David Brouillette has a history of alleged physical and verbal abuse against his ex-wives and daughters. When he was a child, he was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder, which worsened after he retired from the military, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ice-david-brouillette-johan-guerrero-maine-shooting-dbc30d6d59e2a95fb470afc188e125c6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Associated Press.
Despite his concerning past, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hired Brouillette during a massive recruiting surge to support the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Shortly after taking the job, Brouillette allegedly fatally shot a Colombian migrant in Biddeford, Maine, in July. The deadly shooting brought Brouillette’s past behavior to light, raising concerns about the accelerated vetting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) adopted at the time for new ICE recruits.
ICE hired 12,000 new officers and agents in the span of roughly four months by offering up to $50,000 in signing bonuses thanks to a flood of cash from President Donald Trump&#8217;s One Big Beautiful Bill.
Now, the feds have started trying to clean up the mess by quietly firing some of the recent recruits after the results of their background checks came back with red flags. Despite the rushed and poor vetting, many of the junior ICE officers were allowed to take to the streets to make arrests, according to several current ICE officers.
The Daily Wire granted the officers anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
When dealing with the now-commonplace combative target or agitator, the officers said they were often left to fend for themselves as the new recruits stood by frozen and unsure of how to conduct themselves.
&#8220;There&#8217;s been a lot of instances where we get into an altercation with subjects that are resistant, and they just watch like they don&#8217;t know what to do, or they just do nothing,&#8221; one source said.
&#8220;They’re sending people out to do these arrests. They have no field experience, like people fresh out of the academy or they’ve only been in detention since they started with ICE, they have no idea what they’re doing in the field. And it’s scary,&#8221; another officer said, adding, &#8220;I&#8217;m counting on you to have my back, but, you know, I&#8217;m seeing all these pre-assault indicators or pre-flight indicators, and you&#8217;re just f*cking standing there. It&#8217;s insane.&#8221;
After months of putting recruits through a speedy 42-day academy, DHS has since extended the training program to last 72 days, an ICE spokesperson confirmed.
During the hiring push, the agency also allowed those with prior law enforcement experience, including those who lacked backgrounds in immigration enforcement, to bypass the in-person ICE academy and participate in an online training program.
The recruits who received the rushed training &#8220;will attend follow-on training at the Advanced Field Officer Training Program,&#8221; where they will take their skills from the original academy &#8220;and apply it to real-life scenarios while on duty,&#8221; the ICE spokesperson told The Daily Wire.
“As we have said all along, ICE training does not end when recruits graduate from the academy. ICE officers go through a rigorous on-the-job training and mentorship,&#8221; the spokesperson said.
One of the officers predicted that &#8220;only 20% to 30%&#8221; of recruits would have made it onto the force had they undergone the full academy.
&#8220;They realized they f*cked up and now we’re dealing with the consequences,&#8221; the officer said, adding: “Now they have to purge the whole agency because they just hired a bunch of f*cking knuckleheads.&#8221;
In a recently surfaced whistleblower complaint, a senior ICE official who was tasked with evaluating thousands of agency applicants shared concerns about the speedy process that they said led “improperly vetted” individuals to join the force, leading to &#8220;grave national security risks.&#8221; The unnamed official said the agency hired some recruits before the completion of their fingerprint, identity, or credit checks, warning that the lax vetting could create an &#8220;increased vulnerability to insider threats, infiltration, and foreign influence.&#8221;
One of the officers who spoke with The Daily Wire recalled observing their new colleagues taking to the streets before they underwent required drug testing.
&#8220;They were getting their phone calls to go through drug tests after they had already freaking entered on duty,&#8221; the source said.
Officers said they also observed the &#8220;infiltration&#8221; by anti-ICE activist groups inside the new recruiting class.
&#8220;Some of these people are f*cking garbage, and I know for a fact that a lot of the Antifa guys and these f*cking liberal Democrats, they apply so they can get the intel on how we do things,&#8221; the officer said.
When the new officers completed their training, whether online or at the in-person academy, some of them were almost immediately sent out to start making arrests without having any real experience in the field.
One ICE officer, who transferred to the agency from Border Patrol, said they completed the virtual academy &#8220;in two hours&#8221; and that others were &#8220;knocking out&#8221; the testing in three days. The officer expressed concerns about the unlimited number of test failures officers were allowed and a self-attested physical fitness assessment.
Others shared that the in-person training did not adequately equip officers with the experience and skills needed to make arrests.
&#8220;The crazy part is when you go do these academies, it&#8217;s great, but it&#8217;s, like, you go to the academy, and they&#8217;re, like, &#8216;all right now, go,'&#8221; an officer said.
“There&#8217;s a severe lack of training with this big hiring push they had. It&#8217;s insane,&#8221; another officer said.
In some ICE offices, junior recruits outnumber the more seasoned personnel, sources said. As a result, the new recruits lack &#8220;mentorship&#8221; from senior officers to show them the ropes.
&#8220;The damage is done,&#8221; one of the officers said.
“I hate to admit it, it was just very much like get warm bodies and just get them out there,&#8221; they added.
The ICE spokesperson said the agency&#8217;s &#8220;Office of Professional Responsibility diligently applies the proper personnel vetting regulations, including guidelines for national security, and evaluates all available information for every applicant based on these factors.&#8221;
Applicants &#8220;may receive&#8221; what is known as a &#8220;Tentative Selection Letter&#8221; after initially submitting their application and undergoing an interview, the spokesperson said. They may also &#8220;receive an offer of temporary status to begin training pending a full background investigation,&#8221; they added.
The spokesperson did not answer questions about whether the agency let new recruits whose background checks weren&#8217;t completed make arrests in the field.

