Ukraine's Kursk invasion was a risky play, but it might have nailed the timing

Sinéad Baker
Sat, January 25, 2025

Ukraine took a huge risk attacking into Russia and taking territory last year.


It has had positives and negatives for both countries.


But if it still holds enough of the territory as Trump pushes for negotiations it could pay off.

Ukraine's risky gamble to seize Russian territory could ultimately pay off, if for no other reason than the timing.

Ukrainian forces rolled the dice on a gamble and advanced into the Russian region of Kursk in August. They opted to use precious manpower and weaponry in a bold play to divert Russian resources, create a buffer zone, seize the momentum, and take land and prisoners that could be exchanged in future negotiations. The move into Kursk was a shocking development in the Ukraine war, the front lines of which had been static for months.

But the results of the surprise incursion have been mixed. While war experts have said it was a reasonable call given the morale and momentum wins, as well as the upsetting of Russia's war plans, the move hasn't significantly relieved pressure on the front lines in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians have struggled to hold a lot of what they captured.

Despite the setbacks, the timing of this thing could make it worthwhile. Right now, Ukraine is holding Russian territory amid a new push to end the war through negotiations.

Whoever holds territory in Kursk "is going to be in the box seat for any ceasefire negotiations," Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a defense expert and a former commander for the UK's Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear forces, told Business Insider.

New talk of negotiations

Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a conflict resolution expert at King's College London and a former British diplomat, said this month that for Ukraine, the Kursk operation was "quite deliberate" because it was "trying to take some territory which could lead to bargaining."

And now Trump's re-election has created new talk of efforts to revolve the war through negotiations.

Trump has repeatedly said that he would end the war through negotiations. This week, he said he would put more economic pressure on Russia to get it to make a deal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also signaled an increased willingness to enter talks.

Zelenskyy said in November the parts of Ukraine still under its own control could be taken "under the NATO umbrella" as part of an agreement that still holds Ukraine's borders as its internationally recognized borders. He said Ukraine could then negotiate the return of its own territory that was still under Russian control "in a diplomatic way."

De Bretton-Gordon said Zelenskyy's comments reinforce that "Kursk is absolutely key."

A "victory plan" Zelenskyy unveiled in October also called for the continuation of Ukraine's work in Kursk, hinting at its value. De Bretton-Gordon said it shows Zelenskyy may be seeing Kursk as "a key bargaining chip."

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that given Trump is "almost certain" to push negotiations, "it's good to have this bargaining chip." Plus, he said, negotiations are likely to take place sooner than they would have under a Kamala Harris presidency, making it more likely that Ukraine could hold on to a significant chunk of Kursk.

"It could work out well" for Ukraine, he said.

Kursk holds significance for the Russians, as it was a key battle and turning point in World War II. Holding Kursk gives Ukraine, which has often been on its back foot, something it can use in negotations.

Russia may want to fight over Kursk

There's no guarantee it gets to negotiations, though. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson said last month that Russia sees "no grounds for negotiations yet." Putin has signaled that he doesn't want to slow down and take his foot off the gas.

George Barros, a conflict expert at the Institute for the Study of War, told BI Kursk "certainly can" play a role in negotiations, but he suspects that Russian President Vladimir Putin would rather fight rather than negotiate for Kursk.

Negotiating over his own territory would be a "massive humiliation for Putin," he said.

Russia hasn't pushed as hard as it could in Kursk. Barros said "it's quite clear to me that Kursk has not been a primary objective." Were that to change, it could have significant effects.

There are limits to what Russia can do. Focusing on Kursk could mean taking more troops out of Ukraine — something Ukraine wants as it takes the pressure off its forces. That might open the door for Ukraine to take back more of its own territory. It's hard to know.

Negotiations might still be a long way off

If there are negotiations, they may not be immediate, and Ukraine will need to be holding a good-sized chunk to use Kursk as a bargaining chip.

Ukraine has lost much of what it held, though warfare experts said it likely gave some of that up willingly to strategically defend other parts. Some experts are still bullish about what Ukraine is holding. De Bretton-Gordon, for instance, said "Ukraine's still holding a significant amount."

And Ukraine also executed a new offensive push in Kursk this month. The move was "likely to grant Kyiv diplomatic leverage," Can Kasapoğlu, a political-military expert at the Hudson Institute, wrote recently.

But for the gamble to pay off for Ukraine in terms of timing, Ukraine still needs to be holding ground if negotiations turn real — something Trump advisors said could take months more. That could be a tall order, but with the possibility of talks being openly discussed, that makes Kursk even more important.

Business Insider

STATE SANCTIONED MURDER

Oklahoma wants federal inmate transferred so he can be put to death

SEAN MURPHY

Updated Fri, January 24, 2025 

FILE - This photo shows the gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, Oct. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma's top prosecutor asked the federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer an inmate to state custody so that he could be executed for his role in the kidnapping and killing of a 77-year-old woman in 1999.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond requested the transfer Thursday of inmate George John Hanson, citing President Donald Trump's sweeping executive order this week that directs the U.S. Department of Justice to more actively support the death penalty.

Hanson, 60, whose name in Oklahoma court records is listed as John Fitzgerald Hanson, was sentenced to death in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing Mary Bowles, 77, after he and an accomplice kidnapped the woman from a Tulsa shopping mall. Hanson also is serving a life sentence for several federal convictions, including being a career criminal, that predate his state death sentence.

Drummond's predecessor, John O'Connor, previously sought Hanson's transfer and sued the Bureau of Prisons in 2022 after it refused to turn over the inmate to state custody during President Joe Biden's administration. The agency's regional director at the time, Heriberto Tellez, said the transfer was not in the public interest, a decision Drummond called “appalling.”

A federal judge ultimately dismissed Oklahoma's case, ruling that the Bureau of Prisons director has broad discretion over whether to refuse a transfer request based on his determination of the public interest.

“The prior administration's refusal to transfer Inmate Hanson to state custody to finally carry out a decades-old death sentence is the epitome of subverting and obstructing the execution of a capital sentence,” Drummond wrote Thursday in his letter to Danon Colbert, the Bureau of Prisons' acting regional director.

