Por Eric Bradner y Michael Williams, CNN

En cada ciudad a donde los agentes de inmigración del presidente Donald Trump han llegado en masa, han sido seguidos por personas que intentan monitorear o protestar por sus actividades, a menudo en espacios reducidos.

En ocasiones, estos dos grupos han chocado con resultados trágicos, como la muerte de de Renee Nicole Good por parte de un agente del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) el miércoles por la mañana, cuando parecía intentar huir de los agentes del ICE que le ordenaban salir de su vehículo en una calle de Minneapolis. Un video obtenido por CNN el viernes muestra a la esposa de Good y a Jonathan Ross, el agente que disparó los disparos fatales, grabándose mutuamente con sus celulares antes de que Good intentara huir.

Según la administración Trump, esos manifestantes, incluyendo a Good, son “agitadores” o incluso “terroristas domésticos”. El vicepresidente J. D. Vance describió a Good como parte de una “red de izquierdas para atacar, revelar información confidencial, agredir e imposibilitar que nuestros agentes de ICE hagan su trabajo”. El director del FBI, Kash Patel, ha sugerido que las fuerzas del orden federales investigarán a los líderes y financiadores de los grupos poco organizados que han seguido y documentado las medidas de control migratorio.

Las personas que rastrean a ICE se burlan de la idea de que sean terroristas o parte de alguna célula organizada.

“Quiero decir, caramba, somos como mamás en Toyota Corollas”, dijo una activista del área de Minneapolis que participa en patrullas contra ICE y se negó a dar su nombre porque temía represalias por parte de la administración.

“Somos trabajadores de salud mental, docentes, personas conectadas con nuestras comunidades de tal manera que vemos que se está haciendo daño”, dijo. “No hay nadie en mi grupo de contacto que sea agitador profesional”.

Los momentos que llevaron al encuentro que terminó con la muerte de Good en esa calle helada de Minneapolis aún no están claros. Si bien la secretaria de Seguridad Nacional, Kristi Noem, acusó a Good de “acosar a los agentes todo el día”, su exesposo declaró a Associated Press que ella acababa de dejar a su hijo de 6 años en la escuela y se dirigía a casa cuando vio a un grupo de agentes de ICE en la calle.

La esposa de Good, Becca Good, declaró a MPR News que el miércoles por la mañana, “se detuvieron para apoyar a nuestros vecinos. Nosotros llevábamos silbatos. Ellos tenían armas”. No dio más detalles sobre los preparativos del tiroteo.

En los días posteriores al tiroteo de Good, varios activistas anti-ICE hicieron comparaciones con un incidente ocurrido en Chicago el año pasado. Marimar Martínez, ciudadana estadounidense, recibió cinco disparos de un agente de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza en Chicago, quien la acusó de embestir su vehículo contra su camioneta. Martínez sobrevivió, y su abogado defensor alegó que fue el agente quien la golpeó. Posteriormente, el Departamento de Justicia retiró los cargos contra Martínez.

La muerte de Good parece haber endurecido la determinación de los manifestantes en Minneapolis, provocando tensos enfrentamientos. Para quienes se encargan de rastrear los movimientos del ICE y advertir a sus vecinos sobre su presencia, la muerte ha avivado sus preocupaciones sobre seguir a una agencia del orden que ha empleado Read more

Por John Towfighi, CNN

El presidente Donald Trump dice que las empresas estadounidenses ahora tendrán acceso a las vastas reservas de petróleo de Venezuela. Pero otros recursos del país también han llamado la atención de su administración.

Venezuela posee cantidades no verificadas de minerales, metales y potencialmente elementos de tierras raras, según expertos. Estas materias primas son indispensables para industrias que van desde la defensa hasta la tecnología, y la administración ha recalcado repetidamente su importancia para la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos.

Sin embargo, aunque Washington aspire a asegurar los elementos críticos de Venezuela, es una tarea difícil, afirman los expertos, y no haría mucho para fortalecer la cadena de suministro estadounidense.

La cantidad y viabilidad económica de los recursos minerales de Venezuela son inciertas. Las empresas también enfrentan grandes riesgos al explotar minas en Venezuela sin garantías de seguridad sostenidas.

Muchos de estos territorios cuentan con presencia de guerrilleros y grupos armados que participan en la minería ilegal de oro, según los expertos. La minería de tierras raras, que requiere mucha energía, también puede dañar el medio ambiente.

