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A Single ICE Bust Seizes Enough Fentanyl to Kill ‘750,000 People’

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Federal immigration authorities seized 1.2 kilos of fentanyl — enough to kill hundreds of thousands of people — from a former sheriff’s deputy and his son in West Virginia as part of an ongoing narcotics investigation, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) press release says.

45-year-old Dale McCallister and his 76-year-old father, Larry McCallister — a retired Cabell County deputy sheriff — have been indicted “with various drug and gun crimes” after federal agents seized around 1.2 kilograms of fentanyl, 300 grams of methamphetamine, over $8,000 in cash, and a .357 magnum revolver, the release says. $4,000 of the seized cash was from an earlier undercover purchase of fentanyl.

“It is particularly detestable to see trusted community members and a former law enforcement officer seeking to profit from such a destructive and sure poison,” HSI Washington, D.C., Special Agent in Charge Raymond Villanueva said in a statement. “I am exceptionally proud of the specialized skills unified in the new Mountain and Old Dominion BEST that identified this poison and prevented its distribution.”

Fentanyl is an extremely potent opioid and a key driver of overdose deaths in the ongoing drug crisis. Just a tiny amount of it can kill someone. According to the DEA, “as little as two milligrams is a lethal dosage in most people.”

United States Attorney Mike Stuart said, “Had the fentanyl in this case hit the streets, potentially more than 750,000 people could have lost their lives to overdose.”

“Massive quantities of fentanyl. Massive quantities of methamphetamine. And a gun,” Stuart’s statement added. “All of this incredibly heinous activity was based out of a normal house on a normal street in Barboursville.”

Though ICE does not lay out what relation these arrests have to immigration or border enforcement, it does explain that it was handled by the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST), the mission of which is to “combat emerging and existing transnational criminal organizations.”

In an article breaking down the origins of the current drug crisis in spring 2018, Conservative Review senior editor Daniel Horowitz explained that a large part of America’s drug crisis is being driven by America’s illegal immigration crisis.

Sanctuary policies are also a key driver, Horowitz explained elsewhere:

Every time the media focuses a camera on a desperate “migrant” seeking a better life, just remember that when the cameras are not rolling and when the border agents are preoccupied, there are tons of deadly substances pouring over the border that will make their way to a sanctuary city hub, then to be distributed to every corner of this country and kill off our youth. Open-borders policies are not so compassionate after all.

(For more from the author of “A Single ICE Bust Seizes Enough Fentanyl to Kill ‘750,000 People’” please click HERE)

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Left-Wing Violence? FBI Looking into Targeted Shootings at Two ICE Facilities

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are Nazis. They have concentration camps set up at the border. They should be abolished. That’s the narrative that Democrats, the liberal media, and their activist goons have been peddling for months and the results have turned violent. In Tacoma, Washington, an activist with the extreme left-wing Antifa attacked an ICE facility. He was killed in the failed assault. Now, in San Antonio, two ICE facilities were fired upon. The attacks occurred in the early morning hours. The FBI is fairly certain that this was targeted attack as only the floors with ICE offices were stuck. The suspects knew what they were doing and whom they were targeting (via News 4 San Antonio):

Investigators say that multiple shots were fired on two floors targeting ICE officials. No one was hit, but windows were broken in the building. One person was injured, it’s not clear how they were, though.

“I don’t think there’s a question that they knew which floors the ice offices were,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Combs said Tuesday. The building shot at has multiple tenants, with the ICE facility located on upper floors.

“All of the shots that we have found are on the floors where ICE had offices,” Combs explained. “This is no question a very targeted attack. It’s not a secret facility, you can go online, it’s out there. So they did some research, they knew what floors ICE was on, they knew what buildings they were and and they hit those.”

[…]

ICE ERO San Antonio Field Office Director Daniel Bible says the national discourse surrounding ICE and the topic of immigration is reckless, blaming today’s shooting on politicians, media and activists.

(Read more from “Left-Wing Violence? FBI Looking into Targeted Shootings at Two ICE Facilities” HERE)

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ICE Reveals How Many Arrests Were Made During the Recent Highly-Publicized Raids

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Fewer than three dozen total arrests were made during the highly-publicized Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation earlier this month, according to acting ICE director Matthew Albence.

