Jan. 23: The ICE Raids Cometh
Witkoff is, or isn't, in charge of Iran policy; JFK files to be released; Syrian police train with sharia law
The Big Story
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out raids all over Boston on Wednesday, with a focus on targets with criminal convictions. Fox News rode along with the agents and managed to capture several arrests on camera. One of them, of a Haitian national with 17 felony offenses on his record, yelled, “I’m not going back to Haiti, Fuck Trump, Biden forever, thanks, Obama, for everything he did for me!” Other criminal migrants picked up by the raids included a Brazilian man with an Interpol red notice for illegal robbery, a Salvadoran man charged locally with rape and then released onto the streets by a sanctuary division, and a Dominican man charged with possession of a deadly weapon and heroin trafficking.
The arrests, targeting the “worst of the worst” of criminal migrants, according to Fox reporter Bill Melugin, were part of the Trump administration’s broader ramp-up of enforcement efforts targeting illegal immigrants in so-called sanctuary cities—cities where local law enforcement is barred from cooperating with federal immigration authorities—across the country.
Under the leadership of Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu, Boston has been particularly noncompliant with ICE, often to disastrous ends. In December, for instance, a migrant sex criminal who cut off his ICE tracking device was freed by a local judge, the New York Post reported. The 46-year-old Dominican, who crossed into the United States at Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2023, was tracked down by ICE officials in the sanctuary city earlier this month.
Indeed, local authorities in sanctuary cities are already proving to be uncooperative with ICE in some cases, Axios reports. In a statement, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said that its officers will not question or detain people based on documentation status. The Stockton Police Department in California and the Chicago Police Department similarly said they will not assist ICE in enforcing immigration laws. Twin Cities, Minnesota, law enforcement strictly prohibits its officers from asking people about immigration status. To address this, in a Tuesday memo first obtained by Bloomberg, the Department of Justice announced that it had established a working group to monitor state and local policies “inconsistent” with federal immigration law and that it would be criminally investigating and referring for prosecution any “misconduct” by local officials seeking to obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
According to ABC7, more than 300 illegal migrants have been arrested in sanctuary cities across the United States as of today. Despite New York Attorney General Letitia James’ claim that ICE cannot compel New York authorities to assist them in raids, at least two migrants have been arrested in the New York area. In a town hall in Corona, Queens, Mayor Eric Adams upheld New York as a sanctuary city and said that the ICE raids should be limited to migrants with criminal records. “We are willing to work with the Office of President Trump” but will protect “the rights of vulnerable or marginalized populations, including, but not limited to the immigrant communities,” said Adams.
Despite these hiccups with local law enforcement, the sweeping deportation push promised by Trump and his border czar Tom Homan seems to be coming to fruition. Homan touted the administration’s ICE raids in a Fox News interview on Wednesday: “In the last 24 hours, ICE arrested over 308 serious criminals. Some of them were murderers. Some of them were rapists. Some of them raped a child.” In a Wednesday appearance on Fox, Homan shared some of the numbers on the southern border. “In the last 24 hours, total apprehensions on the Southwest border [have been] 766. Compare that to the 10,000-12,000 Biden had at one time. CBP One releases? Zero. CHNV, Cuba Haiti Nicaragua Venezuela releases? Zero. … That is a game change.”
The Rest
→Reports this morning in Axios and the Financial Times citing U.S. officials indicated that Trump was planning to place his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in charge of Iran diplomacy—though Trump denied the reports to White House pool reporters on Thursday afternoon. Whatever Witkoff’s formal role will be, it seems clear Trump is exploring his options for negotiations with Iran. According to the FT, for instance, Trump aides drew up plans for a new “maximum pressure” campaign during the transition, but that “they want to keep open a path to avoiding a broader confrontation with Iran” and that Witkoff is expected to lead these negotiations. Despite the presence of Iran hawks in the administration, pro-Iran voices appear cautiously optimistic. Jamal Abdi, a spokesman for the National Iranian American Council, a major backer of Obama’s Iran deal, noted in an interview with Middle East Eye that “Trump has not yet issued an executive order saying ‘maximum pressure’ is back in effect, right? He has not made a speech saying, ‘We’re going to crush these guys.’ He's had advisors who have said that, but we have not seen that from him yet. I think that’s significant.”
→Former CEO of the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) Kailee Tkacz Buller has been named chief of staff for Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee for the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, according to an article in World-Grain.com. NOPA represents the U.S. soybean, canola, flaxseed, and safflower seed. How this news will be received by Trump’s health secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an ardent anti-seed oils activist, remains to be seen. One assumes he won’t be happy about it.
→Quote of the Day:
I was asked by Mike Pompeo not to [release the JFK files]. I felt that he knew something. When someone asks you not to [release something], you start to wonder why. He felt it was just not a good time to release them. Maybe you can ask him why.
That’s President Trump speaking with Fox News host Sean Hannity and explaining how former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo deterred him from releasing the JFK files during his first presidency (Trump released some of the files, but most were redacted). Nevertheless, in the interview with Hannity, Trump vowed to release all classified files on the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr. “immediately,” without being more specific. Trump first pledged to release the files at his victory rally in Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena to improve government transparency. “The truth is coming,” Trump added.
→The Syrian transitional government is using Sharia law to train its police force, Reuters reports. Syrian officers claim the use of Islamic teachings in police training is to instill a sense of “morality” as the government races to fill a security void after ousting Bashar al-Assad from power last month. In a country flooded with arms, and with the dust settling after 13 years of civil war, regional analysts warn that the implementation of Islamist teachings in the new security forces could alienate both Syrians as well as the foreign governments that the transitional government has been attempting to win over. So, is jihad coming to Damascus? “It’s a transitional period. These guys are religious,” says Tablet’s Tony Badran. “They’re replacing an old model and want to stamp the new one with their identity. I’m not sure it matters much.”
→Yesterday, we reported on the recent Department of Defense hire of Michael DiMino, a fellow at Koch-funded think tank Defense Priorities. He favors rapprochement with Iran and a reduction in U.S. military and diplomatic support to Israel and has criticized Trump’s signature first-term foreign policy achievement, the Abraham Accords, for not including the Palestinians. Tehran, at least, appears to be pleased. An article in Tehran Times, a pro-regime media outlet, praised DiMino as “notably pragmatic and realistic” regarding West Asia.
→Following President Trump’s announcement of the $500 billion “artificial intelligence infrastructure project,” Stargate, which we reported on yesterday, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (one of the three firms tasked with building the new AI infrastructure), has drastically changed his position on Trump. In a post on X, Altman said that he thinks Trump will be “incredible for the country in many ways.” That marks a major shift from his previous statements about Trump: In a 2016 blog post, Altman compared Trump’s actions to that of a dictator, and in 2020 he donated $250,000 to a Biden super PAC, according to Forbes. His recent change of tune suggests just how drastically the vibes have shifted:
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Some very interesting information here. Of course, but particularly distressing is the idea of obstructing returning the criminals to their own countries. How does it help American public? What is the purpose of obstructing like this?
The seemingly deliberate effort by Trump keeping any actual Iran policy close to his vest, along with the rush to agreeing with the awful Gaza ceasefire seem to have 2 very interesting aspects in common: 1. buying time; 2. keeping the enemies off balance.
“Methinks the game’s afoot”, as Sherlock Holmes may have put it.
Stay tuned.