Ret. ICE Deputy FOD, NYC. Ret. Army CSM (37 yrs), Bronze Star. Fellow @itsyourgov & @NICEnforcement. Op-eds: Washington Examiner. How deportation really works.
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🌾 CONGRESS IS SLIPPING AMNESTY INTO A FARM LABOR BILL
Don't take my word for it. Read the official summary from the Congressional Research Service.
H.R. 9535, the "Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act." Sponsored by House Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson. 61 cosponsors, 52 of them Republicans.
One line tells you everything. The bill "establishes an H-2A visa pathway for current unauthorized agricultural workers who otherwise meet requirements."
Current unauthorized workers. People who are here illegally right now.
The sponsor's pitch: "With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings."
The border is more secure because we finally started enforcing the law. You don't reward that by handing a visa to the people who broke it.
And the timing couldn't be worse. Monday night the President said, "We haven't put the same pressure on waitresses and on farmworkers, etc. Not even close." That's exactly the opening this bill's supporters have been waiting for.
We've seen this movie before. In 1986 Congress created the Special Agricultural Worker program, and it was riddled with fraud, with applicants claiming farm work they never did. My career taught me that every carve-out turns into a business model. Make farm work the safe lane and the fake employment letters will show up by the truckload.
Farmers have a real labor problem and I'm not dismissing it. Fix H-2A. Speed it up. Cut the red tape. Let it run year-round. That's legal labor and I'll support it.
But a visa for people who are here illegally isn't a workforce plan. It's amnesty in overalls.
Call your representative and ask one question: are you one of the 61?
@POTUS @StephenM @RealTomHoman @SecMullinDHS @ICEgov @HouseAgGOP @CongressmanGT @Jim_Jordan @JudiciaryGOP @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov
I will have two more parts coming out Tommorow. Look for 9am and 1pm respectively .
I promise you want to read it . Goodnight and thank you all !
🌾 CONGRESS IS SLIPPING AMNESTY INTO A FARM LABOR BILL
Don't take my word for it. Read the official summary from the Congressional Research Service.
H.R. 9535, the "Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act." Sponsored by House Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson. 61 cosponsors, 52 of them Republicans.
One line tells you everything. The bill "establishes an H-2A visa pathway for current unauthorized agricultural workers who otherwise meet requirements."
Current unauthorized workers. People who are here illegally right now.
The sponsor's pitch: "With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings."
The border is more secure because we finally started enforcing the law. You don't reward that by handing a visa to the people who broke it.
And the timing couldn't be worse. Monday night the President said, "We haven't put the same pressure on waitresses and on farmworkers, etc. Not even close." That's exactly the opening this bill's supporters have been waiting for.
We've seen this movie before. In 1986 Congress created the Special Agricultural Worker program, and it was riddled with fraud, with applicants claiming farm work they never did. My career taught me that every carve-out turns into a business model. Make farm work the safe lane and the fake employment letters will show up by the truckload.
Farmers have a real labor problem and I'm not dismissing it. Fix H-2A. Speed it up. Cut the red tape. Let it run year-round. That's legal labor and I'll support it.
But a visa for people who are here illegally isn't a workforce plan. It's amnesty in overalls.
Call your representative and ask one question: are you one of the 61?
@POTUS @StephenM @RealTomHoman @SecMullinDHS @ICEgov @HouseAgGOP @CongressmanGT @Jim_Jordan @JudiciaryGOP @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov
🚨 HE MOLESTED CHILDREN. WASHINGTON PLANS TO LET HIM WALK.
Leomar Alexander Lopez Zambrano crossed illegally through Texas in June 2023. Border Patrol caught him. The Biden administration released him into the country anyway.
Then he was convicted on two counts of third-degree child molestation. Under Washington law, that charge means a victim who was 14 or 15 years old.
He's serving 15 months in Seattle right now. On October 14, ICE lodged a detainer. All a detainer asks is that the jail notify ICE and hold him long enough for officers to pick him up. Washington is refusing.
So when his time is up, he walks out the door and ICE won't even be told.
And this isn't one bad call. Look at the last week alone.
North Carolina. Richard Calix-Valle, arrested for first-degree burglary and second-degree forcible rape. He's been deported four times. Mecklenburg County has ignored 240 ICE detainers since January 2025.
Illinois. Shageldi Bashimov, convicted of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Released without ICE being notified.