Operation Border Resolve, which took place on the weekend of July 13, was highly publicized by the president and media, and caused concern or panic among some communities and opponents of immigration enforcement. Despite the relatively small number of arrests as compared with the number of total targets, Albence said they were not disappointed.

“This is just the beginning of the operation,” Albence said according to Politico. “When you have somebody that comes in here illegally and has no ties to anyone in the country and can give any address they want, that makes it very difficult for us to be able to try to locate those individuals.” . . .

One thing that can be harmful to a law enforcement operation like this one is a high level of advance attention paid to it, allowing the targets to be on guard to avoid arrest.

Albence conceded that the publicity was potentially problematic, saying “you could turn on any TV station for several weeks with this being one of the lead topics.” But Albence was clear that he did not believe President Donald Trump’s comments about the operation harmed its effectiveness. (Read more from “ICE Reveals How Many Arrests Were Made During the Recent Highly-Publicized Raids” HERE)

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Oregon Sanctuaries Force ICE to Apprehend Alleged Child Sex Offender in Courthouse

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Will sanctuaries and open-borders advocates get in the way of ICE even when it’s apprehending an accused child sex offender? Evidently so, in the state of Oregon.

Yesterday, open-borders advocates fought with ICE agents who stood outside the Clatsop County Courthouse in Astoria, Oregon, to apprehend Fabian Alberto Zamora-Rodriguez. He was attending a hearing related to his charges of child sex abuse.

According to the Daily Astorian, ICE was forced to release pepper spray after “immigrant rights’ advocates and the man’s mother and partner tightly surrounded him as he tried to leave.” The paper quotes “immigrant rights” groups that protested by promulgating a dangerous lie that ICE needs a criminal warrant to apprehend an illegal alien for deportation.

Just who were “immigrant rights” groups protecting, and why did ICE have to wait almost five months after his arrest to apprehend him at the courthouse?

Clatsop County sheriff’s deputies arrested Zamora-Rodriguez on February 27 when he was caught in an online child sex sting leading to his apprehension at a local park, where police suspected he was planning a sexual rendezvous with an 11-year-old boy. Here is part of the Daily Astorian’s write-up of the arrest:

Zamora was booked in the Clatsop County Jail on one count each of first and second-degree online sexual corruption of a child, two counts of attempted use of a child in a sexually explicit display and eight counts of encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree.

Zamora allegedly used online communications to make detailed plans to meet the child in person for sexual contact twice, but only followed through with his plans once. He also allegedly pressured a person he believed to be 11 to send him lewd images.

Even someone this bad evidently was not turned over to ICE. Why else would ICE have to wait until the hearing and grab him at the courthouse? When I reached out to ICE for more information, they said that due to privacy concerns they could not comment on this specific individual. However, Tanya Roman, spokeswoman for ICE’s northwestern field office, told CR that in general, “It is actually often due to the implementation of unreasonable ‘sanctuary city’ policies that prevent ICE from being notified of the presence of criminal aliens in jails or prisons, which then necessitates that we utilize options like enforcement actions at courthouses to accomplish our law enforcement mission.”

An example of why ICE would have to wait for a court date to make its move on behalf of public safety, according to Roman, is if the criminal alien is not handed over at the jail and doesn’t have a known address, there is a serious risk they will lose track of the individual. “Absent a viable residential address or place of employment, a courthouse may afford the most likely opportunity to locate a target and take him or her into custody.”

The same local governments and advocacy groups who seek to hamper ICE efforts to arrest illegal aliens at safe and stable locations like jailhouses then complain about ICE showing up at courthouses as the only viable alternative. Otherwise, illegal aliens who have victimized people might be let out on bail and abscond.

“In years past, most of these individuals would have been turned over to ICE by local authorities upon their release from jail based on ICE detainers,” said Roman. “Now that some cities do not honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat.”

There is a pervasive problem with alien child sex offenders. Border Patrol catches them every day at the border when they seek to return after removal. According to the Epoch Times, one citizen in North Carolina collated criminal data from only 30 percent of North Carolina counties and found that in just the past 18 months, “more than 331 illegal aliens have been charged with 1,172 child rapes and child sexual assaults.”

