The daughter of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is telling Americans to "pay attention" to the words of President-elect Trump during his inauguration and also honor her father's birthday.

Why it matters: The inauguration and MLK Day fall on the same date in January, creating anxiety among many Black Americans who strongly opposed Trump amid his repeated use of bigoted language during his campaign.

The big picture: Some Black Americans were urging others to tune out Trump during his inauguration speech and instead focus on the legacy of the fallen civil rights leader.

Yes, but: Bernice A. King, the youngest child of the civil rights icon and Coretta Scott King, recently posted on Instagram that everyone in the U.S. should do both.

• "l certainly understand the desire to tune out rhetoric, ideology, and policies with which we passionately disagree and which contradict the spirit of the Beloved Community," King wrote.
• "However, we must pay attention to what President-Elect Trump speaks on that day, even if by transcript and video later."
• She said that activists cannot develop "a strategic, love-centered strategy for addressing language and legislation" if they are not also strategic in listening and leadership.
• "This is not the time for ignorance."

Zoom in: Trump is scheduled to be sworn into office on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C.

• That same day, dozens of cities and towns nationwide will be holding MLK Day events, speeches, parades and volunteer events.
• The King Center in Atlanta will have a commemorative service that morning, which will be streamed live.

State of play: During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country," language echoing the rhetoric of white supremacists and Adolf Hitler.

• Trump also compared himself to Martin Luther King Jr. and suggested he drew a similar crowd size to his first inauguration as King did when he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington.
• Trump also called North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who lost a race for governor, "Martin Luther King on steroids." Robinson lost following a CNN story that alleged he called himself a "Black NAZI" on a porn site.

Zoom out: After Trump's win, Martin Luther King III, the civil rights leader's son, told dejected supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris to "keep moving forward."

• King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, spearheaded the creation of a new Black-Latino coalition in the days before the election.

What we're watching: Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of two important civil rights events — the "Bloody Sunday" attack on Selma civil rights marchers and the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

• If Trump attends any commemorative gatherings on those landmark events, he will likely have to see members of the King family.

New data suggest that the homicide surge of 2020 was driven largely by men and teen boys who were either laid off or saw their schools close during pandemic shutdowns.

Why it matters: Record spikes in homicides during the COVID-19 crisis puzzled officials, and some blamed social unrest and mass protests. But a Brookings Institution analysis reviewed by Axios indicates that alienated men and youths, especially in low-income areas, likely were behind the jump.

Catch up quick: U.S. cities saw their homicide rates surge by an average of nearly 30% in 2020, the biggest year-over-year jump in recorded U.S. history.

• Homicide rates ticked up for two more years until 2023, when rates started to plummet. Early numbers show the national homicide rate in 2024 is on track to return to pre-pandemic levels.
• President-elect Trump cited rising crime (while crime was declining) during his campaign, and falsely blamed immigrants for the pandemic-era jump in homicides.

Zoom in: The Brookings findings were based on thousands of police records before and after the 2020 homicide surge.

• Cities with larger numbers of young men forced out of work and teen boys pushed out of school in low-income neighborhoods in March and early April 2020 averaged greater increases in homicides from May to December that year than other areas, the analysis found.
• Unemployment and truancy also help explain why homicides remained high in 2021 and 2022 and then fell in late 2023 and 2024, the analysis found.

Zoom out: Almost all the neighborhoods with the highest homicide rates were places where at least 30% of the residents lived below the poverty line, which in 2020 was about $26,200 in income for a household of four.

• By mid-April 2020, young men laid off because of the pandemic and high school boys whose schools were shut down made up about 1 in 30 of those living in low-income neighborhoods, Brookings found.
• Many of the men had worked for restaurants and hotels, industries and the pandemic disproportionally hit them, the report found.
• Many students pushed out of school often didn't have access to high-speed internet for online classes.
• The Brookings report analyzed data in three dozen of the nation's largest cities.

The intrigue: The report did not look at women and teen girls as they weren't drivers of violence during a pandemic that caused devastation across the country.

What they're saying: "You had this combined effect of places where crimes always existed, and then this massive influx of young boys who were out of school and young men who were out of work all at the same time," Rhett Morris, co-author of the report, tells Axios.

• Rohit Acharya, another co-author of the report, said many of the homicide hot spots identified in the analysis tended to have few mental health resources or community centers.

The report recommends that communities invest in more mental health services and violence prevention programs while developing intervention programs for men who've committed acts of violence.

What we're watching: The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) is expected to release its preliminary 2024 crime stats from major cities next month.

• Early estimates suggest it will show another drop in homicides.

An Italian-born nun who confronted Billy the Kid, calmed angry mobs, opened New Mexico territory hospitals and later gave refuge to immigrant children is getting closer to Sainthood from the Roman Catholic Church.

The big picture: The push for Sister Blandina Segale's sainthood comes as President-elect Trump vows mass deportation and Catholic groups prepare to assist immigrants going into hiding.

• If she becomes a saint, she'd be Patron Saint of Immigrant Children.

State of play: Some Catholics believe Segale is responsible for miracles in helping immigrant children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.

• New Mexico Catholic officials visited the Vatican last week to make their case for Sainthood before Catholic historians amid a review that could take years, even decades. The Santa Fe Archdiocese and the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops confirmed the meeting to Axios.

Catch up quick: Segale supporters in 2015 presented their case before the Archdiocese of Santa Fe at a ceremonial "first inquiry" on why Sister Blandina Segale should become a saint.

• The public inquiry determined there was enough evidence to move her case through the largely secret process at the Vatican.
• Witnesses said Segale fought against the cruel treatment of Native Americans and sought to stop the trafficking of women as sex slaves.
• They also testified that in death, Segale has helped cancer patients and poor immigrants who have prayed to her for help.

Zoom in: A group of Vatican historians last week voted to affirm Segale's case — a vital hurdle to move it along, Allen Sánchez, New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops executive director, told Axios from Rome.

• "So we move to this next step. This is important because of what is happening in the United States," Sánchez said.
• "The health care system she started is now one of the largest nonprofit health care organizations in the country called CommonSpirit, with 145 hospitals in 24 states."

Flashback: Segale, a nun with the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, came to Trinidad, Colorado, in 1877 to teach poor children. She was later transferred to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she co-founded public and Catholic schools.

