Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken custody of a convicted criminal migrant for allegedly illegally voting in United States elections in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
The post Exclusive–Swing State Pennsylvania: ICE Arrests Criminal Migrant for Allegedly Illegally Voting in U.S. Elections appeared first on Breitbart.
We have come to expect sanctimony mixed with hypocrisy from Barack Obama. But his latest endeavor turns out to be a doozy.
Preaching his usual moral superiority, the former president recently took to social media to inveigh against the current president for targeting Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota with a criminal investigation. He called it "appalling."
Obama should have sat this one out at his luxurious spread on Martha’s Vineyard.
OBAMA BACKS ILHAN OMAR AMID PROBE, ACCUSES TRUMP ADMIN OF 'APPALLING' TARGETING IN LENGTHY STATEMENT
Lo and behold, he did the same thing when he was president. And Omar was the target. But, of course, the probe was kept under wraps. Until now.
Reporting by The New York Times reveals that Obama’s Department of Homeland Security and the FBI did a deep dive in the summer of 2016 into whether Omar entered into a sham marriage with her alleged brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to enable him to secure a green card.
OBAMA'S LENGTHY REACTION TO OMAR INVESTIGATION TRIGGERS INSTANT BACKLASH: 'SPARE ME'
Brace yourself for the result. That investigation "found some evidence that it was fraudulent," according to the Times.
Accusations of marriage fraud have long dogged Omar, who has consistently dismissed them as politically driven and a right-wing conspiracy. So much for that argument.
The latest investigation that culminated in a judicially ordered search of Omar’s home on October 12, 2026, reportedly encompasses not only the suspect marriage but troubling questions over whether she ran afoul of the law by using a fake name and false birth date to obtain citizenship. A separate investigation is examining her financial transactions.
The Obama-era inquiry did not end because of insufficient evidence. Instead, the Times divulges that it was shelved "because prosecutors concluded that the potential crime, a felony, fell outside a five-year statute of limitations." The newspaper’s story relied on statements by current and former officials with knowledge of the first case.
ILHAN OMAR ISSUES STUNNING ADMISSION WHEN CONFRONTED WITH BROTHER MARRIAGE RUMORS
That decision to mothball any legal action against Omar makes little sense, unless one factors in political favoritism by Obama and his prosecutorial cohorts.
It is true that marriage fraud is a federal felony governed by a five-year statute of limitations under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(c). However, the clock runs from the last overt act of fraud or submission of false documents, not the date of the wedding ceremony itself in 2009.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR ILHAN OMAR? FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGE BREAKS DOWN LEGAL RISKS AMID FEDERAL PROBES
Taking steps to later obtain a green card would qualify as an overt act, as would document fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1546). So, too, would any act to cover up a sham marriage or efforts to conceal it. Indeed, it would constitute additional crimes such as conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371) and obstruction of justice or obstruction of proceedings (18 U.S.C. §§ 1505 and 1512).
Elmi abandoned his quest for a green card and left the U.S. for London sometime in 2011 when disturbing questions reportedly arose over his application. His actions and any misrepresentations associated with Omar might have brought the case within the permissible statute of limitations.
HOMAN SAYS ILHAN OMAR COULD BE STRIPPED OF NATURALIZATION, DEPORTED IF IMMIGRATION FRAUD IS PROVEN
But never mind all of that.
Obama’s DHS and DOJ could have pursued a simpler approach under civil (not criminal) immigration fraud. Orchestrating a scheme to illegally obtain U.S. immigration status or benefits carries severe legal consequences. There is no statute of limitations.
GREGG JARRETT: ILHAN OMAR COULD FACE INDICTMENT, DENATURALIZATION AND DEPORTATION
If the Obama administration had chosen this logical course, it could have led to Omar’s denaturalization and subsequent deportation. The standard of proof is "clear and convincing evidence," much lower than in criminal prosecutions.
It is unclear, but curious, why this legal road was never taken. We only know that authorities under Obama shuttered the case and buried the investigation. Preferential treatment? Political cronyism? It has the unmistakable stench.
