Catch and Release, Lose and Forget: Addressing the Crisis of Unaccompanied Alien Children — Part II, June 30, 2026

In his opening statement Chairman Higgins stated that “child traffickers abused a UAC sponsorship process” to fraudulently claim familial relationships to children smuggled across the U.S. border “by taking advantage of loopholes that existed during the Biden administration.”

But the “loophole” that enables the fraud and exploitation was written into law during the George W. Bush administration. It would take an actual act of Congress — not mere performativity — to close the “loophole” created by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

Witnesses at this panel were not sworn, there was no official transcript, and Democrats did not attend. No one from the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program, its parent office the Office of Refugee Resettlement, nor the Department of Health and Human Services was called to testify — although Rep. Brian Jack, Georgia Republican, gave a shout-out to his “dear friend” Kevin Malone, the former MLB general manager who now serves as Senior Advisor on Human Trafficking at HHS.1

The panel’s one participant with direct knowledge of the program was Chris Clem, the retired Border Patrol chief who served as a senior advisor at HHS for the administration’s first 100 days in 2025, assigned to locating the missing children. He appeared as a private citizen — unsworn, holding no documents, and, as he told the members, no longer privy to investigative information. What the subcommittee learned about how ORR vets sponsors it learned from his recollection.

Rather than inviting testimony from the current administration, Chairman Higgins and the other members pointed to Biden-era OIG reports, investigative journalism, and government press releases. Subject matter experts testified to the problem, but no one suggested eliminating the cartel’s incentive to smuggle foreign children into the United States where they can be exploited.

While Republicans steam over failures they attribute to the Biden administration and to Democrats, no legislation has been drafted in either chamber of the GOP-led 119th Congress that would mandate an annual report to Congress for the UAC program. In ORR’s FY 2021 annual report to Congress, we read that the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program accounted for $1.3 billion of a $1.9 billion enacted appropriation — 68.4 percent of ORR’s budget — and ORR served a total of 122,731 unaccompanied children against 11,508 refugee arrivals. That ORR report recites its eleven statutory reporting requirements. The only one touching children who arrive alone concerns unaccompanied refugee children. Two-thirds of the money and eleven-twelfths of the population sit outside ORR’s reporting statute.2 Why did I cite the FY 2021 report? Because no further annual report has been published by ORR.

During the roundtable Rep. Andy Biggs, Arizona Republican, played a video clip of himself questioning former director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Robin Dunn Marcos, in April 2023. Dunn Marcos testified concerning the large number of unaccompanied children who could not be contacted after ORR had placed them with sponsors. The outrage value of the clip is obvious. The absence of witnesses from the current ORR is unexplained. After reading off the headlines and handing in a stack of articles, which Chairman Higgins accepted “for the record without objection,” Mr. Biggs named the “hot spots” where children are being smuggled into Arizona and exclaimed: “doggone it, this ticks me off.”

Rep. Paul Gosar, Arizona Republican, spoke of the challenge of overseeing ORR grantees given that many of them claim tax-exempt status. In April 2025 Rep. Gosar introduced the Putting Trust in Transparency Act, H.R. 2841, which would require Schedule B to be published with donors’ names, zip codes and amounts unredacted. But information on who donates to these organizations misses the point — the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program is a federal program, funded primarily with tax dollars. While federal award recipients of over $1 million are audited under 2 C.F.R. Part 200 Subpart F, and those audits go to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, no legislation requires those audit packages — or a full accounting of the UAC program — to be reported to Congress.

On July 17, 2024, the United States filed a complaint in the Western District of Texas alleging that employees of Southwest Key Programs — then the largest private provider of shelter care for unaccompanied children, operating 29 shelters nationally, and the recipient of more than $3 billion from HHS between fiscal years 2015 and 2023 — had subjected children in ORR-funded care to sexual abuse and harassment in a pattern or practice extending from at least 2015 through at least 2023.3 The case was dismissed with prejudice on the Government’s own motion in March 2025, and no allegation was adjudicated.

In connection with the dismissal of United States v. Southwest Key, HHS announced that it would review its grants with the provider.4 No report of that review has been published. No one at the June 30 fauxversight roundtable asked about it — there was no one from HHS in the room to ask.