Randilee Giamusso, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons, declined to comment on Drummond's request.

“Based on privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not comment on any inmate’s conditions of confinement, including transfers or reasons for transfers,” Giamusso wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Oklahoma has put to death 15 inmates since resuming executions in October 2021 following a de facto moratorium that resulted from problematic lethal injections in 2014 and 2015. Its next execution is scheduled for March 20.

Immigration raids in Chicago begin days after ‘border czar’ claimed officials were ‘reconsidering’

Edward Helmore
Sun 26 January 2025 

Anti-Trump protesters gather in Federal Plaza to rally on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday, in Chicago, Illinois.Photograph: Erin Hooley/AP

US federal authorities have begun immigration raids in Chicago, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) statement confirmed on Sunday, just days after incoming “border czar” Tom Homan said officials were “reconsidering” after details leaked into the press.

In a statement, Ice said its agents, along with the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the US Marshals Service, had begun conducting “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago “to enforce US immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities”.

That comes as the Washington Post reported that Ice officials have been directed by Trump administration officials to increase daily arrests from a few hundred to 1,200 to 1,500.

The outlet said Trump was disappointed with the deportation campaign so far, citing four people with knowledge of the briefings, and Ice field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing quota targets.

Chicago, which Trump administration officials have warned would be ground zero for immigration enforcement actions, has been on edge over the initiation of deportation raids. Many of the regions’ estimated 400,000 undocumented people are believed to have stayed home to avoid possible interactions with federal law enforcement.

Related: An uneasy quiet in US cities amid immigration crackdown: ‘There’s a shift’

On Friday, federal officials approached a school on Chicago’s south-west side but initial reports that immigration and customs enforcement officers were involved proved incorrect.

The Secret Service later said its agents were investigating a threat and their investigation was related to a threat against a “protectee” in connection with TikTok.

Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders last week designed to reverse Biden-era immigration policies and declared a state of emergency at the US-Mexico border, allowing federal agencies to step up law enforcement actions, including deportations to anyone deemed a national security threat.

The justice department has directed federal prosecutors to investigate state or local officials perceived to be interfering with immigration policies. Under an executive directive, law enforcement are permitted to arrest people at locations such as schools and churches where immigration enforcement action was previously blocked.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. But deportation flights for some of those already arrested have met with resistance.

Colombia president Gustavo Petro said Sunday his country will not accept deportation flights from the US until the Trump administration provides a process to treat Colombian migrants with “dignity and respect”.

Trump said he’d been informed that two repatriation flights to Colombia had not been allowed to land in country.

“Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The US president said he had doubled tariffs on Columbia to 50%; banned travel to the US for Colombian government officials; and placed enhanced customs and border protection inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo coming into the US on national security grounds.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump added. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

While the administration’s migrant deportation efforts are focused on lawbreakers and people involved in gang activity, including members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, officials have not ruled out detaining others who may be swept up in arrest actions.

Before Trump was inaugurated last week, unnamed officials said immigration officers would target more than 300 people, focusing on those with histories of violent crimes, in the Chicago area.

Related: Sanctuary cities respond to Trump deportation plans: ‘We’re preparing to defend our communities’

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the operation, said Ice would send between 100 and 200 officers to carry out the operation. But an official with the new administration told Reuters that Chicago would not be a special focus.

Local and state Democratic leaders, including Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois governor JB Pritzker, have vowed to protect immigrant Chicagoans from any planned raids.

“Ripping those families apart, not acceptable to Americans,” Pritzker said after Trump took office. He said that noncitizens convicted of violent crimes should be deported, but that they should separated from law-abiding migrants.

“We’re going to stand up for them in the state of Illinois and do everything that we can to protect them,” Pritzer said. “They’re good for our state. They’re good for our economy. They’re paying taxes. These are law-abiding people who are stabilizing communities often.”


Trump’s Border Czar Threatens to Raid Schools and Arrest Students

Maurício Alencar
Sun 26 January 2025 


ABC via X/@atrupar


President Donald Trump’s border czar has suggested that he will order law enforcement raids on schools, in a move that is likely to sound off alarm bells among teachers across the nation.

Tom Homan, who was also appointed as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Trump’s last administration, said schools were not out of bounds for officers as he claimed many criminal gang members were teenagers.

“How many MS-13 members are at the ages 14 to 17? Many of them,” he told ABC News host Martha Raddatz on This Week, referring to the criminal gang group that was born in Los Angeles.

Homan insisted that he would look at individuals on a “case-by-case” basis but he refused to rule out law enforcement raids on schools to target young men.

“Name another agency, another law enforcement agency [that] has those types of requirements, that they can’t walk into a school or doctor’s office or a medical campus. No other agencies have these standards.”

“These are well-trained officers, we’re allowed discretion, and when it comes to a sense of location, there’s still going to be supervised review,” he continued. So it’s not like it’s an open issue, but ICE officers should have the discretion to decide if a national security threat or a public safety threat in one of these facilities, then it should be an option then to make the arrest.”


Raddatz, who appeared stunned by Homan’s strong threats, sought to clarify what the Trump border czar had meant by his statements.

“Someday, you can go into those schools, and grab people who are just in the country illegally?”
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“On the case-by-case basis depending who they are, what the circumstances are,” Homan replied.

The Trump administration’s border chief also revealed that military flights would be taking illegal immigrants southward on a daily basis – and that numbers would steadily increase over time.

“Right now, it’s concentrating on public safety threats, national security threats. That’s a smaller population. So we’re going to do this on a priority basis as President Trump promised. But as that aperture opens, there’ll be more arrests nationwide,” he said.

In a stark warning to undocumented immigrants, Homan said the Trump administration was certain to deport millions of people despite legal challenges.


“[If] you’re in the country illegally, you’re on the table because it’s not okay to violate laws in this country,” he said. “That’s why I’m hoping those who are in the country illegally who have not been ordered removed by the federal judge should leave.”

Homan’s record on immigration during Trump’s last time in office was particularly striking, defending the separation of thousands of children from their parents as necessary for “saving lives.”

