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Timeline › 2026 › January › 12

January 12, 2026

4 entries on this date.

Burgum established U.S. Wildland Fire Service by secretarial order, overriding Congress's refusal to fund it

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed Secretary's Order 3448 on January 12, 2026, formally establishing the U.S. Wildland Fire Service by consolidating wildfire management programs from four Interior Department agencies without congressional authorization. Congress had explicitly declined to fund the agency, zeroing out the administration's $6.5 billion request and directing that FY2026 Interior appropriations continue under the longstanding practice of separate agency programs. The new agency also mandated a full suppression wildfire policy requiring all fires under its management to be extinguished as quickly as possible, reviving a decades-old approach that wildfire scientists say worsens long-term fire risk.

ICE agents arrested and held Willmar teenager Suban Noor incommunicado for four days during Operation PARRIS sweep

On January 12, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 19-year-old Suban Noor, a Willmar Senior High School student and Walmart employee, on a downtown Willmar street as she stopped to pick up food for her family. An eyewitness described agents cornering her car, handcuffing her, and pulling her barefoot into an ICE vehicle while she cried out; her family had no contact with her and did not know where she was held until ICE's own detainee locator showed her release on January 16.

ICE arrested NYC Council employee Rafael Rubio at a routine asylum interview and detained him 158 days despite his valid TPS

On January 12, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Rafael Rubio, a Venezuelan data analyst employed by the New York City Council, when he appeared for a routine asylum interview at a USCIS office in Bethpage, New York, despite his holding Temporary Protected Status valid through October 2026. He was held at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey for 158 days, and the Department of Homeland Security branded him a "criminal illegal alien" in a January 13 press release. City Council Speaker Julie Menin disputed the government's account and called the detention wrongful.

New Mexico In Depth investigation revealed ICE detained U-visa applicant Damián Soto for months; Soto says an officer pressured him to self-deport

A January 12, 2026 New Mexico In Depth investigation revealed that ICE arrested Damian Soto, a 31-year-old San Bernardino, California man with a pending, preliminarily-approved U visa, at his home in June 2025 and detained him for months, transferring him through Los Angeles and El Paso facilities to CoreCivic's Cibola County Correctional Center in Grants, New Mexico, where, according to Soto, a detention officer urged him to sign voluntary-departure paperwork. Soto's family found the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, which filed a federal habeas corpus petition the government did not oppose; Soto was released without bail or an ankle monitor, though his immigration court case continues.