• While in New Mexico, she worked with the poor, the sick and immigrants. She also advocated on behalf of Hispanics and Native Americans who were losing their land to swindlers.
• Victoria Marie Forde of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati said documents showed Segale went out of her way to provide assistance to Italian-American immigrants and protect Mexican Americans facing violence in western territories.

The intrigue: Her encounters with Billy the Kid — an American outlaw in the Old West linked to several killings — remain among her most popular and well-known Western frontier adventures.

• According to one story, she received a tip that The Kid was coming to her town to scalp the four doctors who refused to treat his friend's gunshot wound.
• Segale nursed the friend to health, and when Billy went to Trinidad to thank her, she asked him to abandon his violent plan. He agreed.

Fun fact: Her encounters with Old West outlaws later became the stuff of legend and were the subject of an episode of the CBS series "Death Valley Days."

• The episode was called "The Fastest Nun in the West."

Some Catholic and evangelical leaders say they will unpack the Holy Family's immigration plight during Christmas services to offer hope for immigrants worried about what's coming under President-elect Trump.

Why it matters: Trump and his incoming administration are promising immigration raids — even inside churches — as part of their mass deportation plan, and church leaders say that's already prompting some immigrants to go into hiding.

State of play: Undocumented immigrants appear to be taking Trump at his word — some have left the country, stopped coming to work or disappeared, Allen Sánchez, New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops executive director, tells Axios.

• Others are emotionally asking evangelical pastors for protection, Gabriel Salguero, president and co-founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, tells Axios.
• "What I'm telling people in this advent of Christmas is ... Jesus understands you because he lived your reality."

Context: In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph is told through a dream that King Herod is sending soldiers to kill Baby Jesus over fears He's the new King of the Jews.

• Joseph then gathers Mary and Jesus in the dead of night to flee to Egypt, making them refugees who are escaping persecution.
• They only return to the land of Judea after King Herod has died.

In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph is forced to take a pregnant Mary to Bethlehem to register for the required Roman Empire census.

• She must give birth to Jesus and place Him in a manger because "there was no room for them in the inn."
• The dire situation highlights the humbleness and poverty of the Holy Family, who were forced to travel by order of the government.

Zoom in: Latino evangelical churches will be telling attendees at Christmas services to remember Jesus and his family were forced to migrate to Egypt for reasons that they could not control, Salguero says.

• Salguero says the immigrant story is Christ's story. "Our primary call is to love our neighbors and love the immigrant and love the stranger, and we're going to live that through."
• "There may not be room at the inn, but there is room at the church."
• Similarly, Catholic churches will share the Christmas story as a call to action to everyone, Sánchez says.

Zoom out: New Mexico's three Catholic bishops, in the state with the largest percentage of Hispanic residents in the nation, called on Trump this month to reconsider his plan to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history.

• Frank Schuster, the Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle, also released a video saying the church does not have the right to "ask for papers."

Yes, but: Conservative white evangelical church leaders, many of whom supported Trump, have endorsed mass deportations and some have used racist language to describe immigrants.

• That view comes from how some white evangelicals interpret the Bible's Book of Revelation as Heaven being a closed-off place, Yale Divinity professor Yii-Jan Lin tells Axios.
• Some English-speaking Latino evangelicals who belong to white-majority churches also supported Trump..

The big picture: Religious leaders of many faiths have long played a role in immigrant rights.

• Some have allowed undocumented immigrants to find sanctuary in churches, where immigration authorities have typically not arrested people.
• During Trump's first term, some churches erected nativity installations depicting Mary, Joseph and Jesus separated in cages to protest Trump's immigrant family separation policy.

Now, church leaders say they want to use Christmas to send immigrants a message: The family of Jesus experienced what you experienced, and the church will be a place of refuge in the coming months.

The Bible's Book of Revelation has influenced U.S. immigration policy, with interpretations of America as the New Jerusalem and unwanted migrants as the castaways meant for Hell, a New Testament scholar says in a new book.

Why it matters: White American evangelicals continue to shape U.S. policy by using strict interpretations of the Bible as a guide, and Yale Divinity professor Yii-Jan Lin argues this has always been the case around immigration.

Zoom in: "Immigration and Apocalypse: How the Book of Revelation Shaped American Immigration" examines how the Apocalypse story has been used to determine who belongs in the U.S. — and who does not.

• From Columbus in 1492 to Trump's evangelical base, Lin argues that the Book of Revelation has shaped how the United States is seen as the Promised Land for the Chosen People, who must also keep out "hordes" of unhealthy heathens.
• That interpretation has influenced popular culture, church sermons, and restrictive immigration laws throughout U.S. history, Lin argues.

Catch up quick: The Book of Revelation, written by John of Patmos in the First Century, is the last book of the New Testament and envisions a violent Second Coming of Jesus.

• Told in allegorical language, Jesus is locked in a cosmic battle with the forces of evil. The Chosen are accepted into a New Jerusalem, while those kept out are portrayed as subhuman, sexually deviant, and disgusting.

In an interview with Axios, Lin says she came up with the idea for her book after being asked to share her thoughts on apocalyptic Bible passages with Asian Americans in the Bay Area in 2014.

• She remembers writer Junot Díaz asking, "Is there anything more apocalyptic than immigration?"
• "That combined with thinking about the place names of where I was living, so, Golden Gate, Golden State, Angel Island ... Chinese called San Francisco 'Gold Mountain.' There's this heavenly arrival and a promise of paradise for immigrants."
• But the other possibility for immigrants could include disaster, catastrophe, and rejection, Lin says.

The intrigue: Lin says that, while researching for her book, she found racist "Yellow Peril" novels of the 1880s, drowned in the Book of Revelation imagery, warning that Chinese immigrants are taking over the country. Congress eventually passed Chinese Exclusion Act.

• Robert Jeffress, an evangelical preacher and prominent Trump supporter, told "Fox & Friends" in 2019: "The Bible says even Heaven itself is going to have a wall around it. Not everybody is going to be allowed in."
• Lin says that's a direct reference to the Book of Revelation.

Zoom out: Lin says Trump's talk of an immigrant invasion or immigrants eating house pets is also language straight from Revelation.

