Advocates, historians, and descendants of enslaved people are planning to join a 60-mile walk in Texas to bring attention to the Underground Railroad to Mexico — a lesser-known route that helped enslaved people escape to freedom.

Why it matters: The "Walking Southern Roads to Freedom," scheduled for March 3 to 9 in South Texas, is the latest development drawing attention to a largely forgotten episode of Black/Latino history amid a new surge of research and advocacy around the route.

Zoom in: Organizers say the walk will begin at La Sal del Rey, a salt lake in Hidalgo County, Texas, and pass many historic sites believed to be connected to the Underground Railroad to Mexico.

• Faith leaders, descendants, artists from Philadelphia and Kansas City, and representatives from the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center in Cambridge, Maryland, are expected to join the seven-day march.
• Organizers say the walk will begin in La Sal del Rey, a salt lake in Hidalgo County, Texas and go through many historic sites believed to be connected to the Underground Railroad to Mexico.
• The event will also include a stop in Mexico to commemorate country's role in the underground walk to freedom. The walk will end in the border town of McAllen, Texas.

The intrigue: The event is a culmination of research by Roseann Bacha-Garza, a program manager for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools in Edinburg, Texas.

• She said the gathering will "increase awareness about the resilience and resolve of freedom seekers of African ancestry who participated in underground railroad-like activities from south Texas to Mexico."
• Bacha-Garza said the plans for the walk began after the school received a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom designation for the Jackson Ranch Church and Martin Jackson Cemetery in San Juan, Texas, from the U.S. National Park Service.
• Those sites once served as a gateway to Mexico for enslaved people seeking freedom.

Zoom out: The Jackson ranch was located next to another owned by Silvia Hector Webber — dubbed by some historians as the "Harriet Tubman" of the Underground Railroad to Mexico — and her husband, John, who was white.

• The Webbers built a ferry landing on their property to help enslaved escapees move along the Colorado River toward Mexico, says Ohio State history professor María Esther Hammack.

Context: Historians have known for decades that some enslaved Black people in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alabama escaped slavery by heading south.

• Oral histories, archives of slave escape ads, and narratives of formerly enslaved people show that fleeing to Mexico had been a possibility leading up to the U.S. Civil War.
• Abolitionists wrote about "colonies" of formerly enslaved Black people popping up in towns across northern Mexico — a country that had abolished slavery in the 1830s.

Yes, but: How many people fled south of the border remained a mystery, and historians debate just how well-organized the network was.

The Plano African American Museum in Plano, Texas, is opening an exhibit on March 6 called "Risking It All For Freedom: Women Who Crafted The Underground Railroad Into Mexico."

• It is being partly organized by the descendants of Silvia Hector Webber.

Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X (also known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) following a brief but lasting career as a civil rights advocate and Black nationalist.

Through the lens: Here are some images of Malcolm X's evolution from a life of crime, to a prominent leader in the Nation of Islam, to an international traveler investigating racism against Asians, to a cultural icon.

Go deeper: Attorney wants Malcolm X FBI/CIA files to be declassified

President Trump has ordered the shutdown of the first nationwide database tracking misconduct by federal police officers.

Zoom in: The closure, first reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, ends the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database — a resource experts said improved public safety by preventing bad officers from jumping from agency to agency.

• A note on the database on the Department of Justice's website says Trump revoked an executive order signed by then-President Biden and the database will be decommissioned.

The big picture: The move by Trump fulfills a campaign promise to reverse police reforms that came out of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.

• Trump reversed Biden's order creating the database, even though he had proposed it himself.
• It ends one of the defining moments of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations as many of the police reforms died amid infighting, political stalemate and a rising conservative backlash.

Context: Biden's Executive Order (EO) 14074 established a national database of police misconduct and required all federal law enforcement agencies to participate and use the database to screen personnel.

• It banned the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints "unless deadly force is authorized" and restricted the use of no-knock entries.
• It ensured "timely and thorough investigations and consistent discipline."
• It also mandated body-worn camera policies and the expedited public release of footage in cases of serious bodily injury or deaths in custody for all federal agencies.

And: It restricted the transfer or federal purchases of military equipment "that belongs on a battlefield, not on our streets."

• It also tracked data on use-of-force incidents.

By the numbers: The national database encompassed nearly 150,000 federal officers and agents, from the FBI and IRS down to the Railroad Retirement Board, per the Post.

• All 90 executive branch agencies with law enforcement officers had provided thousands of disciplinary records dating to 2017, a report issued by the Justice Department in December said.

A civil rights attorney is asking the Trump administration to declassify the FBI and CIA files linked to Malcolm X on the 60th anniversary of his assassination.

Why it matters: The plea comes on the heels of President Trump ordering the declassifying of FBI files connected to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Zoom in: Civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump is scheduled Friday to make a public demand for the files of Malcolm X, later known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, at the New York City site where he was assassinated.

• Crump, who has represented several Black families of victims of high-profile police shootings, will be accompanied by Malcolm X's family.
• Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment in the evening.

Context: Malcolm X was assassinated at age 39 on February 21, 1965 while speaking at the then-Audubon Ballroom.

• He was shot 21 times by a group of men in front of his wife and daughters.
• Scholars and civil rights advocates have long said the men later charged with killing Malcolm X were wrongly convicted.
• Some have alleged police and federal agents played a role in his death.

The intrigue: In early 2021, the family of Malcolm X released a letter reportedly written by a now-deceased police officer alleging that the New York Police Department and FBI were behind the assassination of the Black Civil Rights Movement leader.

• The city of New York agreed in October 2022 to pay $26 million in lawsuit settlements filed on behalf of two men exonerated in late 2021 in the assassination.

Between the lines: Scholars believe the files could give clues to tensions between Malcolm X and his former group, the Nation of Islam, after a public breakup.

• Some scholars and historians believe the Nation of Islam and/or the FBI may have been behind the assassination.
• They also believe that the CIA followed Malcolm X as he took international trips to the Holy City of Mecca and London, U.K.
• Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said in a 2000 "60 Minutes" interview that he regrets his writings may have led others to murder Malcolm X. Farrakhan has denied ordering the assassination but in 1994 admitted to having "helped create the atmosphere" that led to it.

Zoom out: The CIA and FBI put Malcolm X under surveillance after witnessing him drawing large crowds where he spoke of Black nationalism and urged Black Americans to defend themselves against violence.

• FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover and others in the U.S. government sought to prevent the rise of what they feared would be a Black "messiah" who could unify African Americans.
• Malcolm X, King, other Black leaders, and some Latino civil rights figures were under FBI surveillance.

Yes, but: King's family is concerned that Trump's order to release records about his assassination could revive the FBI's attempts to discredit him — efforts that sought to exploit his indiscretions with women and undermine his legacy, sources close to his relatives told Axios.

• The family requested a sneak preview of the records before their release. Trump declined, a White House official said, but not out of animus toward the family.

Preliminary data show homicides in the nation's largest cities fell by 16% in 2024 from the previous year, and overall violent crime appears to have dropped as well.

Why it matters: Stats compiled by the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) suggest that the COVID-era crime wave all but evaporated during President Biden's final year in office, even as Donald Trump's claims that crime was rising became a key part of his winning election strategy.

Zoom in: Violent crime, especially homicides, rose during Biden's first two years as president before dropping dramatically the next two years, the MCCA data show.

• An Axios analysis of the preliminary crime data for 2024 from 69 self-reporting large police departments found that violent crimes decreased overall by 6%.
• Overall, robberies (9%), rape (6%), and aggravated assaults (5%) all declined, the Axios analysis found.

Many cities had significantly larger declines in homicides. They dropped 35% in Boston and New Orleans, 26% in Cleveland and Dallas, 34% in Philadelphia and 32% in Washington, D.C.

• One caveat: The data from cities didn't include New York City, the nation's largest city, which didn't submit crime numbers. The city releases crime stats on its own website and has reported declining crime in 2024.

The intrigue: During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly made false claims that migrants from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East were driving big jumps in violent crimes.

• Trump singled out Aurora, Colo., saying the Denver suburb was being overrun by Venezuelan immigrant gangs. The MCCA stats indicate homicides declined in Aurora by 5% last year, compared to 2023.
• Phoenix, another city targeted by conservatives as being besieged with violent crime because of undocumented immigrants, had a 28% decline in homicides last year.

Zoom out: Overall, the Axios analysis found that homicides dropped 24% from 2020 (the first nine months of the pandemic and Trump's last year in office) to 2024.

• Over those four years, overall violent crime decreased by 10%. Robberies dropped 10% and aggravated assaults fell 3%. Rapes increased by 3%, however.

A few cities did have large jumps in homicides in 2024 compared to 2020, the MCCA data show.

• Those cities included Albuquerque (20%), Austin, Texas (41%) and Oklahoma City (70%), an Axios review found.

The bottom line: Early numbers show Trump returned to office with lower violent crime rates — especially homicides — than when he left the presidency in January 2021.

• There's no evidence undocumented immigrants during Biden's term were behind a surge in violent crime.
• A report in December found that the homicide surge of 2020 was primarily driven by men and teen boys who were laid off or saw their schools close during pandemic shutdowns.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family is concerned that President Trump's order to release records about his assassination could revive the FBI's attempts to discredit him — efforts that sought to exploit his indiscretions and undermine his legacy, sources close to his relatives tell Axios.

• The family requested a sneak preview of the records prior to their release. Trump declined, a White House official said, but not out of animus toward the family.

Why it matters: The brewing controversy pits Trump's determination to release documents the government has kept secret for more than a half-century against the family's lingering pain over how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI spied on King and tried to intimidate and humiliate him.

• Last month, Trump ordered the release of all records the U.S. government still holds about King's assassination in 1968, as well as the assassinations of President Kennedy (1963) and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (1968).
• The FBI has released documents about King's private life previously, but the new disclosure could include more documents detailing alleged embarrassing interactions in hotel rooms, private homes and even King's house,

"We know J. Edgar Hoover tried to destroy Dr. King's legacy, and the family doesn't want that effort to prevail," a King family friend told Axios.

• "Family members wanted an advanced viewing" of the documents, "and [Trump] said no," the White House official said, explaining that the president believes "these records don't belong to them. These are the public's records."
• The president's abiding interest is disclosure about what the government knew about the assassinations, not salacious details about the leaders' sex lives, the official said, adding that the King family's concerns had been relayed to the White House.
• "Everything will be revealed," Trump said last month after he announced his order to disclose information about the three 1960s assassinations that shaped a turbulent decade in American society and politics.

Zoom in: King's assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis has long fueled conspiracy theories about potential government involvement, especially because of the FBI's hostility toward him.

• In 1969, James Earl Ray, a career criminal, pleaded guilty to shooting King but later recanted his confession, saying he was part of a larger conspiracy.
• Allegations of government complicity have persisted for decades, with civil rights leaders, investigative authors and Ray's attorneys citing the FBI, Memphis police, and Missouri State Penitentiary — from which Ray escaped a year before the killing — as potential conspirators.

Between the lines: The promise of complete disclosure alarmed the King family, who were hurt in 2019 by the release of FBI files that alleged sordid details about King's sex life, the family friend said.

• "The assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release," the family said in an Instagram post Jan. 24, the day after Trump's order.
• "There are deep concerns" within the family, said a second source who has corresponded with one of King's two surviving adult children.
• "They know the right wing wants to smear Dr. King, and one way to do it is by putting these smears in the public under the guise of transparency. If there are assassination records, release those. But smears are not assassination records."

The big picture: Trump's push to release the assassination records reflect his longtime suspicion of the FBI. He stewed when the FBI investigated him, and has associated the bureau with what many conservatives see as a "Deep State" bureaucracy that has manipulated the government.

• So the King family and Trump share a common antagonist: the FBI.

King's pursuit of civil rights through nonviolence is his enduring legacy. But as his work unfolded in the 1960s, Hoover and others in the U.S. government sought to prevent the rise of what they feared would be a Black "messiah" who could unify African Americans.

• Congress formally recognized King's iconic status by approving a federal holiday in his honor more than 15 years after he was killed in Memphis.
• In the following decades, his legacy drew bipartisan admiration. More recently, however, far-right commentators such as Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally, began criticizing King.