Chairman Higgins closed the roundtable with a reference to a bill introduced in the last Congress, H.R. 2, which passed the House in 2023 but did not receive a vote in the Senate.5 Components of the bill have been reintroduced in the current Congress, but none of those live bills would reverse the presumption codified at 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1232(b) that gives most unaccompanied children a path to remain in the United States. Under the pretense of “child protection,” this presumption of a U.S. stay creates the perverse incentive that has enabled cartels to smuggle, traffic and exploit children in the United States.

It sounds like Chairman Higgins understands the stakes:

And yet, if we fail, if we fail to codify the strong border security policies of the Trump administration, by passing HR 2 and the sections of HR 2, by some method or form, to pass the legislation of HR 2, then we are clearly leaving ourselves wide open for the kind of human wave upon human wave of misery and torture and lawlessness that we witnessed at our southern border in 2021, 2022, ‘23 and ‘24.

Yet Congress cannot write the bipartisan legislation necessary to secure the border and protect children from cartel smugglers — unless that legislation amends 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1232(b)(3) and eliminates the mechanism that sorts children into ORR custody for a path to stay rather than swiftly and safely returning them home. That’s the loophole I’m talking about. That one. Right there.

And Congress cannot oversee a multi-billion dollar program purporting to protect children when that program does not provide an accounting of itself.

My unofficial transcript of the roundtable follows. Wording may contain transcription errors.

Witnesses: Jarrod Sadulski, PhD; Chris Clem, USBP ret.; Julio Rosas, journalist

[39:53]

CLAY HIGGINS: This is a roundtable for the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement, will come to order, welcome everyone. This is a roundtable, not a hearing, so a bit less formal than a hearing. We’re gonna have a solid discussion today. Without objection the Chair may declare a recess at any time. I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement.

Today the subcommittee convenes to continue its oversight of an underreported but critically important issue facing our nation’s immigration enforcement agencies. I speak of the crisis of unaccompanied alien children or UACs, who become lost in our nation’s immigration system due to the liberal open border immigration policies of the previous administration.

[40:44]

The Biden administration’s immigration policies created a humanitarian crisis that left around 300,000 UACs without proper legal oversight, and they became vulnerable to exploitation. Our southern border became an enormous national security liability during the Biden years, becoming a highway for organized crime, including widespread child trafficking into the United States.

[41:18]

Further, the Biden administration prevented the effective processing and monitoring of unaccompanied alien children — monitoring that was meant to prevent these children from falling into further abuse. Last July, the subcommittee held a hearing addressing the UAC issue.6 In that hearing we examined a devastating report by the DHS Office of Inspector General, which exposed the previous administration’s shocking conduct toward UACs. This report revealed that ICE did not effectively oversee UACs’ processing upon placement with sponsor families, failing to maintain contact with hundreds of thousands of immigrant children.7

[42:13]

Crucially, the Biden administration denied HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement or ORR — that’s the agency charged with matching the children with sponsors — denied them the ability to share its UAC data with ICE. This fueled the cascading crisis of accountability. As a result, the full extent of the Biden administration’s failure to protect and monitor UACs is still coming to light. A subsequent audit by HHS-OIG released just this month found that during the Biden administration, the Office of Refugee Resettlement conducted required monitoring of UAC care facilities in Florida only 69 percent of the time. ORR created numerous opportunities for facility staff to be onboarded without undergoing background checks, creating countless opportunities for traffickers and predators to gain access to migrant children.8

[43:28]

Upon taking office the Trump administration immediately took measures to reverse President Biden’s harmful policies. Under his new leadership, ORR promptly restored responsible, strict sponsor vetting requirements that the Biden administration had dismantled.

[43:47]

President Trump also restored ICE access to the ORR database that contains information about UACs and their sponsors, finally allowing for proper monitoring of these vulnerable children to begin. These and other enforcement efforts have seen results. The Trump administration has recovered 146,000 UACs since taking office. However Biden-era immigration policies have had lasting effects. Countless thousands of UACs remain unaccounted for in our country.

[44:29]

Tragically, many of these children have been subjected to assault, forced labor, and worse. The Department of Justice continues to announce indictments against illegal aliens who have trafficked children into our country. By taking advantage of loopholes that existed during the Biden administration child traffickers abused a UAC sponsorship process to falsely claim family connections to migrant children.