REP ILHAN OMAR'S IMMIGRATION HISTORY FACES NEW SCRUTINY AS FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS SUBPOENA RELATIVES
This makes Obama’s social media screed against President Trump even more outlandish. Trump is doing what Obama did, except that Trump’s administration has expanded the Omar inquiry into areas where the former president’s prosecutors refused to go.
They should have gone there.
Obama’s harangue on X accused Trump of selectively targeting Omar without ever disclosing that his own administration investigated her first. That was dishonesty by omission. A mere oversight? Doubtful.
Obama also pronounced as true certain facts about Omar’s age that may not be true at all. He declared with absolute confidence that she was 17 years old when she applied as a minor for derivative citizenship based on her father’s citizenship.
But her age and birth date are still very much in dispute. Her autobiography and other documents undermine Obama’s claim, indicating that Omar may have been an adult of 18 years and legally ineligible for the type of citizenship that she procured. If she or her father made false statements or committed fraud, it would nullify her citizenship and could lead to removal from the U.S.
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This is not an "unsubstantiated theory," as Obama asserts in his social media post.
The former president accuses Trump of "intimidation" and laments that he is deploying "the full weight of the federal government" to bring down "a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president." Spare us the duplicitous pearl-clutching.
Obama expressed no moral outrage when his successor, Joe Biden, targeted his political opponent with criminal indictments. Going back further to his own presidency, Obama’s dirty fingerprints were all over the initial stages of the government’s damaging investigation of Trump in the phony collusion scandal.
Obama seems to think that Americans are simpletons with anterograde amnesia. It resembles contempt.
The New York Times report exposes Obama’s glaring double standard for what it is — a transparently insincere attack based on shallow evidence. This comes as no surprise.
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Obama always seems confident in his righteousness in an irritatingly pious way. Ever the charlatan, he pretends to be holier-than-thou. Sometimes the truth catches up with him.
But don’t expect Obama to change now that his hypocrisy has been revealed. That would require earnest introspection.
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In a July 16 letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a "preliminary review" suggested there "may be as many as 190,832 non-citizens registered to vote" in her state. Weber was skeptical—for good reason, it turned out. Three months later, the Trump administration reduced that estimate by nearly 90 percent, saying about 20,000 "likely noncitizens" had received California vote-by-mail ballots.
The Justice Department gave Weber and Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's top election official, 48 hours to determine whether any of the people on the government's list were in fact citizens. Otherwise, it said, Weber and Logan should segregate those ballots and refrain from processing them until citizenship could be verified. After Weber and Logan declined to comply with the Justice Department's demands, it asked a federal judge for a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring them to do so—a request that he rejected in a scathing opinion on Wednesday.
"Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch," writes U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee. "This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections. If Plaintiff's last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve."
The Justice Department delivered its list of "likely noncitizens" to Logan three weeks before Election Day. At that point, Los Angeles County already had sent ballots to 5.9 million voters and processed 331,000 of them. Logan said he was "legally prohibited" from doing what the Justice Department wanted because it had failed to explain the methodology used to compile the list, raising the possibility that citizens would be denied their voting rights.
There was ample reason for that concern. On July 17, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin averred that "as many as" 15,903 noncitizens were registered to vote in Nevada. The following month, when the DHS submitted a list of allegedly illegal voters to Nevada election officials, the number had fallen to 185—99 percent lower than Mullin's original figure. It turned out that every one of those 185 voters was a U.S. citizen.
"DHS has identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote" in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, Mullin said in July. He was echoing President Donald Trump, who for years has grossly exaggerated the extent of illegal voting by noncitizens, often in service of his own vanity.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, for example, that he would have won the popular vote in 2016 but for "the millions of people who voted illegally," and in January 2024 he warned that noncitizen voters "could very well affect the next election." In a speech the night before Mullin's announcement, Trump asserted that the DHS had "identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections."
