Hakeem Jeffries Has Totally Pathetic Plan to Rein in ICE

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is leaping into action to protect American citizens by banning … something that is already illegal.

Speaking at a press briefing at the Capitol Thursday, Jeffries announced that, as a condition of supporting legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security as it continues its deadly immigration enforcement crackdown in Minneapolis, Democrats will demand a ban on deporting American citizens.

“In what country are we living in if it’s controversial to prohibit [the deportation] of American citizens?” Jeffries said. “That shouldn’t even be a discussion.”

It shouldn’t be up for discussion because it is already illegal. Deporting American citizens is not permitted under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which outlines the rules for deporting noncitizens. It also violates a 1958 Supreme Court ruling that found stripping a person of their American citizenship violated the Eighth Amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

But the Trump administration is still doing it anyway, sweeping up American citizens as part of its dragnet immigration enforcement efforts.

Senate Democrats also pitched immigration reforms such as requiring federal agents to wear body cameras, banning the use of face masks, and enforcing a new code of conduct. But they’re missing the point.

It seems that Jeffries, along with his Senate colleagues, haven’t quite grasped the fact that the cruelties of Donald Trump’s lawless immigration crackdown are not subject to reform because they are already lawless. Instead, Democrats will continue to find ways to soothe their conscience while filling the coffers of federal agencies that allowed American citizens to be killed in the streets.

Even ICE’s enormous 2026 budget has its limits.

Landowners in Oklahoma City are backing out of a deal with the federal agency, nixing plans to develop a new ICE facility in the area after agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt announced the terminated contract on social media Thursday morning after meeting with the property owners at 2800 S. Council in the southwest portion of the city.

“The owners are not residents of Oklahoma and this is the only property they own in Oklahoma City,” Holt wrote. “The owners of the property at 2800 S. Council confirmed to me this morning that they are no longer engaged with the Department of Homeland Security about a potential acquisition or lease of this property.

“I commend the owners for their decision and thank them on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City,” Holt added. “As Mayor, I ask that every single property owner in Oklahoma City exhibit the same concern for our community in the days ahead.”

The property at 2800 S. Council road is a 26.8-acre warehouse. Its owners are listed as OKC Logistic Park LLC, a leasing company based out of Kansas, according to the Oklahoma County Assessor database.

The Homeland Security Department issued a letter to the city last month indicating that the agency intended to “purchase, occupy, and rehabilitate” the spacious depot with the intention of housing up to 1,500 people. The agency also noted the potential addition of “tentage and a guard shack,” fencing, and “holding and processing spaces” to the property.

In response, the city government recognized that it had little recourse to prevent DHS from creating a facility in the city due to the Constitution’s supremacy clause. But city leadership wrote that “decisions about land use are best made locally,” and implored DHS to listen to feedback from residents who might be affected by the center’s creation.

The mayor’s office also petitioned members of Congress, asking them to express support for the city as it attempted to negotiate with Homeland Security.

The property owners’ stark reversal comes in the immediate wake of a packed Oklahoma City Council meeting that took place Wednesday, in which droves of local residents filled City Hall in order to oppose the facility’s construction, reported KFOR, an NBC News affiliate in Oklahoma.

Republicans have proposed an “election reform” bill that would actually impose severe restrictions on voting across the country. 

The “Make Elections Great Again Act” would require photo identification, require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day, require voters to opt-in to voting by mail, ban ranked-choice voting for federal elections, among many other restrictions. 

States like Oregon have had universal mail-in ballots for years, and many states allow mail-in ballots to be counted up to a certain date if they are postmarked by Election Day. Ranked-choice voting is used for some statewide elections in Maine and Alaska, and local elections around the country.  

Representative Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, introduced the bill, claiming it will “improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.” 

What he left out in his statement was perhaps one of the bill’s most troubling features. If passed into law, each state would also have to create a single digital voter database to serve as “the official voter registration list for the conduct of all elections for Federal office in the State.”

States would also have to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship for anyone registered to vote in federal elections and re-check those voters’ eligibility “as are necessary on an ongoing basis, but in no case less frequently than once every 30 days.”

Under the bill, the U.S. attorney general would be able to sue states to force them to comply with the new restrictions, and private citizens would gain the power to sue election officials who register a voter without proof of citizenship. 

The bill faces a tall order to get through the House and Senate before the midterm elections, and if it does end up signed by President Trump, would more than likely face a flurry of lawsuits from states across the country. It’s very much designed to placate Republican conspiracy theories about voter fraud and Trump’s contention that all the elections he loses are fraudulent. 

On Wednesday, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia. The county’s election commissioner says it was an act of political retribution from President Donald Trump.

Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts claimed Thursday his office was raided because he “stood up to Donald Trump’s big lie.”

“Fulton County has been targeted for years ... because I refused to bend to pressure,” Pitts said, referring to years of Trump-perpetuated claims that Democrats stole the 2020 general election. “Every audit, every recount, every court ruling has confirmed what we, the people of Fulton County, already knew.… Our elections were fair and accurate, and every legal vote was counted. These ongoing efforts are about intimidation and distraction, not facts.”

The Justice Department already sued the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections last month on grounds that the office didn’t comply with a subpoena demanding “used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

The FBI reportedly took 700 boxes of ballots and records from the 2020 election during its Wednesday raid. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was also present, raising eyebrows and eliciting conspiracy theories from all ends of the political spectrum.

“Fulton County is now, has been and always will be committed to upholding the law,” Pitts said. “One of the strangest things about this case is that these records were the subject of active litigation and, quite frankly, were likely to be unsealed and turned over in a matter of weeks.… All he had to do was ask the judge to do so, but albeit in a much more orderly manner. We in Fulton County have nothing ... nothing ... nothing to hide.

“And finally, and most importantly, this is by no means over. This is by no means over.”

The Department of Justice lawyer behind the FBI raid on a Georgia county’s election operations center used to work under a state attorney general who sought to overturn the 2020 election results. 

The sealed search warrant that authorized a federal raid Wednesday at the Fulton County election office was proffered by Thomas Albus, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, and signed by Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas.

Albus previously worked at the Missouri attorney general’s office as the first assistant to then–Attorney General Eric Schmitt while Schmitt actively worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Schmitt was elected to the Senate in 2022.  

In December 2020, when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit attempting to convince the Supreme Court to toss the election results from three Biden-won states, Schmitt’s office filed an amicus brief supporting his effort and drummed up support from 17 other Republican attorneys general. 

Years later, the second-in-command from that same office has allowed the federal government to play out President Donald Trump’s ultimate revenge fantasy on Georgia, where he has baselessly claimed the election was stolen from him. 

At a press conference Thursday, local officials said that they had not received a full copy of the search warrant, and were still not aware of where the seized records had been taken or why. Seven hundred boxes of election-related records were seized in the raid, according to Sherri Allen, chair of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections.