How Trump can deport 1 million illegal aliens in 2026



When Donald Trump accepted the GOP’s nomination for president in 2024, he stated that “the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” It was music to the ears of tens of millions of Americans who lived through the Biden border invasion.

Finally, a political leader had the gumption to say, “Enough is enough,” and proclaim that it is time for millions of illegal aliens to go home.

Unfortunately, the second Trump administration has not lived up to the promises made in that July 2024 speech in Milwaukee. It has instead prioritized removing the worst criminal illegal aliens, prioritizing quality over quantity. But this is a misguided attempt to assuage the concerns of a radical — but sizeable — number of Americans who do not believe in borders or in sovereignty.

Carrying out a true mass deportation operation requires immense resources to screen millions of cases, locate and apprehend individuals, detain them, and transport aliens out of the country.

The American public has witnessed widespread obstruction of immigration enforcement, record violence targeting ICE agents, and significant resistance by state and local governments in Democrat strongholds. Democratic Party elected officials and their left-wing base are very clear that the tolerable number of deportations is zero.

But what about the tens of millions of Americans who do support President Trump’s promised deportation agenda?

The administration’s prioritization of the “worst first” has unintentionally created a de facto enforcement amnesty for aliens unlawfully present in the United States who have not committed a subsequent crime. DHS data indicates that in 2025, ICE deported fewer than 350,000 illegal aliens. This is not the mass deportation agenda the American people voted for.

President Trump deserves credit for securing the southwest border and all but stopping the flow of illegal aliens into the United States. But much more needs to be done on interior enforcement to effectuate an actual mass deportation agenda.

Enter the Mass Deportation Coalition. This coalition was organized in February 2026 in response to political, operational, legal, and physical attacks on deportation operations. Our purpose is to support President Trump’s signature campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

The Mass Deportation Coalition is composed of immigration law and policy experts, former senior and rank-and-file law enforcement officials, advocates, and supporters of immigration enforcement. We are growing and regularly adding new members to the coalition.

Last week, the coalition published its Playbook, a comprehensive menu of policy, operational, and logistical options that would allow the Trump administration to carry out a minimum of 1 million deportations in 2026. The coalition has five key principles.

1) Moving from the phase I “worst of the worst” interior enforcement prioritization to phase II mass deportations, with a focus on populations that are easier to remove, such as deportable aliens with final orders of removal and visa overstays.

2) Significantly ramping up worksite enforcement.

3) Utilizing a whole-of-government approach (including tax and banking tools) to leverage existing authorities in multiple federal agencies to increase the number of removals and self-deportations.

4) Providing the American public with complete data transparency on immigration numbers.

5) Coming to a shared understanding of what counts as a deportation.

The playbook makes policy and operational suggestions based on the assumption that Congress will not change U.S. immigration laws. For decades, Congress has been unable — or unwilling — to pass meaningful legislation to address the immigration crisis in America, and it would be dishonest to assume it could do so in today’s political climate.

RELATED: Does the DHS meme strategy actually work?

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The coalition’s playbook is drawn from combined decades of experience in federal law enforcement, military logistics, government contracting, and large-scale transportation operations.

Carrying out a true mass deportation operation requires immense resources to screen millions of cases, locate and apprehend individuals, detain them, and transport aliens out of the country within the time frame this campaign demands.

The centerpiece for accomplishing this goal is an aggressive worksite enforcement campaign. President Trump frequently cites the successful interior enforcement operations of the Eisenhower administration as a model for his mass deportation agenda.

That administration aggressively targeted worksites that employed illegal aliens, ultimately removing a sizeable percentage of illegal aliens then living in the United States.

Conservative estimates suggest there are between 10.8 and 11.1 million illegal aliens currently working in the United States. For decades, ICE worksite arrests of illegal aliens have been in the hundreds or low thousands of individuals annually.

Historically, worksite operations have produced arrests that were not followed by timely deportation, undermining both deterrence and public confidence.

Ramping up worksite enforcement would accomplish multiple goals simultaneously. First, it would curtail the main incentive of illegal immigration by foreclosing economic opportunity for illegal aliens.