Judging from Nevada's experience, the actual number may be closer to zero. It is hard to say, because the methods used by the DHS remain hazy.
In the California case, Carter says, the DHS "purchased a voter file that appeared to reflect 'the actual voter rolls in California, that as of August 2025, may be used for the 2026 federal election.'" It "then 'enhance[d]' the voter data through a 'reliable third-party data analytics'" and used records maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to find "an internal USCIS immigration number" that "may" correspond to each registered voter. "The matches are scored," Carter notes, "because 'the resulting data may be incomplete, outdated, or mismatched.'"
The DHS "then compared the potential identity matches to Department of State and Social Security Administration data to screen out U.S. citizens," Carter adds. "In the next step, a confidence level was assigned (where a high score supported a 'strong identity link') and a manual review was conducted for each match to 'determine which registered voters'" were "likely to be aliens." Then came "a 'quality review' to identify issues such as 'duplicate entries' and 'incomplete records,'" followed by "an 'enrichment process' that utilized 'additional unique identifiers' to 'improv[e]' the matching process."
The government did not initially specify the source of the "reliable third-party data analytics." But it later revealed that "the third-party platform it relied on was
Lexis Nexis," Carter notes. "It remains unknown how Lexis Nexis performed its analysis, such as how it 'linked names to Social Security numbers not available on the California public voter file.' Plaintiff likewise did not explain what its 'enrichment process' entailed or how it occurred. Plaintiff also provided 'no error rates' or 'validation against a reliable benchmark' that would enable a determination of the accuracy of its findings. Omissions of this critical information prevent an evaluation of Plaintiff's procedure, including how Plaintiff reduced its initial claim of nearly 200,000 alleged noncitizens to 20,000 individuals."
Potential sources of error include conflating people with similar or identical names and outdated records that do not reflect recent naturalization. Because it is unclear how the DHS tried to address such problems, it is not surprising that Weber and Logan did not want to rely on the Trump administration's list, especially given its pattern of dramatically reducing the putative number of illegally registered voters.
"It is well-documented that matching voter registration records with data from other
administrative databases 'presents numerous challenges,'" Carter writes. And given the potential for error, he says, "Plaintiff's allegations are not credible." He adds that the TRO sought by the Justice Department "would likely lead to voter disenfranchisement" and "would create a significant administrative burden for Defendants, leading to chaos and upending the election."
In any event, Carter says, the Trump administration does not have legal standing to seek such an order. The government's main argument was that California officials, by refusing to segregate ballots from people on its list, were interfering with its enforcement of 18 USC 611, which makes it a misdemeanor for "any alien to vote" in a federal election.
"Defendants do not 'interfere' with the United States' ability to enforce Section 611 by
administering an ongoing election in accordance with established State and Federal law, rather than assuming new obligations pursuant to a federal criminal law they are not responsible for enforcing," Carter writes. It is well established that state officials have no obligation to enforce federal law, he notes, and that they cannot be "commandeered" to do so.
Nor does the federal government need such assistance to enforce Section 611. "The very same day the United States filed its TRO [application] in this Court, the Department of Justice brought charges against 28 individuals" in California under that law, Carter notes. It is not clear how many of those defendants, who represent 0.0001 percent of California's 23 million registered voters, actually cast ballots. But "if fraudulent voting occurs," Carter says, "the United States should uphold the law and bring additional Section 611 indictments against those non-citizens it believes actually voted illegally in the current—or a prior—election."
The Constitution gives states the primary responsibility for conducting elections, subject to explicit limits imposed by Congress. But the Justice Department's actions in this case "are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials," Carter writes. The department "has filed at least thirty-one lawsuits in federal district courts across the country seeking complete voter rolls from the States. Out of the twenty-six decided cases, the DOJ has prevailed in precisely zero."
In addition to "its failed attempt to seek State voter rolls," Carter notes, "the United States has also requested that States act based on the Executive's own lists." But "sister district courts across the country have cast doubt" on the reliability of those lists for the same reasons that Carter cites in this case.
