True statement: "Deportation is not a crime. It is the result of one.

 

Enforcement Without Efficiency Is Not Enforcement

Immigration enforcement is not strengthened by turning one contested case — like that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — into a national spectacle.

gory Lyakhov  patriotpost.us 2-21-26

A federal judge ruled this week that Kilmar Abrego Garcia cannot be re-detained by immigration authorities because the statutory 90-day removal period has expired and the government lacks a realistic path to deport him. The decision ends, at least for now, a prolonged legal effort to remove a man whose case has consumed extraordinary federal time and resources.

Garcia entered the United States illegally as a teenager and later lived in Maryland. In 2019, an immigration judge determined that he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced credible danger from gang violence there. Despite that protection, his immigration status remained unlawful. He was later charged in Tennessee with human smuggling, adding a criminal dimension to an already complicated case.

Last year, Garcia was deported before being returned to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security then attempted to deport him again, reportedly exploring removal options to several African countries. That second effort has now collapsed under judicial scrutiny. The court made clear that immigration detention cannot continue indefinitely when removal is not reasonably foreseeable.

None of these facts makes Garcia sympathetic. Entering the country illegally violates federal law. Human smuggling allegations are even more serious. But the broader policy question is not whether Garcia is admirable or an innocent “Maryland dad,” as The New York Times previously described him. The real question is whether dedicating substantial federal resources to a single, highly litigated deportation battle advances the stated goal of large-scale immigration enforcement.

The Trump administration has emphasized mass deportations and border control as central policy priorities. Achieving those objectives requires scale, efficiency, and legal sustainability. Immigration courts already face massive backlogs. Federal detention space is limited. Enforcement agencies operate under budgetary constraints. In that environment, strategic allocation of resources is essential.

Garcia’s case required an extraordinary amount of taxpayer funding. Taxpayers covered the cost of federal prosecutors and, through court-appointed counsel, his defense attorneys. They paid for the immigration officers who carried out the deportation, the transportation costs associated with removing him, and the additional expenses required to return and process him again. They financed the full scope of legal proceedings, including hearings, filings, and administrative reviews, as well as the cost of detention. In effect, the public paid for every stage of the process — from prosecution to deportation to renewed litigation — twice.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of individuals with final orders of removal remain in the country. Many of those cases involve no complex diplomatic barriers or contested country-of-origin protections.

Immigration law provides broad authority to detain and remove individuals who are unlawfully present, especially those accused or convicted of crimes. At the same time, statutory limits exist. The Supreme Court has held that immigration detention cannot become indefinite when deportation is not reasonably foreseeable. When the government pushes against those limits, courts intervene.

In reality, the Garcia case has become symbolic. For Democrats, it represents federal overreach. For supporters of aggressive deportation policy, it has become a test case. That symbolism, however, has distorted priorities. Immigration enforcement is not strengthened by turning one contested case into a national spectacle.

Garcia is one individual in a system involving millions. His case does not determine whether immigration law is enforced nationwide. Devoting disproportionate attention to his deportation has not meaningfully advanced broader enforcement objectives.

If policymakers are serious about restoring credibility to the immigration system, they must focus on scalable solutions. Immigration enforcement succeeds through consistent application of the law across thousands of cases, not through protracted battles over one legally complicated removal. Strategy, not spectacle, will determine whether immigration policy achieves its stated goals.

 

This post is a clear description of the destruction of the UK by mass immigration. It can and will happen here IF we do not take heed immediately!

 

A video that’s a metaphor for the decline of the UK and the West

There’s almost no context for the video, but it’s sufficiently clear that there won’t always be an England—and it’s not about race; it’s about culture.

Andrea Widburg | February 20, 2026 www.americanthinker.com

A very short video has emerged of an older white woman in England trying to get off a bus, only to be utterly defeated by a surge of black people—happy, not aggressive—streaming onto the bus. We don’t know where in England the video was taken, nor the circumstances (perhaps it was after a football match or concert), but it’s a perfect metaphor of how the West has changed with unlimited, unassimilated immigration. View video on X

Two data points are necessary to understand the video’s metaphoric weight. First, while the UK is still a majority-white country, that majority is dropping steadily. At the beginning of the 1950s, the UK was almost 100% British. When the 1960s began, 95.1% of the UK population identified as White British. When the 1970s began, the white population had dropped to 97.5%. By the beginning of the 1980s, it was at 95%.