Trump hasn't followed suit, but such criticism coincides with an increasing willingness among Republicans to attack affirmative action, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, and other initiatives designed to ensure fairness for historically disadvantaged groups.

• Trump has banned DEI programs in the U.S. government. He signed a proclamation declaring February as Black History Month — but his DEI ban led federal agencies to cancel activities celebrating it.

Flashback: FBI documents released through the years have shown how King's success as a civil rights organizer was rattling the bureau in 1963.

• "We must mark [King] now ... as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security," William Sullivan, then the FBI's director of intelligence, wrote in a memo two days after King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
• As attorney general, Robert Kennedy approved Hoover's request in 1963 to wiretap King amid concerns that King was associating with communists.

During its surveillance of King, the FBI stumbled upon recordings, from the bugged home of his lawyer Clarence Jones, that indicated King was involved in an extramarital affair, according to the 2020 documentary "MLK/FBI."

• That led the FBI to expand its surveillance to include bugging King's home and hotel rooms. FBI agents reported that King was involved in several sexual liaisons, according to "MLK/FBI" and documents in the National Archives.
• In November 1964, the FBI anonymously sent a package to King at his home with a copy of an electronic surveillance tape that included personal information and a note suggesting that he kill himself, documents in the National Archives show.

FBI files accessible in the Archives suggest the bureau has tape recordings or photos of King's private activities that have never been released.

• A federal judge in 1977 ordered most recordings and reports on King's private life sealed until 2027. Under Trump's order, the documents would be released two years early, by March 9.

Sam Pollard, director of "MLK/FBI," tells Axios that there initially will be attention on "salacious stuff" when the records on King are released.

• But Pollard said the release also is likely to include tapes that will give scholars insight on conversations King had with Jesse Jackson and other associates on their strategies and views on their civil rights movement.
• "I don't think, personally, it's gonna hurt his reputation," said Pollard, who received a "cease and desist" order from King's family when he was working on his film but later reached an agreement with the family.

What we're watching: Under Trump's order, the government's long-withheld documents on former President Kennedy's assassination are supposed to be released imminently.

• The records regarding Robert Kennedy's assassination are supposed to be released after King's records, sometime after March 9.

U.S. agents arrested more than 21,000 unauthorized immigrants in November as President Biden's term wound down — a pace the Trump administration doesn't appear to be matching in its first month despite its crackdown, an Axios review of new data finds.

Why it matters: Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, says about 14,000 immigrants have been arrested in the three-plus weeks since President Trump took office.

• One possible reason Trump's arrest rate isn't matching Biden's: The publicity surrounding the new president's tough talk on immigration has fueled a dramatic dip in the number of people trying to enter the U.S. illegally on the southern border.
• Homan said this week that illegal border crossings have dropped 92% since Trump took office Jan. 20.

The big picture: The Trump administration, through social media posts, has suggested U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested about 8,500 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally during Trump's first two weeks in office.

• But Trump's team has stopped giving daily ICE updates since Feb. 4. The administration also isn't releasing details on arrests by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.

By the numbers: ICE arrested more than 7,500 immigrants in November, while the CBP arrested more than 13,500 that month as waves of immigrants tried to cross the border, according to federal data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

• TRAC collects immigration data via Open Records Act requests.
• A total of 21,130 people arrested by the agencies were booked into detention sites across the country in November, the data show.

The intrigue: Homan told WABC radio in New York on Tuesday that of the 14,000 or so immigrants arrested since Trump took office, the "vast majority have criminal histories."

• He did not offer any details.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said Homan's arrest estimate was just for those done by ICE, though he didn't make that distinction.

• She didn't provide information about the arrest breakdown between ICE and CBP. People arrested by either agency eventually are held at ICE detention sites, where space is nearing capacity.
• The White House declined to comment.

Reality check: Federal numbers in recent years have shown that less than 1% of people with deportation orders had been convicted of dangerous crimes.

• About 60% of the 39,152 people held in ICE detention as of Dec. 29 had no criminal record, according to TRAC.
• The Trump administration has said it considers every arrestee who's in the U.S. without authorization to be a criminal, but just being in the country illegally is a civil violation — not a criminal one — under the law.

Between the lines: Trump's administration has accelerated immigration enforcement in the nation's interior, with ICE raids in cities and towns away from the U.S.-Mexico border.

• Trump's immigration crackdown isn't just about making arrests. It's about choreography, photo ops, wardrobe changes and tough talk — all designed to discourage undocumented people from wanting to be in the U.S.

A coalition of civil liberties and immigrant rights groups are suing to get access to immigrants transferred from the U.S. to detention at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba under President Trump's recent order.

The big picture: The lawsuit filed Wednesday is the latest legal challenge to the Trump administration's moves for mass detentions and mass deportations of immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally.

Driving the news: The groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of several plaintiffs, including the sister of one of the men being detained at Guantánamo.

• While the Trump administration has widely publicized images of people it now detains at Guantánamo, it has also cut off any means of communication with them, the groups allege in court documents.
• The complaint alleges that, without the court's intervention, more immigrants will be transferred to "this legal black hole" without access to counsel or any means of vindicating their rights.
• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Constitutional Rights, International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) and ACLU of the District of Columbia are the groups that filed the lawsuit.

Catch up quick: President Trump announced in a memorandum late last month plans to house at Guantánamo Bay up to 30,000 immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally as part of his immigration crackdown.

• The White House directed the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security "to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity."

Yes, but: A federal court temporarily blocked the Trump administration on Sunday from sending three Venezuelan men from immigration detention in New Mexico to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

• The men are currently being held at Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico and "have a pending case before the court challenging their unlawfully prolonged detention," according to the statement that says they faced the risk of "imminent transfer to the island prison."

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to Axios for comment.

Zoom in: A coalition of immigrant rights and legal groups sent a letter to the secretaries of Defense, State, and Homeland Security last week expressing their serious concern about the detention of immigrants in Guantánamo.

• The groups requested immediate access to them. The groups say they took legal action after getting no response from the Trump administration.