Second, robust worksite enforcement accompanied by an aggressive employer sanctions program would send a message to employers who employ illegal labor that there are significant consequences for violating the law.

Finally, since it is well known which industries employ illegal labor, worksite enforcement is an operationally low-risk use of resources, likely leading to a high number of interior removals.

Other playbook recommendations include significantly expanding immigration detention, reforming and streamlining asylum cases, de-banking illegal aliens, modernizing and standardizing data collection, and aggressively prosecuting lawbreaking and fighting back against left-wing lawfare.

RELATED: The Dignidad Act is a complete betrayal of Republican voters

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Mass deportations and major elements of the playbook are immensely popular with the American people. Members of the coalition commissioned a poll of likely voters and found widespread support (66%) for deporting migrants who enter the country illegally. The poll also found overwhelming support for the idea that the United States has an obligation to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress.

A similar number of Americans support aggressive immigration operational tools, including enhanced worksite enforcement, penalizing employers who hire illegal labor, the widespread use of E-Verify, and regular audits of businesses that knowingly employ illegal labor.

As we approach our country’s 250th birthday, the central question for American citizens is whether they want to preserve America for Americans, with fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.

Decades of mass illegal migration have upended labor markets, caused cultural and civil fragmentation, overwhelmed local schools and hospitals, and brought crime and disorder to American communities.

President Trump promised mass deportations to the American people. The Mass Deportation Coalition Playbook provides the road map for the his administration to fulfill its core campaign promise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

Does the DHS meme strategy actually work?



Growing up, Republicans treated deportations like a topic that required careful handling. Under presidents such as George W. Bush, the language was softened, the messaging was restrained, and the emphasis was placed on policy rather than persuasion. The assumption was that if the argument was sound, the public would eventually come around to it.

That assumption turned out to be wrong.

The goal is not to explain policy in a traditional sense, but to normalize it through repetition, familiarity, and shareability.

Consider the sympathetic yet stern immigration pivots Republicans such as former Texas Governor Rick Perry had during the 2012 GOP primary. Back then, the media and liberal pundits painted Perry as hardcore and extremely right-wing. Compared to Republicans in office now, however, he would be considered passive and extremely soft on the issue.

The assumption that the independent and flip-voter public would buy in to the GOP stance was not because the policy case for enforcement lacked merit, but because the conversation was happening somewhere else entirely.

Opinions were not being decided based on press briefings or white papers. They were being shaped on TV screens, social media feeds, comment sections, and viral content ecosystems where tone and format mattered as much as the substance.

Jeremy Knauff, founder of the PR firm Spartan Media, puts it this way:

Public relations plays a far larger role in policy than most people realize. It’s not enough just to educate the public any more — today, lawmakers need to engage in a more direct effort to influence public perception. The government has always done this to some degree, but the left has been significantly more active and effective in this regard. But now we’re starting to see a measurable shift from the right.

What we are seeing now from the Department of Homeland Security’s social media team represents a break from that old model. Simply put, they’re playing to win.

The kids want memes

The DHS, along with the White House and ICE, has been using memes, viral audio, and internet-native content to promote deportation policy and immigration enforcement. This includes Christmas-themed deportation memes, TikTok-style videos set to trending music, and stylized content designed to travel well beyond traditional government channels.

Keep in mind that Millennials (roughly ages 27-42) spend an average of nearly three hours per day, or approximately 17 to 20+ hours per week, on social media.

These aren’t your father’s government employees figuring these things out on the fly, looking sloppy and rushed. The content they’re putting out isn’t just quality; it is the type of content you would see on the feeds of the most viral social media content creators. They’re in the major leagues of viral political content.

One viral video posted by the DHS, captioned 'Gotta Catch ‘Em All,' showed ICE agents blowing in doors and handcuffing and leading away undocumented immigrants to the theme song from the "Pokemon" cartoon. It certainly tugged on Millennial heartstrings, because that clip alone has been viewed 75.5 million times.

