Category Archives: Immigration

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Sniffles: Supreme Court Ruling Allows Ending Of TPS For Haitians And Syrians

The Credentialed Media is not taking this well, as you could expect

Supreme Court undermines TPS program, putting 147,000 immigrants in Texas at risk of deportation

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can revoke Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Haiti and Syria. The 6-to-3 ruling puts more than 1.3 million immigrants under TPS across the United States, including roughly 147,000 in Texas, at imminent risk of arrest and deportation.

Writing the conservative majority’s opinion in Mullin v. Doe, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said TPS functions entirely at the discretion of the president and is not subject to review by the courts.

“Congress created TPS in 1990 to provide short-term humanitarian relief for aliens who cannot safely return to their home countries,” Alito wrote. “Although designed to afford temporary relief, TPS designations in practice have often lasted for decades,”

Alito added that Haitian immigrants had received a TPS designation after the 2010 earthquake in the Caribbean country.

“The Supreme Court is signaling that lower courts should not interfere with the executive’s authority, that when Congress grants a broad discretionary power to grant temporary status, the president should also have the same power to revoke the temporary status,” said Josh Blackman, a professor of constitutional law at South Texas College of Law Houston. “I think this is a very important case of presidential power.”

First off, they are not immigrants: they are foreign aliens who were allowed into the U.S. temporarily. That’s the whole of their legal status. Second, how quickly till a wackjob federal judge comes out with a ruling which blocks ending TPS for some group in total avoidance of the SCOTUS ruling?

Seth Chandler, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Houston Law Center, said the ruling has dramatic consequences for Texas, which hosts one of the largest concentrations of TPS holders in the U.S.

“It basically streamlines the ability of the Trump administration to revoke TPS status, not just for the Haitians and Syrians who were litigating in the case the Supreme Court decided today, but with respect to Hondurans, Nepalis, Afghans, and perhaps critically for Houston, potentially Venezuelans as well,” Chandler said.

There does come a point when TPS ends, Democrats. It is not permanent.

The decision came down immediately after another immigration-related decision, which allows the Trump administration to enforce its “wait in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers.

As to that

(AIC) U.S. law provides that any person who is physically present in the United States or who “arrives in” the United States may apply for asylum. Congress further directed that immigration officers must “inspect” any noncitizen who “arrives in” the United States to determine if they should be admitted to the country — a function U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers carry out thousands of times per day at ports of entry. (snip)

Today, the Supreme Court blessed the practice of metering, overturning a 9th Circuit decision which had found that CBP had an affirmative obligation to process people who arrive at ports of entry but who have not yet stepped on U.S. soil after CBP officers have blocked their passage. The Court found that there was a difference between “arrives in” and “arrives at” the border, and declared that only those individuals who have physically set foot in the United States have a right to be inspected and apply for asylum.

In other words, we do not have to let them in no matter how loud they yet “asylum”.

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Supreme Court Sides With Obama Admin On Deporting Green Card Holders

I dearly love how many Credentialed Media outlets go with this

Supreme Court sides with Trump administration in immigration case dealing with green card holders

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Tuesday in an immigration case dealing with the government’s power over green card holders accused of crimes.

Orange Man Bad. Oh, wait

The 6-3 decision centers on an immigration officer’s 2012 decision to put lawful permanent resident Muk Choi Lau on immigration parole when he returned from a short trip to China because he had been accused of a counterfeiting crime.

Wait, 2012? Was Trump president back then?

Lau argued that overstepped the officer’s authority, and the decision wrongly allowed the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly begin deportation proceedings after he pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit clothes in New Jersey.

The high court disagreed. “Border officers did not have the burden to establish by clear and convincing evidence that Lau had committed a crime involving moral turpitude,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed, writing that the decision to put Lau on immigration parole effectively sentenced him to “immigration limbo” before he’d been convicted of any crime.

“I worry that the Court has now handed the Government a massive blank check,” she wrote in a dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues.

Dumbest justice ever. She yammers about things that are not part of a legal decision.

(Cornell) In September 2007, Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese national, was admitted to the U.S. as an LPR. In May 2012, Lau was charged with third-degree trademark counterfeiting in New Jersey. Before he went to trial, Lau temporarily left the country. Upon his return to the U.S. in June 2012, Lau was not admitted to the U.S. but instead was paroled due to his pending charge. Later, Lau pled guilty to the counterfeiting charge and was sentenced to two years’ probation. In 2014, DHS sought to remove Lau, alleging that since Lau had committed a crime of moral turpitude, he was ineligible to be admitted into the United States upon his return to the country. Lau challenged DHS’s removal efforts, claiming that as an LPR, he was presumptively already admitted into the United States when arriving from his time abroad.

More at that link, and, yes, the Trump DOJ did argue against Lau, as is their job. But, it started under Obama. Obviously, Sotomayor and Kagen voted in favor of the criminal alien.

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the anus here] to do things right Keir Starmer is not an [insert slang term for the anus here], but he was still a terrible Prime Minister

My Twitter — I still refuse to call it 𝕏 — feed today has been filled with the lamentations of our good friends on the left over the resignation of Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. They keep telling us what a good and noble and kind man he is.

Well perhaps he is, but though the socialists love him, he’s been a rotten Prime Minister. He has allowed Great Britain to become infested with unassimilated immigrants, and the government, including the police, have to treat the ones who break the law with kid gloves, lest they be accused of Islamophobia and raaaaacism. The result was that everyone knew about the crimes the unassimilated immigrants were committing, and there was serious unrest, and then Rupert Lowe, MP, published his Rape Gang Inquiry Report.

What’s that you say? You’ve never heard of it? That’s hardly a surprise, given that the British and American credentialed media have been almost completely silent on it; it is being ignored to death. Where there is some slight coverage, the claims are that the report’s claim of 250,000 English women and girls — mostly underaged girls — having been raped, primarily by Pakistani and Muslim immigrants is overblown and inaccurate. But if 250,000 is an inaccurate number, the obvious question becomes: what is the acceptable number of rapes committed by Pakistani and Muslim immigrants, the number below which the Prime Minister was doing a good job? Mr Starmer and the rest of the Usual Suspects have been blaming not the immigrants, but people like Elon Musk for allowing the information about their crimes to be made public via social media.

Then there is President Donald Trump. Let’s tell the truth here: no one will ever call Mr Trump a good and noble and kind man! He is, as I have said before, an [insert slang term for the anus here]. But that [insert slang term for the anus here], but in doing his job he has closed our borders to illegal immigration, and has been very aggressive in finding, arresting, and deporting those people who are here illegally. The Department of Justice has been going after and prosecuting people who have tried to protect the illegals when they break the law in their efforts. He has gone after the fraudsters who have been bilking the taxpayers of millions and millions of dollars. A lot of people hate Mr Trump, but he has mostly been doing the right things. I’m sure that sitting down to lunch with Mr Starmer would be a perfectly fine and pleasant thing, while doing so with Mr Trump might not be so. Heaven forfend, he might order a steak well done, which is, to my mind, an impeachable offense.

But for a chief of state? Give me Mr Trump, and we can happily wave goodbye to Mr Starmer.

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At what point does a columnist slanting or hiding information to one side become lying through his scummy teeth?

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s communist, oops, sorry, columnist Will Bunch frequently shades the truth, slanting it as far left as he possibly can, but there’s a difference between shading the truth and lying through his scummy teeth.

Mikie Sherrill’s state police riot in Newark is a national disgrace

New Jersey state troopers meant to protect Newark protesters from ICE are violently shredding the First Amendment instead.

by Will Bunch | Sunday, May 31, 2026 | 2:05 PM EDT

When Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016 and the United States began its decade-long spiral into authoritarian madness, there arose a popular meme: Whatever you think you would have done to stop the rise of European fascism in the 1930s, or to end American racial injustice in the 1960s, is what you are doing right now.

Today, a humanitarian tragedy is taking place behind barbed wire and rows of riot cops in the industrial netherlands of Newark, where immigrants snatched by masked agents of American secret police are held in a private lockup called Delaney Hall in squalid conditions — fed rancid food, denied proper medical care, and fearing for their lives.