What they're saying: "The Trump administration cannot be allowed to build upon Guantánamo's sordid past with these latest cruel, secretive, and illegal maneuvers," Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's National Prison Project, said in a statement.

• "Our Constitution does not allow the government to hold people incommunicado, without any ability to speak to counsel or the outside world."
• "By hurrying immigrants off to a remote island cut off from lawyers, family, and the rest of the world, the Trump administration is sending its clearest signal yet that the rule of law means nothing to it," Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said.

Between the lines: Holding immigrants in facilities is by far the largest cost of the deportation process.

• An Axios review of various estimates put yearly detention costs at $66 billion under Trump's possible mass deportation plan.
• ICE only has about 38,000 people in detention — prioritizing noncitizens the border patrol arrested at the Southwest border and noncitizens with criminal histories, according to ICE's annual report.

A backlog of 3.7 million cases in immigration courts, where immigrants are entitled to make their case to stay in the country, means detained immigrants could wait months, if not years, for their hearing.

Zoom out: There were still 15 prisoners being held at Guantánamo Bay as of the Pentagon's Jan. 6 update, but a separate facility will hold immigrants.

Black History Month this year falls on the 60th anniversary of many crucial moments of the Civil Rights Movement that would transform the nation and spark new fights still being played out today.

Through the lens: From the last days of Malcolm X to the climatic marches in Selma, Alabama, to the Watts Riots foreshadowing what was to come, Axios is sharing images of joy, tragedy and triumphs of 1965.

A broad coalition of Jewish organizations, including reform and conservative Jewish groups, is denouncing President Trump over moves on democracy, his "scapegoating" of immigrants and transgender people, and says his empowering of Elon Musk "to force ideological conformity" threatens the country's "democratic norms."

Why it matters: The open letter, which was released Friday, is signed by more than 100 groups from many Jewish denominations, perspectives and broad missions. It's the latest criticism of Trump by religious organizations over his immigration and cost-cutting policies.

Zoom in: The groups say Trump's moves to deport huge numbers of undocumented immigrants, freeze federal funds and dismantle international programs "fundamentally threaten the freedoms and safety of all Americans."

• The groups emphasize that legitimate policy debates and disagreements are fine — and note that there are disputes among the letter's signees — but say Trump's recent actions go far beyond that.
• "It is a direct assault on the very principles that underpin our democracy — principles including equal justice under the law; the protection of fundamental civil liberties and civil rights," the groups write.
• The letter expresses concern about the "scapegoating and dehumanization of immigrants, people of color, transgender people and other marginalized groups to justify draconian and unconstitutional policies."

Zoom out: The letter was organized by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and representatives of two of the major Jewish denominations: the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Conservative movement's Rabbinic Assembly.

• Other notable signatories include National Council of Jewish Women, HIAS, J Street, T'ruah, Bend the Arc and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.

The White House did not respond directly to the letter's message in a statement to Axios.

• "President Trump is delivering on the promises that earned him a resounding mandate from the American people," Harrison Fields, the White House's principal deputy press secretary, told Axios.

The intrigue: The freezing of federal funds and a takeover of the federal payments system and classified information by Elon Musk, an unelected ally of Trump, alarms the Jewish groups.

• Those moves are "intended to force ideological conformity" and "make it harder for individuals and groups to exercise their rights," the groups' letter says.

What they're saying: "We know where this leads, for Jews and for so many others, and we are proud that this broad coalition is sending an unmistakable message that Jewish Americans will stand for democracy at this critical moment," Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, tells Axios.

• "When we see an administration upend democratic norms and take actions that clearly ignore the law and upend the Constitution, we must stand up for democratic processes, and the rights of all vulnerable people," Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of the Rabbinical Assembly, tells Axios.
• "Threats to democratic norms and our democracy overall make us less safe as Jews and as Americans," said Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Context: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Episcopal Church and Quaker groups have criticized Trump for allowing federal officials to arrest undocumented immigrants in "sensitive" spaces such as schools and houses of worship.

• Pope Francis called Trump's plan to deport millions of immigrants from the U.S. a "disgrace."
• Vice President Vance countered that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has "not been a good partner in common-sense immigration enforcement."

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional context on the open letter..

Donald Trump's immigration crackdown isn't just about making arrests. It's about choreography, photo ops, wardrobe changes and tough talk — all designed to discourage undocumented people from wanting to be in the U.S.

Why it matters: The underbelly of Trump's immigration strategy is, as one White House official told Axios, "the visuals" — showing force and creating a sense of urgency through viral videos and photos of top officials at the border and on raids.

Zoom in: That's why a casually dressed Pete Hegseth, Trump's new defense secretary, traveled to El Paso on Monday to meet with some of the 1,500 active-duty troops deployed to the southern border by a Trump executive order.

• In recent days the Department of Homeland Security touted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, dressed like an ICE agent, joined a raid in New York City.
• On Sunday, Noem posted a video of herself on X, riding horseback with Border Patrol agents in the Southwest and wearing an olive green Border Patrol jacket and a cowboy hat. The post was praised by MAGA loyalists — and mocked by critics who called Noem's appearance "cosplay."
• Trump-supporting celebrities have gotten into the action as well. "Dr. Phil" McGraw embedded with ICE agents and border czar Tom Homan in a Chicago immigration raid, boosting media coverage (and drawing ridicule on "The Daily Show.")
• The White House's feed on X, meanwhile, is amplifying images of military airplanes ready to deport illegal immigrants. In the first week, it touted the number of deportations and featured mugshots of "the worst" criminals who were being expelled.

The big picture: Trump's team figures that the more undocumented immigrants who see such images and decide not to try entering the U.S. — or who "self-deport" without being arrested — the better.

• Beyond the U.S., the White House's messaging is aimed not just at discouraging migrants, but also smugglers and human traffickers.
• "The visuals are important," the White House official said, noting that the voter anger that helped get Trump elected was driven partly by "the visuals of hordes of people overwhelming [the] Border Patrol and storming the border."
• "We've been elected on a campaign promise to fix the border, and it would be foolish of us to sit back and just let the media tell our story."