On October 23, the Justice Department "sent letters to every county in California requiring them to set aside the votes of alleged non-citizens," Carter notes. "The letters stated that election officials 'risk significant federal scrutiny' if they failed to comply with the Government's demands. The government reiterated its threat in open court yesterday, stating that State and County election officials who do not comply with their letter risk federal charges under 18 U.S.C. § 2, which criminalizes aiding and abetting the commission of a criminal offense. The court reiterates what it said yesterday: these threats must stop."
The post Trump's Claims About Noncitizen Voting Are 'Not Credible,' a Federal Judge Says in a Scathing Decision appeared first on Reason Magazine.
The sanctuary state of California released an illegal alien drug trafficker from jail after he was arrested for car theft, Breitbart News has learned. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents lodged a detainer, but it was ignored.
The post Exclusive: Sanctuary California Frees Illegal Alien Drug Trafficker from Jail After Car Theft Arrest appeared first on Breitbart.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) married her brother and the Somali community knew it, a New York Post report alleges.
The post Nolte: Ilhan Omar’s Alleged ‘Sham Marriage’ Reportedly Open Secret in Somali Community appeared first on Breitbart.
The disgraced 60 Minutes hid the inconvenient truth entirely about its deportee sob story. The far-left Washington Post merely hid its inconvenient truth under 16 paragraphs.
The post Nolte: Guns and Drugs Undermine Washington Post’s Latest Deportation Sob Story appeared first on Breitbart.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller announced a major policy shift prohibiting the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) from awarding department-administered grants to businesses that employ foreign workers on H-1B visas.
The post Texas Ag Commissioner Bans Grants to Companies Hiring H-1B Visa Holders appeared first on Breitbart.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a liaison at the military's Special Operations Command (SOCOM) with access to advanced surveillance technology, leaked files show. The files also reveal ICE liaisons at Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with access to the same tech, and an ICE contractor associated with U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in the Middle East.
On Wednesday, a hacker group calling itself the Department of Peace released a massive collection of U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel files, including ICE and other domestic security agencies. "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs," the hackers wrote in a note attached to the database, which was posted online to Distributed Denial of Secrets, a platform for data leaks.
DHS told The Washington Post that it was "aware of a potential breach" and "working to address the situation swiftly and effectively." A website hosting a searchable version of the leak, ICEpick, was taken down after the DHS sent a letter demanding that the domain name host "stop serving the personal contact and location data of individuals who did not consent."
The files include an ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit chief who appears to oversee the agency's military liaisons. His subordinates include a "Combatant Command Program Manager" at SOCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida; an "HSI Liaison to USAFRICOM" in Stuttgart, Germany; and a "Senior Liaison to U.S. Southern Command" in Doral, Florida.
All of the officials named in the files are listed as users of "Penlink," "Falcon," and "RavenGo." The contractor PenLink offers officials the ability to track individual cell phone users or collect data on everyone in a certain location, according to documents obtained by 404media. FALCON, created by the contractor Palantir, allows officials to combine records from governmental and commercial databases, The Guardian reports. The DHS eventually phased out FALCON in favor of an in-house system, RAVEN.
The unit chief is additionally listed in a group called "LCR_Users." The acronym may refer to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence at Liberty Crossing, McLean, Virginia. Two employees are listed in the DHS files with "ODNI" in their title and "LCR - Liberty Crossing" as their location. The first Trump administration reportedly looked into merging ICE into the federal intelligence community, but never officially did so.
The files also include an HSI contractor listed as "CENTCOM analyst" at the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia. Unlike the other liaisons, this contractor does not have access to ICE's own surveillance software. The National Targeting Center is a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unit that surveils international travel and selects passengers for questioning. CENTCOM oversees all U.S. military forces in the Middle East.