ICE Holds Hiring Event In Arlington, Texas

Trump Is Cleaning House After ICE Hiring Rush Put Unvetted Recruits On The Streets

department of homeland security

ice hiring surge

immigration enforcement

law enforcement

The Left has apparently found a new weapon in its fight against the Right: actual clowns.
The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/16/us-protest-clowns">Guardian</a> published a glowing profile Wednesday of a growing movement of leftist activists who dress up as clowns to protest everything from Republicans and “fascism” to capitalism, ICE, patriarchy, and New York’s horse-drawn carriage industry. 
The profile, headlined “Send in the clowns: the new guard of activists combating the right,” centers on Taylor Horne, a Brooklyn-based drag performer who goes by “Tillie the Clown” and has turned clowning into a full-time political activism career. Horne recently spent two hours applying clown makeup and putting on a costume before waiting another 10 hours to address the New York City Council for three minutes over legislation that would phase out the city’s horse carriage industry.
Horne appeared before the council wearing a black top hat and gloves with a face painted white and red. Horne told the Guardian that when carriage-horse supporters mocked the appearance on social media, they had “fallen right into my trap.” The clown explained that the point was to make opponents focus on the performer rather than the argument. But horse carriages are only one item on the activist clown agenda.
Horne <a href="https://www.instagram.com/taylorvincenthorne/">produces social-media content</a> attacking what he describes as white supremacy and xenophobia within Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “fascism” in beauty trends, and queerness as rebellion. Horne&#8217;s clown-persona account has nearly 35,000 Instagram followers, also runs workshops on how to “clown and fight fascism,” and has appeared in political videos and educational presentations.
“Clowns are the only ones in the court that have the privilege to speak truth to power, to speak to the king without consequence,” Horne told the Guardian, framing the practice as part of a broader revival of “clown activism,” in which performers use costumes, puppetry, juggling, balloons, stilts, and other theatrical techniques as political protest. Horne traces the practice back to court jesters, arguing that clowns and jesters have historically occupied a special position from which they could mock political and social elites.
Another activist profiled by the Guardian, Kendra Ferguson, began clown activism after working as a mental health professional.
After attending an anti-ICE protest in San Francisco in 2025, Ferguson and a friend began “acting silly” to relieve tension among protesters. They later began appearing regularly outside immigration court in full clown makeup and costumes, carrying juggling clubs, making balloon animals, and naturally handing out left-wing political literature.
Ferguson eventually began using clowning as part of efforts to monitor potential ICE activity around schools. 
“Clowning is a space container where we are constantly facing extreme rage, grief or failure through the lens of delight,” Ferguson told the Guardian. The article treats this increasingly elaborate theater as a serious form of political organizing.
Horne began the Tillie character during the COVID-19 lockdown, initially using makeup and self-portraits to experiment with gender. The character eventually developed into an online persona and then a full-time occupation. Horne&#8217;s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6036044/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm">professional background</a> includes acting, drag performance, music, and visual arts.
If the political opposition is supposedly a grave authoritarian threat, is dressing up as a clown really the best way to fight it?
Apparently yes. And now the circus is coming to a City Hall near you.

Second Round Of No Kings Protests Sweep The U.S.