“Existe una conciencia dentro de la administración de que, incluso más allá del petróleo, hay un valor más amplio en los recursos naturales del país”, dijo Reed Blakemore, director de investigación del Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.

“Sin embargo, si hablamos de las condiciones bajo las cuales podríamos explotar esos recursos minerales y llevarlos al mercado, la historia es mucho más complicada”, señaló Blakemore. “Y, francamente, incluso más complicada que la del petróleo”.

Incluso si las empresas estadounidenses intentaran extraer tierras raras en Venezuela, sacarlas del suelo es solo una parte del proceso. Estos materiales suelen enviarse a China para su refinación.

China representó más del 90 % del refinado mundial de tierras raras en 2024, según la Agencia Internacional de Energía. El país mantiene un monopolio virtual en el procesamiento y refinado de estos materiales debido a décadas de subsidios gubernamentales, expansión industrial y regulaciones ambientales laxas.

Las tierras raras se han convertido en un importante punto de fricción en las tensiones comerciales entre Estados Unidos y China. Beijing implementó el año pasado algunos controles a la exportación de tierras raras durante disputas comerciales, lo que generó preocupación sobre la falta de cadenas de suministro seguras en Estados Unidos para estos materiales críticos.

“China todavía mantiene una capacidad casi única para procesar metales de tierras raras, y esa ventaja industrial y geopolítica no se puede superar de la noche a la mañana”, dijo Joel Dodge, director de política industrial y seguridad económica en el Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.

El Servicio Geológico de Estados Unidos designa 60 “minerales críticos” vitales para la economí

By Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly eight months after Brendan Banfield’s wife and a stranger were killed in the Banfields’ Virginia home in February 2023, police returned to the scene of the killings.

They entered the home and went to the bedroom where Christine Banfield was fatally stabbed. There, on the bedside table, investigators found a framed photo of Brendan smiling with another woman – the family’s au pair, according to court records.

Brendan Banfield now faces a double-murder trial, with jury selection scheduled Monday, as prosecutors allege he plotted with the au pair to kill his wife and another man. Prosecutors say that man had been lured to the home to frame him for Christine’s death – and to make his own killing appear to be an act of self-defense.

Banfield – a former IRS agent, according to CNN affiliate WUSA – has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and a firearm offense in the fatal stabbing of his wife and the fatal shooting of Joseph Ryan.

Prosecutors say Brendan Banfield and the family’s Brazilian au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, were having an extra-marital affair and carried out the plan together. The salacious plot features allegations of BDSM sexual role play, trips to the gun range and false 911 calls, all in an attempt to kill Banfield’s wife and frame Ryan, according to prosecutors.

Peres Magalhães was initially charged with murder and has since pleaded guilty to a lesser count of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Ryan.

She has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a recommendation that she be sentenced to time served, according to the plea agreement. She is likely to be the star witness in Banfield’s murder trial.

The trial is expected to last about four weeks.

Banfield has been held without bond since his arrest, according to police. He faces up to life in prison on the murder charges.

Salacious allegations to face jury

The case began with calls to 911 from within the Banfields’ Herndon, Virginia, home on February 24, 2023. In one call, Banfield told dispatchers he’d shot a man who stabbed his wife, according to police. There was no forced entry at the home.

In an upstairs bedroom, police found Christine Banfield, 37, with stab wounds and Ryan, 39, dead of gunshot wounds nearby. She was taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead, according to Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis.

Peres Magalhães, 25, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and a firearm offense in October 2023 and has been in custody since her arrest.

When police searched the home, they found a framed photo of Banfield and Peres Magalhães smiling together on his bedside table.

A year later, in October 2024, court records show Peres Magalhães pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. At a plea hearing, prosecutors read aloud a statement laying out the key allegations in the case.

As they alleged, Peres Magalhães began working as an au pair for the couple in late 2021, and in August 2022 she and Brendan Banfield began an extra-marital relationship.

“In the fall of 2022, Brendan Banfield expressed to Peres Magalhães his desire to be rid of his wife and soon thereafter began planning to kill his wife as well as

By John Towfighi, CNN

New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump says US companies will now have access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. But the country’s other commodities have also caught his administration’s attention.

Venezuela has unverified amounts of minerals, metals and potentially rare earth elements, experts say. These raw materials are indispensable for industries from defense to technology, and the administration has repeatedly stressed their importance for US national security.

