Democrisy: the left said that no one is above the law, right up until the law impacted the people they favored.

Our good friends on the left spent much of the Biden Administration years telling us what Senator Dick Durbin did in a tweet pictured to the right, telling us that no one is above the law. Letitia James said the same thing, many times, in her witch hunt against then-former President Trump, yet, today, she’s denying that she has any responsibility as far as her clearly fraudulent mortgage applications are concerned. And one of my favorite columnists, Will Bunch, was appalled, aghast, everything rolled into one that Mr Trump wasn’t thrown in prison and that, upon returning to office, pardoned the January 6th Capitol kerfufflers as well as some police officers, even though the vast majority of them had been punished, having already served their sentences.

Yet somehow, some way, our good friends on the left believe that illegal immigrants are above the law!

How an ICE shake-up will bring Chicago-level terror to Philly

The brutal arrest tactics and stepped-up immigration raids that have roiled Chicago are coming to Philadelphia after an ICE shake-up.

by Will Bunch | Thursday, October 30, 2024 | 1:33 PM EDT

There was sheer terror and panic in the voice of the sobbing woman who dialed 911 in Chicago on the afternoon of Oct. 4. It was a day of utter chaos along Kedzie Street in a heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s South Side, as federal agents led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brutally arrested brown-skinned residents and clashed with a growing group of protesters.

The woman told the 911 dispatcher that the federal agents swarming her block had just slammed a man to the ground in front of her, according to a recording from the city’s emergency dispatch center obtained by the Talking Points Memo site.

“The agents started beating him up,” the unidentified caller said. “They have rifles and they’re pointing it at people.” She added that the man who was getting pummeled was unarmed, then said, “We have rights, we’re citizens here, please help us.”

If you’ve been following the news out of Chicago this fall, you know this 911 call wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s been about two months since Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security announced “Operation Midway Blitz” in the nation’s third-largest city, boosted by a Trump-posted meme promising a hellish “Chipocalypse Now.”

We reported, in September, how the columnist lamented that President Trump wasn’t giving Venezuelan drug smugglers a fair chance to escape and deliver their cargoes to our shores. We noted last June that he was cheering on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, even while admitting that he did “find quite troubling the allegations of domestic abuse that caused Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, to briefly seek a protective order.”

Why then is the distinguished Mr Bunch so upset that President Trump is enforcing our immigration laws? Why isn’t he telling us that no one is above the law, including illegal immigrants?

Mr Bunch’s own newspaper reported, last inauguration day, that there were roughly 47,000 “undocumented immigrants,” to use the left’s mealy-mouth whitewashing of the more correct term, illegal immigrants. We did the math, and calculated that slightly over 3% of the city’s population were there illegally. If 47,000 illegals living in the City of Brotherly Love were sent back to their home countries, of left voluntarily, wouldn’t that help alleviate one of the city’s other problems, a lack of affordable housing, with tens of thousands of housing units becoming vacant?

If Mr Bunch specifically, and the newspaper in general, truly believed that no one is above the law, shouldn’t the Inquirer be advocating that the illegal immigrants take advantage of programs to help them return home, or, if being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, comply peacefully?

No one likes being arrested, and criminals frequently resist or try to get away, but most people have little sympathy for an accused thief or rapist or murderer winds up being rather forcibly arrested if he doesn’t simply surrender. Yet Mr Bunch complains that resisting arrest by ICE doesn’t usually work and has sympathy for those roughed up or even injured while resisting arrest.

And America has watched with shock and awe as ICE and Border Patrol agents have racially profiled and body-slammed Latinos, fired tear gas and painful pepper balls at pastors, journalists, and peaceful protesters, and indicted anyone who stands in their way, even a candidate for Congress.

Yeah, that kind of happens when people are trying to obstruct law enforcement agents in the performance of their duty. Violation of Title 18 USC §372, Conspiracy to impede or injure officer, is a federal offense, a felony which carries a sentence of up to six years in prison.

We get it: the curmudgeonly columnist absotively, posilutely hates President Trump, hates him with a white-hot passion, but should that get in the way of Mr Trump doing the right thing and enforcing our laws? Remember: no one is above the law, as our friends on the left have told us time and again, or at least they did so before November 5, 2024.