At the start of the 1990s, and this is a pivotal date because it was before Tony Blair took power, the white population in the UK was still a relatively high 94.5%. Everything started to change very rapidly, though, once Blair opened the borders, a policy that remained under conservative leadership and consistently accelerated under Labour leadership.

In 2001, after a decade of Blair-ist policies, the white population had dropped to 89.7 percent. A decade later, it was 82.8% percent, and the official number as of 2021 was 76.8%.

As of 2024, the number of UK residents identifying as White British was only 73%-- which was a decline of over 25% in sixty years. The assumption is that, within 40 years, Britain, which has been a white nation since prehistoric times, will be a majority minority country, with whites estimated at 34% of the population by 2100.

In the major urban areas, the future is now:

In 2022, it was revealed that London and Birmingham have become minority white British.

A 2023 ONS report stated 46 per cent of Londoners were from black and minority ethnic groups.

A census from the Birmingham City Observatory noted in 2021 that the percentage of white people had declined from 57.9 per cent to 48.6 per cent between 2011 and 2021.

But skin color is an external factor. What creates a nation isn’t color, it’s culture, which leads me to the second data point. Paired with the white skin in Britain were cultural expectations: stiff upper lips, good manners, public decorum, honesty in one’s dealings, etc. It was all “keep calm and carry on.” That was the perception the world had of Britain and that the Brits had of themselves.

That’s still the Britain I knew when I lived there in the early 1980s. Back then, the stereotype of British people politely standing in line for things (or “queuing,” as they called it) was true. Whether at banks or bus stops, public conduct was ordered and polite.

However, the immigrant population in the UK doesn’t come from ordered and polite societies. It comes from African, Middle Eastern, and Indian subcontinent cultures that are utterly chaotic when it comes to public conduct. And that’s how you get this video of a lone white woman trying desperately to get off a British bus in the face of an onrush of people of African descent (or even directly from Africa):

When America experienced a massive influx of immigrants in the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, assimilation was the name of the game. America’s institutions—schools, governments, entertainment, and general culture—expected the new immigrants to embrace American norms: law-abiding, orderly, hard-working, and patriotic. In schools, you saluted the flag and, later, said the pledge of allegiance, something that was still the norm when I was in elementary school.

Now, though, it’s considered “racist” to expect recent immigrants to conform to their new country’s values. So, the country is expected to conform to the recent immigrants’ values.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Singapore imposes its values on immigrants, and the immigrants comply. The result is an exceptionally high-functioning, livable country.

The reality is that humans are the most adaptable species on the planet—and the more powerful humans will always force the weaker to adapt. Unless the West starts flexing its cultural power, it’s done for.

 

This post presents a totally different perspective about DHS/ICE. The Media, generally presents a negative narrative, the minority view, what they want you to read and see.

 

The voices no one asks: Communities most affected by crime

The people actually living where ICE is working are invisible in the national conversation. Why? Because their perspective doesn’t fit the preferred narrative.

Christian Vezilj | February 19, 2026

Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you witnessed a news team stroll into a neighborhood that has been experiencing criminal activity by illegal aliens and interview the residents about their thoughts on ICE? I mean, not the activists, celebrities, or the politicians reading from a cue card, but the people who live there, raise their kids, and suffer the consequences firsthand.

If you are having trouble thinking of such an example, you are not the only one. Such interviews are virtually nonexistent.

Instead, we get a steady stream of slogans: “Defund ICE.” “Abolish ICE.” “ICE out.” You’ve heard them. They’re repeated so often they start to sound like background noise. And if you only listened to the loudest voices, you’d think the entire country is united in outrage against immigration enforcement.

But here’s the thing — and you already know this instinctively — that’s not the whole story. In fact, it’s not even half of it.

The people shouting the slogans all share one thing in common: they’re not the ones living with the crime ICE is addressing. They’re not the ones who’ve had their homes broken into. They’re not the ones who’ve watched gang activity creep closer to their block. They’re not the ones who’ve called 911 so many times they’ve memorized the dispatcher’s voice. They are distanced from the issue, and so they are safe and can be outraged.

