Three of New York’s top elected officials appeared surprised Thursday when pressed about a House Judiciary Committee report alleging local prosecutors intentionally downgraded charges against noncitizens to protect them from deportation.
During a Manhattan press conference, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez faced questions regarding claims that city prosecutors altered or reduced charges to help noncitizens avoid convictions that would trigger removal.
"Did any of you order prosecutors to downgrade gun charges to keep illegal immigrants in the U. S., per the Judiciary Committee report?" a reporter asked.
Katz threw her hands up and shrugged in response, the New York Post reported.
"Our answer couldn’t help it," Katz said, before a speaker redirected the room, asking for "any other on-topic questions" and moving the news conference along.
"We charge any defendant with an illegal firearm with the highest possible charge under the law," a spokesperson for Katz's office told Fox News Digital.
The news conference exchange followed the release of a 22-page congressional report detailing widespread practices across New York City prosecutors' offices.
According to the document, Katz's office employs an "Immigration Specialist" to help negotiate "immigration-safe" plea deals and reduce past convictions.
The report also cited a 2022 memorandum from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg allegedly instructing prosecutors to seek dispositions that avoid deportation consequences for all misdemeanors and non-carceral felonies.
In addition, the report states that the office of Bronx DA Darcel Clark trains prosecutors in "Immigration-Conscious Plea Bargaining." That includes offering non-deportable offenses, avoiding aggravated felony charges and using hypothetical or "legally impossible" charges, such as "attempted reckless assault," which lack legal intent requirements.
Prosecutors were also allegedly instructed to omit critical details from official conviction records, such as gun involvement, domestic relationships or the age of minor victims, to prevent federal immigration authorities from using them as grounds for removal.
After the news conference, a spokesperson for Katz reached out to the Post to deny that leniency is ever shown in weapons cases.
"We charge any defendant with an illegal firearm with the highest possible charge under the law," the spokesperson said.
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.
"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.
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."
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.
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 hadspecifically 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 innew 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 justicesagreed 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 courtordered 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 underSection 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 theLaken 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 objectionthat 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 accuratelydescribed 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.
Several current and former law enforcement officials said an Obama-era investigation found some evidence that Ms. Omar had entered into a sham marriage with a man suspected of being her brother.
A recent Pew Research Center survey finds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is by far the most unpopular federal agency, easily outstripping even the widely despised IRS. According to Pew, 56% of Americans disapprove of ICE, compared to only 35% who approve. That's substantially worse than the IRS (which is disapproved by only a 46-37 margin).
Other recent surveys show growing public support for abolishing ICE. For example, a July YouGov poll indicates that 48% support abolition, compared to 40% who oppose it. Another survey, conducted in March of this year, showed a similar 50-39 margin in favor of abolition.
The fact that ICE is unpopular doesn't by itself prove the agency should be abolished. Having written a book and many other publications on widespread public ignorance about government policy, I would be the last to argue that popularity is a good metric of a policy's - or an agency's - merit. But, in this case, public opinion is right. As I explained in an August 2025 article in The Hill, and a follow-up piece for the Boston Globe, (non-paywalled version here), ICE's many abuses do indeed justify abolishing it. And the case for doing so has been strengthened by more recent events, such as the brutal killing of two US citizens in Minnesota.
As explained in my article in The Hill, abolishing ICE would not completely end interior deportations. But it would make them heavily dependent on the cooperation of state and local governments, thereby strengthening constitutional federalism and reducing incentives for abuse, at least to a significant degree.
In that article, I also explain how support for abolition be further bolstered by combining it with shifting ICE funds to state and local law enforcement. This undermines the principal political obstacle to abolition: the fear that getting rid of ICE would increase crime. Transferring the funds to state and local police would help defuse such concerns, win the support of law enforcement agencies, and foster genuine reductions in violent and property crimes; social science evidence shows that putting more police on the streets has that effect, whereas deportations do not.
Struggling to find steady work, many migrants who have arrived recently from Senegal have adapted with a relentless sidewalk hustle, sustaining their families through street vending.
Jaron Alexander, of Ingram, Texas, is one of more than 29,000 local police officers on the front lines of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.
In states like Florida, officers who hand out fishing citations and inspect produce have been deputized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expanding the reach of President Trump’s deportation campaign.
A canal in Dania Beach, Fla., in September. The canal was the site of an encounter that led Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers to contact federal immigration authorities.
In late August, President Donald Trump's administration carried out its first deportation flight to Haiti since the Supreme Court allowed it to end temporary protected status (TPS) for the embattled country in June. "There are no extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti that prevent Haitian nationals…from returning in safety," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed in its TPS revocation, describing a country the State Department warns Americans not to visit "for any reason."
The Trump administration has eroded America's humanitarian avenues, including TPS, which shields migrants from deportation. As a result, many noncitizens may become undocumented and could be forced to return to unsafe places.
The DHS secretary may grant TPS for countries facing armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other disruptive events. TPS designations last anywhere from six to 18 months and may be extended. The government has designated 29 countries for TPS since Congress established the status in 1990, offering protection to Salvadorans fleeing a 12-year civil war, Haitians fleeing the 2010 earthquake, and millions of others. The Biden administration repeatedly made and extended TPS designations, but the Trump administration has been working to terminate them.
There were 1.3 million people living in the U.S. under TPS in March 2025, according to the Pew Research Center. By August 2026, the Trump administration had ended TPS for 13 countries, leaving 1 million people without its protections. Once someone loses TPS, he reverts to his previous immigration status, which is often undocumented. Over 600,000 Venezuelans, 330,000 Haitians, 170,000 Salvadorans, and 100,000 Ukrainians had TPS protections as of March 2025, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Critics often point out that TPS isn't really "temporary." That's frequently true: Although some designations have been brief, others have been decades-long. Designations for Haiti, Syria, Honduras, Nepal, Somalia, and El Salvador have all lasted at least 14 years, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).
This says more about the U.S. immigration system and presidential power than it does about TPS. "In the absence of Congress acting to legalize what has become a long-settled unauthorized immigrant population, Republican and Democratic administrations, lawmakers, immigrants, and foreign governments had come to tacitly rely on TPS despite its nominally temporary nature," notes the MPI. Immigration policy is increasingly subject to presidential whims, and due to lengthy processing times and narrow qualifications, more durable immigration pathways such as asylum and refugee status are often inaccessible to eventual TPS beneficiaries. An immigrant-friendly president may use TPS designations to temporarily shield noncitizen populations, but an anti-immigrant successor can also revoke those protections. In either scenario, a TPS holder faces uncertainty.
In a rare bipartisan immigration effort last February, Reps. Laura Gillen (D–N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R–N.Y.) introduced a bill to extend TPS for Haiti for three years. It passed the House this April and has been languishing in the Senate since. Its future, too, is uncertain.
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