The backlash has been as immediate and intense as you would expect. Critics say this approach is dehumanizing, that it trivializes serious issues, and that it reflects a level of insensitivity that should not be associated with government communications.

CNN has gone so far as to claim that "underlining" DHS recruitment posters "are undertones that historians and experts in political communication say are alarmingly nationalist — and fraught with appeals to a specifically White [sic] and Christian national identity.”

Supporters see it as effective and long overdue after years of what they view as overly cautious messaging from the right.

RELATED: The case against ‘principled conservatism’

Erhui1979/Getty Images

Focusing only on whether the memes are appropriate misses the larger point. What is happening here is not primarily about humor or tone; it is about control over how the issue is framed and where the framing takes place.

Knauff says, “The people who are criticizing this approach are only doing so because they can see that it’s effective. And their complaints are disingenuous because it’s the exact same thing they’ve been doing for decades.”

The cool kids in control

For the better part of the last decade, conservatives did not lose the immigration argument on substance. They lost it on distribution. They had policies and data on their side, but they failed to communicate those ideas in the environments where younger voters and low-information audiences were actually forming opinions.

Put plainly, they were boring and unwilling to defend their position with the same passion as liberals.

The polling makes the gap impossible to ignore. Multiple 2026 surveys show that younger Americans are far less supportive of Trump’s immigration policies than older voters, especially Boomers who largely consume cable news.

A February PBS/NPR/Marist poll found that just 18% of voters under 30 approved of the administration's approach to deportations, while 69% disapproved. A CBS/YouGov survey in mid-January similarly found that 60% of respondents under 30 believed Trump was doing “too much” to deport illegal aliens.

This issue isn’t cut and dry. Trump was delivered a mandate in 2024, but now that optics are changing, the question is whether to keep the foot on the pedal or not.

The picture is clear though: Younger voters are not instinctively aligned with the administration’s immigration agenda, even if they support individual enforcement measures in isolation. So what to do? Keep the memes coming.

The current strategy appears to be an attempt to close that gap by meeting the audience where it already is. Instead of trying to pull younger users into formal policy discussions, the DHS is embedding its messaging inside the formats the youth consume on a daily basis.

The goal is not to explain policy in a traditional sense, but to normalize it through repetition, familiarity, and shareability.

Propaganda? Only call it that if it's boring.

RELATED: Why I support ICE as the son of an immigrant

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

It’s all about virality

What we’re seeing represents a significant shift in how the government communicates. In the past, agencies relied on press releases, official statements, and media intermediaries to convey their message carefully and cautiously. Now, the message is being delivered directly to the public in the same formats used by influencers, creators, and online communities.

The distinction between political communication and internet culture is becoming increasingly blurred.

There are clear risks to this approach. When complex policies are reduced to highly shareable clips, the conversation can quickly become polarized.

At the same time, the old model was not getting the job done. Staffers with communications degrees did not win over younger audiences, did not reshape cultural perception, and did not prevent immigration from becoming one of the most emotionally charged issues in our society today.

Backtracking to a more restrained style of messaging would not solve anything. It would only surrender the digital battlefield once again.

What makes this moment notable is not just the content itself, but what it signals about the future of political communication. The DHS is operating less like a government agency and more like a savvy political campaign, prioritizing reach, engagement, and narrative control over neutrality.

Weapons of meme destruction

The DHS’ use of memes is an indication that the rules of engagement have shifted. Political power is no longer exercised solely through policy decisions or legislative victories, but through the ability to shape perception at scale.

Republicans spent years trying to win arguments in spaces that fewer and fewer people were paying attention to. Now, they appear to be adapting to the environment as it actually exists. Whether that approach proves sustainable or backfires politically remains to be seen.

Knauff explains it like this:

I believe this strategy will not only continue to be effective, but also become more effective as time goes on. Right now, it’s novel and exciting, but as the new car smell wears off, the impact will remain — if we have the discipline to stick with the mission. Public relations requires time to create the desired outcome. It’s not something you can rush. The left had decades to slowly leverage this strategy, so the right needs to be just as patient in their execution.