Although it has been mentioned in public, ICE's relationship with the military is shrouded in mystery. Of course, the best-documented relationship is with SOUTHCOM, responsible for U.S. forces in Latin America. Official press releases also mentioned HSI's participation in an AFRICOM maritime security training exercise in 2021. The connections to SOCOM and CENTCOM have not been publicly reported.
ICE did not respond to Reason's request for comment.
The DHS has an in-house intelligence office that is separate from HSI and publicly cooperates with the U.S. military, as well as the rest of the intelligence community. But HSI's "global footprint" and ability to straddle the line between law enforcement and foreign policy "make it uniquely capable of disrupting and dismantling the sophisticated groups and networks that we now face," HSI Executive Assistant Director Katrina W. Berger testified to Congress in 2024.
HSI is supposed to handle serious organized crimes involving the border rather than day-to-day deportations. However, the Trump administration has turned the directorate into an all-purpose domestic spying and enforcement arm. HSI is now running a massive surveillance operation against left-wing protesters, WIRED recently revealed.
Agents have reportedly been pulled away from investigating human trafficking and drug cartels to deal with immigration enforcement. HSI was involved in arresting former CNN journalist Don Lemon for showing up at an anti-ICE protest at a church, and led the raid against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) reportedly aimed at showing that her U.S. citizenship is invalid.
Last month, ICE announced upcoming contracts for a $100 million, fast-tracked expansion of its domestic surveillance capabilities, with contractors asked "to identify and assess relationships among individuals, organizations, locations, events, activities, data points, and other entities." Former military intelligence analyst Michael Wriston called the intensified ICE surveillance a case of "imperial boomerang" in an interview with The American Prospect. "These are the kinds of things that happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, for years. Now that methodology is being brought into the ICE space."
The post Leaked Files Reveal ICE Liaisons to U.S. Military Commands With Access to Surveillance Tech appeared first on Reason Magazine.
A year ago in tiny Ingram, Texas, a local police officer named Jaron Alexander responded to a noise complaint—a baptism party, it turned out, held by Joanna Martinez and her extended family. Shortly after, Alexander began working in tandem with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in an arrangement that has recently doubled the number of local police working with ICE. Within months, six people who attended Martinez’s party had been detained and deported, or else had fled from Ingram. Francesca D’Annunzio and McKenzie Funk grant impressive access to a local cop whose decision to work with ICE has transformed a small town into a claustrophobic nightmare, upending the local economy and fracturing countless relationships.
One family notarized guardianship papers, in case the parents were detained and the children left behind. One woman swore Alexander showed up outside a memorial service and asked people for IDs. Another woman said he detained her and her husband when they returned home from church. Parties dwindled. Invite lists shrank. People began to move away, to Kerrville and San Antonio, and Alexander’s reputation reached as far as La Ceja, a village in the mountains of central Mexico, where an elderly resident said he and his neighbors were familiar with the Texas town’s police. “El Charger negro,” he said, with a knowing nod. He estimated that some 20 or 30 people in the village were recent deportees from Ingram.
Alexander’s fortunes seemed to rise as the Martinez family’s fell. With her husband gone, Joanna Martinez couldn’t afford payments on the trailer they shared. She and their infant and her 4-year-old son moved back into her childhood bedroom in her mother’s crowded home, where several relatives and their children also lived. She tried to stay connected with her husband, Macias, via WhatsApp calls while working as much as she could as a house cleaner to keep afloat. “I can’t lock myself up in my room and just cry,” Martinez says.
The investigation into whether Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., married her brother in an alleged immigration fraud scheme in 2009 began under former President Barack Obama in 2016, Fox News Digital has confirmed.
A U.S. Attorney in Minnesota, appointed by then-President Joe Biden, eventually shut down the probe in 2021, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital.
Now, the issue has been thrust back into the spotlight as part of a new federal investigation into the Somali-born congresswoman, part of which centers on whether she or her father committed immigration fraud on her application to become a U.S. citizen.
REP ILHAN OMAR'S IMMIGRATION HISTORY FACES NEW SCRUTINY AS FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS SUBPOENA RELATIVES
Sources previously told Fox News Digital that Omar's "real name" is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. In a federal court document, she was called "Ilhan Omar Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Omar."