What are good people doing right now? As news of a detainee hunger strike inside Delaney Hall reached the outside world, a few hundred protesters have made their way toward the gates of the facility run by the for-profit GEO Group — to voice support for the strikers, demand humane treatment, and, for some of them, put their bodies on the line to commit acts of civil disobedience against a human-rights catastrophe on American soil.

Let’s use the same link Mr Bunch used last to see what he meant by “put their bodies on the line to commit acts of civil disobedience.”

Groups of demonstrators, many wearing gas masks and other face coverings, linked arms in a human chain, videos and photos posted on social media show.

The distinguished columnist doesn’t like it when ICE officers wear “face coverings,” but it doesn’t seem to bother him when the mostly peaceful protesters do.

Some used trash cans, old mattresses, umbrellas and other materials as makeshift shields and barricades as they confronted U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement officers.

Others attempted to block people and vehicles from entering and exiting the building or threw orange traffic cones and other objects in the direction of ICE officers as they taunted them with expletives and vulgar chants.

The ICE officers, many of whom wore helmets and tactical vests, used pepper spray to try and disperse the protesters, according to videos posted to social media. Some used their batons to beat and push back protesters as the officers attempted to clear the roadway for vehicles.

DHS said about six demonstrators were arrested for assaulting law enforcement officers.

The source is WPVI-TV, the ABC owned-and-operated television station in the City of Brotherly Love; it’s not some evil reich-wing source.

Mr Bunch’s subtitle called it “shredding the First Amendment,” so let’s ask: what exactly does the First Amendment say?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Do throwing “orange traffic cones and other objects in the direction of ICE officers,” attempting “to block people and vehicles from entering and exiting the building,” or using “trash cans, old mattresses, umbrellas and other materials as makeshift shields and barricades” sound like they meet the constitutional standard of assembling peaceably?

Is “assaulting law enforcement officers” part of the right of the people peaceably to assemble?

Mr Bunch again:

So is the New Jersey governor at war with the rogue agency that sends masked goon squads into city streets to grab day laborers or Uber drivers and warehouses them in squalid gulags, and that murdered two citizens on the streets of Minneapolis when they tried to protest? Or is she partnering with them? How long can we remain in denial that 21st century America is a police state with “resistance Democrats” as willing partners?

By “grab day laborers or Uber drivers” the columnist means arresting people in our country illegally. By “they tried to protest,” Mr Bunch means trying to run down ICE agents with her car (Renee Good) and pulling a gun on ICE agents (Alex Pretti). Of course, he doesn’t tell you that part, does he?

At what point, I have to ask, does the columnist slanting or hiding information to one side become lying through his scummy teeth? In my opinion, he’s not just past that point, but well past it.

However, I do agree that we should get rid of these illegal immigrant detention centers. What we should do is deport them immediately upon apprehension, and if they have a case to be made for being allowed to live in the United States, they can make it at the American embassies or consulates in their home countries.

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Well, of course he did! As-masculine-as-James-Talarico Tim Walz pardons an illegal immigrant convicted felon to try to save him from deportation

Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), whom we are very, very fortunate is not Vice President of the United States, in his eagerness to protect illegal immigrants, goes out of his way to pardon an illegal with a past felony conviction, to try to keep him from being deported.

From the New York Post:

Tim Walz pardons illegal alien convicted of armed robbery before ICE deportation to Laos

By Peter D’Abrosca, Fox News | Friday, May 29, 2026 | 3:49 AM EDT

Minnesota’s Democratic governor on Wednesday pardoned an illegal alien previously convicted of armed robbery before he could be deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Jai Vang, an illegal alien from Laos, was convicted of aiding and abetting and armed robbery in Hennepin County in 1994, according to FOX 9.

The incident occurred when he was 18 years old.

He served his prison term, and was released back into the United States.

That’s the first problem: after his prison term, he was released back into the United States rather than being deported at that point. That was 1994, when Bill Clinton was President, so it was yet another soft-hearted Democrat who didn’t enforce our immigration laws.

He was arrested by ICE as part of Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis area in January, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) release from the time.