If the GOP maintains its majority in Congress, Republicans might joke about how the memes saved them. If they lose, expect the old guard to say the memes were too mean.

What is clear is that the next phase of political communications will not be conveyed primarily through speeches, press conferences, or media panels. It will be fought through content and the side that understands that reality will have a decisive advantage.

May the side with the best memes win.

Trump announces plan to pay DHS workers amid ongoing Democrat shutdown



President Donald Trump has announced plans to issue paychecks to Department of Homeland Security employees amid the ongoing partial shutdown, which has left Transportation Security Administration officers working without pay for weeks and jammed up airport security lines nationwide.

TSA agents’ last full paycheck was on Feb. 14. Nearly 500 workers have quit since the shutdown started, and the callout rate reached 11.83% as of March 26, CNN reported.

'Defund-the-police Democrats have kept @DHSgov closed in an attempt to slow down ICE’s efforts to remove murderers, rapists.'

Trump previously directed the DHS to work with the Office of Management and Budget “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law.”

As a result of Trump’s directive, on March 30, many TSA workers received at least part of their overdue pay after missing two full paychecks.

On Thursday, Trump announced additional steps to ensure all DHS employees receive their wages.

“Republicans are UNIFIED, and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement Officers,” Trump wrote in a post on social media.

RELATED: Senate approves DHS funding — but there's a catch

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Trump criticized Democrats for being “fully and 100% committed to the Radical Left Policy of Open Borders and Zero Immigration Enforcement” that has allowed unvetted “Murderers and Criminals of all types” into the United States. He added that he hopes their actions will “cost them dearly in the Midterms!”

The president stated that he would take executive action to address the ongoing issue.

“I will soon sign an order to pay ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security,” Trump wrote. “Their families have suffered far too long at the hands of the Extreme Liberal ‘Leaders,’ Cryin’ Chuck Schumer and Hakeem ‘High Tax’ Jeffries.”

Trump declared that “help is on the way for our Brave and Patriotic Public Servants who have continued to work hard, and do their part to protect and defend our Country.”

RELATED: Delta revokes major travel perk for Congress amid ongoing DHS shutdown

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DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin thanked the president for his latest announcement.

“For over a month, the defund-the-police Democrats have kept @DHSgov closed in an attempt to slow down ICE’s efforts to remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists from our country and open our borders. Time and time again the Democrats have prioritized violent illegal aliens over American citizens,” Mullin wrote.

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Mullin inherits a mess at DHS. Here’s how he can still save Trump’s legacy.



A few weeks ago, I wrote: “Everyone in America has an opinion on what has gone right or wrong at the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.” I added — a little too coyly — that I had “a pretty good sense of what happened.”

That restraint served a purpose at the time. It also left too much unsaid.

The mass deportation agenda remains central to Trump’s legacy. Markwayne Mullin has a chance to deliver what the last year only promised. We’re counting on him.

Now that President Trump has removed Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary and nominated Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace her, it’s worth putting real detail behind the diagnosis. Not to salt the wound, but to fix what needs fixing. Trump’s signature promise — “the largest deportation operation in American history” — matters too much for anyone to pretend the last year went smoothly.

Start with the numbers. They’re too low to fulfill the promise.

ICE stopped releasing deportation data. The congressionally mandated annual report still hasn’t arrived. In the vacuum, we’ve been left with third-party estimates — the New York Times put removals at about 230,000 in 2025 — and with shifting DHS press-shop claims that bounce between hundreds of thousands and “millions.” The Times figure sits closer to reality than the chest-thumping.

Instead of mass deportations, we got mass communications.

The department’s strategy leaned heavily on television ads, memes, charged language, and inflated-sounding claims meant to create the impression that deportations were happening at historic scale. The result landed in the worst possible place: It antagonized the left and the media without delivering results big enough to justify the noise. I don’t lose sleep over angry leftists. I do care when the administration absorbs political heat without gaining operational ground.

Trump World isn’t immune to polling, media narratives, and the feedback loop they create. A loud rollout without the matching numbers gave activists, consultants, and industry a pretext to flood weak-kneed Republican offices on Capitol Hill. Those calls turned into pressure on the administration. The incentive became delay, and delay followed.