Now contrast that with the families who actually live in the neighborhoods where ICE conducts operations. These are the people who feel the difference when a dangerous offender is removed. They’re the ones who breathe a little easier when the gangs who have been terrorizing the neighborhood are finally gone. They’re the ones who know what it’s like to live with the consequences of inaction.

And yet, they’re invisible in the national conversation. Why? Because their perspective doesn’t fit the preferred narrative.

Think about what has occurred over the last year. Crime has dropped in many parts of the country. Not everywhere, but enough that people have noticed. And part of that decline — whether the media wants to admit it or not — is tied to the removal of individuals who were repeatedly victimizing the same vulnerable communities. When ICE steps in, it’s often because local authorities have run out of options or because the offenders have no legal right to remain after committing serious crimes. Then there are sanctuary cities that protect illegal aliens, rather than protecting the communities most affected. But you rarely hear that part.

Instead, the cameras stay focused on the protests, the signs, the chants, and the emotional appeals. They interview activists who speak in sweeping moral terms about compassion and justice. And look, compassion matters and justice matters. But compassion without proximity is easy, and justice without consequence is abstract. The people who live closest to the problem understand the stakes in a way that no slogan can capture.

Imagine if a reporter actually walked into those neighborhoods. Imagine the conversations they’d hear. A mother saying she finally feels safe letting her kids play outside. A shop owner explained how many times he had been robbed before someone stepped in. A grandmother who spent years praying for help because the local system failed her.

Those voices would change the entire debate. They would reveal a truth that activists and celebrities never have to confront: enforcement protects the vulnerable.But those interviews never make it to air, and this is media malpractice. The media has an agenda, and it is the reader’s or viewer’s responsibility to step back and look at the whole picture, as the loudest voices are the least affected. The quietest voices are the most affected. And the media amplifies the former while erasing the latter. It creates the illusion of consensus where none exists. The people who live with the consequences are never the ones shaping the narrative.

They don’t have platforms or publicists. They don’t have the privilege of pondering enforcement as a philosophical question. They endure the consequences. They experience the difference between when laws are enforced and when they are not, and they will bear the cost of a community without enforcement. A healthy society listens to the people closest to the problem. It honors their experience. It protects the vulnerable and refuses to silence them simply because their reality is inconvenient to someone else’s storyline.

Until we do that, we’re not having an honest conversation. We’re just amplifying the voices that shout the loudest while ignoring the voices that matter most. Thankfully, alternative media outlets are emerging, and people are gradually turning away from traditional elite media corporations. Although the shift is slow, it indicates healthy progress and positive change.

 

Illegal immigration continues to take its toll on our once great Republic. Driving on our Nation's highways can be a dangerous thing!

 

Illinois gave illegal big rig truck licenses, posing problems for Democrats pandering to immigrants

The Department of Transportation this week announced findings that the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office through the Director of Driver Services illegally issued nearly 1-in-5 of its commercial licenses.

By Steven Richards 2-18-26 justthenews.com

The Illinois Secretary of State, who is reportedly weighing a run for the office of Mayor of Chicago, is facing growing scrutiny over his department’s role in issuing illegal commercial driver’s licenses, in some cases to individuals who have failed to provide evidence of lawful presence, let alone proficiency in managing big rigs. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation this week announced findings that the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office, through the Director of Driver Services, issued nearly 1-in-5 of its commercial licenses illegally. 

The evidence was uncovered as part of the Transportation Department’s nationwide audit targeting states that issue “non-domiciled CDLs” after a spate of semi-truck crashes across the United States involving illegal immigrant drivers that were issued CDLs by Democrat-run states. Many of these accidents left victims dead.  

The Illinois audit is the latest in a series of audits that have exposed systemic non-compliance with federal CDL rules, including in California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Colorado. 

The issue came home to Illinois last October, when an illegal immigrant, Borko Stankovic, who was driving under a suspended Illinois CDL previously issued to a family member, swerved into opposing traffic at high speed and slammed into a Subaru sedan, killing the driver.

Expired license, wrong driver, victim killed, but who cares?  

Though the license was expired in this case and not even being used by the right individual, the incident was part of a growing pattern of accidents across the United States involving illegal immigrants granted or using expired CDL's, prompting the Transportation Department’s review. 