Federal law (8 U.S.C. 1373) prohibits state and local government from “in any way restrict[ing], any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.” 8 U.S.C. 1324 also prohibits individuals, whether in government or in advocacy groups from encouraging, inducing, harboring, shielding from detection, or transporting illegal aliens in any way or attempting to do so. This is clearly violated on a daily basis, yet the federal government has been lax in enforcing these laws.

What’s clearly evident about “immigrant rights” groups and the politicians who support them is that they now believe anyone who wants should be able to enter our country and should never be deported, including even accused child sex offenders. States like Oregon have already laid down that marker. The question now is: How will the political leaders on the federal side respond? (For more from the author of “Oregon Sanctuaries Force ICE to Apprehend Alleged Child Sex Offender in Courthouse” please click HERE)

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Watch: Pole-Dancing ICE Protester Loses Her Mind When Confronted by Conservative Woman

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On Monday, conservative media personality Ashley StClair visited an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Aurora, Colorado that was recently overtaken by anti-ICE protesters who removed the American flag and replaced it with the flag of Mexico.

StClair says in the video that she went to the facility to voice her support for law enforcement and for our country, a voice of opposition to the protesters in attendance. She was quickly met with a mob of radical left-wingers who screamed at the conservative and called her a “f***ing b****” and a “white supremacist.” In a moment caught on video, one of the protesters oddly started pole-dancing on a stop sign, too.

The video opens with an angry woman in a shirt that says “Free Them!!!” clapping and screaming.

“I don’t give a f***!” she repeatedly yells while furiously clapping her hands together in the conservative woman’s face. “You’re a f***ing b****! You’re a f***ing b****! Privileged a** b****, get the f*** out of here! Now!” . . .

The video then cuts to StClair standing alone. “I’m here at the Aurora ICE facility where protesters decided to take down the American flag and put a Mexican flag in its place,” she says. “I’m appalled that politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have prompted this behavior and have disrespected our country, our law, and our law enforcement. I’m here to show support for our law enforcement, our country, and everything that our flag stands for. God bless America and God bless our law enforcement.”

[Warning: video contains explicit language]

(Read more from “Watch: Pole-Dancing ICE Protester Loses Her Mind When Confronted by Conservative Woman” HERE)

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Poll Reveals How Americans ACTUALLY Feel About ICE Raids

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According to a new poll, a majority of Americans favor the idea of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids to arrest and deport illegal immigrants who have outstanding deportation court orders.

A Morning Consult poll found that 51% of respondents, including almost half of independent voters (46%), liked the idea. The survey, which was conducted between July 12-14, found nearly two-thirds of Republicans “strongly” supporting the raids.

Morning Consult reported, “About a third (34 percent) of voters said they heard ‘a lot’ about the raids, including 39 percent of Democrats, 32 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of independents.” . . .

Before the raids conducted by ICE last Sunday, ICE spokesman Matthew D. Bourke stated, “As always, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of unlawfully present aliens who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security. However, all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and — if found removable by final order — removal from the United States.”

On June 17, President Trump had stated that the raids would be forthcoming, tweeting, “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement. The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of the loopholes, and fix asylum! If so, Border Crisis will end quickly!

(Read more from “Poll Reveals How Americans Actually Feel About ICE Raids” HERE)

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Video Shows Far-Left Activists Storm ICE Facility, Remove American Flag — Then Raise Mexican Flag

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Far-left protesters stormed an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday, removing the American flag flying outside the facility and replacing it with the Mexican flag.

Video captured outside the facility showed unruly protesters taking down the American flag and hoisting three in its place: A Mexican flag, a defaced Blue Lives Matter-themed American flag that was hoisted upside down, and a third flag that appeared to be just rags.

According to the Denver Post, the protesters were upset about potential immigration raids taking place over the weekend, which would target illegal immigrants living in the Denver-area.

Angry protesters also demonstrated against the treatment of detained migrants, whose questionable living conditions have become the focus of national scrutiny. . .