Enforcing our immigration laws works!

We reported, on June 19th, that the decrease in the estimated illegal immigrant population was far greater than the number who had been deported, meaning that the greater part of the decrease was among those who ‘self-deported,’ those who realized that the welcome mat had been pulled, and chose to return to their homelands by themselves rather than being picked up and shoved out the door. Now, the number is even greater!

New Milestone: Over 2 Million Illegal Aliens Out of the United States in Less Than 250 Days

President Trump and Secretary Noem’s Robust Immigration Law Enforcement Yields Real Results for Americans

Release Date: September 23, 2025

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that 2 million illegal aliens have been removed or have self-deported since January 20.

The Trump administration is on pace to shatter historic records and deport nearly 600,000 illegal aliens by the end of President Donald Trump’s first year since returning to office. Two million illegal aliens have left the United States in less than 250 days, including an estimated 1.6 million who have voluntarily self-deported and more than 400,000 deportations.

Just the threat of being picked up and deported has caused somewhere around 1.6 million illegals to head back home; the threat of our immigration laws actually being enforced has worked. This is for what 77,302,580 Americans voted!

“The numbers don’t lie: 2 million illegal aliens have been removed or self-deported in just 250 days— proving that President Trump’s policies and Secretary Noem’s leadership are working and making American communities safe,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Ramped-up immigration enforcement targeting the worst of the worst is removing more and more criminal illegal aliens off our streets every day and is sending a clear message to anyone else in this country illegally: Self-deport or we will arrest and deport you.”

Let’s tell the truth here: if by the “worst of the worst” the Department means the illegals with other criminal arrests and convictions, that’s not quite right: a lot of illegals who don’t have criminal records have been picked up and shipped out as well. But the story of Des Moines, Iowa, school superintendent Ian Roberts provides us with a window into how even the (supposedly) nicest of the illegals have had to circumvent our laws and fabricate their backgrounds to make it economically in the US. They loved him in Des Moines, and thought that he was doing a good job — at $300,000 a year that could have gone to an actual American citizen — but he was a bad guy:

  • 1996 charges in New York of forgery and drug possession with intent to deliver.
  • A 1998 charge of unauthorized use of a vehicle in New York City, which was later dismissed.
  • A 2012 conviction for reckless driving, unsafe operation and speeding in Maryland.
  • 2020 charges in New York of criminal possession of a loaded weapon outside a home or business. The list notes one of those charges, for second-degree criminal possession, was “inchoate,” a legal term meaning the crime has been committed when the individual takes a “substantial step” even if the person ultimately fails to complete the crime.
  • A previously reported 2022 Pennsylvania conviction for unlawful possession of a loaded firearm.

The Des Moines Register also noted that some of the criminal records against him had been sealed.

He also falsified his academic credentials in applying for the Des Moines job. Living and working illegally in the United States is something which has to be built on a web of lies. I wonder how many of those who have ‘self-deported’ realized the network of lies that had been forced to use would quickly fall apart if anyone looked.

The apparently entitled Mr Roberts thought that our laws simply didn’t apply to him, as he ignored a June 2024 deportation order. How many other illegals have similar records of law-breaking and evasion? We don’t know, but the probabilities that Mr Roberts is the only one of the illegals who have done things like this are vanishingly small.

The New York Times, which is editorially hostile to President Trump, reported:

The Superintendent’s Bio Seemed Too Good to Be True. It Was.

Ian Roberts rose through the ranks of American education with talent, charm and a riveting back story. He was also hiding a shocking secret.

By Mitch Smith, Ernesto Londoño, and Dana Goldstein | Sunday, October 5, 2025

School district leaders in Des Moines drew up a detailed wish list when they set out to hire a new superintendent in 2023. They wanted someone who could increase reading scores, improve the math skills of Black boys, adhere to an affirmative action plan and much more.

Most of all, Des Moines Public Schools needed a galvanizing leader who could meet a moment shaped by the aftermath of Covid and the racial justice movement of 2020.

Translation: the Des Moines school board wanted someone who is black for the job. Des Moines city is only 11.7% black, more than twice the state’s 5.2% black population. Judging solely by his résumé, Mr Roberts certainly filled the desired qualifications, or at least would have had his résumé not been partially falsified.

