Tag: ICE

Trump’s Record so far

So far Trump II has made or is making a number of changes that have benefited our economy.  However, his delivery on his key campaign promises is mixed.

Trump promised to “stop the migrant invasion,” and to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.” He delivered. Southern border attempted entries that were blocked in 2023 and 2024 of 2,475,670 and 2,135,000, dropped to 237,538 in 2025 and authorized new arrivals dropped from 2.9 to 2.8 million in 2023 and 2024 to less the 2,000 in 2025. Deportations and voluntary exit jumped from over 460,000 and 700,000 in 2023 and 2024 to over 2,500,000 in 2025 of which and estimated 1.9 million were self exits.

However, the behavior of masked ICE agents, including the deaths of over 30 people in ICE custody in 2025 have created a public outcry.  In 2024 and earlier, the majority of ICE arrests focused on those with criminal records. In 2025, the government stated that 70% of ICE arrests involved individuals with criminal charges or convictions. However, independent analyses of 2025 data suggested that only 23% of those targeted in broader sweeps actually had prior criminal convictions, with many of those being for minor traffic or immigration offenses.

Trump also promised to “End inflation and make America affordable again,” and to “Stop outsourcing” and turn the U.S. into a “manufacturing superpower” by bringing factories back to the United States by tightening trade policy. The high CPI inflation rate of 4.1% in 2023 has fallen to 2.9% in 2024 and 2.7% in 2025. Manufacturing value added to US total output was $2.91 trillion in 2024 rising to $2.95 in 2025 all in 2017 dollars.

The US imports more than it exports. The US trade deficit in 2024 of $903.5 billion changed little at $901.5 billion in 2025, but the highly criticized and erratic US tariffs on imports (both threatened and actually imposed) where eventually struct down as illegal by the Supreme Court. They were not approved by Congress and where not justified to correct unfair trade practice by China, the EU and others. Rather they were threatened punishments if the target country did not give in to some other Trump demand. Here is an example of such an attempted abuse of tariffs. https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/2041842665172693207

Trump was right to promise to reduce costly and unproductive regulations and bureaucrat bloat. But his approach with the help of Elon Musk and the DOGE swat teams was misdirected and destructive. https://wcoats.blog/2025/04/27/trumps-chainsaw/

https://wcoats.blog/2025/07/01/econ-101-government-budgets/  Just how bad the Musk DOGE chainsaw was can been seen in the following deposition of one of the totally unqualified kids swinging the chainsaw. He is being questioned by a lawyer for an agency suing DOGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXXvgZzK0Cc

And then there is the rest. Unlike previous US Presidents, Trump’s style of governing was that of a bully making threats. The result has not been good.

Trump the Egomaniac:  Putting his name on the Kennedy Center was sort of harmless (but distasteful) but then shutting it down all together is much less so and, and as is so often the case with Trump, hard to understand. The United States Institute of Peace is now the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace. Then there are programs he has created in his name: Trump accounts, Trump Gold Card, TrumpRx, Trump National Parks pass, etc. But he hasn’t stopped there, creating the “Trump-class” battleship. Though it violates the tradition of the U.S. Treasurer, currently Brandon Beach, signing our currency notes, Trump will do so in the future. While most of these displays of Trump’s name might be taken as the actions of an immature child, his proposal to issue special one dollar coins with his likeness seems to violate more than just good taste.

Trump the Authoritarian (postliberal)–domestic:  We have gotten used to Trump using his Truth Social or X/twitter accounts to damn and/or label as stupid or evil those who have criticized him, but he has used the power of his office to much more seriously attack his enemies or to force compliance with his policy views.

For example, after firing FBI director James Comey, who oversaw the probe of ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly called for investigations of Comey over alleged leaks and handling of memos, and his current Justice Department has pursued renewed inquiries premised on those same grievances. Similarly motivated DOJ indictments or investigations have been made against Trump appointed officials John Bolton, Letitia James, Robert Mueller, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, and others who played leading roles in Russia‑related or Ukraine‑related investigations.

Beyond criminal investigations, Trump has repeatedly used or threatened non‑criminal tools of the presidency—regulation, funding decisions, security clearances, and administrative enforcement—to punish domestic opponents. He has used threats to cut off federal funds to Democratic‑led “sanctuary cities” or jurisdictions whose leaders criticize him, framing them as “anarchist” or lawless and directing DOJ and other agencies to look for legal hooks to withhold grants.  Reuters and civil‑society trackers describe cases where universities, law firms, and other entities changed diversity or governance policies after threats of lost contracts, funding, or investigations from the administration. https://protectdemocracy.org/work/retaliatory-action-tracker/

If you have wondered, as I have, why the Republicans in Congress have not exercised their constitutional rights to block Trump’s abuses of power, often in direct contradiction of Republican party principles, I assume that it is their fear of his vindictive attacks on anyone who criticizes him.