(Read more from “Video Shows Far-Left Activists Storm ICE Facility, Remove American Flag — Then Raise Mexican Flag” HERE)

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Federal Investigation Launched into Who Leaked ICE Raid Details

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Well, remember the details of Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement upcoming raids on illegals were leaked to the press? Only a very small group of people knew the cities involved and other details that made their way onto the pages of The Washington Post. It was alleged that acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan leaked the details. DHS Sources that reached out to Anna Giaritelli of The Washington Examiner pointed to McAleenan as the leaker, while also tossing the grenade that he cares more about how liberals view him than executing his duties at the agency. That’s some serious stuff. Well, he’s now under investigation for leaking the details of the ICE raids. This leak caused the raids to be delayed (via Washington Examiner):

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan is at the center of a federal investigation into the leak of confidential government information in late June that forced Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to call off a nationwide operation, three senior administration officials told the Washington Examiner.

Following the publishing of sensitive leaked law enforcement information on June 21, then-acting ICE Director Mark Morgan’s team followed department protocol and reported the incident to the ICE Joint Intake Center so they could investigate. JIC is an agency office that handles internal investigations of personnel misconduct, sexual abuse, staff neglect, or violations of responsibilities that may have contributed to such incidents.

“There is an ongoing investigation. An internal investigation has been launched,” one official said in a phone call Friday.

The investigation, which is not a criminal probe, is centered around the leader of the department’s 240,000 employees, as well as at least one aide, for possible involvement in the leak. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s not clear if JIC has referred the matter to the DHS Office of the Inspector General.

(Read more from “Federal Investigation Launched into Who Leaked ICE Raid Details” HERE)

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Minnesota’s ‘Nice Culture’ Is Now a Sanctuary for Transnational Gangs and Drugs

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The North Star State is known for its “Minnesota nice” culture and the small city of Stillwater is known to be quiet and peaceful. The last thing town residents expected was to find a body of a badly injured woman at the hands of an illegal alien gang member lying on one of their streets, but that is exactly what happened on Sunday, June 9, according to the 39-year-old victim. It’s part of a broader problem plaguing the state thanks to the largest metropolitan area being a sanctuary for repeat criminal alien offenders who are incentivized to return after being deported.

Last week, thanks to the recovery of the victim and court documents, local Twin Cities media has gotten the background on the woman found lying in the street in a pool of blood by an Uber driver on June 9. According to the criminal complaint, 32-year-old Angel Sardina-Padilla and 23-year-old Luis Alfredo Cortez-Mendoza, both allegedly members of the Surenos 13 street gang, held the female victim captive in her St. Paul apartment on June 8 and threatened her and her roommates with a metal tool heated up over the stove.

The pair of gang members then drove her around until the next morning when Sardina-Padilla, the alleged ringleader, ordered Mendoza to shoot her. He fired three shots, one striking her in the chest, knocking her down in the street until she was found by the Uber driver at 2:38 a.m. on June 9.

Mendoza reportedly told police that he feared he’d be killed for not following orders when he was arrested on June 10. Sardina-Padilla was arrested June 18. Bail for both of them was set at $2 million in separate court appearances. Mendoza was charged with attempted first-degree murder for the benefit of a gang, attempted second-degree murder for the benefit of a gang and kidnapping for the benefit of a gang. Sardina-Padilla was charged with aiding and abetting on all three counts.

The first question that popped in my mind when seeing the reference to the Surenos 13 gang when following this story last week was that it’s likely these suspects are here illegally. I was the first person to send an inquiry to Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the immigration status of Mendoza last Tuesday, and indeed I was told he is an illegal alien and that there is a detainer lodged against him, a fact that was not mentioned in a single local media report for the first few days of the story. There is no detainer for Sardina-Padilla, which presumably means he is a natural-born or naturalized citizen.

“On June 10, 2019, deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) placed an immigration detainer with Washington County (Minnesota) Jail on Luis Alfredo Cortez-Mendoza, 23, an illegal alien from Mexico, following his criminal arrest on charges of attempted murder,” said Nicole Alberico, spokesman for ICE in a statement to CR last week. “Cortez-Mendoza was removed to Mexico four times in April 2015.”

It wasn’t until late on June 18 that the Star Tribune reported that Mendoza was an illegal alien previously deported several times to Mexico. No other reporter followed up on the immigration status.