Trump administration launches immigration enforcement blitz in Chicago

Priscilla Alvarez, 

CNN
Sun 26 January 2025

The Drug Enforcement Administration of Chicago shared photos of their team working with other federal law enforcement partners on immigration enforcement.

The Trump administration launched an immigration enforcement blitz in Chicago on Sunday that includes several federal agencies that have been granted additional authorities to arrest undocumented immigrants in the US, according to multiple sources.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are expected to be joined by officials from multiple Department of Justice agencies as they target public safety and national security threats. It’s a multiday operation that will spread across the country.

In a statement, ICE confirmed the “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago began Sunday.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with federal partners, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the U.S. Marshals Service, began conducting enhanced targeted operations today in Chicago to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities,” the statement reads.

The Chicago operation is part of a broader effort to add manpower to ICE, which has limited resources and agents, as the administration tries to ramp up arrests nationwide and amass a larger force to carry out the president’s deportation pledge.

The immigration crackdown has included sweeping executive orders restricting legal pathways to come to the US, expanding the powers of immigration authorities, attempting to ban birthright citizenship and threatening sanctuary jurisdictions. The deportations have also escalated tensions with at least two South American allies. Trump issued emergency retaliatory tariffs on Colombia after two repatriation flights of migrants were not allowed to land there, he said on his Truth Social network.

In addition, ICE field offices were told to meet a quota of 75 arrests per day as the administration tries to dramatically ramp up apprehensions of undocumented immigrants in the US, according to two sources.

In the last fiscal year, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted 113,431 administrative arrests in all, according to an agency report. That equates to about 310 arrests a day. The latest directive to ICE teams would pave the way to surpassing the number of daily arrests in the last year, while placing additional pressure on ICE officers as they try to meet the quota.

Late last week, acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive giving Justice Department law enforcement officials immigration-enforcement authority. The agencies include the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

“Mobilizing these law enforcement officials will help fulfill President Trump’s promise to the American people to carry out mass deportations,” Huffman said in a statement announcing his directive.

White House border czar Tom Homan has previously said that if other undocumented immigrants are encountered over the course of their operation, they may also be arrested and detained — referring to these as “collateral” arrests. Homan is in Chicago to oversee operations, according to one of the sources.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove is in Chicago Sunday to observe immigration enforcement operations.

“This morning, I had the privilege of observing brave men and women of the Department deploying in lockstep with DHS to address a national emergency arising from four years of failed immigration policy,” Bove said in a statement.

The Chicago Police Department said in a statement to CNN it does not document immigration status, and in accordance with its “Welcoming City Ordinance,” “does not share information with federal immigration authorities.”

“We will not intervene or interfere with any other government agencies performing their duties,” the statement from Chicago Police reads.
Trump administration expands enforcement

Previous administrations, including the Biden administration, also sought out public safety and national security threats when carrying out immigration enforcement operations.

Homan has argued that the guidelines under Biden set up hurdles for officers targeting criminals, while former Biden officials maintained those guidelines established a clear focus.

Homan told ABC News in an interview that aired Sunday there’s “no number” of deportations needed to view Trump’s immigration agenda as successful, stating that “every public safety threat removed from this country is a success.”

“There’s no number on it. So my success is going to be based on what Congress gives us. More money, the better we’re going to do,” Homan said.

Homan said military flights to deport illegal immigrants will continue daily, calling the military’s role in mass deportations a “force multiplier” that “sends a strong signal” to the rest of the world. He added that he anticipates a greater volume of deportations over time.

“You can see the numbers steadily increase, the number of arrests nationwide as we open up the aperture,” he said. “Right now it’s considering public safety threats, national security threats. That’s a smaller population. So we’re going to do this on a priority basis as President Trump’s promised. But as that aperture opens, there’ll be more arrests nationwide.”

Chicago grappled with an influx of migrants during the Biden administration following surges along the US southern border and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to transport migrants to Democratic-led cities.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that he, too, wants violent criminals out of the country, but he expressed concern about how the administration is carrying out operations.

“If that’s who they’re picking up, we’re all for it,” Pritzker said. But, the Democratic governor said, “They’re going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who may have been here for a decade or two decades.”

“Why are we going after them? These are not people who are causing problems in our country,” Pritzker said on “State of the Union.”

Immigrant advocacy groups in Chicago also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the weekend arguing the administration targeted the city for being a sanctuary jurisdiction. The term is broadly applied to jurisdictions that have policies in place designed to limit cooperation with or involvement in federal immigration enforcement actions. How such policies are enforced can vary.

The suit was filed by Organized Communities Against Deportation, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.

The plaintiffs claim the administration’s planned operations target the city for its sanctuary status and amount to a violation of their First Amendment right to free speech and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

“President Donald Trump and Defendant Benjamine Huffman, the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), have declared Chicago ‘ground zero’ for immigration enforcement; the federal government intends to ‘make an example of Chicago’ and quash the Sanctuary City movement,” the court filing states. “The federal government’s decision to target the Plaintiffs’ communities because of its animus towards the Sanctuary City movement is a clear violation of the First Amendment.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement it doesn’t comment on pending litigation. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Evan Perez, Aaron Pellish, Sarah Dewberry, Alejandra Jaramillo, Gloria Pazmino and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.

Top Trump administration officials in Chicago for start of immigration enforcement crackdown

SOPHIA TAREEN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Updated Sun 26 January 2025 



Emil Bove, attorney for former US President Donald Trump, sits Manhattan criminal court during Trump's sentencing in the hush money case in New York, Jan. 10, 2025. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP, file)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO (AP) — Top Trump administration officials, including “border czar” Tom Homan and the acting deputy attorney general, visited Chicago on Sunday to witness the start of ramped-up immigration enforcementin the nation’s third-largest city.

Few details of the operation were immediately made public, including the number of arrests. But the sheer number of federal agencies involved showed President Donald Trump's willingness to use federal law enforcement beyond the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his long-promised mass deportations.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said he observed immigration agents from the DHS along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He didn’t offer further details on the operation, which came days after DHS expanded immigration authority to agencies in the Department of Justice, including the DEA and ATF.