Minnesota. Mustafa Abdirahman Abdi, convictions for aggravated assault and cocaine trafficking. Hennepin County refused the detainer.
New York City. Alonzo Reyes-Garcia, previously deported, convicted of robbery, assault and weapon possession. Released.
I served as acting chief of ICE's National Fugitive Operations Program. Here's what people don't understand. When a jail ignores a detainer, the arrest doesn't go away. It just moves. Out of a secure jail and into a neighborhood, a workplace, a parking lot. More danger for the officers, more danger for the public, and a head start for the guy we're looking for.
A detainer isn't a raid. It's a request to hand over a convicted criminal at the jailhouse door. That's the safest arrest there is.
Zambrano is still in custody. There's still time. Washington, honor the detainer.
@SecMullinDHS @DHSgov @ICEgov @RealTomHoman @StephenM @AGPamBondi @JudiciaryGOP @Jim_Jordan @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov
Apparently the “R” stands for “RINO.”
52 Republicans just cosponsored H.R. 9535, a bill that gives illegal farmworkers a pathway to visas. Put whatever label you want on it. That's a vote for amnesty.
Every Republican should be voting against any form of amnesty, no matter how it's disguised.
🚨 WE ALREADY TRIED AMNESTY. CALIFORNIA IS THE RECEIPT.
Thank you @ItsYourGov for sharing my new piece in @DailyCaller.
Forty years ago this month, Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty.¹ The deal was simple. Legalize the people already here, punish the employers who hired them, secure the border, and the problem goes away for good.
About 2.7 million people got green cards.² The enforcement half never showed up. By 2013 the illegal population had climbed past 11 million.³ Some estimates today run as high as 22 million.⁴
Now look at the map. California filed 55% of the applications.⁵ It voted Republican for president six straight times through 1988. It hasn't voted Republican once since.⁶
And the lobbyists want round two in the lame duck. Call it a pathway, a work permit, a farm visa or a deal for the landscapers. Legal status for people who broke the law to get here is amnesty. Every amnesty tells the next wave the same thing: get here, hold on, and Washington will make it legal.
Every Republican should vote against any form of amnesty, no matter how it's disguised. Before anyone cuts a deal, look at that map.
¹ Immigration Reform and Control Act, signed Nov. 6, 1986
² INS/DHS legalization data
³ Pew Research Center and DHS estimates
⁴ Yale/MIT study, PLOS ONE, 2018
⁵ INS legalization applicant data
⁶ Official presidential election results, 1968–2024
@StephenM @SecMullinDHS @JDVance @RealTomHoman @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement
Thank you so much ! There are several other posts in my feed about the NY DAs, I hope
You can amplify! Thanks for the follow !
@EricSpracklen Thanks again for sharing, Eric. One quick note for the record: I retired as Deputy Field Office Director, ICE ERO New York. Appreciate the support!
For everyone on my feed this is in addition to my earlier Ag amnesty @iaproject is all over this !
I almost forgot ! PASS EVerify +
🌾 CONGRESS IS SLIPPING AMNESTY INTO A FARM LABOR BILL
Don't take my word for it. Read the official summary from the Congressional Research Service.
H.R. 9535, the "Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act." Sponsored by House Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson. 61 cosponsors, 52 of them Republicans.
One line tells you everything. The bill "establishes an H-2A visa pathway for current unauthorized agricultural workers who otherwise meet requirements."
Current unauthorized workers. People who are here illegally right now.
The sponsor's pitch: "With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings."
The border is more secure because we finally started enforcing the law. You don't reward that by handing a visa to the people who broke it.
And the timing couldn't be worse. Monday night the President said, "We haven't put the same pressure on waitresses and on farmworkers, etc. Not even close." That's exactly the opening this bill's supporters have been waiting for.
We've seen this movie before. In 1986 Congress created the Special Agricultural Worker program, and it was riddled with fraud, with applicants claiming farm work they never did. My career taught me that every carve-out turns into a business model. Make farm work the safe lane and the fake employment letters will show up by the truckload.
Farmers have a real labor problem and I'm not dismissing it. Fix H-2A. Speed it up. Cut the red tape. Let it run year-round. That's legal labor and I'll support it.
But a visa for people who are here illegally isn't a workforce plan. It's amnesty in overalls.
Call your representative and ask one question: are you one of the 61?
