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.

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!

The Philadelphia Inquirer harbors illegal immigrants There is plenty of dignity in obeying the law; there is none in breaking it.

As we have previously noted, The Philadelphia Inquirer is very much on the side of the illegal immigrants. The good journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading there, from the far-loeft Will Bunch to even the more moderate Daniel Pearson, the newspaper’s chief editorial writer, all want the illegals — at The First Street Journal we do not use the euphemism ‘undocumented’ — to be allowed to stay here.

But now they might have just fouled up:

‘The last thing that is protecting my dignity.’ A South Philly mother talks about life under sanctuary.

Continue reading

References

References
1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

Another Philly illegal immigration sob story (Part 2)

This is my morning coffee as I write this!

There is an amusing quality to the fact that Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong has been writing a series she called “Blaxit,” about black Americans who have chosen to emigrate to various locations in Africa, is now lamenting that an illegal immigrant and previously convicted criminal has been deported to his native country.

Germantown mom wants out of Philly after ICE deported her husband to Belize

Steeliness has replaced grief in Charlene Maddox Chimilio. The 43-year-old Philly native has come to terms with the fact that the best place for her family might be outside the city she loves so much.

Continue reading

Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right

AP Photo/Gregory Bull, via RedState.

Our good friends on the left cheered when the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling, in Lozano v City of Hazleton, that only the federal government has any power over immigration, invalidating a Hazleton, Pennsylvania ordinance which prohibited landlords from leasing to immigrants who could not prove their legal status. Continue reading

Why do the left always root for the bad guys? When the left tell you who they are, believe them!

We have previously asked why the left always root for the bad guys, pointing out that “heroes” like Michael Brown, George Floyd, Freddie Gray, and Trayvon Martin were all bad guys, and noting how The Philadelphia Inquirer’s far-left columnist wants another bad guy, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, someone even he admitted is an “undocumented immigrant (who) was no angel.”

Now comes Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, one of the ‘squadristi‘, and she is just beside herself that the Trump Administration is deporting convicted criminals!

The Trump administration just dropped 8 immigrants — who they were previously holding in a shipping container in Djibouti — into war torn South Sudan.

Cruel. Inhumane. There aren’t words to describe how disgusting this is.

We’ll keep fighting.

My good friend William Teach reported on just what angels these eight deportees are, including this line:

They have been convicted of various crimes, with four of them convicted of murder, the Department of Homeland Security has said.

These are the guys for whom the distinguished gentlelady from Washington said, “We’ll keep fighting.”

When the left tell you who they are, believe them!

President Trump is winning on immigration: a large number of illegals have apparently self-deported

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain noted this Juneteenth that Steven Camerota and Karen Ziegler of the Center for Immigration Studies analyzed reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and concluded that “the number of illegal immigrants has fallen by one million since the start of the year.” That number is far greater than the number of illegals that have been deported, and that means, if the estimates are close to correct, what President Trump called self-deportation has been occurring in far greater numbers than the most optimistic of us had hoped.

Let’s extrapolate a bit from this analysis. If the number of illegal immigrants decreased by one million in about five months, that’s an average decline of 200,000 every month — roughly 2.4 million per year. So if the current trend could be continued, by the time the 2028 election rolls around, the number of illegals in the United States will be less than it was when Joe Biden took office in 2021.

At this point, Mr McCain noted what this would do to congressional seat, and therefore electoral vote, apportionment. President Trump tried this, sort of, during his first term, when he wanted immigration status included in the 2020 census, as possibly a way to apportion congressional seats based on the number of American citizens rather than raw population, but that effort failed.

But I look at it differently. I have said it previously, that the United States needs immigrants, but that we need good, vetted, useful, legal immigrants, immigrants of good character, immigrants who have clean criminal records in their home countries, and immigrants who are civic minded, attend church, and will assimilate into our country, to wave American flags, not Mexican ones.

Those who have left voluntarily, without being picked up and kicked out, will have the advantage if they apply for legal immigration, not having a forced deportation on their records. We should be able to investigate their records in their home countries, and their records here in the United States, without prejudice, if they apply to return legally. And those who have poor records, we can exclude.

This is what we should want, people who will come to the United States, contribute to our economy and our society. We can assign reasonable criteria that they have to meet:

  • Couples who have been legally married for more than three years;
  • Couples who have children;
  • No single males of military or fighting age;
  • No gangland or gang-related tattoos;
  • People with marketable skills;
  • People who have a record of good employment;
  • Families who attend Mass regularly; and, of course
  • People with clean criminal records.

There was some Democratic politician, I cannot recall whom, who facetiously tried to justify illegal immigration by saying that the Latin American countries were sending us their best people. Actually, I saw it as people who weren’t good enough to make it in their own countries! But with the kinds of criteria I listed, and other criteria could be suggested, we could do our best to assure that the immigrants admitted actually are the best for whom we could hope.

The vast majority of Americans, including the majority of people who voted for President Trump, would gladly accept those kind of immigrants.

Will the “No Kings” protests be peaceful?

Perhaps we have noted The Philadelphia Inquirer’s far left and #TrumpDerangement Syndrome afflicted columnist Will Bunch too much recently, but, while doing everything he can to defend the rioters and illegal immigrants in Los Angeles, he’s worried that such might come to the City of Brotherly Love.

Not that he won’t defend the rioters if violence does come to Philadelphia! But, guess what? It already has! Continue reading