“We will support everyone at the federal, state, and local levels who joins this critical mission to take back our communities,” Bove said in a statement. “We will use all available tools to address obstruction and other unlawful impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland. Most importantly, we will not rest until the work is done.”

The DEA's Chicago office posted pictures on X showing Bove and Homan with agents from ATF and Customs and Border Protection.

Since Trump took office, similar immigration enforcement operations have been publicized around the country, which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says are ongoing.

But the show of force in Chicago was notable. The DEA also posted pictures Sunday on social media of an immigration enforcement operation at a Colorado night club outside Denver where 50 people were taken into custody and of agents preparing for an operation in Los Angeles.

ICE spokesman Jeff Carter said the agency “began conducting enhanced targeted operations” Sunday in Chicago but declined other details. Spokesmen for the FBI, ATF and the DEA confirmed their involvement but didn't give other information.

Chicago residents, especially in immigrant circles, have already been on edge for months in anticipation of large-scale arrests touted by the Trump administration. The atmosphere has been especially tense the past week as top Trump officials vowed to start immigration enforcement operations in Chicago the day after Trump's inauguration before walking back those statements.

Last week, Bove issued a memo ordering federal prosecutors to investigate state or local officials who they believe are interfering with the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, in an apparent warning to the dozens of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions across America.

Chicago has some of the strongest sanctuary protections, which bar cooperation between city police and immigration agents.

Immigrant rights groups have tried to prepare for the aggressive crackdown with campaigns for immigrants to know their rights in case of an arrest. City officials have done the same, publishing similar information at public bus and train stations.

On Friday, Chicago Public Schools officials mistakenly believed ICE agents had come to a city elementary school and put out statements to that effect before learning the agents were from the Secret Service. Word of immigration agents at a school — which have long been off limits to immigration agents until Trump ended the policy last week — drew swift criticism from community groups and Gov. JB Pritzker.

The Democratic governor, a frequent Trump critic, questioned the aggressive approach of the operations and the chilling effect for others, particularly for law-abiding immigrants who have been in the country for years.

“We need to get rid of the violent criminals. But we also need to protect people, at least the residents of Illinois and all across the nation, who are just doing what we hope that immigrants will do,” Pritzker said Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union."

On Saturday, several Chicago-based immigrant rights groups filed a lawsuit against ICE, seeking an injunction prohibiting certain types of immigration raids in Chicago.

“Immigrant communities who have called Chicago their home for decades are scared,” said Antonio Gutierrez from Organized Communities Against Deportation, one of the plaintiffs. “We refuse to live in fear and will fight any attempts to roll back the work we’ve done to keep families together.”

___

Durkin Richer reported from Washington.


Trump 'border czar' tells ABC military planes will deport migrants every day

MIKE LEVINE
Fri 24 January 2025 

Trump Administration ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan talks with Martha Raddatz of ABC News, Jan. 24, 2025. (ABC News)

The Trump administration is planning to use military aircraft every day to help carry out what President Donald Trump and his "border czar," Tom Homan, have promised will be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, Homan told ABC News.

In an interview with ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz, Homan said that only days after Trump took office, the U.S. government for the first time ever used military aircraft to transport migrants back to their home country, and it will now be a daily occurrence.

MORE: What to know about Trump's immigration and border executive actions

According to U.S. officials, the U.S. military on Thursday flew more than 150 migrants to Guatemala on two separate flights. But Homan made clear that the military flights are just one part of a much broader plan.

He claimed that – unlike under the Biden administration – Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are now free to arrest any of the estimated more than 11 million immigrants in the country without legal status, not just those identified as priorities for deportation for being convicted criminals or other public safety threats.

PHOTO: Guatemalan migrants descend from an US military plane after being deported from US at the Guatemalan Air Force Base in Guatemala City, Jan. 24, 2025. 

(Guatemalan Migration Institute/AFP via Getty Images)

Watch more of Martha Raddatz' interview with Tom Homan Sunday on ABC's 'This Week'

"If you're in the country illegally, you're on the table because it's not okay to, you know, violate the laws of this country," he said.

Homan said that while the Trump administration's enforcement actions are currently prioritizing public safety and national security threats, they're going to "open up the aperture" in the weeks and months ahead.

PHOTO: Illegal aliens await takeoff for a removal flight at the Tucson International Airport, Ariz., Jan. 23, 2025. (Senior Airman Devlin Bishop/DoD)

MORE: Trump's proposed mass deportation plan has some Texas schools on high alert

"As that aperture opens, there'll be more arrests nationwide," he said.

PHOTO: U.S. Customs and Border Protection security agents guide a group of illegal aliens to board a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft assigned to the 60th Air Mobility Wing for a removal flight at Fort Bliss, Texas, Jan. 23, 2025. (Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas J. De La/DoD)

Homan also offered another possible solution for "those who are in the country illegally": They "should leave" on their own, he said.

Early in the Biden administration, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued guidance to immigration enforcement officers discouraging them from "spending resources to remove those who do not pose a threat" and noting that many undocumented immigrants inside the country "have been here for generations and contributed to our country's well-being," as he put it in a statement at the time.

Homan, however, noted that the nation’s immigration laws were passed by Congress to be enforced, and said immigrants without legal status are violating those laws.

More of Homan's interview with Raddatz will air Sunday on "This Week."

Trump Aide Karoline Leavitt’s Creepy Flattery of Him Takes a Dark Turn

Greg Sargent

THE NEW REPUBLIC
Sat, January 25, 2025


With President Trump’s crackdown on immigration beginning in earnest, it’s now clear that the White House has two major goals to accomplish with its anti-immigrant propaganda. They are in tension with each other. One is to depict Trump fearsomely vanquishing all those dark hordes marauding northward who no longer dare breach our border now that he’s in charge. The other is to portray a nation that—despite Trump’s unassailable strength and power—remains forever under unrelenting invasion, thus legally justifying sweeping new powers to crush the remaining invaders and other assorted enemies within.

You can see this tension playing out in the strange tweets that Karoline Leavitt, the 27-year-old White House press secretary, unleashed as she announced that Trump is now raining down thunder on migrants. “The largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway,” Leavitt gushed, enthusing about the use of “military aircraft” to remove “illegal immigrant criminals.”