• As some people believe "cities have been conquered and invaded," Trump has been seen "as a savior, Messiah-like....(a) Chosen One."

What we're watching: Progressive-leaning Christians are expected to use other passages in the Bible that welcome "the stranger" as a way to counter anti-immigrant sentiment, Lin says.

• Yet it will be difficult for them to use the Book of Revelation, too, since it's so exclusionary, she says.

Approval rates for asylum seekers in the U.S. are dropping dramatically in the run-up to the second Trump administration, and it's become particularly difficult for Latin American immigrants to get asylum, an Axios review finds.

Why it matters: The decrease reflects the Biden administration's new restrictions on asylum, and likely the anticipation of President-elect Trump's impending crackdown on immigration.

• New data also show that immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia are far more likely to be granted asylum than those from Central and South America.
• A big reason for that disparity: To help clear huge backlogs in asylum cases, immigration courts have sped up hearings by using what many call a "rocket docket."
• That appears to be helping to drive down asylum approvals for Central and South Americans, who often need more time to make their cases for asylum than people fleeing war or socialism in Eastern Europe and Asia.

By the numbers: The latest case-by-case immigration court records, for October, show asylum grant rates had declined to just 35.8%, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

• That's the lowest rate since May 2021, when the U.S. was moving away from COVID-19 restrictions and waves of new asylum seekers came to the U.S.-Mexico border, an Axios review found.
• Asylum approval rates were highest in May 2022 and September 2023, peaking at over 50%.
• Immigration courts closed 900,000 immigration and asylum cases from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024 —the most cleared cases in a fiscal year, and 235,000 more than the previous year, TRAC reports.

Zoom in: Asylum seekers from Russia, Asia and Eastern Europe were highly successful in getting asylum from U.S. immigration courts in fiscal 2024, Axios' review found.

• Asylum seekers from Russia had the highest approval rate (85.4%) for nationalities with at least 2,000 asylum decisions. China was second, with an approval rate of 76.6%.
• Immigrants from Belarus, Afghanistan, Uganda, Eritrea, Kosovo, and Ukraine all had similar approval rates, but each had just a few hundred asylum decisions.

Mexico had the lowest asylum grant rate (16.6%) for any nationality with at least 2,000 decisions. Among the 4,950 asylum decisions involving Mexicans, only 821 people were granted asylum.

• Immigration courts issued 6,201 asylum decisions from Hondurans — the most of any nationality in fiscal 2024. Only 29.1% were granted asylum.

The intrigue: Venezuela and Cuba had the highest asylum grant rates of all Latin American countries, highlighting how those fleeing socialist regimes historically have had an easier path to asylum in the U.S.

• There were 4,236 asylum seekers from Venezuela in fiscal 2024; 64.5% were granted asylum.
• 2,083 asylum requests came from Cubans; 51.6% were approved.

Between the lines: Asylum seekers can ask for protection in the U.S. if they have been persecuted or fear persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

• Proving the need for protection can be extremely difficult, and the massive backlog in immigration courts means applicants may have to wait years before their case is heard.

What we're watching: Any immigration package in Congress next year likely would have new asylum regulations, along with money for more immigration judges.

• Such changes could move more asylum cases through the system — but Trump's plan for mass deportations could result in significantly bigger backlogs.

Most of the nation's 734 immigration judges are seeking to reinstate their union ahead of an expected spike in immigration cases from President-elect Trump's planned mass deportations.

Driving the news: The judges' appeal, scheduled to go before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) on Tuesday, seeks to restore their right to bargain for contracts and have a union — a right stripped from them during Trump's first term.

The big picture: Immigration judges are expecting a huge surge in new cases — adding to an already historic backlog of 3.7 million cases — once Trump launches his promised mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants.

• The U.S. immigration system's backlog will take an estimated four years to resolve at the current pace — which could balloon to 16 years under Trump's deportation plan, according to an Axios analysis.
• Of the 3.7 million pending cases, 1.6 million involve asylum seekers awaiting formal hearings or case decisions.

Background: The Trump-controlled FLRA stripped the NAIJ of its bargaining and union power in 2020 after calling judges "managers" who weren't eligible for union representation.

• The NAIJ challenged the decision in federal court, and won a ruling that said immigration judges were entitled to union representation.

What they're saying: "They need a voice as workers, as immigration judges," said Matthew Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which representing 90,000 public-, private- and federal-sector workers in the U.S. and Canada.

• Biggs says the immigration judges want fair representation and are worried about being overwhelmed even more with a jump in new cases.
• The union says judges typically spend only about 30 minutes on each case because of the pressure to tackle the backlog.

The intrigue: Immigration courts closed 900,000 cases from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

• That was the most cleared cases in a fiscal year, and 235,000 more than the previous year, TRAC reports.

What we're watching: An FLRA decision on the union issue could come in six weeks.

Stephen Miller, the incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy, on Sunday gave new details on the Trump administration's plan for what he called "the largest deportation operation in American history."

Why it matters: Miller made clear during his interview on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that deportations would be Trump's no.1 priority ahead of issues including making reforms to tax and trade and the debt ceiling.

• President-elect Trump has vowed to crack down on immigration and start mass deportations on Day 1 of his presidency, though the operation would be hard to achieve without major structural overhauls.

What they're saying: Miller said on Fox News that first, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have "promised that they can get a full funding package for the border, the most significant board of security investment in American history ... to the president's desk in January or early February."

• That would mean a "massive increase" in Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers working on Trump's deportation operation and a "historic increase in border agents," with both getting a pay rise, Miller told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.
• There would be "full funding for ICE beds, full funding for air and marine operations, full funding for all of the barriers and technology that you need to ensure there's never another got-away entering this country," Miller added.

Worth noting: Trump aides have previously said the president-elect would prioritize deporting dangerous criminals — something the federal government already does.

• An Axios review of the most recent immigration court records found that less than .5% of over 1 million cases last year resulted in deportation orders for alleged crimes other than illegal entry into the U.S.

Zoom in: After Trump has signed executive orders to "seal the border shut" and begin deportations, the senators would "move immediately" in the same timeframe "to the comprehensive tax reform package," Miller said.

