Tricia McLaughlin: Democrats Chant ‘ICE Out’ While They Let Criminals In

From Billie Eilish at the Grammy Awards to Code Pink activists in the Halls of Congress, “ICE OUT NOW” has been the slogan du jour for lefties parroting the party talking point for the last year and a half since Donald Trump took office and decided to actually enforce the laws of our land passed by Congress. The Left has treated that chant like a moral commandment.

Never mind the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) law enforcement is simply enforcing the rule of law. What’s richer is that the reason ICE is surging in these jurisdictions in the first place is because of Democrats’ “sanctuary” policies.

Take a look at New York, where the Trump administration has just surged immigration enforcement officers under Operation Rotten Apple. The Department of Homeland Security says that in the past month alone it has arrested 2,100 illegal aliens with criminal records in Gotham — ranging from killers and child predators to kidnappers and narcotics smugglers.

So where were New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul?

Busy creating the problem. Their policies are the very reason ICE has needed a large presence in New York at all.

In states like Florida, you’ll find a smaller presence of ICE law enforcement. Why? Because most jurisdictions in Florida not only cooperate with ICE, but they will honor detainers. That means if a local cop picks someone up who is here illegally, they call ICE, and they can coordinate transfer after the alien has served their time. That means fewer criminals on the loose and less need for a federal surge of ICE officers.

New York politicians did the opposite. One of Zohran Mamdani’s first acts as mayor was to sign an executive order reinforcing sanctuary policies and choking off any New York City law enforcement from working with ICE to apprehend and keep illegal aliens in custody. Mr. Mamdani went a step further by signing a law that banned ICE from operating at any of New York’s 19 correctional facilities. Then he wondered why federal agents showed up in force.

How absurd.

A reasonable person would assume New York’s leaders would be thrilled that over 2,000

criminals were removed from their communities, right?

Not this mayor. Yesterday, Mamdani accused ICE of “terrorizing immigrants” and “criminalizing the very act of being an immigrant.”

That only works if you hide the rap sheets. He is hoping we will collectively forget these people also broke our nation’s immigration laws.

He also said that if someone committed serious crimes, the city “would be in contact with the federal administration” about it. He must not have bothered to look at the criminal records of those arrested and taken off his streets.

Among the criminals ICE arrested as part of Operation Rotten Apple is Bogdan Detrovich Gren, a Ukrainian national in the U.S. illegally with convictions for murder, kidnapping, abduction resulting in death, among other crimes.

Also taken into custody were Palvinder Singh, an illegal migrant from India who was convicted of rape in Germany, and Carlos Mendez-Acosta, a Venezuelan migrant convicted of rape, according to the feds.

Andreas Bernal Chiquito is an illegal migrant from Colombia who has past arrests for sexual conduct against a child and injuring a child under age 17.

The Department of Homeland Security says the call from New York officials about those with “serious crimes” never came.

What Hochul and Mamdani did do was take $7.25 million in taxpayer dollars and announce they would pay the legal expenses for unaccompanied minors.

And that’s the tell. They will stage the press conference. They will pay the lawyers. They will chant “ICE out now” as if immigration enforcement is not as old as our country itself. What they will not do is honor a detainer, hold a convicted rapist in jail, or admit that sanctuary policy put those men back on the street.

Elections have consequences. Nowhere is that clearer than immigration. Democrat politicians spent years daring Washington to enforce the law. Trump did. Now they want the law enforcement gone — and the criminals left behind.

If Mamdani and Hochul want fewer ICE officers in New York, there is a simple solution: stop releasing the criminals ICE is trying to remove.

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Tricia McLaughlin served as the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Follow her on X: @TriciaOhio