Politics and views in the United States

Community response grows as immigration enforcement expands, while families, schools, and small businesses feel the strain and members of Congress again battled over how to see the January 6th attack.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic time.

Here in Maine, it's a very welcoming community and we're trying to uphold that as a principle, as a core value.

It's a welcoming place to be and we want it to continue to be that.

Panjyati Cholkis with the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition says residents are organizing food deliveries, child transportation and legal support as ICE ramps up a sweep there.

Volunteers have launched a hotline to document the operation currently focusing on Portland and Lewiston.

Homeland Security says they plan to target roughly 1,400 people.

ICE has detained at least four children from one Minneapolis school district.

School officials say one 5-year-old was detained to force adults in the family to leave their home.

The House has approved the annual DHS budget on a close-to-party-line vote.

It may be stalled in the Senate by Democrats objecting to ICE tactics.

The White House move to freeze support for child care in response to benefits fraud in Minnesota is tied up in court.

States like Kentucky have had little documented fraud, but families there say the freeze could force the parents of 34,000 children to make impossible choices.

Franklin County single mother Mahogany Livers says child care would cost nearly half as much as rent, so losing it could force her to leave the workforce.

I would not be able to not only cover basic needs, but I would have to choose between getting to a job that I have no child care for or having access to healthy food choices.

With the end of premium subsidies, Georgia ACA enrollment is down nearly 200,000, less than many had feared.

But small business owner Nora Pullen says even a high deductible plan now cost nearly three times what she had paid, forcing her to go without coverage.

I rolled the dice and decided not to participate in the ACA this year because without those tax credits, I was either in a plan that basically was ridiculous, a joke, or I would have to pay so much more that other things in our life and our business would not be taken care of.

Former special counsel Jack Smith faced sharply divided questioning in Congress.

Democrats commended his indictments of President Donald Trump for the capital insurrection and mishandling of secret documents.

Republicans accused him of using the legal system to attack political enemies.

For his part, Smith said he was defending the rule of law.

Some Minnesota schools are expanding lessons on Native American history.

Roberta Bierke said at the Yellow Medicine East District says they're using a new book series paid for by grants and tribal partnerships that highlight Dakota and Ojibwe leaders to teach Native culture.

And it's reflected in the book.

Know who you are.

And if you know the language, then you understand what it means to be Dakota.

I'm Farah Siddiqui for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at PublicNewsService.org.