Ian Roberts’s application seemed almost too perfect.

Dr. Roberts had spent most of his career in urban school systems, building a reputation as a charismatic, hands-on administrator. He wrote books, gave speeches and boasted of degrees from brand-name universities. His life story was also compelling: an immigrant from Guyana who competed in the Olympics and spoke bluntly about his experiences as a Black man in the United States.

“I believe deeply in the promise of public education being the most important opportunity gap closer for youth, particularly with a focus on diverse populations,” Dr. Roberts, who is in his 50s, wrote in his cover letter for the Des Moines job.

“Dr Roberts”? The Times noted that Mr Roberts initially claimed a doctorate in education from Morgan State University, but though the school says he attended there, there is no record of him actually earning his doctorate. He now claims a doctorate in education from Trident University International, a non-resident school which Wikipedia is circumspect enough to not call a diploma mill, but the school’s Wikipedia description certainly sounds like just that. The First Street Journal, in line with very few other publications, does use honorifics, but we decline to refer to Mr Roberts as Dr Roberts; we will not honor such a sketchy school.

Back to the Department of Homeland Security:

DHS has made it clear: the era of open borders is over. For four straight months, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has released zero illegal aliens into the country.

The rest of the world is hearing our message. DHS immigration enforcement is also demonstrably deterring illegal aliens from trying to come here in the first place.[1]Though my wife and I are both native-born American citizens, with American passports, I can testify that the re-entry screenings of ourselves and our luggage were far stricter when we arrived from … Continue reading

A recent study from the United Nations reported that President Trump’s immigration policies led to a 97% reduction in illegal aliens heading northbound to the U.S. from Central America. That same study found that 49% of would-be illegal aliens who decided to stop their journey towards the U.S. did so because they thought it would be impossible to enter the U.S. under President Trump. Likewise, 46% said fears of detention or deportation led to abandoning their attempt to illegally enter the U.S.

There’s a little more at the link.

It’s simple: no one is going to make the costly and difficult trek from Guatemala and Honduras and Mexico if they believe that they won’t be able to cross into the United States. When President Biden reversed President Trump’s first term policies, policies which had greatly reduced, though not completely eliminated, the flow of illegals across our southern border, he effectively opened the floodgates, and perhaps ten million or more people entered illegally under Mr Biden’s policies; only the Lord knows the actual number.

Illegal immigration was Donald Trump’s primary issue in 2016, and again in 2024. If President Biden had retained just his predecessor’s immigration policies, it’s fair to ask the Democrats whether Mr Trump would be President today.

We can and should discuss reasonable immigration reform . . . after we have deported all of those currently here illegally. But right now, no matter how good and kind and noble they seem — Mr Roberts certainly filled that bill! — they are constant liars and criminals, because that is what is required for an illegal immigrant to live in the United States.

References

References
1 Though my wife and I are both native-born American citizens, with American passports, I can testify that the re-entry screenings of ourselves and our luggage were far stricter when we arrived from London a couple of weeks ago than they were to board the plane in the UK, or to board the plane to leave the US a couple of weeks earlier than that.

Good News: 2 Million Illegals Gone In 250 Days

It’s a good start

Trump’s immigration crackdown: 2 million illegal immigrants gone in just 250 days

The Department of Homeland Security celebrated on Tuesday that two million illegal immigrants have either self-deported or have been deported since the start of the Trump administration.

“The numbers don’t lie: 2 million illegal aliens have been removed or self-deported in just 250 days— proving that President Trump’s policies and Secretary Noem’s leadership are working and making American communities safe,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Ramped-up immigration enforcement targeting the worst of the worst is removing more and more criminal illegal aliens off our streets every day and is sending a clear message to anyone else in this country illegally: Self-deport or we will arrest and deport you.”

Amid President Donald Trump’s heightened efforts in supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mission, which includes increasing the agency’s budget by $75 billion through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ICE is on track to shatter its record by deporting nearly 600,000 illegals by the end of the year. So far, ICE has successfully deported 400,000 illegal immigrations. Meanwhile, 1.6 million illegals have voluntary left the country. Since May, the Trump administration has offered illegal immigrants that decide to self-deport a free flight as well as $1,000. It is uncertain how many illegal migrants have taken the Trump administration up on its offer.

