1.  It’s Friday again and it’s still winter.

2.  Wintery winter, that is. The kind with below freezing temps more days than not.

3.  Bless Old Man Winter’s whole freaking heart.

4.  That’s a southern lady bless, not an actual one.

5.  We had that big snow last weekend – well, big for us, we got seven inches of snow.

6.  I fully understand if some of you real winter people are giggling into your hot cocoa.

7.  It’s North Carolina, man, what can I say.

8.  Anyway, we had a small blip of weather come through Wednesday and Thursday.

9.  I believe there may have been a moment Thursday morning when I looked out the back window and hollered is that freaking SNOW FLURRIES?!

10.  Turns out I may have had my fill of winter weather for a bit.

11.  Ahem. Moving right along.

12.  Hey, cuteness break. Check out Mittens:

13.  Those photos make me smile every time.

14.  Alrighty, back to it!

15.  Did you know you can go to ice.gov to locate detention centers?

16.  WAIT WAIT WAIT, you should do that from a private browser or using Duck Duck Go or something.

17.  It may not matter in the end but we’re at least gonna try to protect your search history.

18.  Since I’m there already, though, let’s check some stuff out.

19.  My county has an ICE detention center.

20.  I went out looking for overall stats because I heard two nearby cities were being considered for new ICE detention facilities.

21.  Currently ICE has active detention facilities in 49 of the 50 states as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

22.  Which state has escaped this situation? Utah.

23.  I find that interesting but have no idea why it might be. Any Utah and/or ICE experts have some feedback here?

24.  The top five states for ICE detention center numbers are as follows:

25.  Texas leads the pack by a mile with 23 detention centers.

26.  Some of the Texas experts I follow have pointed out some people are saying Texas doesn’t have an ICE problem because they’re not experiencing what’s happening in Minneapolis.

27.  The difference in those two locations is leadership – Texas isn’t getting an ICE goon squad beat down because the officials in charge are cooperating with people being scooped off the streets.

28.  After Texas we have Louisiana with nine detention centers.

29.  Rounding out the top five are Kentucky with eight detention centers, California with seven, then Georgia and Ohio with six centers each.

30.  Which I suppose makes it a top six list. Whoop whoop.

31.  Those are just the currently active centers, though.

32.  The ACLU reports that ICE is considering seven new locations for potential ICE detention centers.

33.  Their findings came less than a month after the Washington Post reported  the Trump administration’s plan to overhaul seven large-scale warehouses capable of holding 5,o00 to 10,000 people each.

34.  Sixteen smaller warehouses would hold up to 1,500 people each.

35.  In April 2025 the Arizona Mirror reported then-ICE acting director Todd Lyons as saying, “We need to get better at treating this like a business” at a border security conference. The administration’s goal, he said, was to deport immigrants as efficiently as Amazon moves packages: “Like Prime, but with human beings.”

36.  Are we paying attention?

37.  Are we good with talking about people like this?

38.  Are we good with the behaviors we’re seeing from ICE in the streets?

39.  ARE WE GOOD??

40.  Because this is where we are now and we need to lock in. Start wrapping your brain around what you’re ready to do when this shows up in your neighborhoods.