So, Minnesota’s as-masculine-as-James-Talarico Governor never saw a reason to pardon Mr Vang and get him on the path to citizenship before, but just left him out on the streets until he wanted to try to resist President Trump’s attempts to actually enforce the laws.

When Gov. Tim Walz learned of Vang’s arrest by the federal government, and that Vang had requested clemency to avoid being deported in June, the governor called a special session of the state’s Board of Pardons’ Clemency Review Commission to ensure the case was reviewed before Vang’s deportation. could be completed.

The Clemency Review Commission, which was joined by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and state supreme court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, voted unanimously to pardon Vang.

Minnesota does not give the governor sole pardon and clemency power; Mr Walz had to take extra measures to get consent from Natalie Hudson and Keith bin Ellison to issue the pardon. Mr bin Ellison was the Attorney General who insisted on more serious charges against former police officer Derek Chauvin, so it isn’t like he is lenient in charges against police officers, only real criminals.

The commission reasoned that Vang hadn’t committed further crimes since he was released from prison, had started a family and owns a local painting business.

Let’s see, Mr Vang, a convicted felon and illegal immigrant, “owns a local painting business.” What are the odds that some or most or even all of Mr Vang’s employees are also here illegally? The Post story doesn’t tell us, but the probability that he did employ other illegals is very high, and ICE should investigate those employees.

During the hearing, Walz inaccurately referred to Vang as a “citizen.”

He said Vang has become a “critical member of the community” since his release from prison.

“I can find no reason how Minnesota will be safer or better if Mr. Vang is deported to a country he has not been to since he was a child. I do not see how it would serve his family, nor the economic interest where we have a taxpaying citizen who is creating job growth and living a life free from any criminal activity,” Walz said.

If there is a demand for Mr Vang’s painting business, that demand would still exist and create the opportunity to fill it by an actual American citizen. We don’t need convicted felons here.

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Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen! Are you tired of winning yet?

In an identically titled article, I noted that the federal workforce in the Philadelphia metropolitan area had significantly through now-former employees voluntarily leaving on their own. At least some of them wouldn’t have left if Kamala Harris Emhoff had won the election, but it is nevertheless great news:

Since January 2025, the federal government has cut -12% of its headcount, or -345,000 jobs.

Federal jobs now account for 1.68% of total employment, the lowest percentage since at least the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the federal job openings rate fell -0.5 percentage points in March, to 2.7%, the 2nd-lowest since the 2020 pandemic low.

And guess what? The great news is continuing!

Record number of immigration cases now ending in voluntary departure, report says

The number of migrants receiving “voluntary departure” decisions is way up.

By Laura Romero | Tuesday, May 12, 2026 | 7:40 PM

Immigrants are giving up their claims in immigration court and opting to voluntarily leave the U.S. in exponentially higher numbers under the current Trump administration’s immigration crackdown than at any time previously, according to a new report based on federal data.

The report by the Vera Institute of Justice shows that the number of people in removal proceedings receiving “voluntary departure” decisions has risen dramatically — particularly among those held in federal detention.

That, of course, is the whole point of immigration detention: make the illegals realize that they aren’t going to simply be released, so they just give up and go home. By voluntarily leaving, they don’t have a deportation on their records, so they could apply for legal immigration in the future.

“This is widespread across the United States,” said Jacquelyn Pavilon, one of the authors of the report. “In three-quarters of U.S. states and territories, the number of voluntary departure decisions increased more than fivefold since the end of Biden’s term.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not tired of winning yet.

Voluntary departures in immigration court — in which a formal request to depart the country is approved by a judge, assuming the requester is legally permitted to leave — is different from self-deportations arranged through the Department of Homeland Security, in which migrants inform DHS they’re leaving the country in order to avoid potential detention or removal.

The report’s co-author told ABC News that while the number of voluntary departures is rising, it does not necessarily mean people want to leave the U.S.

No, of course, they don’t really want to leave, but we American citizens want them to leave, and 77,302,580 of us voted for them to leave.

“Many of those people may have legal avenues to remain in the United States,” Pavilon said. “Voluntary departure decisions do not mean that you do not have legal rights to remain. People are under harsh conditions and making very difficult decisions.”