I was told that the only thing that could be done was pass a law that would have shut *wink wink* the border down when daily encounters exceeded 4,000 a day. Those claiming asylum would be quickly given work permits. Denials would take years to adjudicate. And then give amnesty and stuff with a promise that border security would be ramped up. Meanwhile, Trump comes in and puts people in place who have policies that simply shut illegal immigration down and caused illegals to get out. It tells them “don’t come”.

And DHS said “it’s just getting started” as it intends to recruit more ICE agents thanks to funding from Trump’s “one big beautiful bill.” While offering $50,000 sign-on bonuses and other recruitment bonuses, ICE has received more than 150,000 applications in the past couple of weeks. ICE has also signed more than 1,000 286(g) agreements, which gives local and state enforcement officers the tools and authority to perform specified immigration officer functions.

Keep it going. They say there are around 11 million in the US. Most likely the number is well over 20 million.

A Dozen SCNY Officials Arrested By ICE

Maybe it’s time to start throwing some real federal charges at these unhinged Sanctuary City New York wackos interfering with federal agents?

More than a dozen city officials arrested while protesting immigration crackdown

More than a dozen city officials and lawmakers, and dozens of other demonstrators, were arrested Thursday both inside and outside 26 Federal Plaza while protesting conditions at the building and President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the city.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, state Sen. Julia Salazar, Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest and members of the City Council were among those detained at the protest. (snip)

Others, including City Comptroller Brad Lander, were taken from the 10th floor of the plaza after trying to catch a glimpse of the conditions there.

All the officials have now been released. Lander and 10 others were given summonses for blocking the lobby and the foyer upstairs. They have a court date in November.

Defending illegal aliens, many of whom are serious criminals, seems like the hill they want to die on

(Newsweek) Thursday was Lander’s second time being detained at the facility, following an arrest in June.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek in a statement, in part, “Brad Lander’s obsession with attacking the brave men and women of law enforcement, physically and rhetorically, must stop NOW. The men and women of ICE put their lives on the line every day to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens to protect and defend the lives of American citizens. This type of rhetoric is contributing to the 1000% surge in assaults of ICE officers through this repeated vilification and demonization of ICE.”

Have they passed the point of not protesting peaceably? Sooner or later these protests are going to lead to serious violence, because the Democrat politicians and high end activists are whipping everyone up into a frenzy.

LOL: Newsom Signs Legislation Blocking ICE From Wearing Masks

I’m looking forward to any state, county, or local law enforcement in the People’s Republik Of California to try and arrest any federal law enforcement agent

Newsom signs legislation banning ICE agents from wearing masks in California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Saturday signed a first of its kind bill banning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from wearing masks while conducting operations in the state of California.

Newsom said ICE agents would no longer be “hidden from accountability” arguing masks prevent “transparency” for citizens and hinder “oversight.”

“That’s Trump’s America but that’s not the America we’ve grown up in. And so we are pushing back,” the governor said during remarks at a local high school.

Newsom said many residents are living in fear as the Trump administration cracks down on communities of illegal immigrants. Twenty-seven percent of Californians are foreign-born.

I’m all for federalism and State’s Rights, but, Los Federales have primacy when it comes to immigration, and federal law enforcement outranks state, county, and local when it comes to federal matters. Illegal immigration is a federal matter. I remember when Gavin banned all San Francisco (he was mayor at the time) city employee travel to Arizona in 2010 over the “show your papers” law. Not sure why so many employees were traveling to Arizona on the taxxpayer dime, but, Dems said SB1070 usurped federal power.

Newsom’s office also took aim at Noem in its announcing of the legislation, which drew a backlash from the administration.

“Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today,” Newsom’s press office tweeted. “You’re welcome, America.”

“This reads like a threat. This is ugly, @GavinNewsom,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin tweeted in response.

See, Democrats in the PRC want to ban law enforcement from protecting their identities, thereby allowing the unhinged nuts in the Democrat party to retaliate against them and their families. Violently. But, the PRC general assembly won’t restrict criminals from wearing masks.

(AP) Bill Essayli, acting U.S. attorney for Southern California, said on the social platform X that the state does not have jurisdiction over the federal government and he has told agencies the mask ban has no effect on their operations. “Our agents will continue to protect their identities,” he said.