Between the lines: It's not totally clear how much the pace of immigration arrests has picked up under Trump compared to the last days of the Biden administration.

• What is clear is that the arrests made since Trump took office two weeks ago have received more attention, even in the same cities.

One example: ICE agents, during a week-long surge of raids in Newark, N.J., in December, arrested 33 noncitizens, including a Mexican national convicted of sexual assault of a minor teen and a Brazil national convicted of murder. Those arrests got little attention.

• During Trump's first week in office, an ICE raid of a Newark seafood restaurant that netted three people drew international attention and condemnation from Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
• One U.S. citizen — a Puerto Rican who was a military veteran — allegedly was harassed by federal agents, the mayor and the restaurant owner said.

Zoom out: The White House press office is regularly promoting the arrests of migrants with criminal records from the briefing room and on its official X page.

• ICE hit a high under Trump of more than 1,000 daily arrests on Jan. 27, according to an X post. The White House hasn't disclosed how many of those arrested have criminal backgrounds or are simply unauthorized to be in the U.S., which is only a civil offense.
• Trump's team has said it considers all undocumented immigrants to be criminals.
• "I know the last administration didn't see it that way, so it's a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week.
• "But that's exactly what they are."

Science fiction writer Octavia Butler wrote in her 1993 novel "Parable of the Sower" that Feb. 1, 2025, would be a time of fires, violence, racism, addiction, climate change, social inequality and an authoritarian "President Donner."

• That day is today.

The big picture: This Black History Month, which begins this year on a day of Butler's dystopian vision, Axios will examine what the next 25 years may hold for Black Americans based on the progress in the first quarter of this century.

• Through her fiction, Butler foresaw U.S. society's direction and the potential for civil societies to collapse thanks to the weight of economic disparities and climate change — with blueprints for hope.
• Afrofuturist writers today interpret Butler's work as metaphorical warnings that appear to be coming true and a call to action.

State of play: This year, the month-long celebration of Black American accomplishments and perseverance will be commemorated amid uncertainty after the Trump administration ordered government agencies to end DEI policies.

• The move is confusing some agencies on whether Black history can even be acknowledged this year while the nation deals with rising hate crimes, the aftermath of California wildfires, a fentanyl epidemic and a new president who blames the country's ills on workforce diversity.
• Meanwhile, states like Alabama have passed bills limiting the discussion of race and Black history in public schools.

Zoom in: In "Parable of the Sower," the novel's 15-year-old protagonist, Lauren Olamina, writes a simple journal entry: Saturday, February 1, 2025: "We had a fire today. People worry so much about fire."

• What unfolds in the pages that follow is a dystopian world surrounding the gated, racially mixed, fictional community of Robledo, California.
• A new drug forces addicts to set fires to communities, who then rob and rape victims. Unhoused people roam the streets and are forced to steal to survive. Hurricanes, fires and violence push Americans to flee north to Canada.
• President Donner, like President Trump, promises to restore the country to its former glory.
• Racially mixed couples, like Olamina's Black/Chicano family, are vulnerable to attacks, and her parents, both PhD holders, have limited job opportunities.

Yes, but: Black, white, Latino and Asian Americans fall in love despite the racism outside the walls.

• They arm themselves and protect each other.
• They share history and books in defiance of attempted erasure.

What they're saying: "She was trying to warn us of a possible future that she saw coming if we did not change," Jesse Holland, editor of the anthology, "Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson," tells Axios.

• "With her predictions, we can see the awful visage of the future that is getting closer and closer every day."
• Holland said that includes the wildfires in California, the Trump administration moving away from Black History Month and the U.S. "seemingly not caring" about some of its citizens.
• "The hope in this is that we as a people in the United States have survived worse," Holland said. "We are a people of perseverance."

Zoom out: Butler often reminded readers she wasn't a prophet but part of a science fiction artist community asking "what ifs," Sheree Renée Thomas, author of the upcoming short story collection Mojorhythm, tells Axios.

• "She was looking at the racial dynamics and the class dynamics deepening and worsening over time. And she asked, 'If we don't solve any of these problems, what will society look like?"

The intrigue: Many scholars and readers believe the fictional community of Robledo is based on the actual community of racially mixed Altadena, California — a place leveled by the recent California wildfires.

• In the novel, Robledo is destroyed by a fire and then raided by scavengers and looters. So was Altadena.
• Butler is buried in Altadena. Her cemetery caught fire, but her resting place was spared.

President Trump on Wednesday announced an order to open a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to house up to 30,000 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally.

The big picture: Trump made the announcement just before signing the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes such as theft.

Driving the news: "We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people," Trump said.

• "We don't want them coming back so we're going to send them out to Guantanamo," he continued.

Zoom in: There were still 15 prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay as of the Pentagon's Jan. 6 update, but a separate facility will hold immigrants.

• The White House directed the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security "to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity."

Zoom out: Holding immigrants in facilities is by far the largest cost of the deportation process.

• An Axios review of various estimates put yearly detention costs at $66 billion under Trump's possible mass deportation plan.
• ICE only has about 38,000 people in detention — prioritizing noncitizens the border patrol arrested at the Southwest border and noncitizens with criminal histories, according to ICE's annual report.

A backlog of 3.7 million cases in immigration courts, where immigrants are entitled to make their case to stay in the country, means detained immigrants could wait months, if not years, for their hearing.

• To hold more people from a raid surge would require a mass building project of "soft detention" centers, or temporary facilities, to house people.
• The Trump administration will have to award private contracts to build such detention centers, and offer health care and education to detainees.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with details from the White House's order.

Go deeper: All undocumented immigrants are "criminals," Trump administration says

Some Native American tribes say tribal members are being harassed by federal immigration agents, while others fear they could be wrongly caught up in immigration raids.

Why it matters: The angst among some Indigenous tribes reflects the confusion and fear even among legal citizens during the Trump administration's immigration raids.

The big picture: Several tribes have issued warnings and advice to their members based on what they say have been encounters in which U.S. immigration agents have demanded proof of citizenship — episodes that the tribes have linked to racial profiling.

