Here’s How Law Schools Are Training The Next Generation Of Immigration Activists
'connections to ISIS'
Our election security is in dire need of an upgrade
On April 25, President Trump renewed his call to end the Senate filibuster in connection with the SAVE America Act, warning in a post on Truth Social that failure to move the legislation through the upper chamber would be a disastrous political mistake for Republicans.
He is right about the stakes.
The SAVE America Act is the most important election reform bill in a generation. For those concerned about election integrity, the bill addresses a serious weakness in America’s voting system: In numerous states, noncitizens can illegally register to vote with alarming ease, while state officials often lack the tools needed to determine how widespread the problem is.
The current rules make it easy for noncitizens and citizens alike to illegally register to vote.
Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. The trouble is that the law contains far too few meaningful safeguards to make sure that rule is actually followed.
Across more than 40 states, voter registration standards are so weak that election officials often have no reliable way to determine whether a person seeking to register is, in fact, an American citizen.
Oregon is a useful example. On the state’s voter registration form, applicants are given three broad options for proving identity. They may provide a state-issued ID such as a driver’s license, the last four digits of a Social Security number, or one item from a lengthy list of other accepted documents.
That system is deeply flawed. In 19 states, Oregon among them, illegal immigrants may obtain a driver’s license or another form of driving authorization. As a result, possession of a driver’s license does not establish citizenship. At most, it might help officials later identify a questionable registration if the state conducts a serious review of its voter rolls.
But an applicant does not even have to rely on a state ID. A person can choose instead to submit the last four digits of a Social Security number.
At first glance, that might appear to be a strong barrier, since illegal immigrants are not lawfully issued Social Security numbers. But that assumption ignores a serious and long-running problem: Many illegal immigrants have obtained and used Social Security numbers, and millions more Social Security numbers have been stolen and made available on the dark web.
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Earlier this year, researchers released a report uncovering a large illegal online database that included “2.7 billion records with Social Security numbers.”
It’s hard to tell how many of the records involved the same Social Security number or a false number, but the total number of records is so high that it’s possible that this one report shows that the vast majority of Americans have already had their Social Security number illegally taken.
The weaknesses in the system go even further than SSNs. People can also register without submitting either a state ID or a Social Security number. They can instead rely on various substitute documents, none of which establish that the applicant is a U.S. citizen.
Oregon again shows how reckless these rules can be. Its voter registration form permits applicants to use non-government photo identification. It also allows documents such as a paycheck stub, utility bill, or bank statement.
Under these rules, a person with a mailing address and a cable or gas bill could be placed on the voter rolls without ever having to provide a reliable form of identification.
Pretending these rules ensure elections are secure is nothing short of delusional. The current rules make it easy for noncitizens and citizens alike to illegally register to vote.
For example, in many states, there are few safeguards to stop a parent from stealing the identity of his or her adult child to cast a second ballot. All the parent would need to register in the name of a child is the last four digits of his or her Social Security number, information that nearly all parents have.
Although voter registration rules are dangerously weak in much of the country, the protections that exist at the ballot box differ widely from state to state. In places with strong voter ID requirements and widespread in-person voting, it is much harder for noncitizens and citizen identity thieves to cast ballots. But many states have failed to adopt those basic safeguards.
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Twenty-four states require voters to present photo identification when voting in person, while 12 additional states require some form of identification but do not require that the ID include a photo.
Fourteen states impose no voter ID requirement for most voters. That list includes large states with millions of voters, such as California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
The danger is compounded by the rapid expansion of mail-in voting. Many states now permit no-excuse mail-in ballots, and eight states run their elections entirely by mail.
Furthermore, there is evidence that suggests the problem could be far greater than most are willing to admit. A 2023 survey by the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports found that more than 1 in 4 2020 mail-in voters admitted to engaging in at least one activity that likely constitutes a violation of election law.
Similarly, in 2024, Heartland and Rasmussen conducted another survey that showed 28% of likely voters said they would be willing to engage in at least one form of illegal voting activity to help their preferred candidate win that year’s presidential election.
The facts are disturbing and clear: Many Americans are willing to commit voter fraud, and not nearly enough protections are currently in place to prevent them from doing so.
The SAVE America Act would finally make America’s elections safe and secure again, but only if Republicans in Congress stop making excuses and use the power voters gave them to pass it.
The homicidal empathy of the left’s immigration policies
Fairfax, Virginia, has had four homicides so far in 2026. Three out of the four were committed by illegal immigrants.
One, the case of Abdul Jalloh, underlines everything wrong with the approach the left has taken to illegal immigration. Jalloh, who hails from Sierra Leone, illegally entered the United States in 2012 and proceeded to commit dozens of crimes, including assault, rape, and theft.
Eventually, he was caught by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and locked up for roughly two years while awaiting deportation. But in 2020, a judge ruled he could not be deported to his home country. He was free to go, as ICE could not find someone willing to take him.
