Weeks into the Democrat shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, Trump finally threatened to take matters into his own hands in the Transportation Security Administration lines on Saturday. And Trump gave an update on Monday, signaling his continued intention to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at major airports.
On Monday, Trump announced that he would accept a slight change in policy for the ICE agents covering for TSA workers, all while taking some jabs at his political opponents.
'I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc.'
"I am a BIG proponent of ICE wearing masks as they search for, and are forced to deal with, hardened criminals, many of whom were let into our Country by Sleepy Joe Biden and his wonderful 'Border Czar,' Kamala (she never even went to the Border!), through their absolutely INSANE Open Border Policy," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
RELATED: Trump threatens Democrats that he'll fix TSA himself — and it involves ICE
However, he then added: "I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc."
In the first year of the second Trump administration, opponents of ICE repeatedly called for the removal of face coverings for the ICE agents, arguing that masks allowed agents to act with relative impunity. Supporters of ICE argued that the masks were employed for the agents' own safety.
Trump said on Saturday that the ICE agents would "do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country."
Travelers have faced extremely long screening wait times as TSA workers continue to work without pay, if they show up at all. Many have been forced to get temporary jobs during the shutdown to make ends meet.
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Federal officers have been met with a range of resistance from protesters, most notably in blue sanctuary cities like Portland and Chicago. Now, however, the Department of Homeland Security has announced the implementation of new rules that should give officers an advantage as they continue to do their already dangerous jobs.
Early this week, the Department of Homeland Security updated its list of prohibited and restricted conduct on federal property, and those wearing face-coverings should take note.
Those rules will be enforced 'on federal property or in areas outside federal property, that affects, threatens, or endangers federal property or persons on the federal property.'
"Wearing a mask, hood, disguise, or device that conceals the identity of the wearer when attempting to avoid detection or identification while violating any federal, state, or local law, ordinance, or regulation" is forbidden, the rules say.
Those rules will be enforced "on federal property or in areas outside federal property, that affects, threatens, or endangers federal property or persons on the federal property," the rules state.
RELATED: 'Unleashed': Houston ICE agents complete another large-scale immigration raid
Investigative journalist Katie Daviscourt reported that this rule change is a "game changer" because it will give federal agents greater jurisdiction in making arrests at and near the federal facility in Portland, where local police previously had jurisdiction.
DHS officers at the Portland facility announced Wednesday that they had begun enforcing the new policy, Daviscourt said, though it was originally supposed to go into effect in January 2026.
Violation of the rules "can be a federal criminal offense punishable by incarceration up to 30 days and a $5,000.00 fine," DHS noted.
The greater latitude granted by this rule change may allow federal officers to operate more efficiently as they work to deport illegal aliens from America.
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Days before a deadly shooting at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was spouting off virulently anti-ICE political propaganda and demonizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“That’s happening in the United States of America. Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars, people disappearing, no due process, no oversight, zero accountability happening in the United States of America today,” Newsom said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“Bulls**t we’re being hyperbolic,” he continued. “If you’re a black and brown community, it’s here in this country. And so I’m deeply proud that I had the privilege of signing the nation’s first bill to address the issue of masking, also to require you have simple identification.”
“I mean, if some guy jumped out of an unmarked car in a van with a mask on, tried to grab me, I mean, by definition, you’re going to push back. And so these are not just authoritarian tendencies. These are authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government,” he added.
Newsom went on to fearmonger over the White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller calling the Democrat party an “extremist organization.”
“It’s very ironic that Newsom is signing a bill banning masks five years after he signed a bill to require masks,” Keith Malinak, executive producer of “Pat Gray Unleashed,” says, before pointing out that the guests late-night show hosts have on are always Democrats.
“Stephen Colbert, 176. Conservatives, 1. ‘Daily Show,’ 157 to 9. Seth Meyers, 68 to 0. Jimmy Kimmel, 58 to 2,” Malinak says. “I mean, it’s becoming a political talk show. Not a comedy show.”
“They’re just an extension of the political arm of these networks,” he adds.
To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Democrats closed schools unnecessarily during COVID. Five years later, test scores continue to plummet. And now, unions and their allies oppose school choice with even greater intensity than ever.
This hostility toward parental choice has been the Democrat stance for decades, but since 2019 the consequences have become unmistakable. The numbers are in, and they are damning.
Red states emphasized learning; blue states kowtowed to union demands.
The first National Assessment of Educational Progress report since the pandemic shows American high-school seniors graduating in 2024 performed worse than their 2019 peers in both math and reading.
Seniors scoring at or above the “proficient” level dropped from 37% to 35% in reading and from 24% to 22% in math. The number of seniors failing even “basic” math climbed from 40% to 45%, while those below the basic reading level rose from 30% to 32%.