Leftists Deploy Literal Clowns To Combat Right-Wingers

clown activism

leftism

new york city council

protest

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
***
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has created an army of social-media influencers to help boost his administration, a recent <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/mayor-mamdanis-friendly-influencers-and-the-funding-of-public-messaging-in-new-york-city.php">exposé</a> in the Columbia Journalism Review reveals. But while the mayor’s unorthodox media strategy has gotten scrutiny, not enough attention has been paid to the influencers themselves and their views.
Some in the mayor’s coterie are relatively innocuous. But others <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DOb3zBSEcmt">celebrate</a> the assassination of Charlie Kirk, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc1oZdxPttV">claim</a> America runs “mass concentration camps,” and make <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DV4kEC6gedk">apologies</a> for terrorist attacks targeting synagogues.
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These influencers can hardly be said to represent New Yorkers. Hundreds of posts from those identified as belonging to the group chat of the Mamdani administration media team have been devoted to police and prison abolition, dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and lambasting Israel. The content belies the mayor’s polished image as a moderate and offers <a href="https://cityjournal.substack.com/p/do-mamdanis-wifes-posts-really-matter">more</a> <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/they-want-to-abolish-rent-by-any-means-necessary">evidence</a> that his social and professional circles are more radical than he lets on.
Mamdani has embraced influencer communications since taking office in January. “We need to speak to New Yorkers through every single medium that they see themselves and see the world around them, and all of you are such critical parts of that,” he said at an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/business/media/zohran-mamdani-social-media-creators.html">influencer-only summit</a> hosted during his first week in office.
Joining Mamdani’s influencer brigade is easy, the CJR reported. After filling out an intake form, influencers receive “daily updates, talking points, and clips” through the “NYC Creators Announcements” group chat on the encrypted-messaging platform Signal. The initiative is led by Emilia Rowland, who serves as the mayor’s director of New Media and Cultural Communications.
Until two weeks ago, posts on that chat were <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/09/04/us-news/nyc-broke-record-keeping-rules-with-mamdanis-secret-influencer-signal-chat-mayors-top-attorney-seemingly-admits">set</a> to auto-delete, in apparent violation of state record-keeping rules. Pro-Mamdani posters have found themselves scoring interviews with the mayor and, more significantly, positioning themselves to secure <a href="https://ipdcolumbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Mapping-New-York-City-influencers-and-funding-of-public-messaging-4.pdf">paid sponsorships</a> promoting the work of government agencies.
In a statement to City Journal, Rowland said that “the Mayor’s office has never paid a content creator or influencer, full stop.” She added that “We engage broadly and in good faith, including with people who may disagree with the administration or have made comments the administration disagrees with — just as we allow outlets with a variety of partisan slants access to cover the mayor.”
City Hall has <a href="https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2026/09/04/mamdani-signal-app-compliance-social-media-influencers-">not published</a> a complete list of the influencers included in the Signal chat. But my analysis of the 33 who could be identified found 18 on the Left or far Left, with an additional 15 posting primarily nonpolitical and occasionally political content.
For some of the influencers welcomed into the group chat, radical rhetoric is common. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc2IwDyMmVG">Framing</a> the Israel-Hamas war as a “genocide,” <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C8CWUEZJx3A">presenting</a> the police as racial oppressors, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DT0yViFEvcC">suggesting</a> that ICE is a “tool of fascism” are just some of the themes shared between members of the group chat and the <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/mamdani-israel-islam-third-worldism">Mamdani administration</a>. Prominent far-left figures include Christina Brown. Brown, who goes by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/missxtinab/?hl=en">@missxtinab</a> on Instagram, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DOb3zBSEcmt">celebrated</a> the assassination of Charlie Kirk (“violence was an answer”), <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DTlGeJzke2v">suggested</a> that ICE agents should be poisoned, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DPmfENYEaIt">told</a> her 282,000 followers, “I don’t love this country. I hate it so much. I want to see it fall.”
She has <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DUJW2L3ETbw">described</a> Christianity as a “religion of white supremacy” whose pastors are “COVERED in the blood of enslaved people.” Brown does not mince words, for example, in <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DObvSOoETGa">denying</a> that the phrase “globalize the intifada” is anti-Semitic. And she’s similarly blunt when she seems to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwwb4WkcOj">endorse</a> violence: “Violence wasn’t the answer . . . what do you mean? Violence was the equation.”
Megan Klink, who co-runs <a href="https://www.instagram.com/prettyinformedgirls/?hl=en">@prettyinformedgirls</a>, told her 223,000 followers, “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc1oZdxPttV">America has mass concentration camps</a>” and “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Dav7yWPpNua">there is no reforming a f***ing Gestapo</a>,” referring to ICE.
Cassie Willson, who has posted several <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DR29N6Okf3r">videos</a> with the mayor, exemplified the worldview of many of these influencers in a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DURI7kpEfVv">video</a> she made in February: “Free Palestine, [f*ck] Donald Trump . . . billionaires shouldn’t exist, [f*ck] fascism . . . no war but class war.” Many extreme viewpoints are intentionally disguised as comedy to blur the lines. “You’ve got to unalive” — that is, kill — “your girlfriend” for working for ICE, a character says in one satirical <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DUMhqUJjfZM">video</a> that Willson made in collaboration with Prance (a.k.a. @bocxtop), <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DQA249jjZQS">another</a> of Mamdani’s influencers.
An earlier post by Prance, from an influencer conference the mayor hosted during his campaign, highlights the unseriousness of such <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DQZWz9dEbui">coverage</a>: “In your time as mayor, are you planning to provide bisexual girlfriends to everyone in New York City?” he asked.
Matt Bernstein is a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mattxiv">self-described</a> “queer jew with long nails” and another of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DQpP0YpgQTq">Mamdani’s influencers</a>. Though he has not publicly disclosed his membership in the chat, Bernstein was granted interviews with the mayor on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DRdGpwxAe2T">multiple</a> occasions. When he is not posting about the need to be “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/mattxiv/reels">radically pro-transgender</a>,” he is making videos like <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DZ3XDv_h5MB">this one</a>, where he says that “Israel is the only safe space for queer people in the Middle East . . . because they bomb all the other ones.” Bernstein, who has more than <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mattxiv/?hl=en">2.4 million followers</a> on Instagram, blocked New York traffic “in protest of our senators continuing to fund Israel’s genocide” and explained the Hezbollah-inspired <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/us/michigan-synagogue-attack-hezbollah.html">attack</a> on a Michigan synagogue by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DV4kEC6gedk">saying</a> that “violence begets violence.”
Online influencers play an increasingly important role in American politics. Pew Research <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-influencers-fact-sheet">reported</a> that 38% of 18–34-year-olds, and 21% overall, regularly get news from these sources, which they often see as more authentic. Political and public-relations campaigns have responded by increasing their use of influencers, sometimes disclosing these relationships but often not.
“It’s so widespread,” said Kaitlyn Hennessy, a content creator using her own <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kaitlyndoespolitics">Instagram</a> account to underscore the prevalence of undisclosed paid political content. Hennessy previously <a href="https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/05/california-governor-race-influencers">revealed</a> that California billionaire Tom Steyer had spent close to $1 million on influencers and related services in his California gubernatorial campaign.
Candidates often hire media consulting firms — like Fight Agency, which was <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5581737-mamdani-campaign-strategy-agency">retained</a> by Mamdani — who in turn identify and contract with influencers. The content turned out by these influencers ranges from positive coverage of candidates to public ambushes of their opponents. “Some of this stuff where you’re seeing people get ambushed [on Instagram] is paid . . . And the people who are doing it, you don’t even know if they actually care,” Hennessy told City Journal.
“Where it gets murky,” she said, is that influencers will claim, “‘we were only paid for certain posts.’ But you weren’t going to be able to make anti-Tom Steyer posts, then get paid [after that].” Influencers whose messaging diverges from that of a candidate or politician can see future opportunities for sponsorship dry up. Hennessy said that her membership in <a href="https://www.creatorcongress.net/about">Creator Congress</a>, a progressive influencer network, was terminated in August. She was told in an email, which I reviewed, that this was in part because of her “defense of pro-Israel candidate [Jack Schlossberg],” after she <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DZluNRMpE7l">pointed out</a> the <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook/2026/06/17/the-crypto-powered-content-farm-boosting-bores-00964643">documented</a> use of paid content by his opponent in the NY-12 primary, Alex Bores.
The Mamdani administration has already admitted that the use of auto-deleting messages on the Signal chat, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/business/media/zohran-mamdani-social-media-creators.html">reported</a> by the New York Times, violated a New York State law requiring the preservation of official records. The city council has <a href="https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1432368&amp;GUID=C1F696F5-3E6B-4C71-BCC4-608A17168E8B&amp;Options=info%7C&amp;Search=">scheduled</a> a September 22 oversight meeting on the matter, during which a council member will introduce legislation. A framework outlining clear criteria for the inclusion (and exclusion) of individuals from privileged communications will go a long way toward ensuring that media — new and old — are not excluded simply for asking unwanted questions about trade-offs and implementation.
Social-media influencers are likely here to stay in American politics. Both the Mamdani administration and New York City will be better off if we can, through both policy and law, more clearly define their roles.
***
This is republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The original can be found <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-influencers-instagram">here</a>.
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/person/adam-lehodey">Adam Lehodey</a> is an investigative reporter at City Journal.