• The alarm comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says its agents are arresting more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants a day, part of President Trump's push to deport "millions" of people not authorized to stay in the U.S.
• Immigration raids in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles — and Trump's new directives to allow searches in schools and churches in addition to workplaces and homes — have heightened concerns in communities across the country.

Zoom in: The Navajo Nation, one of the nation's largest tribes, said federal immigration agents have been questioning its members.

• "My office has received multiple reports from Navajo citizens that they have had negative, and sometimes traumatizing, experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants," Navajo President Buu Nygren said in a statement.
• Navajo Nation officials told CNN on Monday that at least 15 Indigenous people in the southwestern U.S. have reported being questioned or detained by immigration officers in the past week.
• The 17.5 million-acre Navajo Nation is in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. It's larger than 10 states.

ICE offices in Utah and Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment.

Zoom out: The Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico announced that a member was confronted by ICE agents last week and was asked for ID — first in Spanish, although the member spoke English.

• The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota said it was temporarily waiving all fees for issuing or replacing tribal IDs amid members' concerns about ICE encounters.
• Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee — the tribe's governing body — promised in a statement Saturday to "aggressively defend our rights and interests."
• The tribe offered legal counsel to members who are "improperly detained or questioned," as did the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.

The San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, whose land crosses the Utah-Arizona border, advised its citizens to record encounters with ICE, ask for agents' badges and keep their doors closed and ask for a warrant if approached at home.

What they're saying: Trump's immigration executive orders have "raised concern among our tribal members, particularly regarding the potential targeting of our community by immigration agents," Chippewa Cree Tribe chairman Harat BaRete said in a statement.

• The north-central Montana tribe then released a set of guidelines urging members to remain silent, keep ID handy and report encounters to tribal officials.
• "The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is in the process of assessing the legal effects of the unlawful and unconstitutional Trump administration Executive Orders and will fiercely defend against any threat to the sovereignty," the South Dakota tribe said in a statement.

Between the lines: It's not unusual for ICE or DEA agents to enter tribal lands for immigration or drug enforcement.

• Since the Obama administration, U.S. agents have aggressively targeted human smuggling rings that use isolated Indigenous lands to try to move undetected.

Congress didn't grant citizenship to Native Americans until 1924 — a development President Trump's lawyers cited in their attempt to justify his temporarily blocked executive order to overturn birthright citizenship.

• The administration's attorneys last week invoked an 1884 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that denied citizenship to members of tribes to argue that "birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship."
• Some tribal leaders saw the argument as a threat against their members' U.S. citizenship.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed immigrant rights groups' fears that the Trump administration sees all undocumented immigrants as "criminals" and isn't just seeking to deport those who commit violent acts.

Driving the news: In her first White House briefing, Leavitt falsely labeled all 3,500 immigrants arrested for suspicion of being in the country illegally "criminals." Being in the country illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal one, and the individuals who were arrested have not been convicted of a crime.

The big picture: Asked by a reporter how many of the 3,500 immigrants arrested since Trump took office have criminal records, Leavitt said, "all of them because they illegally broke our nation's laws."

• "I know the last administration didn't see it that way, so it's a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, but that's exactly what they are."
• Leavitt declined to say if all the undocumented immigrants had criminal records.

Reality check: There is no law making it a crime to live in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant. Instead, the law treats it as a civil violation.

• Those detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) away from the U.S.-Mexico border have a right to a hearing with an immigration judge to determine if they can stay in the U.S. or not.
• 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.

State of play: President Trump said in his inauguration speech that his administration would quickly deport "millions and millions" of "illegal aliens" with criminal records. Those millions don't exist.

• In the past 40 years, federal officials have documented about 425,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions on the ICE's "non-detained docket."
• About 13,100 of those were convicted of homicides and are imprisoned in the U.S. They'll have deportation hearings after serving their sentences.

During the campaign, Trump falsely said undocumented immigrants were responsible for rising crime (when data showed crime was going down).

To deport millions of "criminals," Trump would have to consider all undocumented immigrants as criminals — something it appears to be doing with Leavitt's latest comments.

• Leavitt said "rapists" and "murderers" should be ICE's priority, but that doesn't mean others are off the table.

Yes, but: The federal government, since the Clinton administration, has always prioritized deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes after they serve their sentences.

• Immigrants convicted of violent crimes can't just immediately be deported and must go through the state or federal court system.
• Very rarely does ICE allow undocumented immigrants with convictions for dangerous felonies to return to the public after serving time. Those immigrants usually go through deportation proceedings after serving their sentences.

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

• At-large arrests are those made in public settings, as opposed to when ICE agents pick up someone who's already behind bars.

Between the lines: Karen Tumlin, director of the immigrant legal advocacy group Justice Action Center, predicted to Axios that the Trump administration would call all undocumented immigrants "criminals" as an excuse to separate families and go after non-violent immigrants.

• The estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are largely agricultural, construction and service workers, students and others who have no criminal backgrounds, according to legal specialists and an Axios review of federal immigration data.

Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally, and those who aren't — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens.

Further reading: Why Trump won't be deporting "millions" of criminals

A coalition of U.S. and Canadian Jewish groups say they will leave X, the social media formerly known as Twitter, after seeing a rise in "toxic speech" on the platform and owner Elon Musk reposting antisemitic and xenophobic content.

Why it matters: The announcement Monday came as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. and days after Musk gave what scholars and rights groups said was a Hitlergruß, or Nazi salute.

• It also came after Musk told members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party "there's too much focus on past guilt," seemingly referring to the burden Germany carries for the Holocaust.

Driving the news: Fifteen groups wrote in a joint statement that they will stop posting on X and end engagement on the site by the first quarter due to increased hate speech.

• "In study after study, as well as our lived experiences, X has become a platform that promotes hate, antisemitism, and societal division," the statement said.
• "Under the leadership of Elon Musk, X has reduced content moderation, promoted white supremacists, and re-platformed purveyors of conspiracy theories."
• The groups also faulted Musk for his role in reposting hateful and anti-immigrant content.

Zoom in: Union for Reform Judaism, the American Conference of Cantors, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Reform Jewish Community of Canada and the Shalom Center were among the groups that signed the statement.

• Representatives for X did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.