• "What they're talking about doing is, before government funding expires in March, before the debt ceiling expires in June, just days after he puts his hand on that Bible ..." added Miller before Bartiromo asked if waiting until later in the year to extend tax cuts through a separate reconciliation process could risk it not happening.
• "There's zero chance of that because, as you know, the tax cuts expire this year," Miller replied.
• "And you're not just going to have tax cuts, but you're going to have other fiscal reforms ... going to have energy reforms, maybe additional border reforms. But the very important point in all of this is that, with the current [slim] size of the majority in the House, there isn't a proposal to pass taxes in February," he added. "That's going to take some period of time."
• Representatives for Thune and Graham did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment in the evening.

Go deeper: Trump suggests deporting families with mixed immigration status

Editor's note: This article has been updated with more context.

Federal probes into alleged civil rights abuses by a dozen cities' police departments haven't led to any reform agreements during the Biden administration — and are unlikely to do so in Donald Trump's second term.

Why it matters: The investigations by President Biden's Justice Department came in response to allegations of systemic, unconstitutional misconduct by the police departments, such as using excessive force and conducting illegal traffic stops.

• Such probes often lead to court-ordered consent decree agreements, which require police to impose various reforms.
• But Trump suggested during the presidential campaign that he equates such pacts to "defunding the police," or weakening law enforcement.

Zoom in: During Trump's first term, his administration refused to enter into any consent decrees to reform police departments, even after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 put pressure on law enforcement agencies.

• Trump's administration unsuccessfully sought to withdraw from consent decrees negotiated during the Obama administration, but not yet finalized, in Chicago and Baltimore.

Biden's Justice Department launched investigations into these agencies:

• Phoenix Police Department
• Louisville (Ky.) Metro Police Department and Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government
• Louisiana State Police
• Worcester (Mass.) Police Department
• Minneapolis Police Department
• The City of Lexington (Miss.) and Lexington Police Department
• Rankin County (Miss.) Sheriff's Department
• Mount Vernon (N.Y.) Police Department
• New York (N.Y.) Police Department Special Victims Division
• Oklahoma City Police Department
• Memphis Police Department
• Trenton (N.J.) Police Department

Justice Department officials announced last month it had found that police in Trenton engaged in unconstitutional policing practices, including using excessive force and conducting illegal traffic stops.

• The DOJ said Trenton officers used pepper spray in about 15% of more than 800 physical encounters with the public.
• Two police units known for their heavy-handed tactics were disbanded after the DOJ launched its probe.

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora told Axios he's unsure whether federal authorities and the city can negotiate a consent decree requiring new procedures before Trump enters office Jan. 20.

What they're saying: Trump's transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the police probes.

• Project 2025, the plan for Trump's second term put together by dozens of Trump allies, calls for Trump's administration to avoid entering into consent decrees or settlements that "bind" law enforcement agencies for "years or decades."
• Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general in Biden's Justice Department, said that "ensuring lawful, non-discriminatory, transparent, and effective policing is a top priority for the Justice Department. The Justice Department is steadfast in its commitment to ensuring the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans are protected."

Reality check: Some city leaders and public safety experts tell Axios that federal oversight of police departments has had mixed results. In some cases, they've driven up costs while doing little to curb violent crime, they say.

• A consent decree in Oakland, Calif., for example, has been in place for more than two decades.
• The city agreed to several reforms, including improving police misconduct investigations, to resolve a lawsuit brought by more than 100 residents who'd been targeted by a group of police officers known as the "Riders."
• But recently the department was criticized for its responses to an incident involving an alleged hit-and-run involving a high-ranking officer, and another case in which a homicide detective was accused of bribing a witness.
• Lawyers now want the police department placed into receivership, per the Oaklandside.

In Albuquerque, which has spent $40 million on reforms since entering into a consent decree in 2014, the police department's rate of deadly encounters is higher now than it was before the decree, per Searchlight New Mexico.

Yes, but: Police in Ferguson, Mo., are more racially diverse after federal authorities intervened in 2016 following the killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man.

• Philadelphia also has had a significant decrease in the number of illegal stop-and-frisks since entering a consent degree 13 years ago, per a monitor's latest report.
• The DOJ doesn't oversee that consent decree, so "the Trump administration cannot make us stop," says Mary Catherine Roper, a civil rights attorney and former ACLU-PA deputy legal director who helped litigate the case.

In Newark, N.J. — where police have been under a consent decree since a federal probe into excessive force and "vast racial disparities" in arrests — an independent monitor recently wrote that Newark police officers used lawful force in 97% of cases after the decree went into effect.

• Larry Hamm, founder of the People's Organization for Progress, which has protested Newark police's brutality for decades, tells Axios that residents fear problems will rear "their ugly head again" if the consent decree is lifted.

An Axios review of a new National Archives portal found just three digitized unsolved cases of lynchings, racial violence and murders of Black Americans, spawning several decades.

The big picture: The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection portal is the federal agency's latest attempt to index civil rights violations and provide a subject guide, part of an aim spelled out by law to bring justice to the victims in those cases.

Why it matters: After Reconstruction, the federal government — and many states — rarely prosecuted allegations of civil rights violations and racial violence until the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

• The lack of action built decades of distrust, and families seldom saw justice for victims.
• The new portal starts with victims in three cases.

They include:

• Hattie Debardelaben, a 46-year-old farmer, who was killed in 1945 by Deputy Clyde White and federal officers in Alabama during a warrantless search of her home for illegal whiskey;
• Leroy Bradwell, a 26-year-old WWII veteran who went missing in Florida in 1946 after being falsely accused of writing an obscene letter to a white woman; and
• Rev. Samuel Earl Sawyer, Sr., a 39-year-old father of five who was killed by a Georgia state trooper in 1948.

State of play: More case records will be released soon, per the National Archives.

• The existing case inclusions were generated in response to the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act, signed into law in 2019 by President-elect Trump during his first term.
• The bill passed to bring justice for victims established a review board independent of the FBI to oversee the release of documents about cases.
• Trump didn't nominate members to the board during his first term, but the U.S. Senate approved President Biden's nominees in 2022.

Zoom in: Before the Cold Case Collection Act, information about unsolved cases had to be obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — a slow process often resulting in significantly redacted documents.

• The federal government has long been criticized for its response to racial injustices and often failed to prosecute cases of lynching, racial terror and mob killings throughout the 20th century.