According to the report, voluntary departures surged from roughly 800 per month at the end of the Biden administration to more than 8,800 by February 2026.

By those numbers, Donald Trump is an eleven times better President than Joe Biden, but that’s an admittedly low bar to surpass.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security under President Biden, finally admitted that that Administration should have ramped up border controls sooner:

In an interview at the POLITICO Security Summit, former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who became a lightning rod of Republican criticism for the Biden administration’s alleged mishandling of a historic wave of migration to the United States, placed most of the blame on a “broken immigration system” that set a “low bar” for admission to the country for those with “credible fear of persecution.”

Asked if earlier steps from the Biden administration on border security — including raising the bar for migrants claiming “credible fear” of returning to their home country — would have prevented President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Mayorkas replied: “I am not in a position to speculate, but I will tell you that I would be far more better rested and less punched.”

Mayorkas, who was impeached by the House in 2024 on claims that he intentionally did not enforce U.S. immigration laws, also emphasized that the Biden administration did, eventually, act to address the migrant influx at the border.

“I was very pleased that in June of 2024, we took executive action that, I thought, made reforms that were sensible and that proved successful,” Mayorkas said. “Our tougher border stance in June of ‘24 was coupled with an increased focus on providing lawful pathways for people to arrive at the United States outside the hands of smugglers — more secure and more humanitarian. Those two combined — our numbers dropped 70, 75 percent.”

The rare comments from Mayorkas, who has only spoken publicly a handful of times since leaving DHS in January 2025, speak to the tensions that existed within the Biden administration about what balance to strike between enforcing U.S. immigration laws amid a major influx of migrants to U.S. ports of entry after the Covid-19 pandemic and adopting a humane posture toward people fleeing genuine hardship and plights around the world.

77,302,580 of us said that we were not at all interested in a “humane posture” toward the wave of immigrants. What we want is for them to improve their lives in their home countries. Our immigration policies should be based on admitting people who will benefit the United States, not just feel sorry for them. Far, far, far too many of the illegal immigrants have been a huge burden on our government and our communities, and a major factor in street crime as well.

Had Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden and “border tsarina” Kamala Harris Emhoff done their f(ornicating) jobs and enforced our immigration laws, an enforcement system that was working and which they inherited from President Trump’s first term, we wouldn’t have had the huge problem Mr Trump inherited in his second term, and be having to be as aggressive to solve the problem. If the Biden Administration had done its job, there wouldn’t be two stupid Minnesotans who are now stone-cold graveyard dead for interference with law enforcement, all because leftist thinking didn’t have their brains working Pretti Good.

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No matter how much you hate the credentialed media, you do not hate them enough! It's far more important to protect criminal suspects than it is to protect law-abiding people.

Русский? Я никогда не знал русского по имени Саидахмад.

I saw this tweet from Northeast Philly Degenerate, and of course I snarked, “Russian? I’ve never known a Russian named Saidakhmad.” As it turns out, the Philadelphia Police came to the same conclusion, that they are probably of central Asian descent.

At 4:52 PM EDT, two hours and twelve minutes later, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s after hours reporter, Robrt Moran, published the newspaper’s own story on the crime:

6 men rob, commit assaults at massage business near Chinatown, police say

One of the six men who fled from the roof of the business on the 400 block of North Ninth Street was arrested, police said.

by Robert Moran | Monday, April 27, 2026 | 4:52 PM EDT

Six young men robbed at gunpoint and committed sexual assaults at a massage business just north of Chinatown early Saturday, Philadelphia police said.

The men forced their way into the business on the 400 block of North Ninth Street about 4:40 a.m., police said Monday.

When police arrived, the men “fled from the roof,” the police department said.

One suspect was caught on the roof, police said.

Saidakhmad Bakiev, 18, of Northeast Philadelphia, was charged with rape, robbery, aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, burglary, false imprisonment, sexual assault, indecent assault, and related offenses.

In keeping with the newspaper’s policy of not publishing mugshots, Mr Moran did not include one of the accused. But Mr Moran did include two hyperlinks which did lead to such. One wonders if he’ll be called on the carpet for that.

