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January 6, 2026

6 entries on this date.

ICE detained 10-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano and her mother on the way to school and held them a month at Dilley, Texas

On January 6, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded a family car at a Columbia Heights, Minnesota bus stop and detained 10-year-old fourth-grader Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano and her mother, Rosa Elena Caisaguano Cajilema, flying both to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas the same day. The girl telephoned her father during the arrest to say agents would drop her at school; he waited outside Highland Elementary for hours, and the Department of Homeland Security later said officers detained the child because her mother "failed to find a trusted adult to care for" her. School officials and the family's attorney said the father was available at the school and that the family's timely asylum appeal was still pending, leaving no final order of removal.

HHS froze $10 billion in child-care funding naming only five Democratic-led states

On January 6, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services froze roughly $10 billion in Child Care and Development Fund, TANF, and Social Services Block Grant money to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, citing unspecified fraud concerns and demanding the states turn over extensive records within two weeks. HHS provided no evidence for the fraud claim, and a department spokesperson said the freeze responded to "Democrat-led states and Governors" having been "complicit in allowing massive amounts of fraud" — language the five states' attorneys general cited in a lawsuit alleging the freeze was politically motivated. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian granted the states a temporary restraining order on January 9, 2026, blocking the freeze while the case proceeds.

DOJ sued Arizona and Connecticut to compel release of unredacted, sensitive voter roll data

On January 6, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division sued Arizona and Connecticut in federal court, seeking to compel both states to produce their complete, unredacted voter registration lists, including voters' full birthdates and full or partial Social Security and driver's-license numbers. The suits brought DOJ's nationwide campaign to 23 states and the District of Columbia; Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes had already rejected three DOJ requests for the data and told a department attorney to "pound sand." Attorney General Pamela Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the lawsuits were needed to enforce federal election-integrity law.

Trump White House published website recasting Jan. 6 Capitol riot as 'peaceful march,' blamed Capitol Police for violence

On January 6, 2026 — the fifth anniversary of the Capitol attack — the Trump White House published an official webpage at whitehouse.gov/j6/ describing the 2021 riot as a "peaceful march" and asserting that U.S. Capitol Police "aggressively" deployed tear gas, flash-bangs, and rubber munitions and inexplicably opened doors and removed barricades that "facilitated entry." White House Communications Director Steven Cheung promoted the page on social media, including a post calling it the "REAL Jan. 6 story." Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Thom Tillis publicly disputed the characterization, with Collins — who was on the Capitol floor that day — saying she found the Capitol Police "heroic."

Deputy Defense Secretary Feinberg amended his ethics agreement to keep receiving Cerberus services indefinitely

On January 6, 2026, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg signed a letter amending his February 2025 ethics agreement to extend, indefinitely, his arrangement to keep receiving tax, accounting, and health-care services from Cerberus Capital Management, the private-equity firm he founded and led until his 2025 appointment; DOD's ethics office transmitted the amendment to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics the next day, finding him still in compliance. The amendment went unnoticed publicly until ProPublica's March 8, 2026 disclosure-records investigation revealed it and connected it to the Pentagon's Golden Dome missile-defense program, which Feinberg oversees and which has awarded contracts to at least four Cerberus-owned companies.

Police fired 27 shots at unarmed Navy veteran John Jenuwine; he bled out while officers watched

Washtenaw County Sheriff's deputies, pursuing an erratic white van, conducted two PIT maneuvers and fired 27 shots at an unarmed driver who did not match the dispatch description. John Andrew Jenuwine, 34, died of blood loss. Officers violated department policy by using deadly force without verbal engagement; the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. Two deputies received 2024 commendations despite the killing.