[45:02]

The extent of abuse endured by some of these children is disgusting. Each trauma they experience represents a preventable tragedy born from the policies of the Biden administration.

More must be done to undo the damage wrought by the Biden administration — literally, generational trauma forced upon our nation. Congress is ready to partner with President Trump to provide our federal law-enforcement agencies with the tools they need to rescue these children and bring criminal child traffickers to justice.

[45:42]

Today we have assembled a panel of expert professionals to shed light on the nature of the problem from the ground level. I look forward to today’s discussion and the insights that our attendees can share.

I would recognize the ranking member at this time for the purpose of making an opening statement, but there are zero Democrats present so I’m pleased to welcome today’s panelists.

[46:10]

Dr. Jarrod Sadulski is vice president and co-founder of Guard Against Trafficking, a nonprofit organization that works at the intersection of criminology, field-based intelligence and frontline operations to help identify, prevent and disrupt human trafficking.

Dr. Sadulski is a globally recognized expert researcher in anti-human trafficking and serves as a consultant on the subject to policy makers and law-enforcement agencies in numerous countries.

[46:45]

Mr. Chris Clem is a former Chief Patrol Agent of the Yuma Arizona Sector in the US Border Patrol. Chief Clem retired from the agency in 2022 after serving nearly 3 decades at the front line of American immigration enforcement. Following his retirement from USBP Chief Clem served as senior advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Junior, working with HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement to implement systems to locate missing unaccompanied alien children.

[47:30]

Finally, Mr. Julio Rosas is a field reporter with nearly a decade of experience covering impactful stories on the ground. In addition to covering border issues broadly Mr. Rosas reported extensively on the 2020 BLM and antifa riots and the subsequent Biden Harris border crisis. Mr. Rosas previously served in the Marine Corps Reserves and is currently covering the ongoing anti-ICE protests and riots. We appreciate y’all being here today and look forward to your testimony.

[48:06]

Let me remind the panel that we’ve read your written statement and it will appear in full in the record. Please limit your oral statements to five minutes. As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in front of you, so that it is on and members can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light will turn green. After four minutes it will turn yellow; when the red light comes on your time is expired. We’d ask that you wrap it up.

We now recognize Dr. Sadulski for his opening statement.

[48:37]

SADULSKI: Chairman Higgins, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. The work that my partner Ali Hopper and I do through the anti human trafficking nonprofit Guard Against Trafficking involves going into prisons in the United States and abroad to interview traffickers to gain an understanding of human trafficking from the lens of those responsible for it.

Today the information that I have to share is going to be coming directly from people that are incarcerated for trafficking. It’s also going to involve UAC children that I’ve talked to at the border.

[49:20]

Chairman Higgins, I’d really like to thank you for championing this issue. The topic of this roundtable is a stain in American history and I truly appreciate you bringing light to this, and you’ve been a champion of this for many years.

Well, at the border, I’ve observed children cross into the United States. In one particular group there were children that came over a hill from Mexico. They were cold. They were wet from the elements. They were scared and they were […] unaccompanied.

When I asked, I said, you’re in America now. Where are you going?

A little girl about five years old held up a piece of paper and said that the bad man gave me this piece of paper to request to be what I think she said her new daddy, but referring to a sponsor.

This is consistent with cartel operations because that’s exactly what they’re saying in prison. When the border was open they exploited it. They exploited it with hundreds of thousands of children, many of which came through that process just like those kids I met. They were given the name and phone number and sent to unvetted sponsors.

[50:24]

It has led to unprecedented child trafficking. Our research has led us to speaking to Margarito Jay Flores. Mr. Flores was responsible for establishing a pivotal illicit narcotics distribution network for the Sinaloa Cartel across America. Mr. Flores worked with some of the highest members of the Mexican cartels, in particular the Sinaloa Cartel. Mr. Flores voluntarily cooperated with the United States government, and his cooperation contributed to the investigations and prosecutions involving senior leadership of the Sinaloa cartel.9

[51:03]

His interactions with the cartel provided a firsthand look into their child trafficking operations, which I’d like to share with you. Mr. Flores — [who] provided me permission to use his name in this roundtable today — explained the process of child trafficking at the hands of the cartel.