NYC Mayor Mamdani And NY AG James Make Immigration Announcement

The Radical Threat Of Mamdani’s Unvetted Influencer Army

antisemitism

new york city

politics

social media influencer

zohran mamdani

Homeland Security Investigations is conducting a investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) over allegations of immigration fraud, White House border czar Tom Homan revealed Sunday.
Homan&#8217;s comments come after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin <a href="https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/2098209805215080868?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a> last week that Omar &#8220;married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.&#8221; Homan did not go so far as to say that Omar committed immigration fraud, but said that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is looking into the allegations and did not rule out stripping her of her American citizenship.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation,&#8221; he told Fox News host Jacqui Heinrich on Sunday. &#8220;I know things are going on. But I can&#8217;t give specifics of what&#8217;s happening. But we&#8217;ll see.&#8221;
&#8220;I mean, if someone committed [an] immigration violation and someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they&#8217;re a congresswoman or not, no one&#8217;s above the law, so I&#8217;ll leave it at that. We&#8217;ll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, continue the investigation,&#8221; the former acting ICE director said.
Heinrich then pressed Homan on whether his comments confirmed an investigation is ongoing.
&#8220;I&#8217;m confirming that ICE is — yeah. Look, I said months ago, that is something that&#8217;s been reported, and it needs to be looked at,&#8221; Homan replied.
The Trump administration has launched a broader effort to denaturalize foreign-born individuals accused of fraud as part of the immigration process. In May, Vice President JD Vance <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jd-vance-cranks-up-pressure-on-ilhan-omar-over-immigration-fraud-scandal">said</a> that the Justice Department was actively investigating Omar over the fraud claims.
Homan did not confirm whether the federal government is actively pursuing Omar&#8217;s denaturalization.
&#8220;Look, you know, I&#8217;ve been around 40 years, and we&#8217;ve done de-nats cases. We have denaturalized citizens based on fraud, based on lying on their applications or lying through the process, misrepresenting themselves, or maybe misrepresenting organizations they belong to or beliefs they have. But denaturalization is a process,&#8221; Homan said.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a very serious process. So if someone lies through that process to becoming a citizen, and we can prove they in fact lied or misrepresented themselves, we can absolutely denaturalize them. We&#8217;ve done it before many times over the last 40 years I&#8217;ve been around. So it&#8217;s a process,&#8221; he added.
Homan pushed back on criticism from Democrats who say such an investigation is politically motivated.
&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing political about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;ICE is enforcing law that Congress wrote. I mean, these are all laws that are in statute.&#8221;
Omar, who was born in Somalia, arrived in the United States in 1995 as a refugee before securing her citizenship in 2000 at 17 years old.
In 2009, she married British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, who some allege is her biological brother. The couple reportedly separated in 2011 and formally divorced in 2017.
It was Omar’s second marriage.
In 2002, Omar married Ahmed Hirsi in a religious ceremony, but the union was never legally recognized.
Omar has said that she split from Hirsi in 2008. Just months after her seperation from Elmi, Omar and Hirsi reconciled.
Omar has denied allegations that she married her brother, calling them &#8220;absurd and offensive.&#8221;

Minnesota Democrats Hold News Conference Ahead Of State Of The Union

ICE Confirms Its Investigating Ilhan Omar For Marrying Her Brother: ‘Very Serious’

denaturalization

ilhan omar

immigration fraud

tom homan

An illegal immigrant abducted and sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl after being cut loose by the Biden administration, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Guatemalan national Lester Noe Perez-Amador, 27, is accused of snatching the child from her home in Washington Borough, New Jersey, around the early morning hours of September 5.
The illegal immigrant knew the child, authorities said. Police located and rescued the young girl as she was running toward her home.
The illegal immigrant crossed the border illegally and sneaked past authorities when he entered the United States, DHS said. The Cameron County Police Department arrested Perez-Amador in March 2024 for DUI.
At the time, local police officers transferred the illegal immigrant to ICE, which released him onto the streets, according to DHS.
Since the kidnapping, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lodged a detainer with local authorities asking them to transfer the illegal immigrant to federal custody for deportation if he is released, according to DHS.
&#8220;We are urging Washington Township authorities to transfer Perez-Amador into ICE custody so we can do what Biden failed to do the first time — get this criminal illegal alien off of our streets and back to Guatemala where he belongs,&#8221; a Homeland Security spokesperson told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;The safest way to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our streets is by lodging arrest detainers. Because some sanctuary jurisdictions refuse to work with ICE law enforcement, criminal illegal aliens are released from jails into American communities to perpetuate more crimes. Seven of the top 10 safest cities in the United States cooperate with ICE,&#8221; the spokesperson added.
Within 24 hours of receiving a report of the crime, police nabbed Perez-Amador.
He is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a victim under 13, endangering sexual conduct with a child, kidnapping with bodily injury, and home invasion burglary.
&#8220;When a child in our community is at risk, law enforcement responds as one,&#8221; Warren County Prosecutor Jessica L. Cardone said in a statement.
&#8220;I witnessed first-hand as all involved agencies worked with focus on one common goal — to bring this child to safety. Protecting our children is a responsibility we take very seriously, and our commitment does not end with an arrest,&#8221; Cardone added.
The first-degree aggravated sexual assault charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison, according to <a href="https://www.fox5ny.com/news/man-charged-sexual-assault-6-year-old-girl-after-kidnapping-from-nj-home-police">Fox 5</a>. A charge of first-degree kidnapping carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment with 25 years of parole ineligibility, and first-degree home invasion burglary carries up to 20 years.