Good luck with any attempted arrests of ICE and others, guys. You’ll be going to federal prison.

The new law prohibits neck gaiters, ski masks and other facial coverings for local and federal officers, including immigration enforcement agents, while they conduct official business. It makes exceptions for undercover agents, medical masks such as N95 respirators or tactical gear, and it does not apply to state police.

It’s all performative theater.

Los Federales Starting To Hit SCC

It would actually be kind of fun if ICE and the other agencies involved would just pop up here and there, not really doing anything, just freaking out the citizens, especially the illegals, in Sanctuary City Chicago

Federal immigration agents make arrests in Chicago and West Chicago with sightings in several other suburbs

Federal immigration enforcement agents made arrests in Chicago and the suburb of West Chicago on Monday, while others were spotted in west suburban Aurora, officials and two state lawmakers said.

The actions come one week after President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security announced it was embarking on its latest immigration enforcement surge in the Chicago region, which it dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”

State Sen. Karina Villa, a Democrat from West Chicago, said she saw the federal agents assembling at a West Chicago Police Department station parking lot early Monday. When she confronted them about why they were present, they dispersed, she said.

At some point, she said there were “probably over five” arrests, though she said that was not confirmed independently by federal or local law enforcement. Villa said volunteers in the community were dispatched to take video or photos of immigration enforcement activity, and the agents were wearing vests that identified them as being from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and they were in “unmarked vehicles.”

Why they were present? Well, the US Congress has tasked ICE and other federal agents to enforce federal law and detain those illegally present in the US. And, by “dispersed”, they most likely went about doing their jobs, rather than running from her.

Under Illinois’ 2017 Trust Act, signed into law by former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, local law enforcement is prohibited from working with federal authorities on immigration enforcement. Villa said West Chicago’s mayor assured her they’re “not collaborating with ICE.”

Then deny them federal funds. Local and state law enforcement are required to help detain people who have broken federal laws.

She said this all transpired as elementary and high school classes in the area were beginning for the day.

“This is a terror that they’re attempting to instill in our community,” Villa said.

Terror, huh? Well, these same people think of Mexico as their home country.

Thousands in Chicago celebrate Mexican American heritage amid immigration crackdown

The annual Mexican Independence Day parade in Little Village on Sunday brought a sea of thousands of people wearing green and red waving Mexican flags of all sizes. Dozens of brightly colored floats highlighting Mexican culture by local organizations, businesses and unions were on display, as men on horseback, marching bands and dancers streamed down 26th Street in this majority Latino neighborhood.

Yet, the streets weren’t as full as in previous years, largely owing to fears over President Donald Trump’s efforts to ramp up immigration arrests in the city.

Do they want to be Americans or Mexicans? They aren’t making a very convincing case. Do French-Americans, Scottish-Americans, and others celebrate independence for their old countries? Very, very few. They do not have massive parades (these parades happened in other Dem run cities, too). As I’ve maintained for decades, if the illegals really want to be Americans then act like it. Learn the language. Stop taking all that public assistance. Blend in. Don’t fly Mexican flags and pretend like you’re still in Mexico. This goes for the illegals from other nations.

The Philadelphia Inquirer supports immigration lawlessness

Screen capture Philadelphia Inquirer website main page, September 8, 2025 at 8:20 AM EDT.

That our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper supports illegal immigration is no surprise to regular readers and me. The main article listed tells readers how “Rapid Response” activists have been tailing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to try to intimidate ICE in its apprehension of illegal immigrants, but the subsequently listed articles are all pro-illegal immigration.

Chasing ICE: ‘Rapid-response’ activists follow agents, then stand up for immigrants during arrests

“They’re trying to do this quietly, they’re trying to do this when nobody is watching,” one immigrant-advocate said.

by Jeff Gammage | Monday, September 8, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

When ICE agents headed out to raid the Super Gigante food market in West Norriton this summer, they didn’t travel alone.

Following behind them were cars carrying members of the Montgomery County Watch rapid-response team, immigration activists who work to find and follow the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their goal: to record agents’ activities, to alert people to protest at the scenes of arrests, and, at times, to loudly confront the officers.

