Tonight is The Latino Newsletter’s fourth post for 2026, but it already feels like the 50th. As a small nonprofit newsroom, we don’t pretend to be a breaking news site. Still, over the last few days, it’s become clear that when major stories break, we’re making decisions about what belongs in our daily edition and what doesn’t.
It is only Wednesday night, the first full week back from a holiday break, and the pace of updates about Venezuela and now the ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good has been dizzying.
As this newsletter’s publisher, I keep asking myself how best we can serve our community as we navigate constant news updates across the devices and platforms we use to consume information.
What I decided to do for this edition is to just share some of the stories or statements that came through our inbox.
The first one adds some context to what happened in Minneapolis. ICE shootings are not some outlier phenomenon. The New York Times reported that immigration officers have fired on at least nine people since September, with all of the shootings involving people inside vehicles. They have become more frequent under the second Trump administration.
A separate 2024 investigation by The Trace found that ICE agents were involved in at least 59 shootings between 2015 and 2021, resulting in at least 23 deaths, many of which were never publicly disclosed by the agency.
We also received a few statements, including one from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which called Good’s death “the direct result of the Trump administration's reckless policy of violent overreach against immigrants and the American citizens who surround them.”
“People must remain calm. The Trump administration seeks violence to justify more violence. We must not give them what they want,” the end of the statement reads. “Together we will use every legal tool at our disposal to ensure full transparency in all investigations to come, and we will have full accountability for those responsible for this needless tragedy.”
Beyond Minneapolis, my notebook kept filling up with stories about the United States and Venezuela.
One story that continues to intrigue me is the update to a post I filed Tuesday for Pressing Issues.
The team at Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA) updated its social messaging analysis with new data from the last three days.
“The analysis shows that in both languages and countries, discussion of the intervention moved quickly from theatrical, tactical, play-by-play accounts to more complex debates about legality, governance, and political transition,” the DIA team notes.
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What We’re Reading
Arellano on Rubio: From Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, “Plague, thy name is Marco Rubio. By pushing Trump to run rampant over Latin America, you’re setting in motion the same old song of U.S. meddling that ties your family and mine.”
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of The Latino Newsletter. He is also its current part-time publisher and executive director. He wrote, edited, and published this edition of The Latino Newsletter.