Zoom out: The groups said some will maintain accounts on X to ensure our handles are "not assumed by other entities with values contrary to our own."

Context: Musk drew fire last week after giving the salute at a President Trump inauguration event.

• The world's richest man then spoke to a cheering AfD crowd on Saturday, denouncing multiculturism and defending Germany's past.
• "There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that," Musk said.
• The comments also follow a series of Nazi-related "jokes" Musk posted on X, which were a series of puns referencing prominent Nazis like chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler.

Flashback: Musk in 2023 faced backlash for endorsing an antisemitic post, as 164 Jewish rabbis and activists upped their calls to companies to stop advertising on the Musk-owned X.

• The site has come under heavy criticism for lifting the block on white nationalists while banning critics.

Between the lines: Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech "absolutist," has repeatedly claimed that he would protect all forms of speech on X.

• In practice, however, the platform has been lenient to those who post hateful or extremist content while cracking down on speech that's critical of the platform or of Musk.
• A federal judge in California last year threw out a lawsuit filed by X against a hate speech watchdog that has said the use of racial slurs on X has soared since Musk's takeover.

The number of Holocaust survivors globally has shrunk to 220,000 on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to a new estimate.

Why it matters: The anniversary, which also commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday, is likely the last major milestone with the presence of child survivors — the last generation of the Holocaust.

The big picture: Survivors are scheduled to speak at commemoration events around the world as advocates race to record their testimonies and as rising antisemitism and misinformation threatens to erase their stories.

• A small number of survivors are expected to speak at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum commemoration in Oświęcim, Poland.
• A handful of survivors will also be on hand at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Zoom in: About 220,000 Holocaust survivors are living across around 90 countries, according to data from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) shared with Axios.

• That's down from 245,000 reported last year.
• The vast majority (95%) are child survivors born between 1928 and 1946.

Zoom out: International Holocaust Remembrance Day seeks to bring attention to the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews.

• Though it's held on the anniversary of the Soviet Red Army liberating Auschwitz, it's also meant to memorialize survivors at Nazi death camps across Europe during World War II.

The latest: The Claims Conference this month launched "I Survived Auschwitz: Remember This," a digital campaign featuring Holocaust survivors who endured the extermination camp.

• The survivors respond on video to the question: Given your experience as an Auschwitz survivor, what is one specific thing...do you want people to remember for generations to come?
• "As we lose survivors, it is our responsibility to listen to their voices and carry their stories forward," Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, said in a statement.

What they're saying: "I survived five concentration camps and ghettos —including Auschwitz. I know many people can't fathom what I have endured," survivor Aron Krell says in this testimony shared with Axios.

• The campaign is inspired in part by Krell's testimony about his brother, Zvi, who died from starvation after a year in the Lodz ghetto, the Claims Conference said.
• "But you can understand loving a brother like I loved Zvi, can imagine the unbearable pain that comes with losing one, and, hopefully, agree that the lessons of the Holocaust must always be remembered."

State of play: Anti-Jewish hate crimes reported to police across 20 major U.S. cities in 2023 rose 48% to a new record, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

• Elon Musk, the world's richest man, last week twice gave what scholars, journalists and rights groups said was a Hitlergruß, or Nazi salute.
• Musk then told members of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that "there's too much focus on past guilt," seemingly referring to the burden Germany carries for the Holocaust, two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Threat level: The "Index on Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness," released last week by the Claims Conference, exposed a global trend in fading knowledge of basic facts about the Holocaust.

• While Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known camp, nearly half (48%) of Americans surveyed are unable to name a single camp or ghetto established by the Nazis during World War II.
• Overall, a majority of 1,000 adults surveyed in eight countries did not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
• In the U.S., more than three-quarters (76%) of all adults surveyed believe something like the Holocaust could happen again today.

President Trump claims that his administration will quickly deport "millions and millions" of "illegal aliens" with criminal records.

• Those millions don't exist.

The big picture: Less than 1% of immigrants deported last fiscal year were kicked out of the U.S. for crimes other than immigration violations. In the past 40 years, federal officials have documented about 425,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions on the ICE's "non-detained docket."

• About 13,100 of those were convicted in homicides and are imprisoned in the U.S. They'll have deportation hearings after serving their sentences.

To deport millions of "criminals," Trump would have to consider all undocumented immigrants as criminals. But being in the U.S. illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal one.

• Those millions would have to include agricultural, construction and service workers, students and others who are unauthorized to be in the U.S. but have no criminal backgrounds, according to legal specialists and an Axios review of federal immigration data.
• Unauthorized immigrants caught near the border can be quickly removed.
• But any convicted immigrants serving time — or those charged with crimes — will face deportation hearings only after the U.S. criminal justice system is done with them.

Catch up quick: In his inauguration speech, Trump previewed the executive orders on immigration restrictions he later signed, repeating his false claim that the nation is plagued by millions of undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

• "All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came," he said.
• His surrogates have repeated that claim, adding that Trump's mass deportation plan would begin by prioritizing dangerous criminals — something the federal government has been doing since the Clinton administration.

Reality check: 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.

• Immigrants arrested in homicides accounted for less than 1% of "at-large" arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the last six years, an Axios review found.
• At-large arrests are those made in public settings, as opposed to when ICE agents pick up someone who's already behind bars.

Zoom in: An Axios review of data for nearly 180,000 ICE at-large arrests from October 1, 2017, through Sept. 30, 2023, found that the most common charges for undocumented immigrants were driving under the influence (15%) and those involving drugs (15%), assaults (9%) and other traffic offenses (9%).

• 3% of the arrests involved larceny, 1.7% involved sexual assaults and 0.7% were linked to homicides.

What they're saying: "There are not millions of people with criminal records to deport," Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago, tells Axios.

• Trump "keeps trying to bullsh-t with the public that there are all these particularly serious so-called criminals. There aren't enough of those people to exist to be 1 million," Karen Tumlin, director of the immigrant legal advocacy group Justice Action Center, tells Axios.
• Both Hallett and Tumlin expect Trump to begin calling all undocumented immigrants "criminals" in order to say millions of criminals could be deported.