The link to the Philadelphia Police Department’s press release included photos of the five suspects on the lam. The remaining suspects “are described as white males, late teens into their 20’s, dark hair, possibly Russian/Central Asian descent.” No information on their immigration status was included, but if Mr Bakiev is an immigrant, I’m sure that Will Bunch will defend him at all costs.

The 400 block of North Ninth Street is no great place, a neighborhood of low rent businesses, ill-kept sidewalks, and vacant lots with overgrown grass behind chain link fences. “Massage parlors” are not usually considered high-class businesses.

One would think that the newspaper of record for not only the city but the metropolitan area as well, my unlimited digital subscription for which is $6.99 per week, $363.48 per year, would be more concerned with the safety of the decent people in the City of Brotherly Love, be more willing to include the photos of the (alleged) malefactors, to get the aid of the public in identifying them and helping the Philadelphia Police to capture the suspects, but apparently if one did think that, he’d be wrong, wrong, wrong! It’s far more important to protect criminal suspects than it is to protect law-abiding people.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! I'm sure that he only crossed the border to build a better life for himself!

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Lexington Herald-Leader, now under the leadership of Executive Editor Jeremy Chisenhall, chose not, in two separate stories, to publish the mug shot of Jorge Luis Martinez Ulloa, 31, charged with:

  • one count of kidnapping a minor;
  • two counts of first-degree rape of a victim younger than 12;
  • two counts of first-degree sodomy of a victim younger than 12; and
  • two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a victim younger than 12.

Fortunately, the Department of Homeland Security has no qualms about publishing photos of illegal immigrants apprehended for serious crimes!

Man accused of kidnapping, sexually abusing minor in Lexington has ICE detainer

By Christopher Leach | Monday, March 30, 2026 | 3:45 PM EDT

Court documents indicate Martinez Ulloa is not a U.S. citizen and was born in Mexico. No other information about his immigration status was available.

Perhaps reporter Christopher Leach didn’t have more information about Mr Martinez Ulloa’s immigration status, but Homeland Security’s tweet stated that he had entered the US at least four times during the Obama and Biden Administrations, and a fifth time at an unknown date.

Lexington police said they were dispatched to the 1300 block of Davenport Drive, in the Cardinal Valley neighborhood, for a juvenile assault victim. Martinez Ulloa was arrested and booked into the Fayette County Detention Center.

Davenport Drive, spelled Devenport on Google Maps, is a neighborhood of mixed single-family homes and smaller apartment buildings. Parts of the Cardinal Valley neighborhood are also known, colloquially, as Little Mexico.

Court documents say Martinez Ulloa grabbed the victim by her arm and neck, trapped her inside his apartment and raped her. The girl was a stranger to Martinez Ulloa and told officials the only way out of his apartment was through a window.

The victim was sent to a local hospital for treatment, police said.

Martinez Ulloa was arraigned in Fayette District Court Monday afternoon. He appeared virtually from the jail. Fayette District Judge Melissa Murphy left Martinez Ulloa’s bond unchanged at $100,000. A preliminary hearing in his case has been scheduled for April 7.

Mr Martinez Ulloa has not been convicted of anything, but it appears than simply being previously deported means nothing to him other than the annoyance of taking another trip north of the border.

Under KRS §510.040, the first degree rape of a child under 12 is a Class A felony, which, under KRS §532.020 carries a sentence of at least twenty and not more than fifty years, or possibly life in prison. Under KRS §510.070, the first degree sodomy of a child under 12 is a Class A felony as well.

If Mr Martinez is guilty of the crimes of which he has been accused, he should spend the rest of his miserable life in the worst prison the Commonwealth has. If the evidence against him is solid, his attorney, the Department of Public Advocacy, will undoubtedly seek some sort of lenient plea bargain; this must be rejected! If he is guilty, he should never see the light of day again as a free man.

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What The Philadelphia Inquirer told us . . . and what they didn’t.