Trump has both threatened and actually moved to cut federal funds to a small but high‑profile group of universities, mainly to force changes on campus protests, DEI, admissions, and governance policies. At Harvard University billions in federal research grants and contracts were frozen or terminated starting in spring 2025. The reasons given by the Trump administration were the alleged failure to protect Jewish students and to tolerate antisemitism linked to pro‑Palestinian activism and criticism of “woke” policies, DEI programs. The Trump administration demanded leadership and governance changes, review of academic departments for perceived ideological “bias,” and changes to admissions policies. Harvard has filed legal challenges and publicly refused to accept some of the administration’s conditions, while still facing a major funding freeze.

Similar reasons were given for stopping and/or threatening to stop funding of contracts and projects at Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, and Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and UCLA.  These are the tip of an ugly iceberg that are very inappropriate in our liberal, limited government, freedom loving country.

But not all demands were objectionable.In October 2025, the White House offered a formal “compact” tying preferential access to federal funding to a raft of ideological and policy conditions that were agreed to by nine universities.Vanderbilt University.Dartmouth College.University of Pennsylvania.University of Southern California.Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).University of Texas at Austin.University of Arizona.Brown University and University of Virginia.

Key policy demands in the compact included:

  • Ban consideration of race or sex in admissions and hiring.
  • Cap international undergraduate enrollment at around 15% and subject foreign students to additional vetting.
  • Freeze tuition for several years.
  • Eliminate or sharply curtail DEI offices and programs.
  • Guarantee “ideological balance” or a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” without a dominant ideology

Trump the untrustworthy Bully –International: Trump pledged to serve American interests first, promising to end America’s forever wars and claimed to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Virtually every aspect of his foreign policy has been a failure, weakening our standing abroad and our national security.

The second Trump administration has ended no wars, conducted military strikes in at least seven countries, and with Israel started a new war in Iran. It has been complicit with Israel in the ethnic cleaning of Gaza and increasingly the West Bank, and by financial and armament support of Israel. Trump has weakened or lost the support of traditional allies with his threats to annex Canada and Greenland and his insults of European and other countries for not supporting his illegal war in Iran and more generally.

Bully Trump’s approach is illustrated by his spat with Pope Leo XIV. On Truth Social Trump proclaimed:

“Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”

On April 19, 2026, Trump warned that the U.S. would “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge” in the country if they did not accept a new “DEAL,” Not that Trump cares but many of his threats, specifically those targeting civilian infrastructure like water and power plants, have been flagged by international human rights groups as potential violations of international humanitarian law.

Pope Leo XIV declared President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy “a whole civilization” unacceptable and suggesting Americans should contact their representatives in Congress to stop the conflict.

“Today, as we all know, there has also been this threat against the entire people of Iran.  And this is truly unacceptable. There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety.

“I would like to invite everyone to think in their hearts of so many innocent children, so many totally innocent elderly people who would also be victims of this escalation. I would like to invite everyone to pray, but also to seek ways to communicate. Perhaps with congressmen, with authorities, saying that we don’t want war, we want peace.”

Trump responded by calling the Pope “Weak on crime” and “Weak on Nuclear Weapons” and falsely claiming the Pontiff agreed that Iran should have nuclear capabilities. In his Easter Sunday message the Pope said: “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace.”

Trump’s failure to understand market trades and deals as win-win has fed his zero sum bully approach. America has been seriously damaged as a result.  Trump has either ignored or withdrawn from the international agreements or organizations such as the WTO, and WHO that have provided the basis of global cooperation and flurishing since WWII. And we have suffered as a result. https://wcoats.blog/2026/03/21/america-alone/  

Trump’s disregard for law has also been an element of his financial corruption, the details of which will hopefully be properly investigated.  Since returning to the White House for his second term, Trump’s net worth has grown by approximately $2.5 billion to $3 billion according to most financial trackers. Trump’s Presidency has been very bad for America.

ICE and immigrants

Virginia’s new governor, Abigail Spanberger, has made a big mistake. One January 17, Governor Spanberger signed Executive Order 1, which rescinds a previous directive from former Governor Glenn Youngkin that had required state police and corrections agencies to cooperate with ICE. I assume that like me most American’s want better control over illegal immigration and some, like me, what more legal immigration.