@POTUS @StephenM @RealTomHoman @SecMullinDHS @ICEgov @HouseAgGOP @CongressmanGT @Jim_Jordan @JudiciaryGOP @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov
☕ MORNING TEA: SHE WANTS EVERY ICE DETAINEE BACK ON THE STREET IN SIX MONTHS
Rep. Delia Ramirez calls her bill the "Reimagining Safety Act." I read the bill. Here's what's actually in it.
It abolishes ICE. Section 302 says that within six months the government "shall release on their own recognizance any noncitizen detained."
Any noncitizen. Every one of them.
That includes the people Congress itself said must be held. Under 8 U.S.C. 1226(c), certain criminal aliens, including aggravated felons, drug offenders and terrorism cases, are subject to mandatory detention. Congress wrote that because these are the cases most likely to reoffend or disappear before a judge ever sees them again. Her bill repeals that entire section.
It doesn't stop there. The ankle monitors come off within six months. Every detention contract gets terminated. And Section 106 says the government "shall not execute the removal of a noncitizen from the United States unless a joint resolution approving such removal is enacted."
Read that again. Every single deportation would need its own act of Congress.
My career taught me what happens when the people who should be detained aren't. They don't show up. Some of them hurt someone before we find them again.
This isn't reform. It's an open door with a ribbon on it.
Four members have already signed on: Tlaib, Omar, Grijalva and McGovern. Ask your representative if they're next.
@RepDeliaRamirez @ICEgov @DHSgov @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov @Phase2Deport
The Constitution provides the appropriate avenue for debate and reform through hearings, evidence, amendments, and votes. Yet the most direct path to repairing the system lies in faithfully executing and strengthening the laws already enacted, rather than layering new framework that forgive knowingly violating our laws .
This honors the rule of law, safeguards American citizens first, and maintains fairness for those who have immigrated legally and those who've stood “ in line” legally and patiently waited their turn! #NoAmnesty
🚨 HOW PROSECUTORS PLEAD AWAY A DEPORTATION
On Monday I showed you how the Bronx DA's guide told prosecutors to leave the child's age out of plea deals. That post has now been seen more than 100,000 times. Here's the rest of the playbook.
Take a child sex case and plead it down to "endangering the welfare of a child." The aggravated felony is gone. So is mandatory detention, and so is the permanent bar. If he crossed the border illegally, that new conviction may not give ICE any criminal charge to bring at all.
Take a gun case and plead it to an offense that doesn't require a firearm. A firearms conviction is a deportable offense and triggers mandatory detention. Plead around the gun and it disappears.
Take an assault and keep the sentence at 364 days. A crime of violence only counts as an aggravated felony at one year or more. One day short and it's off the table. And New York didn't leave that to chance. In 2019 Albany passed the "One Day to Protect New Yorkers" Act and cut the maximum misdemeanor sentence in the state to 364 days. They told you why. It was to stop deportations.
Immigration court looks at what he was convicted of and how long he was sentenced, not what he actually did. The prosecutor controls both. That's the whole game.
People will say it's only a handful of cases. I don't care. Even one is too many. One child, one victim, one family living down the street from the man who hurt them, because somebody in a DA's office decided his immigration status mattered more than they did.
My career was built on removing exactly these offenders. We can't do it if the paperwork gets scrubbed before it ever reaches us.
@JudiciaryGOP @Jim_Jordan @NMalliotakis @EliseStefanik @claudiatenney @ICEgov @DHSgov @SecMullinDHS @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov
🚨 They didn't lose the child's age. They were trained to leave it out.
Under federal immigration law, sexual abuse of a minor is an aggravated felony. For a noncitizen, it means mandatory detention, deportation and a permanent bar from ever coming back. In my 24 years at ICE ERO, those were the cases we never let slide.
The key element is the child's age. Take the age out of the conviction and you take out the aggravated felony.
According to the House Judiciary Committee report, the Bronx DA's 2019 plea-bargaining guide told prosecutors in these cases to "offer something that does not have the child's age as an element."
Think about what that means. A grown man commits a sex crime against a child. He pleads to something that, on paper, could have been against an adult. The record that reaches ICE no longer shows a child victim. The removal case falls apart, and he stays here.
The child didn't get a plea deal. The child gets to live with it, and maybe in the same neighborhood as him.