Then came the optics problem.

Turning the DHS secretary role into a traveling cosplay routine didn’t land, and it didn’t project command. Instead, it projected awkwardness — and in a department built for seriousness, that matters.

The larger issue was always fit. Excitement around Trump’s cabinet picks made people charitable, and that’s understandable. The president earned that deference. But putting Noem in charge of DHS — the department most central to the core thesis of Trump’s campaign — never quite made sense. People in the enforcement world tried to build working relationships. Many got brushed off. Meanwhile, operational leaders inside DHS did what Noem didn’t: They cultivated the advocates who could help the mission move.

RELATED: ‘Phase one’ was quality control. ‘Phase two’ needs to be quantity control.

Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images

The divide became public. Post-Minneapolis, Tom Homan’s profile rose quickly as Trump tapped him to manage the response. Inside DHS, the camps had already formed. Anyone in Washington with a foot in the enforcement world knew who was on “Team Kristi and Corey [Lewandowski]” and who wasn’t. Leaks followed. Finger-pointing followed. Journalists got fed a steady diet of dysfunction. Morale dropped as firings and reassignments became the department’s background music.

What drove most of the internal warfare was money — specifically, contracts — and the scramble to control tens of billions authorized through the One Big Beautiful Bill.

DHS adopted a policy requiring Noem personally to review and sign off on contracts over $100,000. Combined with stripping authority from agency heads, that amounted to centralized control in the secretary’s office.

In practice, the authority filtered through a small circle and ran through Corey Lewandowski in a “special government employee” capacity. The backlog became delay, and the delays hit the mission: Border wall contracts sat for months while steel prices rose. Detention capacity grew slowly because leadership chased flashy, low-capacity facilities with catchy names — Cornhusker Clink, Speedway Slammer, Louisiana Lockup — announced with social media fanfare but built at higher cost, higher litigation risk, and lower throughput than traditional providers.

It looked like a communications strategy pretending to be a detention strategy.

Personnel choices compounded the problem. Noem brought in people with little operational or policy experience in immigration enforcement. Her decision to install a late-20s former Wildlife and Fisheries official as deputy ICE director raised eyebrows. Outside the formal chain of command, an equally inexperienced cast appeared in spaces normally reserved for officials who have spent years in homeland security. Over time, allegations of self-dealing spread — and the pattern made it harder to dismiss them as rumor.

The best example was the $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured Noem. Reports of unusual processes and favored vendors circulated. When lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — pressed for answers, Noem did little to restore confidence. Given the broader self-promotion pattern, any benefit of the doubt evaporated.

Then came the hearings. They were brutal.

RELATED: Memo to Trump: Stop negotiating and ramp up deportations

Photo by Sean Bascom/Anadolu via Getty Images

Before both the House and the Senate, Noem failed to convince members that she could lead the department, and she struggled to answer accusations of scandal and self-dealing. But the fatal error came when she violated the one rule for any Cabinet witness: Don’t drag the president into your mess.

Under questioning from Sen. John Kennedy about the ad campaign, Noem told him the president personally approved the spending. Kennedy looked stunned. Trump later denied it — and the claim never made much sense in the first place. That answer ended whatever internal support remained. In the middle of a sudden war, it still managed to blow up the news cycle. With few defenders inside the building or outside it, the wagons never circled.

So what now?

Markwayne Mullin has a massive job ahead of him. He inherits some real wins — especially the restored control of the southern border — but he also inherits a department bruised by internal warfare, low output numbers, and credibility damage.

A few suggestions, offered plainly:

First, “commas, not drama.” Let the mission speak louder than the messaging. Raise the deportation numbers. If the numbers move, everything else gets easier.

Second, cauterize the past. If Mullin doesn’t create distance from what happened before, he’ll spend the next year answering for it — including under subpoena if Democrats take the House.