This is yet another example of a high profile violent crime committed by an illegal alien that went unreported in the local media. We’ve uncovered several high-profile DUI manslaughters in California where we were the first to inquire about immigration status and report the issuance of an ICE detainer, even though every local media report ignored the immigration aspect of the story.

This tragedy demonstrates how even small towns in the upper Midwest are not immune to transnational gang violence. While the victim in this case was found in Washington County, the alleged assailant lived in St. Paul, a known sanctuary city. So many illegal alien crimes and ICE operations to ensure they are not released after posting bond go unreported in the media. I only found out about this story from a local listener to my podcast.

Stories of violent transnational gang members committing murder or mayhem occur every day, but few trace the origins back to the border. Every day we see agents tied down dealing with mass numbers of illegal immigrants, it is a certainty that dangerous criminal gang members are getting through the border undetected. Mendoza’s ability to come right back four times in the same year is a testament to the border problem that will be ignored through much of the media coverage of this case.

The Twin Cities area is beginning to see many of the problems that plague the East Coast. Minneapolis has long been a sanctuary city. In 2003, the city prohibited its officers from inquiring about immigration status. In recent months, suburbs such as St. Cloud and St. Joseph declared themselves “welcoming cities.” Minneapolis has an entire “Sanctuary City Task Force” to help push back against federal immigration authorities.

More broadly, Hennepin County, the jurisdiction that encompasses the Twin Cities and holds one-fifth of Minnesota’s population, was listed by ICE’s Declined Detainer Outcome Report as a county that declines to honor ICE detainers. Hennepin County was listed for refusing to honor a detainer of a convicted Mexican meth dealer and weapons violator. It’s no surprise why the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote a story “Mexican drug cartels turned Minneapolis into a meth hub.”

All of the deaths from gang activity, drunk driving, and drug trafficking emanating from sanctuary cities are all completely avoidable. They are either the result of an unsecured border allowing them to come in or reenter, or from sanctuary cities who release them even after being apprehended for a subsequent crime, or both. In April, Mark J. O’Gara, a 52-year-old father of 10 children, was killed in St. Paul while pulling out of his driveway. He was hit by a 19-year-old illegal alien from Honduras who was a recent beneficiary of catch-and-release who didn’t show up to his court case.

One thing is clear: as Democrats hold up pictures on the Senate floor of illegal aliens who die of natural causes and blame it on Border Patrol and ICE, they will never show the pictures of victims of illegal aliens. Nor do they show the pictures of all those Americans saved from an unknown number of crimes criminal aliens would have committed had they not been deported. Both of them would likely fill the Senate gallery from floor to ceiling. (For more from the author of “Minnesota’s ‘Nice Culture’ Is Now a Sanctuary for Transnational Gangs and Drugs” please click HERE)

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Obama’s ICE Chief Reveals the Truth About Child Migrant Detention: Don’t Blame Trump

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The man who was the Obama administration’s chief of removing illegal immigrants said on Wednesday that it was his boss, President Barack Obama, who had the idea of putting illegal immigrant children in the “cages” that Democrats have used as a bludgeon against President Trump.

Thomas Homan, Obama’s executive associate director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement between May 2013 and January 2017, was responsible for “promoting public safety and national security by maintaining direct oversight of critical ICE programs and operations to identify, locate, arrest, detain and remove illegal aliens from the United States,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Since January 2017, he has served as Acting Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

He stated on Wednesday, “I’ve been to that facility, where they talk about cages. That facility was built under President Obama under (Homeland Security) Secretary Jeh Johnson. I was there because I was there when it was built,” according to The Washington Examiner.

Homan, speaking at the conference hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, noted a Democratic chairman who asked a Trump official, “You still keeping kids in cages?” He snapped, “I would answer the question, ‘The kids are being housed in the same facility built under the Obama administration.’ If you want to call them cages, call them cages. But if the left wants to call them cages and the Democrats want to call them cages then they have to accept the fact that they were built and funded in FY 2015.”

Homan said that the Border Patrol facilities where illegal immigrants are detained “were not built to take care of children,” adding, “It’s chain link dividers that keeps children separate from unrelated adults. It’s about protecting children.” (Read more from “Obama’s ICE Chief Reveals the Truth About Child Migrant Detention: Don’t Blame Trump” HERE)

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