Pulled over by the police, rear view mirror point of view

Illegal Immigrant Kidnaps, Sexually Assaults 6-Year-Old Child

child sexual abuse

illegal immigration

new jersey

An illegal immigrant released into the country under the Biden administration and issued a California commercial driver&#8217;s license (CDL) is accused of killing an Ohio mother in a devastating crash.
Manjit Singh crashed head-on with another vehicle, killing 50-year-old Brenda Watson on U.S. 68 and Hamer Road in Pleasant Township around 9 p.m. on September 2, <a href="https://www.fox19.com/2026/09/03/50-year-old-woman-killed-when-semi-passing-vehicle-crashes-head-on-into-her-troopers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Fox 19. The crash occurred as Singh, who was behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer, allegedly tried to pass another vehicle, hitting Watson&#8217;s Chevy Cruze head-on.
A witness to the collision said Singh &#8220;had ample time and space to merge back into the northbound lane,&#8221; the local news outlet reported. The mother of two died at the scene.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin released a statement Wednesday, slamming the Biden administration and California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom for the fatal crash.
&#8220;This illegal alien from India has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide after allegedly causing a semi-truck crash that killed 50-year-old Brenda Watson in Ohio,&#8221; Mullin said.
&#8220;He has no business being in our country or on our roads, but because of the reckless open borders of the Biden Administration and the sanctuary policies of Gavin Newsom’s California, he was able to obtain a CDL that allowed him behind the wheel of a semi-truck,&#8221; he added.
<div id="attachment_1175563" style="width: 524px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1175563" class="wp-image-1175563 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T085057.756-514x576.jpg" alt="" width="514" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T085057.756-514x576.jpg 514w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T085057.756-268x300.jpg 268w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T085057.756.jpg 625w" sizes=" (max-width: 514px) 100vw, 514px" />Brenda Watson Obituary</div>
In her <a href="https://www.meekerfuneralhome.com/obituary/Brenda-Watson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">obituary</a>, Watson was described as a faithful woman who adored her family.
&#8220;Brenda’s greatest joy in life was her family,&#8221; the obituary said. &#8220;Her children and loved ones meant everything to her, and she cherished the time she was able to spend with them. She was a faithful member of Brier Ridge Church, where she attended every Sunday and found comfort and fellowship among her church family.&#8221;
&#8220;Brenda also enjoyed going to concerts and making memories through the music and experiences she shared with those she loved. Above all, she will be remembered for the love she had for her family and the special place they held in her heart,&#8221; it added.
<div id="attachment_1175557" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1175557" class="wp-image-1175557 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T084712.721.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="267" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T084712.721.jpg 480w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-10T084712.721-300x167.jpg 300w" sizes=" (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" />DHS</div>
Following the crash, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged a detainer with authorities in Ohio, asking them to transfer Singh to federal custody if he is released.
&#8220;ICE has lodged a detainer asking officials in Ohio to commit to not releasing this killer back onto our streets, so that ICE can remove him from our country. My thoughts and prayers are with Brenda Watson’s family,&#8221; Mullin said.
Singh crossed the southern border illegally into Arizona in October 2023 and was released by federal agents, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In August 2024, the Biden administration granted his application for a work permit, opening the door for California to hand him a CDL.
The Trump administration has launched a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admins-war-on-illegal-immigrant-truckers-intensifies">crackdown</a> on the trucking industry in response to a string of recent fatal crashes involving illegal immigrant truck drivers.
As part of the ongoing effort, the Department of Transportation recently announced the closure of 110 commercial trucking schools associated with more than 5,000 drivers who failed English-language proficiency tests.
“A number of American families whose lives have been ruined, they’ve lost a loved one or a loved one has been injured by a commercial driver who should’ve never had a commercial driver’s license who didn’t protect safety on American roadways, but they actually harmed American citizens,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said during the announcement last month.

Manjit Singh

Biden-Released Illegal Immigrant Trucker With California License Kills Mother

commercial driver license

gavin newsom

ohio

sanctuary policy

The Trump administration deported an illegal immigrant convicted of groping nine girls at the Virginia high school he attended.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Israel Christopher-Ortiz, 19, to his native El Salvador on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced.
&#8220;This groper is GONE,&#8221; DHS said in an X post Wednesday.
&#8220;Israel Flores-Ortiz, an illegal alien who groped multiple high school girls in Fairfax County, VA, was DEPORTED to El Salvador yesterday,&#8221; the agency said. &#8220;DHS will never stop fighting to REMOVE sickos like Flores-Ortiz, and make America SAFE again.&#8221;
Flores-Ortiz was convicted in April of nine misdemeanor counts of assault and battery after several Fairfax High School students accused him of approaching them from behind and groping them in crowded hallways. Twelve girls <a href="https://patch.com/virginia/fairfaxcity/fairfax-student-sentenced-assaulting-classmates">testified</a> during his trial. He was acquitted on three additional counts, and another was dismissed, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2026/04/10/fairfax-school-assaults-guilty-israel/">according</a> to the Washington Post.
He was sentenced to just 360 days behind bars for his crimes, followed by supervised probation. His sentence included credit for time already served.
An immigration judge ordered Flores-Ortiz&#8217;s deportation on Aug. 10, according to ICE. The Fairfax County Sheriff&#8217;s Office released him to federal immigration authorities on Aug. 31, three days before his scheduled release.
Flores-Ortiz crossed the border illegally in 2024 and was released into the country, according to ICE. He later enrolled at Fairfax High School.
One of the victims said she&#8217;d grown paranoid after undergoing the abuse.
&#8220;It’s impacting me because back then I didn’t have to look around,&#8221; she previously told ABC7. &#8220;I didn’t have to look around and make sure no one is going to touch me.&#8221;

