Deporting illegals: ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’

As President Donald Trump entered the Oval Office for his second term, immediately initiating his promised illegal immigrant deportation program, a video appeared online of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents rounding up one of their first targets.

In the video, the sight of the illegal immigrant – the recipient of 17 criminal convictions and also believed to have been a Haitian gang leader – yelling out defiantly at his captors is priceless. Cuffed and sitting inside a police car, he looked at the camera and boasted to those arresting him he was not going back to Haiti. He also shouted out a thank you to those who made it possible for him to enter the U.S. illegally in the first place.

Angrily, he claimed, “I’m not going back to Haiti. F— Trump. … Yo, Biden forever, bro! Thank Obama for everything he did for me, bro.” While thanking the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for allowing him the opportunity to embrace his criminal trade in America, he condemned Trump for ending his diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) opportunity to continue it.

Vice President J.D. Vance could not resist the opportunity to comment on the video, posting, “An illegal alien with 17 criminal convictions really hates President Trump for sending him back to Haiti. He’s grateful to Biden for letting him come here. I’m glad we’re deporting him. Do you agree or would you like him as your neighbor?”

It would be an eye-opening educational tool for ICE and CBP to use the video to show Americans what is being done to create a safer America. A short clip from the arrest video of this thug’s defiance would properly underscore the need for removing such trash from the U.S.

The impact of Biden’s departure from the White House has been reciprocated by an immediate decrease in the number of illegal aliens entering the U.S. This has been the result of border security and immigration strategies announced by Trump but not yet even implemented. It includes deployment of U.S. military forces to provide assistance in barrier construction and immigration enforcement.

Other policies Trump has announced include plans to terminate asylum and to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” program he had implemented during his first term. He will also suspend refugee resettlement for at least four months and increase the number of CBP agents by 50%.

On his first day, Trump declared a national emergency existed at the border with Mexico. This authorized him to deploy military forces there. Unlike the Biden administration, which turned a blind eye to what was going on at the border, Trump made clear the danger lurking there: “Our southern border is overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, unvetted military-age males from foreign adversaries and illicit narcotics that harm Americans.”

To fight the cartels, Trump has invoked a 227-year old law that has survived every U.S. Supreme Court challenge to date – the “Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is a product of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. As such, the law enables him to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), empowering Trump to employ the full “power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil.”

Trump’s effort to make a safer America will undoubtedly suffer some delays due to various legal and funding challenges his opponents will initiate. Reportedly, Trump will need $100 billion during the next four years to achieve his border security and deportation goals.

Trump’s Justice Department has threatened criminal prosecution of local officials who endeavor not to cooperate with his agenda by virtue of their state or city’s declared sanctuary status. The basis for such prosecution would be that the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause trumps their sanctuary status.

Additionally, the recent passage of the Laken Riley Act, supported by 87% of Americans, requires that “undocumented” immigrants be detained for any misdemeanor or greater violations – from shoplifting to homicide. The act’s namesake’s life was tragically taken by an illegal who, previously arrested in New York, subsequently murdered her in Georgia. The Laken Riley Act, along with the 1798 FTO law, empowers the Trump administration to prioritize the arrest and deportation of the illegal alien criminal element, denying cities/states to claim sanctuary status.

Trump’s illegal-immigration initiatives, along with reality, have caused the commonwealth of Massachusetts to re-examine where exactly it stands on the sanctuary-state issue. It appears to be fence-sitting, publicly asserting it is not a sanctuary state while proclaiming immigrants’ rights will be protected. As migrants continue to flood the state, it is estimated its 2025 budget for housing them and their families in over 128 hotels and motels will hit $1 billion. This financial strain, along with several high profile criminal acts, has resulted in a policy shift as the governor now demands migrants show proof of legal entry.

Despite ICE rounding up murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, etc. in Boston, an NBC affiliate ridiculously reported that the raids were causing “growing concerns.” A correspondent embedded with an ICE team slammed the affiliate for its report.

Other cities and states whose officials have been slow on the illegal-immigration intake are discovering the effort to shelter new arrivals is unpopular. New York City’s plan to open a massive 2,200-bed migrant shelter in the South Bronx triggered claims of it becoming a “dumping ground” for them. The announcement ridiculously comes as the city seeks to close down 46 shelters that will reduce the bed count by 10,000.

Meanwhile, Trump has gotten countries like India to accept 18,000 of its citizens who entered the U.S. illegally as Mexico has been building numerous temporary shelters to house deported migrants from the U.S.

Based on the range of immigration policies Trump is initiating, a good addition to the video clip of the defiant gang leader and illegal alien mentioned above to enhance its educational impact would be to show it while playing the 1970 hit song “We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters. It would clearly convey the message that, for those breaking our laws, their deportations have only “just begun.”