Mr. Flores explained that the cartel has a portfolio of girls in a booklet for purchase. The price tag on these children’s heads range from 2,000 [dollars] to 12,000 depending on whether they’re a virgin, and the younger the child the more expensive they are. That is how the cartel is trafficking God’s children.

[51:48]

UAC children are especially vulnerable en route to the border. Large numbers of children have been smuggled and trafficked when the border was open. I spoke to one individual that I actually met before he was smuggled to the United States. He was a prison officer in a prison that I volunteer at in Central America doing humanitarian work. He came to the United States illegally, and I said, well now that you’re here tell me about your voyage. He explained stepping over the skeletal remains of children during the previous administration, who either died of murder or of starvation, which were real threats that he was experiencing.

Chairman Higgins I had the opportunity to testify before you in November 2023, and we discussed a case of a 12-year-old child in Mexico that had his eye harvested for $15,000. I can tell you that with the substantially increased amount of children coming through the border that risk to those children with exacerbated under the last administration.

[52:55]

As criminologists we don’t simply investigate individual cases, we study patterns. Criminal organizations identify these vulnerable children, exploit weaknesses in our government systems and move to exploit children through labor, trafficking, sexual exploitation, fraudulent sponsorships, and criminal enterprises. Opening the border opened up this business for them.

[53:13]

Congress has the opportunity to strengthen post-placement oversight. Continue to improve sponsor verification and hold employers accountable when labor trafficking of children occurs.

The most successful investigations occur when local, state and federal partners work together. Protecting children requires timely intelligence, coordinated investigations, and decisive action. Criminal organizations collaborate every day. Protecting these children requires that we do as well.

These children have become the United States’ responsibility, as they are, once in the hand of ORR and HHS and they continue to remain a responsibility to locate and to provide protections. If we protect these children, we protect our communities. If we fail them, organized crime groups will continue to exploit them and our communities will suffer. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[54:08]

HIGGINS: I thank the gentleman and recognize Chief Clem for five minutes for his opening statement summary.

CLEM: Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Chris Clem. I’m retired Chief Patrol Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol. I began my career in 1995 in Lordsburg, New Mexico as a Border Patrol agent trainee, and retired on December 31, 2022 as the Chief Patrol Agent in Yuma, Arizona.

In January 2025, I was appointed to the position of senior advisor at Health and Human Services to be part of the transition into the Trump administration for the first 100 days. I remain active in border security and national security as an advisor and speaker. Our responses to your questions will be based on my best recollection of my experiences and observations over the last 31 years.

[54:58]

I spent most of my career assigned to the southwest border. As a Border Patrol agent I was a career government employee who served under five presidential administrations — [starting] under Clinton, and ending under Biden. As the deputy chief and chief I was not a political appointee.

[55:15]

During my time at HHS my direct assignment was overseeing the Office of Refugee Resettlement and focusing on finding the missing children and directing changes to prevent this from happening again. I was laser focused on this narrow scope. It was my opinion that the country expected nothing less of me, and that’s what they were going to get.

[55:35]

I immediately stood up an internal task force from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Integrity and Accountability Team, to go through all the cases that were suspected of fraud. This has evolved into a highly efficient collaboration center that complements criminal investigations upon encounter and throughout the child’s time in ORR’s system and support sponsored verification processes.

Additionally, because of my background and relationship with federal law-enforcement — specifically Customs and Border Protection, we were able to ensure that every UAC encounter at the border, whether between the ports or at the ports, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent would respond to conduct an interview into the encounter.

In other words, an immediate action was taking place to address the smuggled or trafficked UAC, to include responses to the alleged sponsors or family members locations that the child or the smuggler claimed to have planned with prior to entry. This helps ensure any criminal activity is addressed early in the event, rather than responding days, weeks or months later.

[56:36]

A little sidenote to that is under the Biden administration the UACs were not served their charging documents for up to 120 days after they were sponsored, which made every case a cold case when we went to follow up. The initiative has evolved into a more robust DHS-led inter-agency UAC task force, that again prioritizes the child’s safety, and targeting the criminal network involved in cross border and domestic trafficking.