The Illinois Secretary of State, Alexi Giannoulias’ communications manager, issued a statement on Tuesday pushing back against the Transportation Department’s claims. “Illinois is condemning the Trump administration’s assertions regarding the state’s past handling of non-domiciled commercial driver licenses (CDLs),” the spokesman, Max Walczyk, said in a statement shared with Just the News. 

The office insists that the Illinois Secretary of State has followed all federal guidelines on CDL licenses and suspended issuing them last fall in response to the new rules from the Trump administration. 

Giannoulias said the federal pause is damaging the state’s economy. “A strong economy depends on strong logistics,” he said in a statement. “If trucks don’t move, supply chains fail, prices rise, and families feel it in their pocketbooks. We can see the actions by the Trump administration taking their toll on our truckers and our farmers, both of whom are essential to Illinois’ economy.”

The audit, which sampled 150 non-domiciled (i.e., foreign national) CDL's, found that 29 of them were illegally issued by the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, according to a letter sent to liberal billionaire Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Director of Driver Services Kevin Duesterhaus on Tuesday. 

The audit showed that Illinois illegally issued non-domiciled CDL's to drivers whose licenses were valid long after their lawful presence in the U.S. expired and those whose lawful presence in the U.S. was not verified. Additionally, several of the sampled records showed the state issued CDL's to drivers that failed to provide the required proof of lawful presence in the United States. 

Illinois officials told the Transportation Department that the state has issued 10,088 non-domiciled CLPs or CDLs that remain unexpired, Just the News previously reported. 

The Transportation Department demanded that Illinois immediately halt the issuance of “all new, renewed, transferred, amended, corrected, reprinted, or upgraded non-domiciled CLPs and CDLs” until corrective actions are taken, to include reviewing all licenses that were issued illegally, conduct an internal audit of how such licenses are authorized, and provide a copy of those findings to the federal government.  

CDL's are for protection of the public, not illegal immigrants

“I need our state partners to understand that they work for the American people, not illegal immigrants who broke the law illegally entering our country and continue to break it by operating massive big rigs without the proper qualifications,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement announcing the audit’s findings. 

The fatal crash in Illinois is only one of the recent incidents that prompted the federal review of state CDLs.  

In Texas in March 2025, Solomun Weldekeal Araya reportedly caused a 17-car pileup on I-35 in Austin. The accident resulted in five fatalities. He was later charged with multiple counts of manslaughter and aggravated assault. The driver was reportedly detained by police after witnesses told law enforcement they saw him trying to leave. Officers reported Araya reportedly mainly spoke Tigrinya, a language spoken in the Horn of Africa, and not English. 

Araya failed a field sobriety test and law enforcement believed he was under the influence of a drug or controlled substance. A drug test later found no evidence of drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

In August, an illegal immigrant driver made an illegal u-turn on the Florida Turnpike in his 18-wheeler truck, causing a crash that left three dead, the Homeland Security Department said. The immigrant was identified as Harjinder Singh, an illegal alien from India. 

Before the fatal crash in Florida, Singh reportedly failed his CDL driver’s test 10 times, before finally being granted a license in 2023 in Washington State, according to Fox News. Instructors also noted English proficiency, despite video evidence showing Singh struggled to speak English with police in the wake of the crash. 

The Transportation Department has also conducted audits on several other states, including New York, California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, and North Carolina. The department said it uncovered “systemic non-compliance in issuing non-domiciled CDLs across those states."

In California, the department’s audit found that “more than 25% of non-domiciled CDLs reviewed were improperly issued.” In New York, it found that more than half of non-domiciled CDLs were issued in violation of federal law. In Colorado, the fraction was 22%. 

These findings led the administration to pull federal funding until the states remedy the license issuing process to prevent such failures. Secretary Duffy’s agency issued a final rule last week that would prevent foreign drivers from receiving a non-domicile CDL without undergoing a consular and interagency screening. 

“While U.S. drivers are subject to strict checks through national databases for past violations—such as DUIs, reckless driving, or crash involvement—states lack the ability to access the driving records of foreigners and illegal immigrants,” the agency said. “This loophole allowed individuals with dangerous driving histories to obtain a trucking license simply by presenting an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), which does not screen for transportation safety.”