The triumphant announcement also came complete with martial imagery. “President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world,” Leavitt announced in a tweet showing dejected and defeated migrants getting frog-marched onto military planes, declaring: “Deportation flights have begun.” Fox News dutifully blared forth the stunning news. Liberation is at hand!

It is only under Trump, you see, that we have begun deporting migrants on big, powerful-looking planes, and the entire world had better pay attention. Except this is all nonsense. As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Counsel pointed out, the United States has been removing migrants on planes for many years, and the Biden administration, to its discredit, also drew attention to such flights. What makes the Trumpian version so galling is the suggestion that this is his innovation, and that carrying it out on military planes is something that only Trump is tough enough to undertake.

Leavitt is well known for offering comically obsequious praise for Trump, as well as for delivering the most towering of absurdities with unflappable smugness. She recently trumpeted a coming “big infrastructure announcement” from Trump, claiming he’s already “done more in less than 24 hours than his predecessor did in four years,” thus erasing Biden’s painstakingly negotiated, bipartisan, trillion-dollar infrastructure law without flinching in the slightest.

Yet this joyous feting of Trump’s power and strength as he begins his mass deportations amounts to something much darker—and a lot more telling, too.

For one thing, it’s becoming clear that whatever practical justification there is for ramping up the military presence at the border, all this martial imagery also serves a nefarious, indefensible purpose. Many of the executive orders constituting Trump’s immigration crackdown rely on the premise that we’re under “invasion”; in one case, he is claiming that this unlocks constitutional authorities to fend off the invaders that exist wholly independent of any congressional statute.

The imagery of military planes at the border, then, is not just MAGA bread-and-circuses stuff. By sustaining the impression of this “invasion,” it’s also about manufacturing a pretext for the broader public to justify the assumption of extraordinarily sweeping powers that are very likely illegal.

For another, the overall story that Trump is telling here—that the invader within is so vast and formidable that extraordinary measures are required to uproot and expel it—will not be sustainable in the real world. The supposed failure until now to deport undocumented immigrants with sufficient gusto is not actually the serious national problem that Trump and his spinners claim it is, and they will not be able to disguise this for very long.

Note that during his four years as president, Biden deported more people than Trump did during his first term. Trump and his advisers criticize Biden for deprioritizing the removals of longtime residents, and his border czar has vowed to sweep much more broadly. That was fun and games during the campaign, when no one had to think about what this would actually mean. But barely days after Trump won the election, numerous Republicans—and localities and industries in red states, from construction to food production—suddenly began suffering misgivings, letting it be known that mass removals in their communities would create major economic disruptions.

Here’s an overlooked moment that underscores the point: At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Trump’s nominee for agriculture secretary, Brooke Collins, faced persistent questioning from Democratic Senator Richard Durbin about how deportations would impact the farming and food industries. Durbin pointed out that huge numbers of people who pick our crops are undocumented.

“Can we expect this administration to be raiding farms and going after the immigrant farm workers?” he asked.

Collins hemmed and hawed, insisting that of course she fully supports Trump’s agenda of mass deportations. But then she pledged to respect the imperative of doing “everything we can to ensure that none of these farms and dairy producers are put out of business.”

In other words, mass deportations do threaten widespread economic damage. The only ways to avoid this, of course, are to not carry out removals of all undocumented immigrants, or to do it in such a way that favored industries are not targeted by them. Which constitutes an admission that ejecting undocumented immigrants entirely is a terrible idea, and that many play critical roles in our economy and society.

If that is so, why not stick to targeting serious criminals for removal, while creating more paths to legalization for the non-criminal migrant workers we need? Because the story Trump is telling must not ever be tampered with or disturbed—the undocumented population can be understood only as an invading enemy within that must be expelled at all costs.

Political theorist Thomas Zimmer recently observed that the propaganda of authoritarian leaders sometimes suffers from a deep contradiction. On the one hand, the justification for carrying out expulsions and purgings of undesirable populations—for assuming extraordinary authorities or undertaking potentially illegal actions against them—must rest on depicting them as a massive internal threat. On the other, the leader must perpetually be depicted as powerful and strong, which requires demonstrating that he is mercilessly and successfully crushing that threat. Yet that in turn requires forever finding new ways to replenish the sense of emergency the original threat was supposed to create.

The Potemkin nature of all this is neatly captured by Leavitt’s absurdities about mass deportations. All that military imagery exaggerates the scale and nature of that enemy while also sustaining the impression that only Trump has the strength to conquer it.

Yet this ruse cannot be sustained indefinitely: What happens when the deportations actually do start targeting those migrants who—by the admission of Trump’s own incoming agriculture secretary—are necessary to keep the food coming to our tables? How will Trump and his propagandists keep manufacturing the rationale for a military-style response at that point? And if we’re still under “invasion,” won’t Trump have failed to achieve the glorious pacification he promised us?

The buffoonish quality of all these follies already makes it plain: No amount of determined propaganda from the likes of Leavitt will be able to paper over these glaring contradictions forever.

 

Wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback

Operation Wetback - Wikipedia

Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, a retired United States Army lieutenant general and head of the ...

History.comwww.history.com/news/operation-wetback-eisenhower-1954-deportation

The Largest Mass Deportation in American History

Mar 23, 2018 ... These Mexican immigrants had been caught in the snare of Operation Wetback, the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history.

Immigrationhistory.orgimmigrationhistory.org/item/operation-wetback/

Operation Wetback (1953-1954) - Immigration History

Operation Wetback (1953-1954). 1954 - 1955. Even as the bracero program continued to recruit temporary workers from Mexico ...

Jan. 6 prosecutor: Rioters freed by Trump ‘have never been more dangerous’

Filip Timotija

THE HILL
Sat, January 25, 2025 


Former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou says those pardoned by President Trump for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack have “never been more dangerous.”

In an essay published Friday by The New York Times, Ballou urged local officials to protect immigrants and other groups that he thinks the defendants might go after first.

“While some convicted rioters seem genuinely remorseful, and others appear simply ready to put politics behind them, many others are emboldened by the termination of what they see as unjust prosecutions,” he wrote.