Untitled design – 2026-03-17T141907.282

Trump Admin Deports Illegal Immigrant Who Groped Multiple Schoolgirls

deportation

el salvador

fairfax county

A previously deported illegal immigrant is accused of driving drunk and killing a newly engaged 23-year-old teacher in a crash on an Ohio highway.
Alvaro Uribe-Gonzalez, a 33-year-old Mexican national, allegedly drove into opposing traffic on U.S. Route 33 in Fairfield County on Sunday when he killed Cameron Lyon, 23, and severely injured his fiancée, Abrielle Kerns.
The couple had gotten engaged in July.
On a fundraising <a href="https://www.supportnow.org/abrielle-kerns-7102580a-175a-4674-9438-bf963919da50" target="_blank" rel="noopener">page</a> set up for Abrielle, her family said she &#8220;was left seriously injured and is still in the ICU fighting to recover.&#8221;
&#8220;Everyone who knew Abrielle and Cameron could see the love they shared and the future they were building together,&#8221; they wrote.
&#8220;Her world has been turned upside down, and the physical and emotional hardships ahead will be enormous,&#8221; the family added.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1175133" style="width: 226px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1175133" class="size-full wp-image-1175133" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Ohio2.png.webp" alt="" width="216" height="216" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Ohio2.png.webp 216w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Ohio2.png-150x150.webp 150w" sizes=" (max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px" />DHS</div>
Uribe-Gonzalez crossed the Texas border illegally in January 2020 and was deported that April, the Department of Homeland Security <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/09/09/ice-lodges-detainer-illegal-alien-charged-fatal-dui-crash-ohio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Wednesday. DHS said he later illegally returned to the United States at an unknown time by sneaking across the border.
Authorities arrested the illegal immigrant and charged him with aggravated vehicular homicide, driving under the influence of alcohol, and operating a motor vehicle without a valid license. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also lodged a detainer in the case and asked local authorities to transfer Uribe-Gonzalez to federal custody if he is released.
His bond was set at $5 million.
“Cameron had his whole life ahead of him, and that life was stolen by this criminal who never should have been in our country in the first place,&#8221; Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement.
&#8220;ICE has lodged a detainer asking officials in Ohio to cooperate with us and not release him from jail, so that we can remove him from this country. Deporting illegal aliens is our duty because it saves lives,&#8221; he added.
Lyon&#8217;s family described him as a funny, great person who had many friends, <a href="https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/sheriff-driver-fatal-route-33-crash-fairfield-county-living-in-us-illegally/530-bede43cb-3031-43fb-8b5b-e3ae38111aca" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to WBNS. His relatives said he loved life, travel, and his family.
He was an Eagle Scout and had just started his first teaching job as a social studies teacher for 5th- and 6th-graders, the local news outlet reported.

Untitled design – 2026-09-09T132217.985

Previously Deported Illegal Alien Accused Of Killing Newly Engaged Man In DUI Crash

Officials in Arlington County, Virginia, have set aside $50,000 in taxpayer funds to pay families whose loved ones have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Last week, the Arlington County Board voted 4-0 to set aside the funds for families whose primary wage earner was taken into ICE custody, <a href="https://www.arlnow.com/2026/09/08/families-of-wage-earners-detained-by-ice-to-receive-up-to-2k-from-arlington-county/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to ARLnow.
Each family can receive up to $2,000 and will not be required to provide proof that their family member was deported, ABC7 <a href="https://wjla.com/newsletter-daily/arlington-county-sets-aside-50k-aid-families-ice-detainees-primary-wage-earner-immigration-enforcement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. The board will also not require families to share employment records.
The vote came in response to an ICE operation that took place last month across Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland that resulted in the arrests of roughly 1,300 illegal immigrants. Nearly 400 of the detainees had either been convicted of or charged with crimes in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
&#8220;I&#8217;m very proud of us for doing this,&#8221; Arlington County Board Member Maureen Coffey said of the board&#8217;s decision to create the fund.
&#8220;This investment in our families is about the urgency we have seen in our community in the last month,&#8221; Arlington County Board Chairman Matt de Ferranti said. &#8220;And we are going to respond with care, and we are going to respond proudly. That&#8217;s what this $50,000 is toward with Thrive.&#8221;
The board has tasked Arlington Thrive, a nonprofit organization that provides financial aid to Arlington families, with distributing the funds, according to ABC7.
&#8220;We are valuing the families of those who have been displaced and removed,&#8221; de Ferranti said.
Months before approving the payments, the board raised property taxes on the average homeowner by nearly $500, according to ABC7. The average renter is also expected to see rent increases of more than $300 as a result of the tax hikes.
DHS responded to the county&#8217;s latest action in an <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2097467550665724287">X post</a> Tuesday, saying that &#8220;under left-wing leadership, crime pays.&#8221;
The county board voted last year to bar the Arlington County Police Department from notifying ICE about the arrests of illegal immigrant gang members or terrorists, according to ABC7.
The board also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fcq17tWJak" target="_blank" rel="noopener">instructed</a> residents to call 911 if they observe ICE on the streets.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) has also instituted several anti-ICE measures, including actions barring state authorities from working with ICE.

A goup of 122 deported Guatemalans arriv

Sanctuary Officials To Shell Out Thousands In Taxpayer Dollars To Families Of Illegal Immigrants