Case in point: The U.S. Department of Justice opened in September its first-ever probe into the Tulsa Massacre more than a century after it happened in 1921.

• It was one of the deadliest race massacres in the nation's history, decimating a prosperous Black community and economic hub known as "Black Wall Street."

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announced the DOJ review under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

• That law allows the federal government to investigate civil rights crimes that resulted in death and occurred on or before Dec. 31, 1979.
• "We have no expectation that there are living perpetrators who could be criminally prosecuted by us or by the state," Clarke said at the time.
• However, Clarke said the department will issue a report analyzing the massacre in light of both modern and then-existing civil rights laws.

Don't forget: In 2021, the DOJ formally closed its second investigation into the 1955 death of 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till, who white supremacists tortured and murdered after a white woman claimed Till grabbed and propositioned her during his trip to Mississippi to visit family.

• Witness statements indicated that he whistled at her.
• And although his accuser, Carolyn Bryant Donham reportedly recanted her testimony that Till harassed her, the department closed its probe after finding no verifiable evidence of the report.
• Donham's alleged recantation wasn't properly recorded or documented, the DOJ said.
• Donham died last year at 88, ending any hope by civil rights advocates that anyone connected to the lynching of Till would be brought to justice.

Go deeper: Uncovering the Tulsa Race Massacre after 100 years

A bill that would preserve the Wounded Knee Massacre site is being blocked by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) over his push to get federal recognition for a North Carolina tribe whose legitimacy is questioned by tribal nations.

The big picture: The Wounded Knee Massacre site on Oglala Lakota land in South Dakota is a mourning place for many tribes, and the blocking of a preservation bill could create more animosity toward the Lumbee, who want to circumvent traditional routes for federal recognition.

Catch up quick: Tillis put a hold on the Wounded Knee Massacre legislation last month after he accused certain tribes of not supporting a bill that would give the Lumbee federal recognition.

• He accused Native American tribes of being part of a "casino cartel" led by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who want to stop the Lumbee from gaining recognition and possibly opening its own casino.
• "This is not about you. This is about your leaders," Tillis said on the Senate floor Nov. 21 in reference to the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, who suffered at Wounded Knee.
• "This is about (your leaders') underhanded, unfair treatment of a tribal nation that deserves recognition and that this country needs to atone for over a century of racism and neglect."

State of play: A hold on the Wounded Knee Massacre legislation prevents the consolidation of privately owned and allotted lands around the site of the Oglala Lakota Nation.

• Supporters say the consolidation would allow the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes to preserve it how they see fit.

Zoom out: The U.S. Army in 1890 slaughtered 150 Lakota Indian men, women and children in the last chapter of the U.S. government's long war against Native Americans.

• Since then, the isolated site has become a place of mourning for many Native American tribes as it symbolizes the brutality many faced at the hands of the U.S. government.

The intrigue: Tribal leaders interviewed by Axios said members of Tillis' staff have told them that the Wounded Knee Massacre bill and other tribal legislation will continue to be held unless they support the Lumbee proposal.

• Shawnee Tribal Chief Benjamin Barnes tells Axios it's unfairly tying legislation that has nothing to do with each other. He says tribes have no problem with the Lumbee seeking federal recognition through the proper process.
• "This is not race policing or Indian policing," Barnes says. "If they can prove they have historical ties, then go for it, but to stall the Wounded Knee bill over this unnecessary."
• O.J. Semans, Sr., a member of the Rosebud Sioux and executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), tells Axios the Lumbee's silence over the Wounded Knee hold is telling and scary.

A spokesperson of Tillis did not immediately return an email from Axios.

Context: The Lumbee Tribe has been trying to get federal recognition for years to unlock millions of dollars for Native American services after being denied the ability to apply for federal recognition in 1987.

• The denial was based on the interpretation of a 1956 congressional act that acknowledged the Lumbee but stopped short of granting them federal recognition, per The AP.
• The Department of the Interior reversed that ruling in 2016, allowing the Lumbee Tribe to apply, but the tribe has sought recognition through congressional action since then.
• A tribe can gain federal recognition through the Interior Department after providing evidence of treaties, historical connections to lands or proof of existence before European contact, for example.

Between the lines: The Lumbee, which claims 50,000 members, has significant political influence in the swing state of North Carolina, and both Vice President Harris and President-elect Trump endorsed its push for federal recognition.

In a statement, Lumbee chairman John Lowery told Axios the tribe "will not back down in the face of these assaults and a well-funded lobbying campaign."

• Lowery told the AP that the Interior's application process is "flawed" and overly lengthy and it should be up to Congress to right what he calls a historic wrong.

The other side: Barnes and Semans said giving a tribe federal recognition through congressional action sets a dangerous precedent since any group can gather and create political pressure for something that is sacred only to historic tribal nations.

• "If you're able to see a race of people able to get identified as Native American, I'm telling you, we're gonna have, like, 100 different Cherokee tribes," Semans said.

Go deeper: The Lumbee Tribe's time is now. Maybe.

Editor's note: This story was corrected to reflect the Lumbee has 50,000 members, (not 500,000).

Immigrants arrested for homicides accounted for less than 1% of "at-large" arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the last six years, an Axios review found.

Why it matters: President-elect Trump has vowed to launch the "largest deportation of criminals in American history" — often focusing on the slaying of college student Laken Riley by an undocumented immigrant — but data shows crimes like homicide and sexual assault feature in only a small fraction of ICE arrests.

By the numbers: An Axios review of data for nearly 180,000 ICE at-large arrests broken down by criminal convictions from October 1, 2017 through Sept. 30, 2023 found:

• The largest numbers concerned immigration-related offenses (16%); driving under the influence (15%); dangerous drugs (15%), assault (9%) and traffic offenses (9%).
• 3% of the crimes were larceny, 1.7% sexual assault and .7% homicide.
• ICE at-large arrests are those made in public settings as opposed to when ICE picks up someone who's already in jail or prison.

Overall, ICE figures released earlier this year said there have been more than 425,000 noncitizen immigrants with criminal convictions in the past 40 years or more.

• About 13,100 — or 3% — were convicted of homicide, while 15,811 (3.7%) were convicted of sexual assault.
• Many are imprisoned in federal, state or local facilities and may enter deportation proceedings after serving their sentences.

Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, reached for comment by Axios, didn't address the disparity in the ICE arrest data and Trump's claims about immigrant crime.

• In a statement, Leavitt said Trump will marshal all resources for "the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history."

Reality check: The federal government has prioritized deporting immigrants with criminal records since the Obama administration, Amy Maldonado, an immigration lawyer in Michigan, tells Axios.

• "What Trump is proposing is nothing new. We've never let murderers and rapists just roam the streets."
• "They're lying. This is just an excuse for mass deportations," Maldonado says.

The big picture: Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally or without authorization — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens.

• There are roughly 24.5 million total noncitizen immigrants in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center. About 11 million of them don't have legal status.

President-elect Trump is vowing to launch the "largest deportation of criminals in American history" as part of his plans to remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S.

• What he doesn't say: There aren't that many criminals who could be deported immediately.

Driving the news: Less than 0.5% of the 1.8 million cases in immigration courts during the past fiscal year — involving about 8,400 people — included deportation orders for alleged crimes other than entering the U.S. illegally, an Axios review of government data found.

• The figures don't include more than 400,000 noncitizen immigrants with criminal convictions in the past few decades, many of whom are being held in federal, state or local facilities.
• About 29,000 of those felons have been convicted of homicide or sexual assault.
• All of them would enter the deportation process in immigration courts — but not until after serving their sentences.

The immigration court numbers — along with the mechanics of deportation — suggest that Trump's push for mass deportations of criminals could take some time.

Zoom in: Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally or undocumented — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens.

• Trump and conservatives have elevated individual tragedies such as the slaying of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley to claim that immigrants were driving a crime wave — and to justify a push for mass deportations.
• Trump's claims about migrants and crime were among a series of baseless statements he made during the campaign — remarks that also included riffs on immigrants eating house pets and how immigrants are destroying the "blood of our nation."
• Trump vowed to deport the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants across the country. His campaign and surrogates have said their initial focus will be on immigrants who have committed crimes.

By the numbers: There are roughly 24.5 million noncitizen immigrants in the U.S., including those here awaiting asylum decisions or otherwise here lawfully, according to the Pew Research Center.

• Immigration courts recorded 1,798,964 new cases from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, reviewed by Axios.
• Just 0.47% of those cases involved possible deportations based on alleged criminal activity.

Zoom in: Early evidence indicates the trend is continuing.

• Immigration courts received 87,620 new cases as of October 2024 in the new fiscal year. Just 640 (0.73%) of those involved potential deportation orders based on alleged criminal activity, TRAC found.

What they're saying: Trump will marshal all resources for "the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history," Trump-Vance transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

• The Trump transition team declined to address the low number of current immigration cases involving immigrants who've committed crimes.
• Trump's incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that the new administration will "concentrate on the public safety threats and the national security threats first" under a mass deportation plan.
• "We know a record number of people on the terrorist watch list have crossed this border. We know a record number of terrorists have been released in this country," Homan said.

Zoom out: Removing immigrants deemed threats to national security and public safety has been a priority in President Biden's administration.

• Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo on Sept. 30, 2021, instructing DHS immigration officials "to prioritize the apprehension and removal of noncitizens considered to be threats to national security, public safety and border security."

Zoom out: U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Field Operations, the agency's largest component, arrested 19,242 noncitizens who have been convicted of crime in the U.S. or abroad in fiscal 2024, the agency said.

• The U.S. Border Patrol recorded 17,048 arrests of noncitizens who have been convicted of crimes in the U.S. or abroad in fiscal 2024.
• Those noncitizens could be green card holders, immigrants with temporary protection, undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers who can appeal or fight arrests.

The intrigue: The number of arrests of noncitizen immigrants with criminal convictions in fiscal 2024 under Biden represented a 114% increase from fiscal 2019, during Trump's last year in office pre-COVID.

• An Axios review of CBP data found that arrests of noncitizen immigrants with criminal convictions on average doubled under Biden from what they'd been under Trump — partly a reflection of the waves of migrants crossing the border during Biden's tenure.

This year's Native American Heritage Month, in November, comes after the Indigenous population in the United States grew to the largest it's been in modern times, with 3.7 million people identifying as Native American or Alaska Native over the last decade, per the U.S. Census.

Through the lens: For this year's commemoration, Axios is exploring Indigenous contributions to art, civil rights and sports amid the growing #StillHere movement

Go deeper: Axios Explains: Thanksgiving's troubled history

Thanksgiving in the United States is based on a mythical feast between the Wampanoag people and Mayflower Pilgrims. The holiday's real story is mixed with national unity and racial exclusion.

The big picture: The nation's annual Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday brings millions of families together, but the nation is growing more diverse and requiring new voices to tell the country's history.

State of play: Debates over Thanksgiving's origins have been reduced to political-cultural battles amid a divided nation, yet a new generation of historians say we need to understand the holiday better to understand ourselves.

The Myth of Thanksgiving

The story told to most elementary school students for decades goes like this: Starving Pilgrims who landed on present-day Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, got needed help from friendly Wampanoag members.

• They showed the immigrant Pilgrims, who had escaped religious persecution in England, how to fish, hunt and harvest in the harsh New England climate.
• After a successful harvest, the Pilgrims invited the Wampanoag, including Chief Massasoit, for a feast where they held hands, prayed for thanks and ate turkey together.

Reality check: Historians believe a day of thanks did take place in Plymouth Colony in 1621, but it's unlike the event passed down to generations of children.

• According to the nonprofit group Partnership With Native Americans, the original feast lasted for three days and attendees ate fowl (but turkey wasn't mentioned in the early descriptions).
• The Wampanoag showed up for the feast out of concern over gunshots rather than from invitation. (This was their land, after all).

Zoom out: Around 50 years later, the colonists and the Wampanoag were at war after the colony expanded, and they enslaved other Indigenous people.

• Massasoit's son Metacomet — known to the English as "King Philip" — was killed and his head was mounted on a pike at the entrance to Plymouth as a warning to other Indigenous tribes.
• The Wampanoag were nearly wiped out, and that part of the Thanksgiving story didn't make it into the elementary lessons.