“Freed by the president, they have never been more dangerous,” the ex-prosecutor added.

Ballou, who resigned from the Justice Department on Thursday, then listed two high-profile Jan. 6 defendants, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who were recently freed from prison, as examples.

“They are now free to pursue revenge, and have already said they want it,” Ballou said.

He argued the effect and the purpose of Trump’s pardons when he returned to office Monday is to “encourage vigilantes and militias loyal to the president, but unaccountable to the government.”

“Illiberal democracies and outright dictatorships often rely on such militia groups, whose organization and seriousness can range widely, from the vigilantes who enforce Iran’s hijab dress code to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia that have killed government opponents,” Ballou wrote.

Trump issued around 1,500 “full, complete and unconditional pardons” for defendants prosecuted in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. The total number of people charged was 1,583. The move has sparked vocal criticism from Democrats and even divided House GOP lawmakers.

“[I] don’t agree with the pardoning of people that committed violence or even damage to property,” Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) said. “If you climbed in through a window, I think probably you knew what you were doing was against the law, and I don’t think it was appropriate to pardon them.”

Ballou suggested that Trump released some of the violent defendants in order to “carry out his agenda and silence his critics through violence.”

“Vigilantes could harass, assault or even kill perceived enemies of the state. Under the thin pretext that these vigilantes were acting in self-defense, the president could pardon them for federal crimes, or pressure pliant governors to do the same for state ones,” Ballou wrote in the op-ed.

“In such a scenario, the president could put those loyal to him above the law, quite literally,”he continued. “This kind of violence was a part of our past; it may be a part of our future.”

In his view, local law enforcement should “prioritize” protecting immigrants, transgender people and opposition lawmakers first, as they could be targeted first.

Two rioters have thus far rejected the president’s pardon and publicly stated their wrongdoing after the 2020 election was certified for former President Biden.

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

STALINIST HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

Trump pardoned the January 6 convicts. Now his DOJ is wiping evidence of rioters’ crimes from the internet

Donie O'Sullivan and Katelyn Polantz, 

CNN
Sun, January 26, 2025 

Supporters of Donald Trump clash with police and security forces as they storm the US Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

As President Donald Trump this week sought to rewrite the history of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol, a database detailing the vast array of criminal charges and successful convictions of January 6 rioters was removed from the Department of Justice’s website.

The searchable database served as an easily accessible repository of all January 6, 2021, cases prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

The US attorney’s office declined to comment.

The removal of the comprehensive website cataloguing the largest criminal investigation in modern department history coincides with Trump’s decision to pardon all convicted January 6 defendants. The president also released early from prison 14 members of far-right extremist groups, including 10 convicted of seditious conspiracy. He also asked the federal courts in Washington to dismiss the more than 300 cases that hadn’t yet been resolved.

Judges over the past few days have pushed back on what they called Trump’s “whitewashing” of the mob’s attack of the Capitol as the administration quickly wound down cases against some of the most violent rioters who injured police.

The DOJ site’s removal was celebrated by those convicted for their actions on January 6 and their supporters.

“This is a huge victory for J6ers,” Brandon Straka, who was among those pardoned by Trump for his role in the Capitol riot, wrote on X, adding, “This site was one of countless weapons of harassment used by the federal government to make life impossible for its targets from J6.”

Straka credited the new Trump-appointed acting US attorney in Washington, DC, Ed Martin, for the site’s removal. Martin was an organizer with the “Stop the Steal” movement and was involved in the financing of the January 6, 2021, Trump rally on the Ellipse that occurred directly before the attack on the Capitol.

Straka wrote that he had campaigned for the site’s removal because “every time a potential employer, landlord, new social or business contact, etc, would search somebody targeted for J6 they would read a dossier on each person filled with FBI and FOJ accusations and narratives that were never proven, along with links to documents with even more damaging allegations.”

The vast majority of the government’s claims, however, were proved through the courts. About 1,250 people were convicted of crimes related to January 6.

Parts of the database were still accessible Sunday through the Internet Archive.

Not all the information in the database was up to date, as demonstrated through a selection of pages CNN was able to access through the archived version of the site.

Some pages listed only charges against individuals, rather stating what they were or were not eventually convicted of.

Thousands of pages that were part of the database now appear to be inaccessible. Details of January 6 cases are still accessible on the DOJ’s website in the form of press releases about charges and convictions. They are also still available through court records and services such as Pacer.

The FBI — representing another leg of the Justice Department — also took offline its compendium of wanted Capitol rioters. Some of those individuals were fugitives or rioters who hadn’t been identified, and the FBI had posted images and other information of the suspects it was still seeking.

The FBI and DOJ pages had also provided information about the unsolved case of two pipe bombs found outside the headquarters for the Republican and Democratic national committees on January 5, 2021. As of earlier this month, the FBI still hadn’t identified the person it believed planted the two viable but unexploded bombs, despite law enforcement agencies offering a reward of up to $500,000 for information that could lead to an arrest.

While the FBI’s “US Capitol Violence — Most Wanted” web page is now down, news releases and a “seeking information” page from the agency with details about the pipe bomb suspect specifically and the reward offer are still available online.

This story and headline have been updated.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

THEY KILL DOCTORS

Trump Justice Department curtails prosecutions for blocking access to reproductive health centers

SLAP IN THE FACE

ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and CHRISTINE FERNANDO

AP
Fri, January 24, 2025

President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order relating to clemency for anti-abortion protesters as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's new Justice Department leadership issued an order Friday to curtail prosecutions against people accused of blocking access to abortion clinics and reproductive health centers, calling the cases an example of the “weaponization” of law enforcement.

Prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or “FACE Act” will now be permitted only in “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases presenting ”significant aggravating factors," attorney general chief of staff Chad Mizelle said in a memo sent to the head of the department's Civil Rights Division.

Mizelle also ordered the immediate dismissal of three FACE Act cases related to 2021 blockades of clinics in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The memo signals a sharp departure from Justice Department under the Biden administration, which brought cases involving dozens of defendants accused of violating the law. The act prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services, and prohibits damaging property at abortion clinics and other centers.