Between the lines: Trump's push to immediately deport those with actual criminal records also could run into hurdles put up by state and local prosecutors, legal specialists say.

• Crime victims will want justice, and prosecutors are unlikely to allow an immigrant convicted of a serious felony to escape prison in exchange for immediate deportation to freedom in another country, Tumlin said.
• Once they serve time, convicted immigrants typically have to wait in ICE detention for a deportation hearing, like everyone else in the U.S. immigration system.
• "There's no skip-the-line for criminal punishment," Tumlin said.
• Very rarely does ICE allow undocumented immigrants with convictions for dangerous felonies to return to the public after serving time. Some convicted of nonviolent crimes are released, however.

Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally, and those who aren't — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens.

• "This scary rhetoric that says it's about so-called dangerous people and serious criminals within our midst," Tumlin said. "The numbers, the math ... just doesn't math."

Elon Musk told members of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that "there's too much focus on past guilt," days after he gave what scholars and rights groups said was a Hitlergruß, or Nazi salute.

Why it matters: The world's richest man made the remarks Saturday, seemingly referring to the burden Germany carries for the Holocaust, two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The big picture: The comments also follow a series of Nazi-related "jokes" Musk posted on X, which were a series of puns referencing prominent Nazis like chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler.

• Musk in 2023 faced backlash for endorsing an antisemitic post, as 164 Jewish rabbis and activists upped their calls to companies to stop advertising on the Musk-owned X.
• He's also failed to stop the posting or amplification of pro-Nazi content on X.

The latest: Musk spoke virtually to cheering members of AfD while denouncing multiculturism and defending Germany's past.

• "There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that," Musk said.
• "Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents."
• "It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything."

Reality check: Neo-Nazi and skinhead leaders often tell followers at rallies not to be shamed of their grandparents or parents who were members of the Nazi Party before and during World War II. They've also criticized growing multiculturalism in Germany.

• Germany has garnered international recognition for allowing the placement of Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) across the country to commemorate sites linked to victims of the Nazi regime.

Context: Germany will hold a snap election in February after a center-left coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed.

• AfD became the first far-right party this year to win a regional election in Germany since World War II.

Zoom in: Musk's latest comments were quickly denounced by some Jewish groups in the U.S.

• "Again: Musk is a shameless and unrepentant antisemite, and those who defend him only further embolden him and the neo-Nazis he so inspires," Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick said in a statement.

Yes, but: None of the controversies around antisemitism appear to have done him or his companies any visible harm, Axios' Felix Salmon reports.

• Financial markets have been bidding up Tesla stock as Musk cemented his bonds with President Trump.

What we're watching: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum will hold events around International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration on Monday.

• The event will mark the 80th anniversary of Soviet forces liberating Auschwitz-Birkenau, and many experts believe the commemoration is the last major milestone with many survivors present.
• Survivors are expected to warn the world about rising antisemitism — and could bring up Musk.

Immigrants and advocacy groups nationwide are scrambling to prepare for the waves of raids President Trump has promised under his plan to deport millions of people unauthorized to stay in the U.S.

Why it matters: Confusion and persistent rumors about how the raids will be carried out — and what will happen to those detained by immigration agents — are leading some anxious immigrants to refuse to go to work or send their children to schools, the groups say.

• Trump's executive orders that began laying the groundwork for his mass deportations reversed several longstanding policies. Immigration officials now can raid churches, schools and hospitals to arrest undocumented immigrants.

State of play: Lawrence Benito, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said his group received 400 calls to its hot line on Monday alone, compared to 800 calls in January before Trump's inauguration.

• The New Mexico-based immigrant rights advocacy group Somos Un Pueblo Unido said it's launching a "Know Your Rights" campaign around the state to help immigrants.
• Other groups are handing out cards to immigrants that advise them to not allow federal agents into their homes without a warrant. Some groups are preparing an army of lawyers to jump into immigration cases.

The intrigue: Denver's public schools are among several districts bracing for possible immigration raids on students. They've directed principals to lock down campuses if federal immigration agents come knocking.

• Some Chicago restaurants are keeping I-9 documents and other worker verification paperwork ready in case of visits by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Eater reports.
• Chicago's police department said in a statement it "will not assist or intervene in civil immigration enforcement," but "as always, we will continue to enforce the law if a crime occurs."
• Police in several other cities are following similar policies.

Trump officials have designated Chicago and other Democrat-run cities as targets of the deportation plan.

• "Unfortunately, part of the goal of this administration is to try to use fear tactics [so] that people go into hiding and maybe people would be deterred and actually leave the country," Greg Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association told reporters Tuesday.

Zoom in: Trump advisers initially indicated that ICE would first focus on noncitizens convicted of crimes.

• But the overall plan to crack down on illegal immigration remains unclear — and scattered reports of ICE agents raiding big-city restaurants have many immigrant communities, and business owners, on edge.

Between the lines: Trump has said he favors using the military to help round up immigrants — a move that civil liberties advocates warn would be unlawful.

• The advocates have begun a series of lawsuits fighting Trump's plans, specifically against his order to end birthright citizenship.
• Officials in 22 states have gone to court to challenge Trump's push to end birthright citizenship — a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. An estimated 300,000 babies are born to undocumented parents in the U.S. each year.

Legal specialists say Trump's executive orders on immigration suggest that the president's team is better prepared for challenges to its crackdown on immigration than Trump's first administration was.

• They say several of the orders are written in a way that could insulate the administration from certain legal tactics challenging Trump's plans.
• Some orders, for example, call for a study of an issue and reports to be completed before new actions are taken. The slower approach could build a stronger legal basis for future court decisions.
• "What we're seeing with a second Trump administration is already a recognition of some of the experience of the first Trump administration," Doris Meissner of the Migration Policy Institute told reporters.
• "You can see just by the number of actions that have been prepared and signed within 24 hours how much work and effort behind the scenes has been placed on these executive orders."

The other side: Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, tells Axios that those trying to keep undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are swimming "against the tide."

• "Radical leftists can ... reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can get on board and work with President Trump to advance his wildly popular agenda," Fields said.
• "These lawsuits are nothing more than an extension of the left's resistance — and the Trump administration is ready to face them in court."