But while Washington might aspire to secure Venezuela’s critical elements, it’s a tall order, experts say, and wouldn’t do much to bolster America’s supply chain.

The quantity and economic viability of Venezuela’s mineral resources are uncertain. Companies also face major risks mining in Venezuela without sustained security guarantees.

Many of these regions have guerrilla soldiers and armed groups engaging in illegal gold mining, experts say. Energy-intensive rare earths mining can also harm the environment.

“There is an awareness within the administration that even beyond oil, there’s wider natural resource value in the country,” said Reed Blakemore, director of research at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center.

“However, if we’re talking about the conditions under which we are able to exploit those mineral resources and bring them to market, it’s a much more challenging story,” Blakemore said. “And even, frankly, more challenging than the oil story.”

China’s role in the supply chain

Even if US companies were to try to mine Venezuela’s rare earths, getting them out of the ground is just one part of the process. Those materials are usually sent to China for refining.

China accounted for over 90% of global rare earths refining in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. The country maintains a virtual monopoly in processing and refining the materials due to decades of government subsidies, industry expansion and lax environmental regulations.

Rare earths have become a major sticking point in US-China trade tensions. Beijing last year implemented some export controls on rare earths during trade spats, raising concerns about America’s lack of secure supply chains for these critical materials.

“China still holds near-singular capacity to process rare earth metals, and that industrial and geopolitical edge cannot be overcome overnight,” said Joel Dodge, director of industrial policy and economic security at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.

Critical minerals and rare earth elements

The US Geological Survey designates 60 “critical minerals” vital to economic and national security.

These critical minerals include a mix of commodities, including aluminum, cobalt, copper, lead and nickel. The list also includes 15 rare earth elements, such as cerium, dysprosium, neodymium and samarium. Rare earths refer to a category of 17 specific metallic elements.

These commodities are essential inputs in everyday technologies, such as phones, batteries and TV screens, as well as military and defense equipment, such as lasers, fighter jets and missiles.

“Ra

By Eric Bradner, Michael Williams, CNN

(CNN) — In every city where President Donald Trump’s immigration agents have arrived in force, they’ve been trailed by people who seek to monitor or protest their activities, often in close quarters.

At times, those two groups have collided with tragic results — including an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good on Wednesday morning, as she appeared to attempt to drive away from ICE agents ordering her out of her vehicle on a Minneapolis street. Video obtained by CNN on Friday shows Good’s wife and Jonathan Ross, the officer who fired the fatal shots, recording each other with their cellphones before Good tries to drive off.

Good’s last words to Ross were: “I’m not mad at you.”

In the Trump administration’s telling, those protesters, including Good, are “agitators” or even “domestic terrorists.” Vice President JD Vance described Good as part of a “left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.” FBI director Kash Patel has suggested federal law enforcement will investigate leaders and funders of the loosely organized groups which have followed and documented immigration enforcement efforts.

People who track ICE scoffed at the notion that they are terrorists or part of any organized cell.

“I mean, gosh, we’re like, moms in Toyota Corollas,” said one Minneapolis-area activist who participates in anti-ICE patrols and declined to give her name because she feared retribution from the administration.

“We’re mental health workers, we’re teachers, we’re people that are connected to our communities in such a way that we see there’s harm being done,” she said. “There’s nobody in my contact group who are professional agitators.”

Confrontation in Minneapolis

The moments which led to the encounter that ended in Good’s death on that icy Minneapolis street are still unclear. While Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has accused Good of “stalking agents all day long,” her ex-husband told the Associated Press that she had just dropped her 6-year-old son off at school and was headed home before she noticed a group of ICE agents in the street.

Good’s wife, Becca Good, said in a statement to MPR News that on Wednesday morning, they “stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.” She did not further address the lead-up to the shooting.

In the days after Good’s shooting, a number of anti-ICE activists drew comparisons to an incident in Chicago last year. Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, was shot five times by a Customs and Border Protection agent in Chicago who accused her of ramming her vehicle into his SUV. Martinez survived, and Martinez’s defense attorney alleged it was actually the agent who sideswiped Martinez. The Justice Department later dropped its charges against Martinez.

Good’s death appears to have hardened protesters’ resolve in Minneapolis, leading to tense standoffs. For people who take it upon themselves to track ICE’s movements and warn neighbors about their presence, the killing has crystallized their worries about following a law enforcement agency that has used increasingly harsh tactics to deliver on the Trump administration’s mass-dep