The legal group Thomas More Society, which represents many of the defendants, called the move a “huge moment in the fight against FACE."

“In each of these three FACE Act cases, Thomas More Society attorneys were representing several brave and peaceful pro-life defendants — who can now breathe easy without the heavy burden of federal prosecutors on their backs,” the group said Friday.

The announcement comes hours after Trump vowed to support tens of thousands of anti-abortion protesters at Friday’s March for Life, declaring, “We will again stand proudly for families and for life” in a prerecorded address. A day earlier, Trump pardoned several anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances in violation of the FACE Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats.

“President Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of ending the weaponization of the federal government and has recently directed all federal departments and agencies to identify and correct the past weaponization of law enforcement,” Mizelle wrote in the memo obtained by The Associated Press.

“To many Americans, prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act ('FACE Act') have been the prototypical example of this weaponization. And with good reason," he wrote.

Mizelle, who was brought on to serve as chief of staff to Trump's pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, said “more than 100 crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations, and churches were attacked in the immediate aftermath” of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. Yet, nearly all of the prosecutions under the FACE Act have been against anti-abortion protesters, he wrote.

“That is not the even-handed administration of justice,” he wrote.

Vice President JD Vance, who spoke to the crowd at the March for Life in person, celebrated pardons for FACE Act defendants and called Trump “the most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.”

Abortion-rights advocates slammed Trump's pardons of those convicted of violating the law, which was passed in 1994 during a time where clinic protests and blockades were on the rise, as was violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David Gunn.

“Not even a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has disregarded the law and greenlit violence against abortion providers, all at the expense of people who wish to live in peace and safely exercise the right to control their own bodies and health,” Krista Noah, national director of affiliate security and response planning at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Thursday.

Opinion

The war on fake news has backfired

Nolan Higdon

SALON
Sun, January 26, 2025 

Mark Zuckerberg; Facebook 

Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

Brian Stelter, CNN's chief media analyst, recently tweeted that “fact-check” had become a dirty word. Stelter’s assessment followed Meta’s announcement that it would scrap its fact-checking processes—once central to the post-2016 response to the proliferation of so-called fake news. Now, with Donald Trump preparing for a second term, many former critics of fake news have curiously dropped their concerns over disinformation and aligned with him. This shift exposes Big Tech and legacy media’s anti-fake-news campaigns as, at best, PR fluff, and at worst, efforts to outright silence dissent.

These fake news flip-floppers include a self-described Democrat, Elon Musk, who endorsed Trump and donated a staggering $250 million to his campaign. By allying himself with Trump, Musk reaped the rewards with an appointment to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In 2022, Musk claimed he acquired Twitter - which he renamed X - in order to protect and promote free speech by ending what he saw as Twitter’s suppression of truth. Instead, Musk seems poised to use his platform as a tool of propaganda that promotes a positive image of Trump's presidency. After Trump was elected, Musk announced that he would change his platform’s algorithm to promote "positive, beautiful content,” suggesting that since Trump is president, Musk sees no need for negative content on X.

The shift reveals an uncomfortable truth: content moderation was never about eradicating fake news. Rather, it’s a tool wielded by those in power to shape narratives and consolidate influence. This is why it is somewhat concerning that other Trump-friendly billionaires have also expressed an interest in taking control over social media platforms, like Kevin O’Leary, a Trump ally of “Shark Tank” fame who is now attempting to purchase TikTok. Social media platforms often resist moderation for business purposes, but under political pressure, they will act upon moderation marching orders from whoever is in power. What this means for users is that the platform is always biased, showing you what they want you to see, nothing more, and nothing less.

The concerns about fake news and its impact on democracy were and remain well-founded. Disinformation erodes public trust, distorts reality, and weakens democratic systems. Yet the post-2016 solutions offered to combat it, largely centered around entrusting billionaires with the reins of information dissemination. This approach not only failed to mitigate the spread of fake news but also emboldened a small group of elites to expand their wealth and influence globally.

Since Trump’s emergence as a political figure in 2015, the media’s warnings about his attacks on journalists as purveyors of "fake news" were loud and persistent. These warnings were not baseless. Trump’s rhetoric undermined the press and raised fears about threats to a free media—especially when he floated ideas like revoking broadcasting licenses. These concerns escalated during the pandemic, with misinformation about COVID-19 spreading like wildfire. The World Health Organization even labeled the crisis an "infodemic."

In response, liberals and media personalities pushed for increased content moderation on Big-Tech platforms. Congressional hearings pressured tech giants to act and companies capitulated by minimizing the reach of conservative and progressive news outlets (referred to as the ‘adpocalypse”), banning controversial users, and taking part in developing tools such as NewsGuard—a tool promising to identify fake news, but often criticized for having an establishment bias. Post-January 6, 2021, as violence erupted at the U.S. Capitol, tech platforms were urged to clamp down further, leading to Trump’s ban and the suppression of controversial topics like election fraud claims.

President Joe Biden continued the crusade with measures like banning the social media platform TikTok (allegedly in part to curb disinformation) and proposing a Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board, which was ultimately scrapped after public outcry. Media platforms aligned with these efforts by removing content from Russia Today, which is owned by the Russian government, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After Trump was elected in 2024, everything changed. Big Tech companies, which had previously moderated Trump or content he favored, now faced a president who could potentially push for regulations, increased taxes, or the cancelation of government contracts they relied on. In response, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would abandon fact-checking entirely in 2025. It was the final blow to those who lived under the delusion that billionaire tech firms would marginalize disinformation and promote truth. Instead, Meta pledged to work with the Trump administration on combating foreign threats and promoting "civil content.” In addition, Dana White, the CEO and president of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a Trump supporter, was added to Meta’s board, and Meta moved some of its content moderators from California to Texas.

Meta’s attempt to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration reveals that power and profits, not a concern for truth or democracy, is what motivated billionaires to signal they were fighting fake news. In the process, the very strategies designed to combat misinformation have strengthened the systems that perpetuate it. Indeed, a handful of powerful people, often allied with the incoming administration, control the flow of information in the US, and they interact with a public that has been conditioned to believe that the way to save democracy and eradicate fake news is by pleading with billionaires. This approach is not only anti-democratic, but it is also a fool’s errand. Fake news cannot be eradicated; it is a byproduct of human creativity and imagination. Attempts to eliminate it often result in greater censorship and concentration of power, leaving societies more susceptible to manipulation.