How Thanksgiving Became a National Holiday

Context: The first proclamation of an American "Thanksgiving" was November 1, 1777, when the 13 colonies joined together to celebrate the victory of the British at Saratoga.

• From then, Thanksgiving was sporadic and celebrated on different days in different states after the U.S. gained its independence.

The intrigue: Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the widely circulated Godey's Lady's Book magazine, campaigned aggressively for a national Thanksgiving holiday as a tool for unity as the country moved closer to the Civil War.

• An abolitionist, Hale faced opposition from some governors in Southern states who saw Thanksgiving as a "Yankee" holiday pushed by northern abolitionist preachers.
• She wrote President Lincoln amid the Civil War about the need for a unifying holiday known as Thanksgiving, and the president declared the holiday five days after getting her letter in 1863.
• Hale would write recipes for Thanksgiving and promote the day for the rest of her life.

Yes, but: Although Hale was an abolitionist against the enslavement of Black Americans, she supported the idea of free Black people leaving the U.S. for "colonies" in Africa.

• She did not envision a world where Black Americans could participate in a unifying Thanksgiving with full, equal rights as white Americans.

Exclusion and mourning

Football games became a traditional Thanksgiving Day feature, but until the 1950s, many Black Americans were barred from playing college games or attending games in nonsegregated settings.

• Until the Civil Rights Movement, restaurants that held Thanksgiving gatherings excluded Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and (ironically) Native Americans — all of whom would develop their own Thanksgiving traditions.

Conservatives, like the late Rush Limbaugh, attacked what they called revisionist histories of Thanksgiving and dismissed anything challenging the myth.

• Before he died in 2021, Limbaugh falsely claimed Native Americans had "little, if anything, to do with the prosperity" the Pilgrims experienced.

Ahead of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Americas, Indigenous tribes held protests and began holding mourning events around Thanksgiving to tell another story.

• The National Day of Mourning, an annual demonstration launched in 1970 on the fourth Thursday in November, is still observed in many communities.

Go deeper: Indigenizing Thanksgiving

It's one thing to call for the largest deportation in American history. It's another to pull it off logistically, given the highly complex process of spotting, detaining, holding and evicting people in the U.S. illegally.

Why it matters: The judicial process — one small piece of a long, expensive deportation machinery — illustrates vividly the complexity ahead.

The big picture: The U.S. immigration system's backlog of 3.7 million court cases will take four years to resolve at the current pace — but that could balloon to 16 years under President-elect Trump's mass deportation plan, according to an Axios analysis.

• Without a huge increase in immigration judges, millions of new cases would flood the non-criminal system. Trump's administration likely would need new detention centers nationwide to hold people suspected of being in the U.S. without authorization — possibly for years.
• The administration also would have to set up a wide range of monitoring systems for immigrants who aren't detained but are awaiting court dates.
• Immigration experts estimate the whole operation could cost taxpayers $150 billion to $350 billion.

Catch up quick: Immigrants suspected of being in the country without authorization are afforded due process by the nation's immigration court system, which is also where asylum seekers and other immigrants who may have legal avenues to live in the U.S. make their case.

• Of the 3.7 million pending immigration cases, 1.6 million are for asylum seekers waiting on formal hearings or case decisions.

By the numbers: Immigration courts closed 900,000 cases from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

• That's the most cleared cases in a fiscal year, and 235,000 more than the previous year, TRAC reports.
• At that pace, immigration courts wouldn't clear all active cases until 2028, an Axios analysis of TRAC data found.

Add 11 million undocumented immigrants — who Trump said would be part of his mass deportation plan — and the backlog would go into 2040 at the current pace, according to an Axios review.

• That's not counting millions of other migrants trying to enter the U.S. in the future.
• It's also not counting the 1.2 million immigrants living in the U.S. who are either receiving or eligible for Temporary Protected Status — a designation Trump limited in his first term and has promised to revoke for Haitians in his second.

Tom Homan, just over 12 hours before he was named Trump's border czar, told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that the administration will "concentrate on the public safety threats and the national security threats first, because they're the worst of the worst. So it's going to be the worst first."

• "That's how it has to be done," Homan added. "And we know a record number of people on the terrorist watch list have crossed this border. We know a record number of terrorists have been released in this country.
• "We have already arrested some planning attacks. So, look: The president is dead on when he says criminal threats, national security threats are going to be prioritized, and that's the way it's going to be."

Between the lines: Trump and Republicans have vowed to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove immigrants quickly, which experts worry could be used to detain lawful immigrants and their U.S.-born children.

• The act signed by President John Adams as part of the "Alien and Sedition Acts," allows the detention and removal of immigrants only when there is "a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government."

Reality check: The law is inapplicable because the U.S. is not at war with anyone, Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, immigration law scholar and professor at Cornell Law School, tells Axios.

• It would also be difficult to use unless Trump declares criminal networks like the Sinaloa Cartel a foreign nation, Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, tells Axios.
• Any use of the law would be met with court challenges from immigrant advocates.

What we're watching: Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress could try to pass immigration overhaul legislation but any revamping of due process will likely face resistance from Democrats and some Republicans.

Go deeper: Why Trump's immigration crackdown could overwhelm Colorado courts

President-elect Trump has vowed to crack down on immigration and start mass deportations on Day 1 of his presidency, but the operation will be difficult to pull off without major structural overhauls.

Why it matters: A backlog of nearly 4 million immigration cases and a shortage of immigration judges and detention centers can hinder quick deportation.

The mass deportations outlined by Trump could cost $150 billion to $350 billion, immigration experts say.

Catch up quick: Trump shared a social media post yesterday suggesting his new administration will declare a national emergency and use the military for mass deportations, and he labeled the claim, "TRUE!!!"

• Trump has said he wants to remove all undocumented immigrants from the country, though his campaign and surrogates said he wanted to focus on immigrants who have committed crimes.
• He's promised to use local law enforcement, the military, the FBI and other federal agencies to carry out mass deportations.
• He also vowed to end birthright citizenship.

State of play: An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants live across the country, working in the agriculture, oil and gas, construction, health care and service industries.

• Here is how mass deportations could shake out under the current immigration system:

Raids

Immigration attorney David Leopold tells Axios that the administration will likely order high-profile immigration raids of sites to create a flashy image that Trump is being tough.

