Immigration & Customs Enforcement

“Independent” (fired) journalist Don Lemon is making himself the news after he did some activist reporting as part of a mob that stormed a Minnesota church, whose pastor is a local ICE official, on Sunday. But if you’re going to cross Christians in America these days, then you’re going to cross Nicki Minaj. “HOW DARE YOU?” Minaj emphatically posterized Lemon on X. “I WANT THAT THUG IN JAIL!!!!! HE WOULD NEVER DO THAT TO ANY OTHER RELIGION. LOCK HIM UP!!!!!” She accompanied this with a photo of a Chucky doll. In response, Lemon called her "homophobic," and said, “I’m not surprised Nicki Minaj does not understand journalism and is weighing in on matters that are above her capacity.” He went on TMZ, the program where he naturally belongs, and called the rapper "ignorant.

Cockburn and his colleagues are currently obsessed with the new ICE recruitment video that’s gone viral online. “Allow me to introduce myself, my name is HO HO H to the O V,” Jay-Z, who currently lives comfortably in a Tribeca penthouse with Beyonce, raps over grainy footage of camo-clad soldiers busting open shipping containers, riding rough in the backs of open trucks, and flying in helicopters. It all takes place in dark warehouses or under a dusty, cloudless skies, until the scene shifts to nighttime, and the soldiers raise their hands, getting ready to do violence while lit up in dystopian reds and blues. Denis Villeneuve, who made Sicario, couldn’t have directed it any better.  https://twitter.com/dhsgov/status/1954556388522291682?

There is never a dull moment in the second, more cheerful reign of Donald Trump. I am writing from London, but was in France last week, picking my way through various battlefields and cemeteries in and around Verdun, Bastogne (think “Easy Company” and “Battle of the Bulge”), and Reims. Well-informed readers will know, as I did not, that “Reims” is not pronounced as its letters might suggest but rather as a nasalized “Reince.” I have always associated the place with champagne, and I am pleased to say that the city capitalizes on the association. But one point of interest had nothing to do with that magical elixir. Reims was also the location of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters at the end of World War II.

New York Mayor Ed Koch used to ask almost everyone he met, “How’m I doing?” Trump hasn’t asked me “How’m I doing?” on immigration, but if he did, I’d answer, “Outstanding, Mr. President, but with one hiccup and much left to do.” The first challenge the President faced was to stop the disaster at the border. And he’s succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. As journalist Byron York asked on X, “How many presidents solve a problem... that was a huge issue in the campaign, and solve it in the first few months of their presidency?” Arrests at the southern border in May were down 93 percent from the same time last year.

A great American city is descending into chaos, and the leader most capable and concerned enough to save it is 2,500 miles away, sitting in the Oval Office. Meanwhile as they can see the smoke rise from their houses, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom are so desperate to see President Donald J. Trump fail, they would sacrifice their own constituents on the altar of political expediency rather than intervene to protect life and liberty.For his part, the President has suggested that border czar Tom Homan was right to threaten to arrest Newsom. “You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.

Forget the towering slabs of steel and concrete sprawling across the southern border. Quietly, beneath the tangible symbols of Donald Trump’s immigration clampdown, another revolution has taken hold. A revolution of invisible digital watchtowers, wires and algorithms – that is as impressive as it is unsettling.The curtain shielding this vast expansion of America’s digital surveillance technology has, thanks to recent disclosures, been drawn back to reveal at its core a controversial and critically influential digital engine churning through data.Enter Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. DoGE has recently launched a master database targeting undocumented migrants, WIRED reports.

The newly sworn-in President Trump had a busy inaugural day. Between swearing into office and waving a saber around while dancing to “YMCA” at an inaugural ball, he also signed several executive orders and proclamations. After signing his cabinet and other nominations, President Trump’s first order of business was to proclaim that all flags should be flown at full staff for this and all future inauguration days. Following the inaugural parade, President Trump signed a bevy of additional executive documents as thousands of his supporters cheered.

I recently had an astonishing trip to the former correctional center in my town that entered into a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to become a processing center right after President Biden took office and issued an executive order cracking down on private prisons. The processing center is a big job creator in this rural place — and the people employed there, by all accounts I’ve heard and witnessed, are dedicated, hard workers. Yet what their jobs entail is astonishing. At a community outreach luncheon, I learned that as blue states refuse to allow ICE facilities to operate, central Pennsylvania has become a “hub” of the northeast for detainees. We receive immigrants from Maryland, New York, New Jersey and occasionally Ohio.