed: toward restoring trust, accountability, and real law and order, not political retaliation. Minnesota will not be intimidated into silence, and neither will I.”

This story has been updated. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins just made her viral “Let them eat chicken” moment so much worse.

Rollins landed in hot water last week after she claimed that following the Trump administration’s new dietary guidelines wouldn’t force Americans to spend more on groceries. The secretary claimed that “over 1,000 simulations” found that it would cost consumers only “around $3” for a meal consisting of a “piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla, and one other thing.”

Setting aside Rollins’s eerie reference to “simulations” rather than grocery store aisles, pretty much the entire internet—including several Democratic lawmakers—started trolling the secretary for doling out such paltry rations for Trump’s so-called “Golden Age.”

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Rollins doubled down on her meager menu with an important caveat. “We had run almost 1,000 simulations, and between $3 and $4 is a fair number—if you can have access to that food,” Rollins said.

She also rolled out a new and equally outrageous claim based on “new numbers.”

“A full day, meaning three full square meals and a snack, is about $15.64,” she claimed.

While $15.64 is perhaps a slightly more realistic number for the cost of a day of meals, it’s still incredibly low—and it isn’t even consistent with Rollins’s original claim. Let’s do some quick Trump Math: If every Rollins Meal only costs an average of $3.50, then three of them should only cost $10.50. So how much is left for a snack? Just over $5, which is more than the cost of any of the Rollins Meals! Does that make sense? No! But it doesn’t have to because it’s Trump Math!

The Trump administration has continued to claim that consumers can easily afford groceries, even as Americans struggle against a weakening job market and soaring prices spurred by Donald Trump’s outrageous tariff policies.

Meanwhile, the president’s family has raked in a whopping $1.4 billion since reentering the White House one year ago, which is about 16,821 times the median U.S. household income.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is warning that the global order is in the middle of a “rupture.”

Carney made the remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, and without mentioning Donald Trump by name, declared that America’s policies were exposing the flaws in the financial system and causing it to fail.

“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,” Carney said. “And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

“This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods. Open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes,” Carney continued. “We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

Carney’s speech is significant not only because of Canada’s status as America’s largest trading partner but also because of his background in finance prior to entering politics. Carney served as governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, leading the British central bank through Brexit and the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” Carney added, making a pointed jab at the U.S. under Trump. “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

Carney is directly pointing out that Trump is attempting to weaponize the integrated economic system against those countries tied the most to it—in effect countries with strong economic relationships with the U.S. like Canada. This speech signifies that Canada, led by Carney, is eyeing a way out to protect itself from retribution from Trump.

Canada already faced down Trump’s ludicrous call to have Canada become America’s fifty-first state, and is now working together with its NATO allies to oppose Trump’s attempt to annex Greenland. It seems that Carney is hoping to end Canada’s dependence on trade with the U.S. so that it won’t be held hostage to Trump’s whims.

A giant replica of President Trump’s unsettling birthday letter to his former friend and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein has been erected on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Sharpies lie in front of the statue, inviting passersby to sign the card.

This is at least the third piece of protest art placed by a group called The Secret Handshake, whose members choose to remain anonymous. They also placed a poop statue in critique of the January 6 insurrectionists, and more recently one of Trump and Epstein holding hands.

“Kudos to these Trump Deranged Liberals for constantly inventing new ways to light Democrat donor money on fire by spreading fake news,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Washington Post, in a Monday email.

“Looking forward to your jail sentence, DJT!” one message on the card read, according to the Post.

The original birthday message appeared in a book of compiled letters for Epstein’s fiftieth birthday, and is an imagined dialogue between Trump and Epstein. As Trump wrote, the two knowingly express awareness that there’s “more to life than having everything,” while not stating what that secret something is. “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” says Donald in the dialogue, to which Jeffrey replies, “Yes, we do, come to think of it.” Donald answers: “Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?” The dialogue is written in the sketch of a nude woman’s figure.

Trump ended the message by calling Epstein a “pal,” wishing him happy birthday, and writing, “May every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump has denied that he sent the note.

Donald Trump would like the world to know that he is absolutely not obsessed in any way with the Nobel Peace Prize that he didn’t win.

Speaking with reporters amid a Nobel Prize–fueled social media frenzy Monday evening, the president claimed that he no longer cared about the award.

“I don’t care about the Nobel Prize,” Trump said, on the tarmac beside Air Force One.

“First of all, a very fine woman felt that I deserved it and really wanted me to have the Nobel Prize, and I appreciate that,” he continued, referring to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who gave Trump her award last week.

Despite Machado’s unnecessary kowtowing, Trump snubbed the peacemaker, opting to recognize Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez—kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro’s second-in-command—as the interim leader of America’s latest oil-rich acquisition.

But Trump obviously wasn’t over his loss, noting to the reporters around him that he was still suspicious of what he believes is Norway’s outsize influence on the prize’s outcome.

“If anybody thinks that Norway doesn’t control the Nobel Prize, they are just kidding,” Trump said. “They have a board, but it’s controlled by Norway, and I don’t care what Norway says.

“But I really don’t care about that,” he added before boasting that he had saved “tens of millions of lives.”

Norway, which hosts the Nobel Prize committee, is simply home to the prestigious award ceremony—its government has no involvement in deciding who wins.

It’s no secret that Trump has long pined for the international honor: The U.S. president phoned Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg “out of the blue” back in July to inquire about the possibility of acquiring the prize, using tariffs as a cover for their discussion.

Trump has complained for years that his name has not yet been added to the ranks of prize recipients, who span some of the greatest figures of the last century, including Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, and Malala Yousafzai.

Part of the contention could be that Trump’s perceived political nemesis, former President Barack Obama, received the award in 2009 for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Three other U.S. presidents have also won a Nobel Peace Prize.

“They gave it to Obama for absolutely destroying our country,” Trump said, during an Oval Office meeting with Finnish President Alexander Stubb in October. “My election was much more important.”

Trump’s long history of coveting the prize on its own undercuts his claim to suddenly no longer care, but his words carry even less weight following a Sunday revelation from Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

Støre told The Wall Street Journal he had texted Trump to argue against a series of tariffs the U.S. president plans to impose on NATO allies who sent troops to Greenland for a joint military exercise. Trump responded that the world wouldn’t be safe until the U.S. had “Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

“Considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS,” Trump wrote back, according to Støre, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

Meanwhile, Trump has gone out of his way to aggress U.S. relations with the European Union over the last several days, publishing private text exchanges with French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, flaming Britain for returning an island within its overseas territories to its original nation, all while trudging forward with a preposterous and potentially violent scheme to annex Greenland from Danish control.