In 2009, Omar, then a U.S. citizen, legally married a man with that surname, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. The pair officially split in 2017.
The New York Times first reported that Obama's FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began the probe in the summer of 2016, and that officials "found some evidence that [the marriage] was fraudulent." The Times reported that the investigation concluded when officials decided the potential felony crime was past the statute of limitations.
OMAR’S DELETED TWEET COULD GIVE CLUE ON ALLEGED MARRIAGE TO HER BROTHER
Despite his own administration's investigation into Omar at the time she was running for the Minnesota House, Obama condemned the renewed probe, which included a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) raid on her Washington, D.C. home on Oct. 12. Federal authorities confiscated her passport, personal phone and computer in the raid.
"It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say," Obama wrote in an X post after the raid earlier this month. "But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota."
OBAMA'S LENGTHY REACTION TO OMAR INVESTIGATION TRIGGERS INSTANT BACKLASH: 'SPARE ME'
Obama claimed the Trump administration was targeting Omar because she is a vocal critic of the current president.
"Think about that," Obama said in the post. "The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president."
Omar has frequently called the allegations that she married her brother a conspiracy theory promulgated by the political right, including in a statement to Fox News Digital regarding the new investigation last week.
"Rep. Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied this baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory," an Omar spokesperson said. "This is a desperate political smear designed to distract from Trump’s failed presidency and two years of Republican failure in Congress. And it’s disgraceful that the media continues to give this lie oxygen."
The same spokesperson this morning doubled down on the claim that the current investigation is a "political vendetta against one of Trump's most visible critics," and said that the 2016 investigation was "rejected for a lack of evidence," contrary to the New York Times report that it was closed due to the statute of limitations.
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Fox News Digital reached out to an Obama spokesperson and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
The New York Times admits the Obama DOJ “found some evidence” Rep. llhan Omar (D-MN) married her brother so he could obtain a green card.
The post Nolte: NY Times Admits Obama DOJ Found Evidence of Ilhan Omar’s Suspected ‘Sham Marriage’ appeared first on Breitbart.
On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) stated that “we need to reform ICE. I think we need to get rid of a bunch of rogue agents. But there are a lot of good agents that
The post Dem Rep. Gonzalez: ‘Need to Get Rid of a Bunch of’ ‘Rogue’ ICE Agents appeared first on Breitbart.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the arrests of more than a dozen foreign nationals, including illegal aliens, who are accused of illegally voting in United States elections, in addition to other crimes.
The post DHS Announces Arrests of Criminal Foreign Nationals Accused of Voting in U.S. Elections appeared first on Breitbart.
"60 Minutes" was told weeks before the segment aired that a deported Malian husband and father, who was the subject of a sympathetic report on Sunday, claimed to have been gay in his asylum application, Fox News Digital confirmed.
Fox News previously obtained records showing Moussa Diawara alleged in his 2009 asylum application that he would face persecution if he were sent back to Mali due to his sexuality.
The "60 Minutes" segment depicted an anguished father deported to Africa with his wife and two children still living in the U.S. and noted that a U.S. judge said Diawara could be persecuted, pointing to fears over converting to Christianity. However, the show did not mention that Diawara’s application contradicted his family man narrative and the reason why he claimed he couldn’t return to his native country was because of his sexual orientation.
Fox News Digital has since obtained a copy of an email sent to CBS News by the Department of Homeland Security informing the network about Diawara's claim, which was first reported by The New York Post.
The email was sent Oct. 6, nearly three weeks before Sunday's segment aired.
A spokesperson for CBS News declined to comment.
FROM THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP TO KAMALA HARRIS EDITS: THE LONG HISTORY OF '60 MINUTES' CONTROVERSIES
On his 2009 asylum application, Diawara said he feared for his life as a gay man if he was forced to return to Mali.