The group had discovered ICE agents and cars gathering that July morning in the parking lot outside the Plymouth Meeting Regal Cinema movie theater.

From there it was 4½ miles to the supermarket. The two groups arrived nearly simultaneously.

As ICE arrested 14 people for immigration offenses, activists yelled at and questioned the masked agents, asking if they told their children that they worked separating families.

That’s what every law enforcement officer does when he arrests someone for breaking the law. When the Philadelphia Police Department arrests a gang-banger for shooting another gang-banger, he’s separating a family.

“Show your face! Show your face!” they demanded.

We know their reasons. The newspaper’s far-left columnist Will Bunch among others has decried ICE agents wearing masks for the very simple reason: they want to publicly identify and dox them, to intimidate them from doing their jobs.

“Get back!” an ICE agent shouted as a woman in sandals and a T-shirt approached him.

“Cowards!” came the rejoinder.

The agents did not respond to the taunt.

“They’re trying to do this quietly, they’re trying to do this when nobody is watching” ― and the rapid-response team aims to ensure that doesn’t happen, said Stephanie Vincent, an organizer who was among those who went to the supermarket that morning. “The citizens are front line right now.”

The front line of what, of protecting criminals? Because that’s what these people are trying to do, trying to protect people who are in the country illegally from being removed from the country. Further down, they admit that directly:

“People are showing up and protesting, to show we support [migrants] and don’t want them taken out of the community, and asking ICE to think about what they’re doing,” said Rachel Rutter, executive director of Project Libertad, a Phoenixville-based organization that assists immigrant families. “It’s a direct response to the increase in enforcement.”

In other words, they are aiding and abetting criminals, trying to keep the illegals from being deported.

ICE noted that the agents are performing legal enforcement actions, and that while everybody has freedom of speech, if they actually interfere with ICE while making arrests, they are committing a federal crime.

There’s a lot more to the article, noting the legality of the protests, but it’s heavily slanted toward glorifying the activists. That goes right along with the newspaper’s Editorial Board’s support of illegal immigration, saying “Heavy-handed immigration enforcement efforts accomplish little beyond the upheaval and inhumane treatment of people just trying to get ahead and make a better life.” They can try to get ahead and make a better life .  .  . in Mexico or Guatemala or from wherever it is they came! That’s our law, and they are breaking the law every time they cross our borders or overstay a visa and every time they provide forged documents to obtain jobs or work for cash and not pay income of Social Security taxes.

Kick them out, and if they want to return to the United States, they can apply for legal immigration from their home countries. That’s the American way!

Abuse of the asylum claim system

My good friend William Teach noted that the illegal immigrant accused of human trafficking and a known wife beater, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, that darling of Will Bunch and the rest of the American left, has now been notified that he will be deported to Eswatini, a small nation in Africa. But even Mr Bunch would have to admit that Mr Abrego Garcia and his shysters are attempting to abuse the asylum law:

ICE tells Kilmar Abrego Garcia he’ll be deported to tiny African country

DHS mocked Abrego Garcia on social media, saying, ‘Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere’

by Peter Pinedo and Bill Melugin | Friday, September 5, 2025 | 7:56 PM EDT

An attorney representing the Department of Homeland Security and ICE has notified high-profile illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia that he will be deported to the tiny African nation Eswatini, after the alleged gang member’s lawyers said he fears persecution in 22 other countries.

According to a removal notice shared with Fox News by ICE sources, the agency notified Abrego Garcia that in light of his claims of fear of persecution or torture in nearly two dozen other countries, “we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.”

“Dear Mr. Abrego Garcia,” the notice reads, “As you know, the United States seeks to remove you from the United States based on your final order of removal. Currently, you are designated to be removed to Uganda. Your attorney has informed us, however, that you fear persecution or torture in Uganda.”

There’s more at the original.

So, the alleged human trafficker fears persecution or torture in twenty-two separate countries? How, exactly, is that a reasonable fear? What reason would Uganda have to persecute Mr Abrego Garcia?

At some point, it has to be asked: have Mr Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, who are legally officers of the court, overstepped in making unsubstantiated and unreasonable claims to seek asylum? What could motivate twenty-two countries to persecute that man? And if twenty-two other countries do have reasons to persecute him, is that not evidence in itself that he’s a bad, bad guy?