The only effective solution is critical media literacy. Critical media literacy teaches people how to think, not what to think. It aims to give students the skills, terms, questions, and knowledge necessary to not only determine the veracity of information, but be empowered and autonomous users who can negotiate their relationship with media. In order to make the nation more critically media literate, schools, communities and homes will need to treat media literacy with the same seriousness that they treat a citizen’s need to be able to read, write, and perform mathematics.

The lessons of the last decade are sobering. Trusting billionaires and tech companies to act as gatekeepers of truth has not protected democracy; it has endangered it. Instead of empowering the public to critically engage with information, these efforts have built stronger tools for controlling and distorting narratives. The war on fake news has backfired, entrenching the systems it sought to dismantle and deepening public skepticism of information. The lesson is clear: in a democracy, real resistance to fake news comes from a critically media literate citizenry, not the power of billionaire gatekeepers.

PLUG AND PLAY

Big Tech wants to plug data centers right into power plants. Utilities say it's not fair

MARC LEVY
Updated Sun, January 26, 2025 

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Looking for a quick fix for their fast-growing electricity diets, tech giants are increasingly looking to strike deals with power plant owners to plug in directly, avoiding a potentially longer and more expensive process of hooking into a fraying electric grid that serves everyone else.

It's raising questions over whether diverting power to higher-paying customers will leave enough for others and whether it's fair to excuse big power users from paying for the grid. Federal regulators are trying to figure out what to do about it, and quickly.

Front and center is the data center that Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, is building next to the Susquehanna nuclear plant in eastern Pennsylvania.

The arrangement between the plant's owners and AWS — called a “behind the meter” connection — is the first such to come before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For now, FERC has rejected a deal that could eventually send 960 megawatts — about 40% of the plant's capacity — to the data center. That's enough to power more than a half-million homes.

That leaves the deal and others that likely would follow in limbo. It's not clear when FERC, which blocked the deal on a procedural ground, will take up the matter again or how the change in presidential administrations might affect things.

“The companies, they’re very frustrated because they have a business opportunity now that’s really big,” said Bill Green, the director of the MIT Energy Initiative. “And if they’re delayed five years in the queue, for example — I don’t know if it would be five years, but years anyway — they might completely miss the business opportunity.”
What's driving demand for energy-hungry data centers?

The rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence has fueled demand for data centers that need power to run servers, storage systems, networking equipment and cooling systems.

That's spurred proposals to bring nuclear power plants out of retirement, develop small modular nuclear reactors and build utility-scale renewable installations or new natural gas plants. In December, California-based Oklo announced an agreement to provide 12 gigawatts to data center developer Switch from small nuclear reactors powered by nuclear waste.

Federal officials say fast development of data centers is vital to the economy and national security, including to keep pace with China in the artificial intelligence race.

For AWS, the deal with Susquehanna satisfies its need for reliable power that meets its internal requirements for sources that don't emit planet-warming greenhouse gases, like coal, oil or gas-fueled plants.

Big Tech also wants to stand up their centers fast. But tech's voracious appetite for energy comes at a time when the power supply is already strained by efforts to shift away from planet-warming fossil fuels.

They can build data centers in a couple years, said Aaron Tinjum of the Data Center Coalition. But in some areas, getting connected to the congested electricity grid can take four years, and sometimes much more, he said.

Plugging directly into a power plant would take years off their development timelines.
What's in it for power providers?

In theory, the AWS deal would let Susquehanna sell power for more than they get by selling into the grid. Talen Energy, Susquehanna’s majority owner, projected the deal would bring as much as $140 million in electricity sales in 2028, though it didn't disclose exactly how much AWS will pay for the power.

The profit potential is one that other nuclear plant operators, in particular, are embracing after years of financial distress and frustration with how they are paid in the broader electricity markets. Many say they have been forced to compete in some markets against a flood of cheap natural gas as well as state-subsidized solar and wind energy.

Power plant owners also say the arrangement benefits the wider public, by bypassing the costly buildout of long power lines and leaving more transmission capacity on the grid for everyone else.

FERC's big decision

A favorable ruling from FERC could open the door to many more huge data centers and other massive power users like hydrogen plants and bitcoin miners, analysts say.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is seen at right  in Washington. 

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) · ASSOCIATED PRESS

FERC’s 2-1 rejection in November was procedural. Recent comments by commissioners suggest they weren't ready to decide how to regulate such a novel matter without more study.

In the meantime, the agency is hearing arguments for and against the Susquehanna-AWS deal.

Monitoring Analytics, the market watchdog in the mid-Atlantic grid, wrote in a filing to FERC that the impact would be “extreme” if the Susquehanna-AWS model were extended to all nuclear power plants in the territory.

Energy prices would increase significantly and there's no explanation for how rising demand for power will be met even before big power plants drop out of the supply mix, it said.

Separately, two electric utility owners — which make money in deregulated states from building out the grid and delivering power — have protested that the Susquehanna-AWS arrangement amounts to freeloading off a grid that ordinary customers pay to build and maintain. Chicago-based Exelon and Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power say the Susquehanna-AWS arrangement would allow AWS to avoid $140 million a year that it would otherwise owe.

Susquehanna’s owners say the data center won't be on the grid and question why it should have to pay to maintain it. But critics contend that the power plant itself is benefiting from taxpayer subsidies and ratepayer-subsidized services, and shouldn't be able to strike deals with private customers that could increase costs for others.

FERC's decision will have “massive repercussions for the entire country” because it will set a precedent for how FERC and grid operators will handle the waiting avalanche of similar requests from data center companies and nuclear plants, said Jackson Morris of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Stacey Burbure, a vice president for American Electric Power, told FERC at a hearing in November that it needs to move quickly.

“The timing of this issue is before us," she said, “and if we take our typical five years to get this perfect, it will be too late.”

___

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