"My asylum application is based upon ground of well-founded past persecution and an undisputable fear of life-threatening [sic] to my person if I were to return to my country Mali. In fact, I had experienced extreme punishment and persecution based on the ground of my sexual orientation," Diawara wrote in his asylum application.
"Since I came to the USA I had the possibilities [sic] to express my feelings to men without any embarrassment no reserve. Indeed, my tribal group and community as a whole had reported my sexual orientation to my family back home because such behavior is unwelcome in my society," he continued. "My life is hence worth threatened if I have to go back to my country because I could be executed either by the Islamic group or the community."
CBS SHOOTS DOWN 'POLITICAL INTERFERENCE' CLAIMS IN AFTERMATH OF '60 MINUTES' FIRINGS
DHS General Counsel James Percival, who was interviewed in the "60 Minutes" segment, took to social media after it aired, saying the newsmagazine made Diawara the "poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations."
"His claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is ‘gay,’ just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is," Percival wrote.
The segment put a spotlight on Diawara, who was living in the U.S. for 25 years without a criminal record, overstaying his tourist visa and getting nabbed by ICE and sent to Ghana, which ultimately sent him to his home country of Mali. According to the report, Diawara has since fled to an undisclosed African country.
During the segment, Percival noted there is "a lot of fraud" in the immigration system and many "fear claims" are untrue.
A "60 Minutes" insider previously defended the integrity of the report, pointing to how Diawara's claim that "part of the reason he didn't feel safe" was for religious reasons did make the broadcast. According to the report, he had converted to Christianity, and Mali is a Muslim-majority nation.
"The broadcast acknowledged DHS questioned the credibility of Moussa Diawara's fear of persecution, which they're claiming now on social media," the insider told Fox News Digital.
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Fox News' Brian Flood and Brooke Taylor contributed to this report.
Council libraries have distributed pro-migrant bookmarks that praise the work ethic of refugees and say they aim to help people "embrace new cultures" as the area will "naturally become more diverse".
The post Council Libraries Share Pro-Migration Bookmarks appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
A plurality of Americans recognize that companies employ migrants to cut Americans' wages, says a pro-migration survey funded by the Unite Here! union.
The post Poll: Plurality Says Migrants Help CEOs to ‘Hold Wages Down’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Assume the following: A person unlawfully entered the United States 20 years ago and has since started a business and raised U.S.-citizen children, has no criminal record, and has never been found to be dangerous. Should federal immigration law treat that person the same way it treats someone who was just apprehended at the border? Should the law treat that person as if Congress had specifically made them subject to mandatory detention for criminal or terrorism-related conduct?
Under the Trump administration, the answer is yes. President Donald Trump's current policy treats noncitizens who entered without lawful admission as subject to mandatory detention without bond throughout removal proceedings, even if they have lived in the United States for decades and have no criminal record. The executive branch adopted that position in new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guidance issued in July 2025, reversing its prior interpretation of the same detention law.
The U.S. Supreme Court will now decide whether Congress actually required the result Trump is seeking. On October 1, the justices agreed to hear the case of Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha. Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a Brazilian national, entered the United States without inspection around 2005. He later applied for asylum, received work authorization, and eventually bought a home. He operates a small construction business and lives with his wife and two U.S.-citizen children. He has no criminal record. But immigration officers still arrested him while he was driving to work in Massachusetts in September 2025.
After Cunha challenged his detention, a federal court ordered a bond hearing and an immigration judge found that he posed neither a danger nor a flight risk and therefore released him on bond while his case proceeded. The Trump administration then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and lost. Now the Supreme Court will have the final word.
The Supreme Court is not deciding whether Cunha may ultimately remain in the country. Instead, it is deciding the narrower question of whether the Immigration and Nationality Act mandates detention pending removal proceedings for someone like Cunha who is present in the United States without having been lawfully admitted.
The legal dispute turns on two phrases in one section of this federal immigration law. According to Section 1225, a noncitizen present in the United States who has not been legally admitted is considered an "applicant for admission." But when Congress imposed mandatory detention later in that same section, it used additional language, applying it to an applicant for admission who is "seeking admission."