We have pointed out, several times, that it is illegal to work in the United States unless you are a citizen or have the appropriate legal documents. In the last linked article, referencing a Philadelphia Inquirer sob story about an illegal immigrant identified only by her surname Guzman we pointed out:

Miss Guzman doesn’t have a husband or boyfriend living with her, so there’s (probably) no real, legal financial support there. That leaves four possibilities:

  1. Miss Guzman presented forged documents saying she was eligible to work in the United States, which is a felony;
  2. Miss Guzman’s employer hired her knowing that she did not have the proper documents, which would be a felony by both Miss Guzman and the employer;
  3. Miss Guzman is living off welfare, for which she is ineligible, and would have had to have presented forged documents to the social workers, a felony; or
  4. Miss Guzman has been working for cash, which means she is evading income and Social Security taxes, which is a felony.

Saturday’s Inquirer noted that a lot of the illegals in the City of Brotherly Love are probably engaging in a least some of the time in option number four:

Philly’s gig economy runs on immigrant workers. Now that labor pool is shrinking amid tougher ICE enforcement.

A new analysis by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia says the city’s gig economy faces a reckoning.

by Jeff Gammage | Saturday, March 28, 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

Are you waiting longer for the rideshare driver to show up? Or for that burger and fries to be delivered to your door? Does it all cost more?

Here’s part of the reason: stricter immigration enforcement. And not just the arrest and deportation of workers who lack official permission to be in the country, but the fear that those arrests have engendered among others, dissuading them from taking similar gig jobs. That as legal pathways into the country for other immigrant workers have been curtailed.

A new analysis by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia says the city’s gig economy faces a reckoning. It runs on immigrant workers, but the Trump administration’s effort to carry out the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history is shrinking the labor pool.

“The demand [for gig services] is not going away,” said Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League. “The fact that we have so many foreign-born workers in this country, and so many of them are under threat, it’s inevitably going to drive costs up or services down.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what is the “gig economy”?

(T)he gig economy is a labor market made up of freelance or part-time workers who work a “gig” to supplement their income or simply work as they wish.

It’s easy to join this labor market because jobs or tasks are usually accepted through an online app or platform.

In the US, the gig economy has provided millions of people with the ability to work independently and is projected to increase in years to come.

Translation: these are people working without regular employment, people paid either in cash (less probably) or by a check, but without deductions withheld for taxes. If paid by check, an employer is supposed to issue them a Form 1099, if the “individual contractor” has been paid more than $600 over the year, showing the amount paid to the individual, but if an individual has six “gigs”, there is no particular reason he could choose to report only three or four. If the individual has not provided a legitimate Social Security or Tax ID number, the government might not be able to track him. Gig jobs like the delivery job Mr Gammage used as an example frequently get tips in cash rather than as part of their bill.

It’s easy to see why an “independent contractor” would under-report. The Social Security/Medicare tax rate in 7.65% for both the employer and employee, but a gig worker who was just paid what he earned is responsible for both, a 15.3% tax on all income received. How many people can pony up 15.3% of their total earnings once a year, in the spring? For every $10.00 they can under-report results in $1.53 in taxes they don’t have to send the Infernal Revenue Service.

For every $1000.00 they can underreport, that’s $153.00 they avoid sending the government. For someone delivering for Door Dash or some other service, $153.00 is probably real money, and that’s an encouragement to cheat.

ICE does not release local figures, but nationally, arrests of immigrants are surging. Those arrests, detentions, and deportations, and the fear among immigrant workers that they could be next, is subtracting people from the labor force. That and the reduction of humanitarian-entry programs and new limits on work sponsorship mean there are simply fewer workers available, as the national, foreign-born labor force has declined by an estimated 750,000 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.

Hmmm. I would have hoped that number would have been higher. As we have previously reported, the Inquirer has reported an illegal immigrant population of between 47,000 and 76,000 people just in Philly.

Mr Gammage’s story was intended to convey to readers that immigration enforcement is pushing up inflation; he might not have intended to point out that the gig workers, which even he pointed out that “Gig platforms are among the last accessible labor markets for undocumented workers, because the E-Verify system generally does not apply there,” might be evading taxes. All it takes is reading his story closely, to see what he told readers, and what he didn’t.