UAC‘s are the most difficult to deter from illegal entry due to protections provided by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. TVPRA requires US Border Patrol agents to turn over UAC‘s from non-contiguous countries to Health and Human Services within 72 hours of the arrest. Because of the short timeline border patrol has limited options and limited consequence options. TVPRA is a driving force on how the border patrol handles UACs.

[57:35]

In our current administration there’s a stronger focus on screening UACs from contiguous countries for voluntary return eligibility. Mexican UACs 14 to 17 are placed in removal flights to the interior of Mexico. However, not much else is done otherwise due to the TVPRA. A good example is when we were using Title 42 for immediate expulsion, UACs were exempt from Title 42 making it more likely the UACs would remain here after being processed and turned over to HHS. This was a loophole being exploited, and the reason for the UAC surge during that time. In my experience and information provided through briefings, parents did this on purpose to use their children to justify getting to stay, once they made illegal, entry since their children were already here. This also fed the separating families narrative.

The Biden Harris administration pushed for increased processing capacity to reduce time in border patrol custody. DNA testing was only done if we suspected fraud and because of the overwhelming numbers it seldom happened for adults and UACs were never DNA tested.

[58:36]

It is my recommendation that solutions begin with addressing TVPRA to eliminate loopholes being exploited by smugglers using UACs. Earlier in June acting attorney general Todd Blanche, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and others held a press conference.

The purpose of the press conference was to acknowledge the cooperative efforts between departments and agencies in targeting traffickers and finding the missing children. This is absolutely what is necessary and will continue to be an enduring mission.

While I recognize immigration enforcement receives mixed reviews it’s a critical piece of our immigration system. No exceptions should be made when it comes to protecting children. Due to time I’m gonna wrap this up.

In the last three years I’ve visited and spoken with over, in, over 50 cities in 20 states, and one area I can tell you Republicans independence and Democrats have agreed to is about protecting children. Now we just need to get focused on protecting these children and continue the pathways that have been set under this current administration. I look forward to your questions and helping with solutions.

HIGGINS: I thank the gentleman and we recognize Mr. Rosas. We recognize you for five minutes to summarize your opening statement.

JULIO ROSAS: I thank you Chairman Higgins for the opportunity to participate in today’s conversation on this important topic.

The goal of my statement is to not only to talk about the horrific situations that unaccompanied minors faced during the disastrous and deliberate border crisis under the Biden Harris administration, but it’s also to serve as a warning. And my warning is this: another crisis on our southern border is currently building, especially if Democrats take back control of Congress in this upcoming midterms and the White House in 2028. I say this because I have recently returned from Tapachula, Chiapas, which is on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. I was there to report on migrants leaving the city in a large caravan.

Many people in this caravan were from Central in South America and it included young children. This is the fourth caravan to leave Mexico southern border just this year. While the participants in these caravans have said they are simply going to other parts of Mexico in search of better job opportunities, it is not a coincidence. They are trying to reach cities that are close to the U.S.-Mexico border such as Monterrey and Tijuana. When I asked if they would like to enter the United States at some point say when President Trump leaves office, the migrant said yes they’re willing to wait until our next presidential election for the chance to have an easier time to cross illegally in the United States.

One man told me, during my time in the city, said most of my most of my friends think it is better to stay in Mexico and work until Trump leaves. Once he leaves we will all head north. Why not? Another man who said this was his seventh time attempting to reach the United States said maybe we will organize and work in the border and see if Trump leaves and then cross.

These migrants also said they happily approve of the efforts of Democrats in Congress to defund or abolish the Department of Homeland Security, and US immigration and customs enforcement so think about that the actions and words of some in Congress, not to mention the anti-riders across the country who attacking law-enforcement are helping set the stage for another migrant crisis should their side gain power again, whether they will be able to accomplish their insane mission will be up to the voters, and that brings us to the topic for today.

One reason why it is imperative there cannot be another invasion of our country is because one of the biggest sets of victims in these situations are the migrants themselves, and of course the Americans who are also harmed. During the Biden Harris border crisis I saw children anywhere from five, six or seven years old, arriving without their parents on a nightly basis. They would often tell me their parents were in their home country and were supposedly traveling to a family member in the United States. Now, I had no way to verify if that was true or not but what was disturbing to see in the aftermath was that Health and human services headed by Xavier Becerra decided it was better to not verify because the process took too long and they wanted children out of federal care as quickly as possible, due to the number of minors, arriving on a daily basis.