One thing is certain: Mr Abrego Garcia needs to never set foot in the United States as a free man. He needs to be in prison, or at the very least, out of here!

Our defenders of democracy really don’t like it when the people take democratic choices of which they disapprove

Sometimes an author spends a lot of time, finely crafting his OpEd for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and winds up telling us exactly what he didn’t really mean to convey.

On immigration, Trump doesn’t have a copyright on cruelty

On both sides of the Atlantic, migrants are regarded as a problem at best, a danger to national security at worst, writes German journalist Adrian Schulz.

by Adrian Schulz | Tuesday, September 2, 2025 | 6:00 AM EDT

Detention camps, violent rhetoric, physical harm, deportations to third-party countries under brutal regimes — Donald Trump did not invent the playbook on callousness toward immigrants.

The European Union, winner of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, got there ahead of him.

As I read the news about the U.S. government’s continuing assault on people whose sole fault is not having the right documents to legally live in a country that is otherwise happy to exploit their labor, I also follow the German debate around the 10th anniversary of the so-called refugee crisis. In 2015, more than a million people came to Germany seeking refuge, many of them fleeing from war-torn Syria.

“(N)ot having the right documents,” huh? Yet another euphemism for being in the country illegally!

I cannot speak to European law, but “not having the right documents” is not their “sole fault” in the United States, because to work in the United States you must be a citizen or be here legally, with the appropriate documents. This means that the illegals who work have either presented forged documents, or be working for a company which has knowingly hired them without documentation, or they are, like those apprehended at Home Depots while looking for day labor, working for cash, almost always unreported, and are thus evading our income and Social Security taxes.

Those things are all felonies!

What I see is not so different. On both sides of the Atlantic, migrants are regarded as a problem at best, a danger to national security at worst. Trump has no copyright on cruelty. Europeans just put on a friendlier face.

Is there ever a ‘friendly face’ on an arresting officer? Regardless of the crime, no one likes being arrested, but that’s what doing something really radical like enforcing the law requires. Our good friends on the left were saying all along that ‘no one is above the law,’ as they prosecuted and persecuted then former President Donald Trump, trying everything they could to throw him in jail and prohibit him from running for President again. They had no problem with the prosecution and persecution of the January 6 Capitol kerfufflers and screamed blood murder when the re-inaugurated President Trump pardoned them, even though most had already served their sentences. Philadelphia District Attorney, who routinely hands out lenient plea bargains to gang bangers, even said he’d try to prosecute the pardoned kerfufflers on state charges.

But somehow, some way, no one being above the law doesn’t seem to matter to them when it comes to people living in our country illegally. Given that they are committing felonies every day they go to work, I’d say that they are far worse criminals than the kerfufflers ever were.

The decision of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel not to close the borders in 2015 is seen today by many as a cardinal sin that fundamentally changed the German political landscape, leading to the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, known as the AfD. It came in second place in the recent federal elections.

AfD was founded in 2013, just before the immigration crisis in Germany, but started growing as Germans became more and more disillusioned by the unrestrained, mostly Muslim, immigration. Germany is a democratic republic, and when author Adrian Schulz tells us that the party came in second in recent elections, he is telling us that the German people are disillusioned with the huge number of immigrants in the country.

(Frau Merkel) chose the former. Her phrase, “Wir schaffen das,” or “We can make it,” endeared her to liberals and outraged conservatives, but for a short moment, most Germans celebrated a Willkommenskultur, a culture of welcoming. People brought truckloads of stuffed animals to train stations where the refugee families arrived.

The optimism soon vanished, though. As in other European countries, the debate started to focus on radically limiting the number of asylum-seekers. The rhetoric became hostile.

“As in other European countries . . . .” Herr Schulz has admitted to us that the movement to reject unregulated Muslim immigration is growing throughout the European democracies. The editors of the Inquirer certainly loved an article decrying President Trump’s immigration policies as “callousness” and “cruelty,” but in doing so, the newspaper concomitantly told readers that we were not alone among democracies in rejecting what is, in the end, an attack on our culture, on Western civilization.

This is what the editors of the Inky, and Herr Schulz just don’t quite get. In the democracies that they claim to cherish, sometimes the people may take democratic choices they just don’t like.