This came out Oct. 26. Two weeks later there's been no outrage from the Bronx DA, the AG or the networks. Nothing. @claudiatenney @JudiciaryGOP @Jim_Jordan @itsyourgov @NMalliotakis @EliseStefanik
foxnews.com/politics/house-r…
🚨 SWORN OFFICERS RISK THEIR LIVES. DOJ SAYS IT'S TOO BUSY TO SHOW UP.
Read the letter.
On October 26, Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd of the Western District of Washington wrote to the Chief Judge and said his office "does not have the available resources" to defend ICE in these habeas cases.
His fix? If his office doesn't file an appearance within seven court days, the judge can rule on the detainee's paperwork alone. His words: his office "will take no responsibility" for those cases. Release orders get "e-mailed" straight to the detention center.
So it's already happening. A judge in Seattle called a case "intentionally unopposed" and ordered the man out in 24 hours.
Let that sink in. AMERICANS voted for " MASS DEPORTATIONS" and the DOJ says, nah, I'm too busy? Get him out immediatley...
ICE officers go out every single day and put their lives on the line to enforce the laws Congress wrote. They get doxxed. They get ambushed by rabid responders who have no idea what ICE is doing. They make the arrest, they do the paperwork, they do it right.
The lawyers who are supposed to stand behind them in court just walk away, because they're busy, the should be standing behind the legal sufficency and the law being applied correctly. This is crazy!!
Roughly 2,000 petitions have been filed in that district since January 2025. The letter itself admits many are "copying from other petitions." That's not a wave of injustice. It's a playbook. Flood the U.S. Attorney with cut-and-paste filings until the government gives up, then win by forfeit.
And DOJ just handed them the win, yes a big fat "W". Our Attorney General should be on a plane right now or vice versa.
If Seattle can't staff it, send attorneys from Main Justice. Detail AUSAs from other districts. Bring in ICE attorneys as special AUSAs. Do whatever it takes. Just don't leave a case undefended. Thats what a "SURGE" is,
If you won't defend the law, ICE can't enforce it.
@TheJusticeDept @SecMullinDHS @DHSgov @ICEgov @RealTomHoman @StephenM @ @JudiciaryGOP @Phase2Deport @itsyourgov
MINNEAPOLIS LEADERS LIT THE MATCH, THEN WALKED AWAY
Jacob Frey stood in front of the cameras and told ICE to "get the f*** out" of his city. Tim Walz called ICE the "modern-day Gestapo." Ilhan Omar called federal officers "vile and beyond cruel." A city council member called ICE operations "terrorist attacks."
That's the message the people in charge sent. Then the police department said protesters surrounding ICE "alone is not sufficient reason" to respond.
Nobody asked Minneapolis PD to enforce immigration law. Assault is a crime in Minnesota. Blocking a street is a crime. Obstructing an officer is a crime. Those are local laws, and every cop in that city swore an oath to enforce them no matter who is on the other end.
Two people are dead. Renee Good and Alex Pretti. I am saddened by their deaths. It's tragic, and two families are living without them. Those cases are still under investigation and those families deserve every answer.
But look at how one of those scenes started. CBP's own report says it began with two people blowing whistles who refused a lawful order to get out of the road. That's a traffic problem. Local cops handle that every single day across this country. They weren't there.
ICE wanted to make the arrest and move on. Instead, with no local police keeping the peace, crowds felt free to get in the middle of federal operations, and it escalated to a point it never should have reached.
When a scene starts getting hot, you put local officers between the crowd and the operation early, before it boils over. Minneapolis leaders did the opposite. They turned up the heat with their words and left the street to whoever showed up. If they would just have provided a secure perimeter and not involved themselves in the arrest it would have been all good.
If those families want accountability, it shouldn't stop at the federal government. The mayor and the police department who let it get that far should be answering for it too.
Frey and Walz don't get to light the match, walk away, and point at everyone else when the fire spreads.
@MinneapolisPD @Jacob_Frey @ICEgov @DHSgov @mnhousegop
THE CARAVANS ARE BACK. AND THEY TOLD YOU WHY.
Hundreds of migrants, mostly Hondurans, just set out from southern Mexico headed for our border. Reuters asked them why now. Their answer: they expect Trump's policies to weaken after the midterms.
Read that again. They're not running from something that started last week. They're coming because they think the door is about to open.
