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Timeline › 2026 › January › 23

January 23, 2026

4 entries on this date.

JTF Southern Spear killed 2 aboard suspected narcotics vessel in eastern Pacific; 36th strike, ~117 campaign deaths

On January 23, 2026, Joint Task Force Southern Spear, operating at the direction of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, conducted a lethal strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people and leaving one survivor. The strike was characterized by SOUTHCOM as targeting "Designated Terrorist Organizations" engaged in narco-trafficking, yet no public evidence was provided identifying the victims or their alleged activities. This was the 36th strike in the Southern Spear campaign since September 2025, resuming after a three-week gap following the January 3 capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Intercept investigation revealed ICE database marked protest observers as domestic terrorists; DHS revoked travel credentials in retaliation

A January 23, 2026 video captured an ICE agent recording a protest observer and stating, "we have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic terrorist," the first documented evidence of a DHS/ICE/CBP database labeling lawful protest observers as terrorists and revoking their TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, and passport access. The Intercept filed a FOIA lawsuit against DHS on June 24, 2026 after the agency refused to produce documents about the program, with court exhibits from a Minnesota immigration case corroborating the database's use and at least one civilian losing travel credentials within three days of photographing an ICE operation.

ICE detained former Venezuelan opposition mayor Carlos Garcia-Oden at routine Cincinnati check-in

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Carlos Garcia-Oden, a former opposition mayor of Mérida, Venezuela, at a scheduled immigration check-in in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 23, 2026, and booked him into the Butler County Jail as deportation proceedings began. Garcia-Oden had complied with ICE check-ins for years, held a valid work permit through 2030, and had no criminal record; his family said ICE gave no reason for the arrest. He fled Venezuela in 2017 after being sentenced in absentia for opposing Nicolás Maduro's government and has an asylum claim pending.

ICE detained Chicago man acquitted in Bovino murder-for-hire plot, held him without a hearing for weeks

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Juan Espinoza Martinez, a 37-year-old Chicago construction worker, into custody on Jan. 23, 2026 -- one day after a federal jury acquitted him of offering a bounty for the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino -- and held him at the Clay County Justice Center in Brazil, Indiana without a hearing before an immigration judge. U.S. District Judge James Hanlon ruled Feb. 6, 2026 that the continued detention was unlawful for lack of that hearing and ordered the government to release Espinoza Martinez or grant him a bond hearing.