Surely when illegal immigrants are caught and convicted of a crime, they should be deported. Such persons are generally held in American jails. Thus, the proper and most efficient way to deport them is for local officials to turn them over to ICE. Governor Spanberger has made Virginia a sanctuary state. While the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants have not committed any crimes other than overstaying their visas, President Trump even in his first term was determined to deport them, presumable at the urging of the immigrant hater Steven Miller.

As an aside, recently deceased CATO Vice President David Boaz’s husband was also named Stephen Miller and depending on which one we were referring to we said, “the good Stephen Miller” or “the bad Stephen Miller.” Even though first term Trump didn’t resort to masked ICE agents grabbing foreign looking people off the street, his push to deport illegals was very disruptive. “Illegal aliens”

We need to take a another shot at passing immigration reform legislation identical or similar to the 2013 legislation that passed the Senate but not the House. In the meantime, the masked ICE agents should be limited to deporting illegal immigrants who have been properly convicted of crimes. Their current behavior is disgusting and turning good hearted American’s off (that excludes the Bad Stephen Miller, of course) on the whole effort. This includes arresting reporters and American citizens in complete violation of our principles and laws. The Justice Department should take time off from prosecuting Trump’s critics and prosecute these ICE crimes (including murder). Trump seems to be reducing illegal immigration by making America as unattractive as possible, hardly making America great again.

The list of ICE misbehavior is long and growing: “Minnesota immigration detained US citizen”

But the attack on our values runs deeper than just violating our laws as explained in an article by Radley Balko:

“The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything. They’re a projection of power….

“It’s one thing to tank or slow-walk an investigation. It’s quite another to publicly declare that no investigation will happen on any level and then announce that you’ll be investigating the victim’s partner and supporters instead. Both paths are unethical and corrupt. Undermining an investigation at least pays lip service to the idea of accountability and public trust. The administration’s actions in Ms. Good’s case are a declaration that there will be no accountability and that it would prefer to instill fear rather than trust.”

Sanctuary cities and states should cooperate with Immigration officials by handing over illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and Congress should get serious about passing sensible legislation. “Immigrants from hell”  “We need comprehensive immigration reform now” In the mean time ICE should take off their masks and get off the street.

ICE

When I complained about the masked ICE bandits, I noted that they cover their faces and grab innocent people, including American citizens, off the street. A few people pushed back on my comment

“Why do you think ICE are bandits. They are there to protect Americans. All those who came here illegally must be sent back home.”

The dialog that followed on Facebook prompts me to provide a fuller treatment here.

Those who commit what for a legal resident would be a crime, should be deported, but this applies to a minority of those apprehended by ICE. And we must distinguish between those seeking refugee status from others here illegally. Refugee applicants claim that they would not be safe remaining in their home country (some of my Afghan friends come to mind). Thus, we cannot properly return them to their home country.

Those non refugees here illegally, about half are illegal because they overstayed their (student, tourist, work) visa and about half entered the US without a proper visa. Less than a third of those deported in recent years have been convicted of a crime (many of them traffic violations). Actual crimes (stealing, battery, etc.) are over whelmingly committed by legal residents.

There are currently almost 15 million illegal residents about 10 million of whom have jobs. A proper immigration regime, one that serves the best interests of the U.S., would better enforce legal status and deport those without legal status or provide a legal path to legal status. This is easier said than done. https://wcoats.blog/2025/08/29/immigration/

In 2013, a bipartisan group of eight senators (the “Gang of Eight”) drafted S.744, a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a multi‑step path to legal status and eventual citizenship for most undocumented immigrants, alongside major expansions of border security and enforcement.​

The bill passed the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 68–32, including support from 14 Republicans, reflecting unusually broad elite consensus for an earned legalization and citizenship framework. Then‑Speaker John Boehner refused to bring the bill to the House floor because it lacked support from a majority of House Republicans, even though it likely had the votes to pass with a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans. Thus it sadly died.

Simply deporting these “illegal” (undocumented) workers would cripple the economy which is already fully employed. But I want to focus on the approach taken by ICE that I have been complaining about as contrary to America’s tradition of the rule of law. While I could cite a number of examples of ICE grabbing legal US citizens off the street for deportation, I want to focus on the most famous of them Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a resident of Maryland. He entered the U.S. illegally 14 or so years ago and is married to a U.S. citizen and is the father of three children born here. He has not been convicted of any crimes in the U.S. but U.S. officials have repeatedly accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang. These claims were largely based on a 2019 police report citing a confidential informant and Garcia’s choice of clothing (specifically a Chicago Bulls hat). He has never been charged with a gang-related crime.