Here's what nobody's talking about. Joint Task Force-West should have never been dissolved. It was built for exactly this. It was an amazing component within DHS, focused on border security, designed to go after the cartels and smugglers who move these caravans and to get ahead of surges. Shutting it down in 2020 was a mistake. The President was misinformed about what it did. Now we just have our Border Patrol stations bracing for the onslaught.
The answer hasn't changed. Detain. Remove. Fast. Bring back JTF-West. And no deal in Congress that tells the world if you get here, you get to stay.
The smugglers are watching every word coming out of Washington. So should you.
@DHSgov @ICEgov
THE AMNESTY PLAYBOOK TOOK CALIFORNIA. LAST TUESDAY IT TOOK TEXAS.
Friday was 40 years since Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty. I spent 24 years at ICE cleaning up after it.
About 2.7 million illegal aliens got legal status. Americans were promised a secure border and real penalties for employers who hired illegally. The amnesty happened. The enforcement never did. Today the illegal population is north of 11 million.
Look where they landed. A 1992 INS-funded study found 55% of the recipients it sampled lived in California and 18% in Texas. By 2013, more than a million IRCA beneficiaries were citizens. Citizens vote.
Then come the sanctuary laws. They wall that population off from ICE and keep the census counting it. The census count is what hands out House seats.
California voted Republican for president six straight times through 1988. It hasn't since. That's nine elections in a row.
Texas was supposed to be the exception. Last Tuesday, Democrats swept statewide for the first time in three decades. Hinojosa beat Abbott. Talarico beat Paxton.
Now they want to run it nationally. Two days after Democrats took the House, a business coalition was demanding legal status for millions in the lame duck.
What the lobbyists leave out: 10 of the 15 Republicans who cosponsored Salazar's Dignity Act won't be back in January. Exit polls had voters trusting the GOP over Democrats on immigration, 44 to 40. Voters didn't punish enforcement. They sent the amnesty Republicans home.
It won't call itself amnesty. It'll show up as a labor shortage, a compromise or a "pathway." Call it what it is: a playbook for power.
California was the test run. Texas just showed it travels. Congress had better not hand it the keys to the whole country.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Senator who is lying to you !
Here's what actually happened.
His father was deported in March 2025 and left him here. For the next year and a half he lived with an uncle who never had legal custody. A school emergency-contact form is not guardianship. Under federal law, a child here with no parent and no legal guardian is an unaccompanied minor. Period.
So he went to ORR. ORR is HHS, not ICE, and it places kids in licensed shelters with schooling, medical care and case managers. Not a cell.
And the uncle isn't shut out. He can apply to sponsor the boy today. He'll be vetted first, the way every adult should be before the government hands over a child. We learned that the hard way when kids were released to people nobody checked.
One school board trustee admits he doesn't know who has legal custody, then says there's "no question" where the child belongs. A councilman blames the end of TPS, but the father was deported while TPS was still in place.
@SecMullinDHS @DHSgov @ICEgov @HHSResponse @CoryBooker
An 8-year-old boy—living with his uncle after his father was deported—showed up for a scheduled immigration appointment because his family wanted to follow the law. ICE took him into federal custody and separated him from his family. This is the cruelty of mass deportation and the Trump administration’s immigration policy. It violates our values and who we are as a nation. America deserves better.
op: @kpbs
For those asking "says who?"
6 U.S.C. 279(g)(2). An unaccompanied alien child is a child under 18 with no lawful status and no parent or legal guardian in the U.S. available to provide care and physical custody.
An uncle without legal custody doesn't meet that definition. That's not ICE's opinion. That's the statute Congress wrote.
Once that's the case, the law sends the child to HHS, not ICE. That's 8 U.S.C. 1232.
He agreed to leave. He never packed a bag.
Before Judge Tunheim holds anyone in contempt, he should ask the alien one question. You agreed to leave voluntarily, so what did you actually do to leave? Nothing in the record shows a ticket or a travel document, and his lawyers went back to court to try to withdraw the departure.
Don't tell me he couldn't leave because he was in custody. Detained aliens depart under safeguards all the time. I ran those removals. If he wanted to go, ICE would have walked him to the plane.
Yes, the September arrest should have had a warrant. That's on the field team, and I'd say so to their faces. But a court weighing good faith has to look at both sides, and this man walked away from his own deal. Zeroing in on ICE's paperwork and ignoring that isn't neutral judging. That's political activism from the bench.
@DHSgov @ICEgov @MPRnews
mprnews.org/story/2026/11/09…