• Leopold says those early actions will generate fear, forcing some workers not to show up for jobs anymore and creating a worker shortage while driving up inflation.

Yes, but: Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, immigration law scholar and professor at Cornell Law School, tells Axios it's unlikely that a coordinated effort across all federal and local agencies for deportations would be possible.

• Turf wars, pressure from local residents to resist and logical staffing realities would make it impossible, Kelley-Widmer says.
• Jennie Murray, president & CEO of the National Immigration Forum, tells Axios that mobilizing the military to help prioritize deportations is "worrisome."
• For example, some members of the National Guard and reserves who are also police officers may feel conflicted about participating in deportations because they also want to work with undocumented immigrants to solve crimes, Murray says.

Detentions

Currently, the U.S. does not have enough holding cells to house millions of people placed in deportation proceedings.

• That means the Trump administration will have to erect new "soft detention centers," or temporary camps across the country (though Trump officials strongly dispute calling them camps).
• Kelley-Widmer says that Trump's promise to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to detain migrants is more "showy" and aimed to instill fear.
• The president already has the authority to detain immigrants, but currently, the country only holds 38,000 in immigrant detention a day, Kelley-Widmer says.

Maribel Hernández Rivera, director of policy and government affairs for border and immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), tells Axios she expects the temporary holding centers to be inhumane and poorly built.

• The ACLU has sued and criticized the federal government numerous times over allegations of poor conditions and treatment in detention centers.
• "We intend to stop them."

Immigration hearings

Detainees still have a right to due process before removal, but 3.7 million people are already waiting for hearings right now.

• Leopold says the Trump administration could opt for more expedited removals, yet those are reserved for dangerous criminals.
• "At this moment, there's a lack of resources to be able to process people and allow them their due process. Imagine when funding is redirected to his deportation machinery," Hernández Rivera says.
• Experts say adding millions more to the backlog means the speed of deportations will slow — and maybe crawl to a standstill amid larger court challenges.

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Homicides continued to decline in major U.S. cities — by more than 40% in some communities — during the first nine months of the year, according to new data that show the COVID-era crime wave evaporating.

Why it matters: The stats are the latest signs that violent crime in America is starkly different from what President-elect Trump described in the recent campaign, when he falsely asserted that immigration was sparking rising crime nationwide.

The big picture: Violent crime ticked up early in President Biden's term, but reports show it's dropped significantly since then as law enforcement agencies responded to the pandemic surge and adopted more detailed recordkeeping.

• Trump has vowed to reduce crime while attacking reports that have indicated violent crime and homicides were declining under Biden. Now, Trump will take office with crime already dropping significantly.

By the numbers: Reports from 69 law enforcement agencies showed an 18% drop in homicides in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, according to stats compiled by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA).

• An Axios analysis of the MCCA data found that Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Montgomery County, Md, and Jacksonville, Fla., all had more than a 40% drop in homicides during that period.
• Cleveland, the border town of El Paso, New Orleans, Orlando, Fla., Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C., had declines in homicides of more than 30%.

The intrigue: Aurora, Colo. — a city Trump repeatedly singled out as being overrun by Venezuelan immigrant gangs — saw a 10% drop in homicides.

• Phoenix, another city targeted by conservatives as a city besieged by violent crime because of undocumented immigrants, had a 20% decline in homicides during the first nine months of this year.
• The data from MCCA's self-reported agencies did not include New York City, the nation's largest city, which did not submit crime numbers.

Stats from New York City, which are released on its own website, couldn't be compared to other cities in this report.

• But the MCCA report did include Los Angeles (the nation's second-largest city), where homicides dropped by 9% the first three months of the year.
• Homicides also fell in Chicago (8%) and Houston (13%), the nation's next biggest cities, respectively.

Zoom out: The quarterly reports from MCCA typically have been a good measure of trends that are reflected in the annual FBI crime data released a year later.

What we're watching: Trump has said he will tie federal grants to local police departments based on a requirement that they participate in his plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

• Local agencies could opt out of Trump's plans under pressure from local residents — and face fewer resources to fight crime.

Civil liberties advocates worried about President-elect Trump's plan for mass deportations are suing the federal government to get information on how authorities could rapidly remove people from the U.S.

Driving the news: The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California filed a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles on Monday.

• They are seeking records on how "ICE Air Operations" could be expanded to carry out a deportation and detention program that could ensnare millions of undocumented immigrants.
• Trump has repeatedly promised he will launch the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history once he takes office.

The big picture: ICE Air Operations are the network of for-profit, commercial, and privately chartered deportation flights run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

• The lawsuit was filed after ICE failed to respond to an open records request from the Biden administration in August 2024. It was filed with the national ACLU and Mayer Brown LLP.

Catch up quick: The ACLU lawsuit also comes after Trump confirmed Monday that he is planning to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations.

• Trump made his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants one of the cornerstones of his 2024 campaign, and his team has already begun strategizing how to carry the plan out.
• His plans to crack down on immigration include using a range of tools to deport millions of people in the U.S. each year — from obscure laws to military funds to law enforcement officers from all levels of government.

Zoom in: Civil liberties advocates are demanding that ICE immediately turn over the requested records, including all ICE contracts and records regarding air transportation to execute removals.

• They also want documents containing information on what ground transportation is used to transfer noncitizens to airports for removal flights.
• They are also seeking records showing the airfields ICE uses, or has access to, for removal.

A spokesperson for the Trump transition team did not immediately return an email.

What they're saying: "For months, the ACLU has been preparing for the possibility of a mass detention and deportation program, and FOIA litigation has been a central part of our roadmap," Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project, said in a statement.

• "A second Trump administration underscores the urgency of our litigation," Virgien said.
• "Little is known about how President-elect Trump would carry out its mass deportation agenda, but what we do know is that this proposal has already instilled fear among immigrant communities," said Eva Bitran, director of immigrants' rights at ACLU SoCal.

Maribel Hernández Rivera, director of policy and government affairs for border and immigration at the ACLU, tells Axios the group is also preparing to challenge any new temporary detention camps it deems inhumane.

Zoom out: The mass deportation plans outlined by Trump could cost $150 billion to $350 billion, immigration experts say.

• Trump promised to use local law enforcement, the military, the FBI and other federal agencies for mass deportations while also vowing to end birthright citizenship.

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