The Biden Harris administration prioritized avoiding bad optics over the well-being of these children who came to our country because of the Democrats open border policies. I was given video by sources, showing the overcrowding of these holding facilities and witnessed Border Patrol agents avoiding the border because they could not bring in any more people due to the overcrowding.

This is why Democrats and anti-ICE rioters claim of fighting for the immigrant community today is hollow. They could not have cared less about the labor and sex trafficking of these children when their party’s policies put them there in the first place. I can guarantee you there are children migrant children right now or trapped in these terrible situations and are praying that an ICE or HSI officer comes to rescue them and is and one side of the aisle has a goal to try to defund those rescuers because they hate President Trump that sort of political game is not just disgusting or shameful. It is evil

Mister Chairman, I saw firsthand for four years the devastating consequences of open border policies. I’m still reporting on these consequences as evidence by the recent caravan and the anti-ICE riots across the country, and one side is willing to use violence to prevent the Trump administration from solving the problem. I do not know what to expect in the years to come, but I will not be surprised if I have to cover another border crisis in the next few years. Thank you and I look forward to your questions.

[1:04:17]

HIGGINS: The gentleman yields. I recognize myself for questioning for five minutes and let me open by saying to my Republican colleagues that have assembled here: thank you for caring enough about children of God, regardless of their nationality of origin or how they got here. We certainly care about these kids.

They came into our country through horrible open border policies. They’ve been through God only knows what type of trauma, and what they’ve suffered, and I just want to point out for the for the country and for the historical record that Democrats have boycotted this hearing.

[1:05:12]

I would certainly recognize them for questioning, and we would engage, this as a roundtable, it’s designed to provide Congress with honest and candid information and whereby we can perform our legislative duties in service to we the people and clearly our Democrats colleagues don’t actually care about these scores of thousands of tender age children that yet remain lost in our country.

And I’ll direct that question, my first, at you, doctor. How many tender age kids, just set aside for a minute the 14, 15, 16, 17-year-olds, let’s say that they’re, from a reasonable man’s perspective, old enough to handle some of their own business.

Let’s talk about the tender age kids. How many do you believe are still unaccounted for or lost in our country?

[1:06:15]

SADULSKI: It’s difficult to know the exact number, and if we knew the exact number, we would be horrified. And we would also be horrified at the young age. There are babies that have been dropped at the border unattended. There have been children that we’ve come across, case after case after case, that are being trafficked. One location in, I believe was Houston, received over 40 UACs at one apartment complex.

[1:06:45]

HIGGINS: We’d like to hear, respectfully, the gentleman’s opinion there, we would like to hear your best guess. We had 300,000 we have roughly estimated came across the border. We’ve located to some extent about half of them. That leaves about 150,000. Of those I estimate about 75,000 are still unaccounted for tender age children. Am I accurate at all, or please correct me if I’m not.

SADULSKI: I believe the number was closer to 463,000 that came across the border during the Biden administration, of which there was an Office of the Inspector General report that came out in August 2024 citing that 324,000 of those children were unaccounted for —

HIGGINS: We read that, we’re trying to get our head wrapped around —

[1:07:30]

We have fifty, sixty thousand tender age, 8, 10, 12, 11 year-old kids lost in our country, being subject to slave labor and sex trafficking?

SADULSKI: They’re — at a bare minimum, I believe that number is —

HIGGINS: A bare minimum. Chief, you said every case was a cold case, when you tried to find these kids, because of the Biden policies. Where are these young tender-aged children? Let’s use a round number, just to be conservative, let’s say there’s 50,000 still lost in our country, 10, 11, 12-year-olds. Where are they, Chief?

CLEM: I would agree that that number is around that 50-60 thousand mark, only because the majority were 14 to 17-year-old which means —

HIGGINS: Are they in densities of population that could be loosely identified as sanctuary cities?