Third, build a firewall through oversight. Let Trump-appointed Inspector General Joseph Cuffari review the controversies. Put the facts on paper, separate the department from the personalities, and move forward. Mullin needs the ability to say, credibly, that he’s fixing the mission, not protecting a mess he didn’t create.

Fourth, trust the serious people already inside DHS. The department has highly capable operators. Back them. Empower them. Leadership requires followers, and followers don’t materialize through threats, leaks, and infighting.

The mass deportation agenda remains central to Trump’s legacy. Mullin has a chance to deliver what the last year only promised.

We’re counting on him.

Trump Says He’ll Do ‘Right Thing’ In Iran No Matter The Polls. Let’s See The Same Approach To Deportations

The mass deportation of illegal immigrants is every bit as righteous and 'the right thing' to do as Trump claims bombing Iran is.

Nonbinary suspect allegedly opens fire on Border Patrol agent — incident eerily similar to last year's fatal shooting



A suspect who reportedly identifies as nonbinary opened fire on a Border Patrol agent during a traffic stop in New Hampshire on Saturday. This latest incident occurred roughly one year after members of a radical trans cult allegedly shot and killed an agent in Vermont.

A criminal complaint reviewed by Blaze News revealed charges filed Tuesday against Blu Zeke Daly, also known as Cullan Zeke Daly, stemming from an incident that occurred on Feb. 21.

'This individual did have a previous Massachusetts driver's license that was denominated to be male and now has a New Hampshire driver's license, which is denominated to be female.'

An on-duty Border Patrol agent patrolling the border between the U.S. and Canada in Stewartstown, New Hampshire, encountered a 2012 Honda Civic at roughly 11:30 p.m., according to the affidavit of an FBI special agent.

Daly, the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle, provided the agent with a New Hampshire driver's license, according to the court document. After the officer asked whether Daly used any other names, Daly allegedly "immediately drove away," prompting the officer to follow at a distance.

The affidavit explained that Daly drove to the Pittsburg Port of Entry and stopped at a closed gate. When the officer exited his vehicle, Daly attempted to drive away.

While trying to turn the vehicle around, Daly allegedly fired a handgun at the officer.

The Border Patrol agent returned fire, shooting Daly and causing the suspect to lose control of the vehicle and hit a snowbank.

RELATED: The Zizians’ violent spiral: A trans group tied to killings across America

Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

A Smith & Wesson SD9 2.0 handgun and ammunition were reportedly recovered from Daly's vehicle.

The affidavit argued that there is probable cause to believe Daly committed the offenses of attempted murder of a federal officer and assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

WMUR reported that investigators have been unable to speak with Daly after the suspect was severely injured in the shooting.

The Department of Justice stated that Daly is currently receiving medical treatment at a New Hampshire hospital and is under guard.

U.S. Attorney Erin Creegan told WMUR that investigators have spoken with "people associated with the defendant."

Creegan called it "a miracle" that the Border Patrol agent was not injured.

RELATED: Vermont Border Patrol agent's fatal shooting tied to radical trans murder cult

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

"We're still investigating everything about this individual, including potential motivation and what could have prompted them to be in the border area at that time of night, and what would have caused them to fire at a Border Patrol agent executing routine duties," Creegan stated.

WMUR obtained court paperwork indicating that Daly was granted a name change in 2024, claiming to identify as nonbinary.

"This individual did have a previous Massachusetts driver's license that was denominated to be male and now has a New Hampshire driver's license, which is denominated to be female. So it's a reasonable assumption that the person has decided to transition their gender," Creegan added.

In January 2025, a Vermont Border Patrol agent was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop on Interstate 91. The suspects included two individuals tied to a group known as the Zizians, whose members mostly identify as transgender or nonbinary.

There are currently no confirmed connections between Daly and the Zizians.

"When you have something happen which targets a Border Patrol agent in that area, it would be a reasonable line of investigative inquiry to determine whether there is any connection to a broader network or group, because that does appear to exist — the allegations that did exist in the murder investigation involving the Border Patrol agent," Creegan told WMUR.