As The 74, an education-focused outlet, reported: COVID “took a bite out of already declining basic skills” and left seniors “reading and doing math worse than any senior class of the past generation.”
The class of 2024 spent nearly four years under lockdowns, masks, remote learning, and chronic absenteeism. By March 25, 2020, every public school in the country was closed, locking out 50.8 million students.
Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, in “In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us,” described these closures as “the most extensive and lengthy disruption to education in history.”
What Macedo and Lee underplay is the role of the American Federation of Teachers and its president, Randi Weingarten.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded in its final report that many schools “remained closed because of AFT and Ms. Weingarten’s political interference” in the Biden administration’s reopening guidance.
That interference persisted despite mounting evidence that children were at low risk for serious illness and transmitted the virus less than adults. Early reports from Iceland and even the World Health Organization’s initial findings from Wuhan confirmed as much.
Instead of leading America’s schools back to normal operations, the AFT insisted that closures remain the default. The result: The U.S. more closely resembled developing nations than its advanced democratic peers.
Faced with the lowest test scores in a generation, the education establishment has not offered reform. Instead, it calls for more unions.
The 74 reported earlier this month that school administrator unions have expanded since COVID, with 11 new locals across eight states. It also noted strikes and strike threats in Washington state and Philadelphia, along with lawsuits from teachers’ unions trying to block school voucher programs as unconstitutional.
In short, the very groups that prolonged school closures now demand more money and more power, while students pay the price.
The U.S. spent $15,500 per student in 2019 (adjusted to 2021 dollars), 38% more than the OECD average, while delivering worse outcomes. Yet unions still fight to preserve their monopoly and to block competition from private or charter schools.
But school choice is breaking through. As of May 2025, 35 states offer some form of private school choice program, most with more than one. Of those states, 27 voted for Trump in 2024. Among the 15 states without school choice, 11 voted for Harris.
The pattern is clear: The longest lockdowns happened in blue states, where Democratic leaders sided with unions over students.
RELATED: Stop blaming schools — the crisis starts in America’s homes
Macedo and Lee note that “lengthier school closures had strong political support in Democratic-leaning jurisdictions.” The Sunlight Policy Center of New Jersey measured the impact:
Red states (that voted for Trump in 2020) provided in-person instruction for 74.5% of the 2020-21 school year, while blue states (that voted for Biden) only provided in-person instruction for 37.6% of the time. Put another way, children in red states got 134 days of in-person instruction versus 68 days for blue state children. The bottom line: Red state kids got almost twice the number of in-person days than blue state kids during the school year. That’s an enormous difference in learning.
The bottom line: Red states emphasized learning; blue states kowtowed to union demands.
American seniors may be falling behind in math and reading, but the country has gained a civics lesson: Federalism matters. Where unions dictate policy, students suffer. Where parents have choices, students have opportunities.
The fight for school choice isn’t only about better scores. It’s about protecting families from the kind of educational malpractice that wrecked a generation of learning.
A Republican election observer in the state of Washington declined to wear a face mask while inside a ballot count room in November 2024. Now, the GOP election observer has been hit with a felony conviction and faces jail time.
Tim Hazelo — a Navy veteran and the former chairman of the Island County Republican Party — was observing ballot counting on Nov. 4, 2024. Hazelo chose not to wear a face mask inside the ballot count room.
The article noted that the prosecutor 'implied Trump supporters are members of the KKK and called them "racist bullies with second-grade intellects and behavior disorders.'''
Island County Auditor Sheilah Crider established a mask mandate in certain parts of the county elections office. Crider previously told KOMO-TV that she established the mask mandate because 50% of the staff tested positive for COVID-19 during the August 2024 primary.
KOMO recently reported that those who did not want to wear a mask could still observe the ballot counting from the hallway, but "some have said their view was obstructed from that vantage point."
Hazelo was reportedly asked to wear a mask, relocate to the hallway, or leave the premises. Hazelo apparently refused to wear a face mask, and he was escorted out of the building by two police officers.
According to the arrest report obtained by KOMO, "It was determined Hazelo would be offered one final opportunity to comply with the policy set by the Island County auditor to wear a mask in the ballot processing rooms, and if he continued to refuse to comply with the policy, he would be asked to exit the room."
Hazelo was arrested and initially charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct, which was later dismissed. However, Hazelo was hit with additional charges by an anti-Trump prosecutor in February 2025. Hazelo was charged with misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass, in addition to one count of unauthorized access to a voting center — a class C felony.
Island County Prosecuting Attorney Gregory Banks charged Hazelo with a felony that could land him behind bars for a year.