It is a recognition that Aztec-style sacrifice of the innocent is not necessary to make the rain fall that has empowered nationalists across the West.
Six years later, he killed Stephanie Minter, a mom waiting at a bus stop.
In the aftermath, Minter’s family and Republicans turned their attention to Fairfax County’s District Attorney Steve Descano for having refused to work with ICE and for his extraordinarily light sentences for illegal immigrants, with many highlighting his statement, “If two people commit the same crime, but only one’s punishment includes deportation, that’s a perversion of justice.”
Descano has been called to testify in front of Congress in mid-May to explain his policies. During his hearing, a particular term may be mentioned: suicidal empathy.
Suicidal empathy is a term, popularized by Dr. Gad Saad, commonly used by the Western right as a catch-all for the liberal idea that the importation of potentially dangerous immigrants is a good thing because not doing so would be cruel.
If you do not support mass immigration, legal or otherwise, the thinking goes, you don’t have a heart.
Politicians have been espousing this sentiment for a long time. In 2014, Jeb Bush famously called illegal immigration “an act of love.”
This way of thinking has also dominated Western establishments for some time, even though concerns were obvious. Right from the start of the migration crisis in 2015, new arrivals were causing trouble. Assaults, rapes, and murders that would never have occurred started happening with frightening regularity. Now 11 years later, migrant rape stories have become a part of life there.
And yet, establishments resist any sort of mass deportation because the countries from which they come are “unsafe,” and it would be inhumane to send them there.
Conservatives do themselves and their societies a disservice by portraying this supposed empathy as “suicidal.” It’s not: It’s homicidal. “Suicidal empathy” invokes self-sacrifice. The people are so empathetic that they are willing to risk their lives — the chance that invading migrants may hurt or kill them — or destroy their society.
But this is not really true, as your average pro-migrant liberal is likely not risking his or her life. While migrants rape and kill at startlingly high rates — as just one example, in 2023, foreigners committed 100% of “serious sexual crimes” in Frankfurt, Germany — the odds of any liberal voter being the person who is targeted is relatively low.
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For example, rape in England and Wales was once consistently low. But right when mass migration happened, it skyrocketed, rising over 300%. In 2024, non-German suspects committed nearly 40% of all rapes, over 4,430 — roughly 12 women a day. But because there are millions of English and German women, the odds of any single person being attacked is small.
However, it is going to happen to someone. Those who oppose mass deportations understand this on some level. But they dismiss its importance, as they believe it is the only way for society to function.
Conservatives often misunderstand where this thinking comes from, chalking it up to a secret plot by a combination of George Soros, his son, and other Antifa funders. To be clear, these networks exist. But they are not why your average liberal is OK with mass rape and murder having arrived on their shores.
To understand why, one must look to history. Specifically, the Aztecs.
The Aztecs sacrificed tens of thousands of people, often cutting the hearts out of still-living individuals. This was done to please the gods and to ensure everything continued as necessary. Children, burned alive, were first tortured so that they would cry, as their tears were believed to satiate the needs of the rain god.
Today’s liberal internationalism — the driving force behind allowing mass migration — is based on the same principles. Mass migration allows for UberEATS and Door Dash. It lets you hire cheap labor. The women of "The View" asking conservatives who will clean their toilets are not representatives of the extreme left-wing: They are in lock-step with the ideology that has ruled the West for the past 30 years.
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In the minds of liberal internationalists, the UberEATS driver and the lawn mower have a better life because of their minimum wage (or lower) jobs. The Vietnamese child in the shoe factory is making 10 cents a day — five cents more than if he were working another job!
So it is with those who are sacrificed to migration. Yes, those few who are raped or killed are unfortunates, but they at least get to live in a melting pot after they’ve been sexually assaulted. As Piers Morgan recently argued, he gets to live in a society with tikka masala. (Morgan, of course, has paid security guards and is under no threat.)
It is a recognition that Aztec-style sacrifice of the innocent is not necessary to make the rain fall that has empowered nationalists across the West. Even when they have lost, in places like Poland or Hungary, their successors have mostly kept strict anti-migrant policies intact.
Abdul Jalloh should never have been in the United States, and deportation should have been easy. If Sierra Leone did not want him back, it should not have mattered.
The United States of America is the most powerful nation in the world. If Washington wants to return criminals to their home countries, it has the power to do so.
This homicidal empathy has real victims, and their numbers increase by the day. The right must not let its left-wing opposites get away with viewing themselves as suicidal. They are not risking their own lives. They are arguing for the homicide of others.
Exclusive: ICE Arrests Another Slew Of Criminal Aliens, Including Gang Member And Convicted Kidnapper
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday multiple Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests of violent criminals illegally present in the country, including a California gang member and individuals convicted of child cruelty, kidnapping, and robbery. “Just yesterday, ICE arrested criminal illegal aliens across the country convicted for despicable crimes, including a Fullerton Tokers Town gang member,” […]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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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