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CBP leader arrested: Supervisor allegedly hid and supported illegal alien 'niece' for over a year



A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was arrested and charged this week with allegedly harboring and transporting an illegal alien who prosecutors claim is his niece.

If convicted, Andres Wilkinson III — a CBP supervisory officer who has worked for the agency since May 2001 — faces up to a decade in prison and a potential $250,000 fine.

The CBP Office of Professional Responsibility received information from Homeland Security Investigations in April 2025 that Elva Edith Garcia-Vallejo, the daughter of a man whom Wilkinson listed as a brother in his 2023 background investigation, was allegedly living with the CBP officer at his residence in Laredo, Texas.

'Financially supported her by providing his credit cards, housing, and assistance with her financial obligations.'

Garcia-Vallejo's residency was problematic because she is a foreign national who lacks legal authorization to be in the homeland, which Wilkinson knew, federal prosecutors claimed.

According to the criminal complaint, Garcia-Vallejo entered the U.S. in August 2023 using her nonimmigrant visa number and secured a I-94 travel permit as a temporary visitor for pleasure/tourism to San Antonio — a permit that expired on Feb. 4, 2024.

North of the border, Garcia-Vallejo temporarily resided with her Laredo-based husband, Juan Rodriguez, who filed and then withdrew an immigration petition for her to become a legal resident.

RELATED: Tom Homan signals seismic shift in Minneapolis operation

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

In May 2025 — eight months after Garcia-Vallejo's last known entry into the U.S. using her B1/B2 nonimmigrant visa number and two months after her travel permit expired — the CBP OPR allegedly spotted Garcia-Vallejo and her daughter meet with Wilkinson outside the Harmony School of Science in Laredo.

Investigators followed the mother — who had no pending immigration applications — and daughter back to their dwelling place. At the time, Garcia-Vallejo was driving a Toyota Rav4 registered to Wilkinson, the criminal complaint said.

Over the next several months, CBP OPR conducted surveillance at the residence and allegedly observed Garcia-Vallejo come and go. They also claimed to have spotted her driving another vehicle registered to Wilkinson.

Finally, on Feb. 5, CBP OPR detained Garcia-Vallejo, who allegedly admitted that she had been living with her "uncle" since at least August 2024; that he had "financially supported her by providing his credit cards, housing, and assistance with her financial obligations, including medical debt, and by adding her to his vehicle insurance," said the complaint.

The supposed niece also admitted to allegedly crossing U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints in a vehicle driven by Wilkinson on multiple occasions.

The criminal complaint refers to Wilkinson in one instance as his supposed niece's "boyfriend" and the DOJ noted in its corresponding release that the two were "romantically involved," but neither document offered supporting details for that characterization of their relationship. While the complaint indicates Garcia-Vallejo is the daughter of the officer's brother, it did not specify whether they are indeed blood relatives.

CBP did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. Attorneys for Garcia-Vallejo and Wilkinson did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.

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Foreign-Born Member Of Congress Threatens Republicans With Prison When Democrats Regain Power

Foreign-born Rep. Shri Thanedar openly threatened to prosecute his political enemies this week — a reminder of what Democrats plan to do if they get power back. During a committee hearing Tuesday, Thanedar — struggling to speak English — threatened to prosecute Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott when President Donald Trump is out […]

Dem Demands For ICE To Obtain Judicial Warrants Could Bring Immigration Enforcement to a Near 'Halt,' Experts Say

Democrats’ demand for the Department of Homeland Security to "improve warrant procedures and standards" when arresting illegal immigrants could grind ICE's enforcement and removal operations to a near halt, immigration experts told the Washington Free Beacon.

The post Dem Demands For ICE To Obtain Judicial Warrants Could Bring Immigration Enforcement to a Near 'Halt,' Experts Say appeared first on .

Top Dem Uses Fabricated AI Photo Of ICE After Getting Caught Fabricating J6 Records

Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson used an AI-generated image of Alex Pretti’s death in which a federal immigration agent is missing his head during a Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday. Thompson is the same man who chaired the Jan. 6 Committee, which was also caught fabricating “evidence.” While Thompson was chiding Department of Homeland Security […]