Editor's note: Stephen Ndegwa, a special commentator for CGTN, is the executive director of South-South Dialogues, a Nairobi-based communications development think tank. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Over the past weeks, a historic winter storm has swept across dozens of U.S. states, burying communities in snow, ice and subzero cold, straining infrastructure and claiming dozens of lives. As of late January, media tallies report at least 98 deaths linked to cold exposure, traffic collisions and hypothermia across multiple states such as New York, Tennessee and Louisiana.

Blowing snow, power outages for over 200,000 customers, and widespread disruption of travel and blood drives have further compounded the human toll. The Red Cross has mobilized thousands of responders and opened more than 125 warming shelters, but organizers warn that ongoing weather and critical blood shortages continue to imperil vulnerable populations.

At the same time, a second, human-made storm driven by federal immigration enforcement policy has erupted nationwide following the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal agents operating under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis. On January 7, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis during a federal enforcement operation. Days later, on January 24, another U.S. citizen, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was shot and killed by federal agents under similar circumstances, sparking a cascade of protests from Minneapolis to Seattle.

These incidents triggered a nationwide repudiation of federal immigration tactics, with vigils, multi-city marches and calls for congressional scrutiny, as local and state leaders demanded accountability and an end to ICE's aggressive field operations. In response to mounting pressure, the White House directed the Department of Homeland Security to "stay away from protests" in Democratic cities unless formally requested for assistance, even as federal authorities continued to defend the deployments and the use of force.

Individually, each episode of calamity, the cold wave and the policing backlash, reflects a challenge any major nation must manage – protecting citizens from weather extremes and balancing public safety with civil liberties. But taken together, they underscore a stark reality. More than a year into U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, institutional responses appear reactive, fractious and profoundly disconnected from public expectations for competence and care.

The federal response to the winter storm showcased the mobilization of emergency partners, including the Federal Emergency Management Association, state agencies and NGOs like the Red Cross. Hundreds of shelters, pre-positioned resources and weather alerts helped mitigate some harm. But the scale of deaths and disruption, including mass power outages, travel paralysis and a critical blood shortage, points to systemic vulnerabilities in infrastructure resilience, grid reliability and community preparedness that have been flagged by climate scientists and disaster planners for years.

Experts have long warned that climate variability will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Yet federal investment in modernization of grids, regional coordination of resources and preventive risk reduction appears hamstrung by political priorities that favor crisis management over long-term mitigation.

On immigration, the data paints a sobering picture. Prior to January's shootings, federal immigration operations in Minnesota, notably "Operation Metro Surge," deployed thousands of agents to conduct raids and enforcement far from border regions. The intensity of these deployments drew consistent criticism from local leaders as disproportionate and counterproductive.

The fatal encounters with Good and Pretti have not only inflamed public opinion but also cast a shadow on enforcement protocols, with state officials and civil liberties advocates decrying lethal force against civilians observed or caught up in enforcement operations. Where federal officials describe such uses of force as justified under self-defense or law enforcement necessity, video footage, independent analysis and local leadership statements tell a more contested and troubling story.

The result has been nationwide protests, legal challenges to federal overreach, and escalating distrust between communities and federal authorities, precisely the opposite of prudent and calibrated governance.

The twin storms reveal a fundamental issue. Ordinary Americans feel they are paying the price for policy choices that may look strategic on paper but fail in execution. Whether freezing on an icy highway without power for hours or watching federal agents confront unarmed citizens with deadly force, the message is the same – public safety and trust are not being sustained.

The "golden age of America" proclaimed with great rhetoric at the start of Trump's second term now rings hollow in places where weather is a threat and citizens feel endangered by those sworn to protect them. To restore public confidence, policymakers must pivot from aggressive enforcement and reactive disaster response to strategic resilience, accountability and community-centered governance.

That means robust investment in infrastructure hardened against climate risks, transparent law enforcement oversight and a national dialogue that prioritizes human dignity alongside law and order. Failure to do so will leave both storms as defining metaphors of a nation that promised much but delivered far too little.

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