abigail spanberger

arlington county

sanctuary city

virginia

A previously deported illegal immigrant is accused of killing a young father while driving drunk in a stolen Audi the wrong way down a North Texas highway.
Alexander Nunez, 26, allegedly struck a vehicle carrying Kenan Ellis and two of his cousins shortly before midnight on September 3 on Highway 67 in Duncanville. Ellis had recently celebrated his 29th birthday.
Ellis was returning home from a music video shoot for popular rapper BigXThaPlug when the crash occurred, his uncle, Xavier Hicks, told The Daily Wire. Hicks said the rapper was driving close behind. Ellis is survived by his 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter.
Federal authorities previously deported Nunez, who later illegally re-entered the United States without being encountered at the border, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman told The Daily Wire.
Nunez faces charges of intoxication assault, intoxication manslaughter, and unauthorized use of a vehicle. He is being held in the Dallas County Jail on a $110,000 bond.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also lodged a detainer in the case, asking local authorities to transfer him to federal custody if they release him.
&#8220;Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, if you break the law, you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.,&#8221; the DHS spokesperson said.
When Hicks learned of Nunez&#8217;s previous deportation, he reacted with one word: &#8220;Wow.&#8221;
&#8220;Honestly and truthfully, that&#8217;s unfortunate. But my faith keeps telling me that it was God&#8217;s timing,&#8221; Hicks said.
&#8220;I hold no malice in my heart for Alexander Nunez,&#8221; he added.
Ellis&#8217; cousins were left with multiple broken bones, while one is expected to be in a wheelchair for several months, <a href="https://www.fox4news.com/news/suspect-faces-intoxication-manslaughter-immigration-hold-after-fatal-duncanville-crash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Fox 4. Both are expected to recover.
The three men were roughly five minutes from home when the crash occurred, according to reports.
Authorities determined that Nunez was intoxicated after he failed field sobriety tests, Fox 4 reported.
Ellis&#8217; sister, Siniya Allen, described her late brother as &#8220;a great dad,&#8221; &#8220;an amazing brother,&#8221; and &#8220;an amazing son.&#8221;
&#8220;He was there for all his friends. He was just a great person,&#8221; she told Fox 4.
Allen said Nunez&#8217;s alleged actions left her family with an overwhelming loss.
&#8220;He took something important from us. I lost a brother. My mom lost a son. I have another brother. He lost his sibling. His kids have to grow up without a dad. No kid should have to do that at the expense of somebody else&#8217;s actions,&#8221; Siniya said.

Untitled design – 2026-09-08T142355.983

Exclusive: Young Father Killed By Wrong-Way Driver In Stolen Car Who Was Previously Deported

crime

texas

A Cal State L.A. professor who is also the <a href="https://blmgrassroots.org/leadership/">co-founder</a> of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles took doxxing to a dangerous new high, publicly identifying an immigration enforcement officer, blasting out his purported hotel address, and repeatedly barking at a crowd to &#8220;f*ck him up.&#8221;
Melina Abdullah, a prominent Muslim activist with deep roots in local far-Left organizing, dropped the direct threat during a weekend gathering of the Party for Socialism and Liberation-affiliated La Defensa del Pueblo summit.
Addressing the audience, the radical academic pulled no punches while taking aim at federal immigration authorities. Abdullah explicitly called out immigration agent Brian Palacios by name, putting his face and exact location on blast for the crowd.
“The killer ICE agent who we got on good authority is right down the road at the Hilton Garden Inn in Oxnard,” Abdullah told the gathering. She repeatedly instructed the audience to target him: &#8220;You see the devil right there, f*ck him up. You know that Brian Palacios may be staying at the Hilton Garden Inn at 2000 Solar Drive, down the way. F*ck him up.&#8221;
Palacios has faced threats from the radical Left after he was accused of fatally shooting Keith Porter Jr. on New Year&#8217;s Eve. Palacios, who was off-duty at the time, said the shooting was in self-defense and has <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/ice-agent-restraining-order-threat-accusation">accused</a> his girlfriend&#8217;s ex-husband, Omar Escorcia, of leaking his name to the L.A. chapter of Black Lives Matter. Abdullah has denied any contact between her radical organization and Escorcia.
During her rant, Abdullah went on to invoke &#8220;Black August&#8221; and urged attendees to acquire tactical texts on &#8220;guerrilla warfare.&#8221; While insisting her calls to action spanned everything from prayer to financial donations, she made it clear that federal agents should be given no quarter.
&#8220;There should be nowhere that they go where they are comfortable,&#8221; she declared. &#8220;Turn up, organize, and win this sh*t.&#8221;
Abdullah boasts a hardcore activist resume stretching back through multiple generations of Marxist organizers.
Over the past decade, she has built the local Black Lives Matter movement into an organization equipped with protest groups, policy teams, and strategic media outreach.
In 2020, BLM-LA constantly bird-dogged the top law enforcement official in the region, then-L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-leaders-campaign-to-cancel-capitalism-shaped-by-marxist-upbringing">reported</a>. Abdullah and other demonstrators showed up at her home, banged on a drum, and rang her doorbell around 5:30 am.
The incident culminated with Lacey’s husband pointing a handgun out the couple’s front door. He then threatened to shoot Abdullah and ordered the trespassers to leave his property. BLM-LA’s communications team ensured partial video of the encounter went viral.
“Are you going to shoot me?” Abdullah can be heard asking.
“I will shoot you,” David Lacey responded. “Get off of my porch.”

Melina Abdullah

Professor Doxxes ICE Agent, Urges Audience To ‘F*ck Him Up’