CLEM: Absolutely. So, to your qu— absolutely, there that’s where they’re gonna be, because that’s where most these people can be protected or in those suburbs —

[1:08:30]

HIGGINS: Ok. So, in sanctuary cities is where it is where the traffickers would naturally bring these kids, So we’re talking about 50,000 10- 11- 12-year-old kids being slave labored and sex trafficked.

They’re in sanctuary cities — and aren’t sanctuary cities the government entities that won’t cooperate with ICE?

CLEM: They absolutely are, and that goes back to the point of every case is a cold case. The Biden Harris, Mayorkas, Becerra administration, those are — that’s the food chain when it comes to unaccompanied children. They put a moratorium, you could, it would not send charging documents — this is the actual notice to appear — for more than 120 days.

HIGGINS: I get it, that wasn’t served for a few months —

CLEM: Right, so that, so we’re starting from cold case.

HIGGINS: We’re about out of time, respectfully. Mr. Rosas what role did NGO‘s play in facilitating the trafficking of these children?

[1:09:30]

Rosas: The human traffickers could not have done this, on a massive scale, without the help of the NGOs. And this was made worse because our tax money went to those NGOs so —

HIGGINS: Those were NGOs that were largely fraudulently operating and just devouring treasure, is that correct?

Rosas: Absolutely.

HIGGINS: Thank you, my time has expired but my passion on this topic has not. I recognize Mister Gosar for five minutes for questioning.

[1:09:45]

GOSAR: Thank you, Chairman. I’ll go right to you Mr. Rosas. I think it’s very imperative that we have the financial backgrounds of all these NGO’s, because you can’t solve a problem if you don’t know where the money is going, right?

So if I told you the IRS already does this, would that make you just cringe? And when I, as a legislator, ask for that report, it’s completely blacked out. I’m not given the ability to even look at it. I think that’s a real fraudulent aspect here. We ought to have — if you take a penny, either directly or through a side-gut view, you should have to prepare us with that money.

Where I’m going with this is that we conditioned these people to do this. It started back in Clinton. He found out that he could use these immigrants as political weapons against your adversaries. And then it continued through Obama and contrary that their numbers were actually decreased under Obama they called him and the chief of [deportation]. But Biden just really took it to new levels, right?

So what happens when the theater changes? So you’re allowing, you find these children crossed and there are no questions asked — doesn’t that change the whole mantra of what follows that?

[1:11:16]

ROSAS: Absolutely, and what I would say is that, you know, in Tapachula, where we just came from, there is a harder time organizing these caravans because, thankfully, because of the Trump administration kind of cutting off the funds, they’re not able to be able to be created in such large numbers. Because the infrastructure to support leaving the city and starting this long trek north is no longer there. Now that being said, again, under a different administration and those funds are turned back, on the overall infrastructure is there to support another mass movement.

[1:11:48]

GOSAR: So, once again, if we don’t want this to ever play out again, we need those NGO numbers, where are they getting their money. Because, you know, Catholic Charities — I’m a Catholic. They were horrendous down at the border. They facilitated all this, you know. Tough love, I guess it doesn’t exist.

Mr. Clem, thank you for your service. Great seeing you again. How did Biden’s open border policies enable human trafficking and the flow of drugs into our district in Arizona, and what did you see on the ground?

[1:12:15]

CLEM: Well, the one I saw under that was something that I never thought I would see in my Border Patrol career. Where the information that was given to the smugglers and aliens coming across was just: get to the border, and Border Patrol will let you go. That has never been anything that we wanted to do. It was not part of our culture. In our history we were about, you know, rule of law.

[1:12:43]

When catch and release became the process and the policy, under the Biden administration, it really was an open gate. There were times in my 126 miles of border that we had 10 people assigned, to cover that that border, and in reality maybe two agents made it down there because we were literally dealing with hundreds at a time or thousands at a time.

[1:13:07]

And in that, the problem lies, what’s the threat in the mix? You know, we didn’t have the time to do the true investigative work to find out where somebody’s background, it didn’t show up on our fingerprint data so we had no idea so we just had to process them and turn them over to ICE which, again, under the same administration said that we don’t have any room.

[1:13:31]

So they got released. So, we haven’t even begun to see the tip of the iceberg of what could possibly happen with the people that were caught and released. That’s why these operations you’re seeing across the nation are so imperative. And Arizona took the blow, right, we took the punch right in the face, in Yuma, when we led the nation and the number of people coming in illegally for the first two years under President Biden.