In 2019 he was granted “withholding of removal”, a form of protection that explicitly prohibited the U.S. government from deporting him to El Salvador because of the risk of persecution and violence he would face there.​ Despite this protected status, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him in March 2025 on alleged gang‑related grounds that a federal judge later described as ambiguous and unsupported.

On March 15, 2025, he was placed on one of three planes of alleged gang members sent under a Trump administration operation to El Salvador, where he was delivered to the CECOT mega‑prison, a facility widely described as one of the most dangerous in the Western Hemisphere.​ The U.S. Supreme Court eventually intervened, and he was returned to the U.S. in June 2025 to face the current pending charges. Bari Weiss has been sharply criticized for cancelling a CBS 60 minutes report on the conditions in that prison. “cbs news Bari Weiss intervention”

The administration has acknowledged to courts and the press that his deportation occurred despite the prior legal bar and has variously characterized it as an “administrative error.”  After being returned to the U.S., Abrego Garcia was indicted in Tennessee on two federal counts: conspiracy to transport illegal aliens and unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. The government alleges he played a role in a smuggling ring, a claim he vehemently denies.

On December 11, 2025, a federal judge ordered his release from ICE custody, ruling that his detention was unlawful, and he returned to his home in Maryland. A judge extended an order in December 2025 preventing his return to immigration detention while awaiting further details on his case from the government. His trial is set to begin in January 2026, though he is attempting to have the charges dropped.

More than government’s abuse of Abrego Garcia’s rights, we read ugly and often mistaken “arrests” of residents from the streets and from their jobs. Earlier this month, multiple reports described immigrants being turned away or “plucked out of line” at U.S. citizenship oath ceremonies, especially in Boston’s Faneuil Hall and other locations, after new Trump administration directives targeting applicants from 19 so‑called “high‑risk” countries.

These individuals had already completed interviews and been approved, but USCIS officials stopped them at the final step, cancelling or pausing their naturalization, which advocates have described as “unspeakable cruelty.”

There are approximately 2.3 million to 2.4 million individuals with pending asylum cases in the U.S. immigration court system. These individuals are technically part of the unauthorized population but have “procedural protection” from deportation while they wait for a judge to rule on their status.  Because of a massive backlog, the average wait time for an asylum case to be resolved in court is currently about 4.3 years.

So I stand by my characterization of the masked ICE agents as bandits. Our immigration policy and its enforcement have real problems but they need a more thoughtful and serious approach.

But I want to leave you with a last very disturbing comments. One of my Facebook readers ask: “what are your thoughts on ICE government agents required to follow rules and regulations supporting people who do not follow the rules and regulations. I’ve always thought it Odd that law-enforcement has to enforce the law following the rules, detaining those who do not follow rules. Seems a little hypocritical.” Believe it or not he is actually saying that since the police (ICE) are apprehending people who are thought by them to be breaking the law, why can’t the police break it as well. No comment. https://wcoats.blog/2025/06/12/police-state/

Police state

Congress has struggled for decades to adopt a workable immigration and border security policy. Several reasonable proposals have been advanced over the past several decades but never crossed the finish line. We need more immigrants but of the legal sort. But getting the balance right is not easy.

The path for legal immigration should be widened while border enforcement and workplace employment of illegal residents should be made more difficult. More judges are needed to process refugee applicants much more quickly. How tighter rules are implemented matter. The Trump administration’s current approach is wrong and contrary to American norms. It’s as if he is leading the country step by step to a coup. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/11/immigration-arrests-ice-raid-masks/

More than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide are living outside immigration detention in the U.S., ICE says

The above headline of an NBC News article on September 28 is technically correct but grossly misleading. “13000 immigrants convicted of homicide living freely in US”  For example, “many of the 13,000 migrants may have entered the U.S. decades ago, and also that some may be in jail or prison.”  Say what?

Alex Nowrasteh, a careful Cato Institute scholar, unpacks this headline and explains that “There are not 13,099 Illegal Immigrant Murderers Roaming Free on American Streets.” “There are not 13099 illegal immigrant Murderers…”

For example: “the migrant murderers included in the [ICE] letter are overwhelmingly in prison serving their sentences.” What is going on with the word play? Read Alex’s careful unpacking of these figures.