black lives matter

doxxing

melina abdullah

A decade ago, putting Milo Yiannopoulos’ name on a university speaking calendar meant inviting violent student riots and salacious national headlines. Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him at the New Orleans airport and deported him to the U.K. It’s such a perfectly scripted ending to his American career that it almost seems ghostwritten. Which, in Milo&#8217;s case, would be appropriate.
&#8220;It was physically degrading. It was frightening. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever been frightened like that before,” Yiannopoulos said in an interview with Piers Morgan, a privilege not bestowed upon the average ICE deportee. In a piece in the Spectator, Yiannopoulos claimed that the ICE facility he was in was empty and that the Trump administration’s deportation policy was akin to a chess board lacking its pieces. But the experience, he said, opened his mind and his heart. &#8220;In the past,” he said, “I think I&#8217;ve been a little blasé when people talked about their trauma.&#8221; 
You think? Yiannopoulos dined off trauma for years, which briefly made him one of the most controversial figures in American politics. And now, we live in the world he helped make. 
The rise of a provocateur
After dropping out of university, Milo worked at the Catholic Herald, then moved into tech journalism around 2009, writing and blogging for the Daily Telegraph and contributing to TechCrunch. He cultivated a reputation as a nasty theatrical gadfly of the London startup scene. By 2012 Wired UK was literally describing him as a “provocateur” who liked to “provoke and irritate, often for its own sake.”
Then in late 2011 he co-founded The Kernel, a gossip publication whose pitch was basically: British technology journalism is timid and clubby, and we’re going to be meaner and more aggressive. It covered startups, internet culture, and media but also specialized in picking fights with people in the British tech establishment. In a 2012 profile, The Observer called him the “pit bull of tech media.” Forbes, rather grandly, called him “Digital Media’s Citizen Kane.” He enjoyed, he told Forbes, “seeing the wicked suffer.” 
Enter Gamergate, an internet pile-on against leftism (and sometimes just women) in the video game industry, which allowed Milo to discover that the same provocateur act had vastly greater commercial and political potential when aimed at feminism, political correctness, and the American culture war. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recognize the potential of GamerGate to give the left a bloody nose,” he said in a 2015 interview. 
On September 1, 2015 Milo published a Breitbart piece titled “Feminist Bullies Tearing the Video Game Industry Apart.” “It’s easy to mock video gamers as dorky loners in yellowing underpants,” the column went in part. “I enjoy upsetting the right people,” he told the L.A. Times in 2015, adding that he wanted to push the boundaries of permissible online speech.
By 2016 Milo had gone from Gamergate provocateur to an enthusiastic Trump surrogate — not officially, but culturally. He called Trump “Daddy” and himself a “Trump-sexual.” He consciously designed this to irritate people. Asked why he called Trump Daddy, Milo said: “I wasn’t particularly attached to it until I saw how much it wound up liberals. And now I do it all the time.”
In July 2016, he told the Washington Post: “My career has taken off exponentially.” He called Trump “a perfect storm of everything I love in life.” The Washington Post noted that Breitbart Tech was publishing so many stories about Milo himself that it was effectively part news operation, part publicity machine.
Milo’s 2016-2017 “Dangerous Faggot Tour” made various college stops, hosted by groups including College Republicans, Young Americans for Liberty, and Turning Point USA. The presentation was deliberately theatrical. At UC Santa Barbara in May 2016, Milo entered a packed hall on a golden throne, wearing pearls, with a life-size Trump cutout waiting onstage. But there was a real constituency underneath the spectacle. One UCSB student told the campus newspaper: “I stopped being ashamed of my opinions and conservative values, so thank you.”
Campuses became an absurd flashpoint when Yiannopoulos appeared, culminating in a February 1, 2017, riot in Berkeley. About 150 masked agitators set fires, lit fireworks, broke windows, and attacked police. The university evacuated Milo and canceled the event. Trump threatened Berkeley&#8217;s federal funding over the canceled speech, leading Bill Maher to say “liberals always take the bait.” 
Twitter permanently banned Milo in 2016 for making fun of actress Leslie Jones’ reaction to bad reviews of her all-female &#8220;Ghostbusters&#8221; reboot. His followers unleashed a fusillade, causing her to leave Twitter with the sad message, “I have been called Apes.” From Milo’s point of view, this was a publicity bonanza. In front of a roaring crowd at an RNC party he was hosting in Cleveland, he said, “I just got banned from Twitter.” 
By December, Simon &amp; Schuster was offering him a reported $250,000 book deal. Milo&#8217;s description of that meeting is almost embarrassingly on-theme: “I thought they were going to have me escorted from the building.” Instead, he said, they offered him “a wheelbarrow full of money.” He added, “I don’t care about politics. I only talk about politics because of Trump.” 
But politics was also going to bring on his rapid downfall. 
Too much trolling
In 2016, Milo appeared on the Drunken Peasants podcast, discussing relationships between adult men and teenage boys, attacking age-of-consent laws, and speaking about his own sexual experiences with an older Catholic priest. On Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, the conservative anti-Trump account The Reagan Battalion pushed the old footage back into circulation specifically as Milo was about to appear at CPAC. Milo found himself backed into the tightest of corners, forced to say, “I do not support pedophilia. Period.”
By the next day, CPAC had rescinded his invitation. Chairman Matt Schlapp said: “There is no disagreement among our attendees on the evils of sexual abuse of children.” The day after that, Milo lost his book deal. Then, on Tuesday, Feb. 21, he resigned as Breitbart&#8217;s senior editor. He insisted, “This decision is mine alone,” although the Washington Post reported that Breitbart staffers had been discussing leaving if he remained. His public explanation was that his “poor choice of words” was distracting from his colleagues&#8217; work.
Milo still had an audience after the crash. He self-published &#8220;Dangerous&#8221; in July 2017. Then he sued Simon &amp; Schuster for $10 million for breach of contract. The litigation became embarrassing when the publisher&#8217;s editorial notes on his manuscript entered the record; by February 2018, Milo abandoned the suit. He said he didn&#8217;t want to spend his book profits and another two years litigating it. 
By late 2018, documents assembled by former Australian tour promoters indicated that Milo was more than $2 million in debt. The alleged creditors included $400,000 owed to the Mercer family, $153,215 to former lawyers, $76,574 to longtime ghostwriter Allum Bokhari — and $20,000 to Cartier. Milo disputed the characterization, saying these were “company debts, not personal” and claiming he was earning $40,000 a month.
He pleaded for money on Patreon, saying, “I’ve had a miserable year or two, banned and de-platformed and censored and blacklisted.” In 2022, he revealed that he was “ex-gay” after going through Catholic conversion therapy. He became an unpaid intern for Marjorie Taylor-Greene. In 2022, he entered Kanye West&#8217;s chaotic political orbit, becoming involved with Ye&#8217;s prospective 2024 presidential campaign alongside Nick Fuentes. He was fired, later rehired in 2023 as Ye&#8217;s director of political operations, and eventually became Yeezy’s chief of staff.
And now he’s a deportee, who — in his time — was ahead of his time. 
The modern political influencer who suddenly changes positions without integrity, manufactures stupid feuds, treats attention as ideological capital, converts cancellation into marketing, and makes his personality more important than his ideas is utterly normal now. Milo looks dated and pathetic in 2026 partly because the culture has thoroughly absorbed the techniques that made him freakishly novel in 2015.
In ICE, the great proto-troll finally encountered an institution that wasn&#8217;t arguing with him, quote-tweeting him, protesting him, interviewing him, or buying tickets to hate-watch him. It just put him on an airplane. No one waved goodbye. 
***
Neal Pollack, “the greatest living American writer,” is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time “Jeopardy!” champion.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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