That distinction may sound technical and trivial, but its consequences are enormous. If every statutory "applicant for admission" is automatically still "seeking admission," then the government can treat someone who crossed the border 20 years ago the same as someone arriving today and keep them in jail without the possibility of bond. If the two phrases mean two different things, however, then Cunha and others like him are generally eligible for a bond hearing under Section 1226, which permits both detention and release on bond or conditional parole.
The Trump administration argues that if Congress has deemed someone an applicant for admission, that person must necessarily still be seeking the admission for which they are considered an applicant. But the administration's argument asks the Court to stretch federal law beyond its reasonable limits. Congress expressly deemed certain people "applicants for admission." It did not separately deem them to be "seeking admission."
This case, in short, is about textualism. And as the late Justice Antonin Scalia and his co-author Bryan Garner argue in their book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, one of the key principles of textualism is that "a material variation in terms suggests a variation in meaning." When Congress uses different words in closely related provisions, in other words, courts should hesitate before assuming that the different words mean the exact same thing.
In ordinary English, it is certainly difficult to describe a man driving from home to work after living in the United States for over two decades as presently "seeking admission." He is not seeking to enter the U.S.; he already entered decades earlier. The 2nd Circuit's unanimous opinion—written by Judge Joseph Bianco, a Trump appointee—reached this conclusion, holding that "seeking admission" describes ongoing activity rather than merely a retained statutory status.
Meanwhile, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the administration's position in a similar case, Judge Dana Douglas, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, invoked the same Scalia-Garner textualist principles in dissent.
The legal dispute, therefore, does not follow neat partisan lines. Judges from different ideological backgrounds have both concluded that the administration's reading goes beyond the words that Congress wrote.
The broader statutory structure also supports that conclusion. Congress has long required mandatory detention in Section 1226 for specified criminal and terrorism-related grounds. And the Laken Riley Act of 2025 expanded those mandatory-detention categories. But if nearly everyone who ever illegally entered the country is already subject to mandatory detention, as the administration asserts, then all of those carefully drawn separate categories for mandatory detention suddenly become superfluous and pointless for noncitizens who illegally entered the country, an objection that Douglas raised in dissent.
History also clarifies the point. For nearly 30 years, across five presidential administrations (including Trump's first), the government generally treated people like Cunha as potentially eligible for bond. Trump only reversed course in July 2025. The 2nd Circuit thus accurately described the earlier interpretation as a well-established executive branch practice.
Of course, past executive practice cannot override clear statutory language. But if Congress really did mandate a sweeping detention regime in 1996, it is striking that every presidential administration since then has operated under a totally different understanding.
None of this gives Cunha lawful immigration status. Nor does it guarantee his release or prevent the government from deporting him. Rather, it allows an immigration judge to ask a basic question: Is keeping this particular person in jail actually necessary while his case proceeds?
The administration may believe mandatory detention makes immigration enforcement faster or more effective. And Congress is free to adopt that policy if it chooses to do so. But Congress does have to choose it first.
Protecting the constitutional separation of powers is one of textualism's most important functions. Textualism is often described as a conservative method of statutory interpretation. But its deeper value is constitutional. It forces both courts and presidents to follow the law Congress actually passed. Sometimes that produces harsher results. Sometimes it produces more humane ones. But either way, it restrains the executive and judicial branches from exceeding their proper spheres.
Whether mandatory detention would accelerate Trump's deportation program is a question of policy. Whether it is just is a question of ethics. Whether Congress authorized it is a question of law.
In Cunha, the best textualist reading is that Congress preserved the possibility of bond and left room for an immigration judge to determine whether detention is necessary. That textualism, liberty, and compassion point to the same result is not the reason to reach it. In this case, however, it is a welcome coincidence.
The post Trump's Mandatory Immigration Detention Policy Fails the Textualist Test appeared first on Reason Magazine.
© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
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