Banks, a Democrat, has a history of making disparaging remarks on social media about President Donald Trump and his supporters, according to reports.
Conservative talk show host and columnist Jason Rantz previously reported that Banks made unsettling comments about Trump supporters.
Rantz wrote in MyNorthwest.com in 2019, "Greg Banks is the elected Island County Prosecutor. Up until last week, his public and personal Facebook account was littered with vulgar, vicious smears against conservative voters and President Donald Trump."
The article noted that the prosecutor "implied Trump supporters are members of the KKK and called them 'racist bullies with second-grade intellects and behavior disorders.'"
Banks then "pulled the voluminous posts from his Facebook page and sent out a mea culpa to his staff Wednesday, saying that he had 'done something pretty stupid,'" the South Whidbey Record reported in August 2019.
Banks reportedly told his staff, "That I was unable to see the harm my posts may cause to our reputation is more than embarrassing to me."
"Banks also maintains he hasn’t treated staff members differently based on their Trump-related views, but he asked anyone with concerns to speak with him, the office administrator, one of the chief deputies, or human resources," according to the news outlet.
However, Banks allegedly wrote another disparaging social media post about Trump supporters in 2020.
"The terrifying part is 38% of voters don't see anything wrong with that. Even after we flush Trump, we have a difficult job to cleanse society of their diseased thinking," Banks wrote, according to MyNorthwest.com.
Banks also hit a second Republican election observer, Tracy Abuhl, with a felony count of unauthorized access to a voting center.
Abuhl was charged with a felony for refusing to wear a face mask in the election office in November 2024.
"I was very peaceful, very respectful, but no, this is unconstitutional," Abuhl told KOMO. "I'm there as a volunteer, a citizen. I was a Republican observer, and I couldn't do my job."
RELATED: Former FDA commissioner admits: 'Cloth masks aren't going to provide a lot of protection'
Hazelo proclaimed, "We have to stand up when we believe something is wrong."
Hazelo argued that Washington law does not entitle a county auditor to impose a mask mandate for election observers.
Hazelo told KOMO, "They can say, 'Look it's highly recommended that if you feel sick, if you don't feel good, or you don't feel safe, or you're worried — we highly recommend you wear this mask.' A mandate goes too far."
According to KOMO, Banks stated in his closing arguments on Thursday: "Let's not get into a debate about masks. Follow the instructions, follow the law. This is about the administration of elections and the rules that allow that to happen."
Banks added, "He (Hazelo) had his own rules. His own rules are, 'I do what I want to do, I do it from the vantage point that I want, and I don't care about the rest of it.'"
Hazelo's defense attorney, Austin Hatcher, countered by stating that the Washington Administrative Code requires rules to be provided in writing.
"There's no mask requirement on this sheet of paper. There's no mask requirement on the official visitor and observer rules," Hatcher declared. "He signed this rule sheet, he signed the sign-in paper, he openly went into the ballot processing center, and he sat down quietly, observed the process."
Banks retorted that the mask mandate was displayed on multiple signs posted throughout the office, according to KOMO.
Hazelo pointed out, "The fact is, I signed in. I had authorization to be there. Whether or not I followed the rules after I went in has nothing to do with whether I had authorization to be there to begin with, so 'unauthorized access' doesn't work."
He told KOMO that election auditors didn't have the power to establish a mask mandate, and that decision "should be done by the health department."
On Thursday, a jury found Hazelo guilty of unauthorized access to a voting center and criminal trespass.
Hazelo told KOMO that he does plan to appeal the conviction.
Blaze News reached out to Hazelo's and Banks' offices but did not receive a response for comment at the time of publication.
RELATED: Nebraska teacher placed on leave after comparing anti-maskers to KKK
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Notorious California state Sen. Scott Wiener and a fellow Democrat have introduced legislation that would prevent members of law enforcement — from the lowliest local cops to federal immigration agents — from wearing face coverings.
On Monday, Wiener of San Francisco and Assembly Public Safety Committee Chair Jesse Arreguín of Oakland introduced the No Secret Police Act, which would make wearing a mask a misdemeanor for on-duty officers.
"We’re seeing the rise of secret police — masked, no identifying info, even wearing army fatigues — grabbing & disappearing people. It’s antithetical to democracy & harms communities," Wiener posted to X. "The No Secret Police Act can help end the fear & chaos this behavior creates in communities."
'They're being doxxed all over the place.'
"What we have been seeing in the last few weeks are law enforcement — some local, some federal — who are wearing masks to completely hide their faces while they are carrying out deportation and other enforcement activities," added Arreguín, according to KABC-TV.
Border czar Tom Homan has repeatedly insisted that ICE agents must wear masks to guard against doxing. "They're being doxxed all over the place," he told Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck last month. "Their pictures are being put on telephone poles in major cities. These officers are under great threat. They identify them. They put their home, they put the phone numbers or home address. It's just ridiculous."
The proposed legislation does permit some exceptions for SWAT members and those wearing medical or safety masks to protect themselves against airborne disease and wildfires that regularly rage through the state. Face shields will also be permitted for those combatting riots, so long as their faces are still visible.
The New York Post noted that masked rioters on the streets of Los Angeles were caught on camera committing horrific acts of violence, including against police.
However, as the No Secret Police Act notes, existing California law already prohibits wearing "a mask, false whiskers, or any personal disguise, as specified, with the purpose of evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification while committing a public offense, or for concealment, flight, evasion, or escape from arrest or conviction for any public offense."
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Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) recently took aim at Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for covering their faces during immigration raids, framing the practice as both a lack of transparency and an authoritarian overreach. Jeffries went so far as to vow to “unmask every single ICE agent,” declaring, “This is America, not the Soviet Union.”
This reckless rhetoric will lead to innocent people being harmed or killed if it continues.
By posting videos online or sharing personal details, activists provide cartels with a roadmap to retribution.
ICE agents cover their faces to protect both themselves and their families from violent retribution by human trafficking cartels, a threat exacerbated by the unprecedented lawlessness of the former Biden administration’s border policies.
The words of Jeffries, Goldman, and their activist allies not only endanger lives but also expose their inability to grasp the seriousness of the illegal immigration crisis. Such comments disqualify them as honest brokers on the subject.
ICE agents operate in a high-stakes environment where their identities are a liability. Human trafficking cartels, particularly those tied to groups like MS-13 or Sinaloa, thrive on fear and retaliation. These organizations don’t just smuggle people across borders — they exploit, extort, and kill.
When ICE agents conduct raids to apprehend illegal aliens, many of whom are entangled with these cartels, they themselves become targets. Cartels have the resources and networks to track down agents’ personal information — addresses, family members, daily routines, and so on.
A single photo of an agent’s face, circulated online or sold to the wrong hands, can lead to harassment, assault, or worse. Border czar Tom Homan recently said that agents are being “doxxed all over the place,” with their pictures posted on telephone poles in major cities.
Masking is not a power play — it’s a necessity to protect agents and their families.
— (@)
Activists who film these raids and attempt to expose agents’ identities are not champions of transparency — they’re overzealous enablers of violence. By posting videos online or sharing personal details, they provide cartels with a roadmap to retribution.
This is not speculation; it is happening. Agents have faced death threats, their children have been harassed, and their homes have been targeted.
The precautions agents take stem directly from the Biden administration’s catastrophic negligence on the southern border. Over the past four years, millions of illegal immigrants have crossed into the United States, overwhelming border facilities and local communities.
The previous administration’s policies — from stopping border wall construction to limiting deportations — created a vacuum that cartels have exploited. Human trafficking, drug smuggling, and violent crime all surged as a direct result of these policies.
ICE raids don’t create problems — they respond to them. Agents now face the task of cleaning up a border disaster the last administration let spiral out of control, and they’re doing it at great personal risk.
If Democrats like Jeffries and Goldman understood the threat cartels pose, they wouldn’t push policies that put federal agents in danger. If they grasped the scale of the crisis — millions crossing unchecked, with thousands of criminals among them — they wouldn’t waste time posturing about “transparency” while ignoring the lawlessness that forced ICE to act in the first place.
Their obsession with exposing agents reflects a dangerous unseriousness. It disqualifies them from offering any credible solution.
ICE agents are not faceless storm troopers; they are public servants enforcing laws that Congress itself passed. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, still in effect, mandates strict enforcement measures, including deportations. Jeffries and Goldman, as lawmakers, should be aware of this. Yet, their rhetoric aligns more with activist talking points than with the reality of law enforcement.
To solve the illegal immigration crisis, we need leaders who acknowledge its severity and prioritize the safety of both American citizens and law enforcement. Jeffries and Goldman have shown they are not those leaders.
Honest brokers would address the root causes — lax policies, cartel exploitation, and unchecked migration — rather than scapegoating the agents tasked with upholding the law. Until they demonstrate a willingness to confront these realities, their voices in this debate are not only unhelpful but also part of the problem. Our ICE agents, their families, and our communities demand better.
MAGA needs to stop the next left-wing manmade disaster before Democrats can 'learn' from it. America can only survive so much more of this kind of education.
The Youngkin administration should explore creative tools to address leftist school district leaders’ violation of the law.
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