[1:13:57]

We were not a huge corridor for unaccompanied children, but we had had our share of the UACs. What we had were people from all over the world, military age men from China, from eastern European countries, former Soviet bloc countries. This was a big problem that really made border enforcement nonexistent, at least for the two years that I was Chief there before I decided to retire.

GOSAR: And then to further complicate it with unaccompanied children, because you don’t know, there’s no way to tell who whose kid that is.

[1:14:28]

CLEM: Well I can tell you that a lot of the family separations that occurred that created unaccompanied children happened in Mexico by the smugglers. They would send parents to one sector, send kids to the other sector, or even split up families and, you know, make mom and dad become mom and dad of other kids or separate children and send them through Tucson Sector while sending a family to my sector. So it was a lot of happening on the front end which made it that much more difficult for us on the back end. And then what I discovered at my time at HHS was even worse than I could imagine. […]

[1:15:16]

PERRY: I don’t know really how to prepare for something like this, I’m not even sure what questions are relevant for you folks. According to my records 448,820 unaccompanied children transferred to HHS ORR custody.

And as of — and maybe maybe we could talk about this — as of September 2024, so now we’re a couple years back, ERO officers were required to monitor more than 7.5 million non-detained cases using roughly 1000 officers across 25 field offices.

During one site visit DHS OIG investigators discovered that 10 deportation officers were managing 300,000 non-detained cases including 17,000 UAC cases meaning each officer was responsible for an average of 30,000 cases annually. So that’s about, doing the math, that’s about three minutes a case for the whole year for each individual.

I mean, you know, this problem was created. It was created by design. And unfortunately little kids were the commodity, they’re human beings. And now they’re trapped in this thing.

Do you know how many do we have an estimate? How many are still out there?

[1:16:55]

CLEM: You’re looking at me so I’m gonna go ahead and take this one. I think the number is around 80,000 is what, when I do my rough math. We found 146,000 and then there was, we see different numbers, but I remember the number that we were beginning to work on last year was around 280,000 of those that were completely — we had no idea. Because again, back to the paper trail, and having to start from scratch. And to your to your point, Mr. Perry, the design of the system to overwhelm.

When you have those type of numbers, you cannot do your job efficiently at all when you’re having to monitor that many people as a case agent. So this is an enduring problem that was created by design with failed systems, failed background checks, because of a gaslighting, virtue signal empathetic cause and not looking at the root problem that was truly created — now you’ve become a sucker when you sit there and allow all these people in and you have 7.5 million people on the non-detained docket.

What that means that these people are illegally in the United States, were processed, could not be detained, and were released. And they may show up for their hearing, a year to seven years later.

And then you add the UACs, on top of that, and you have all this misinformation and fraud. This is going to be a problem for years to come, and we’ve got to find ways to do it.

[1:18:14]

We started securing the border. That’s the first way —

PERRY: Right, to stop the bleeding, right. And other than pursuing some — and I look through this, and of course they didn’t, like you said, they didn’t keep them with their families. They — goes to unaccompanied, they didn’t record where they were gonna be, in many cases, or anything like that.

So where — what kind of locations are you encountering these unaccompanied minors now, other than the ones that you’re trying to track down — but where are you just finding them, and like what kind of places, what’s happening at those places, and what places in the country, like what cities, north, south, where?

[1:19:06]

CLEM: As far as the geography, it’s all over the country. I mean the main main cities as we mentioned earlier a lot of these sanctuary cities are magnets for criminal activity, so therefore, birds of a feather are gonna stick together that way.

[1:19:20]

We’re finding a lot of these kids are not in school. They’re working. They’re under age, they’re working. We’ve seen cases in California at some of the marijuana fields that they’ve had underage children unaccompanied alien children working there so you have a lot of that. There’s horror stories, that I’m not privy to anymore, but I can tell you that many of the cases that we uncovered, sex trafficking, sex exploitation, prostitution, indentured servitude, all that is real — and those cases have come to closure in the form of indictments and convictions.

There’s a lot out there that people can research. I don’t have the investigative information anymore, but they are in places where they’re not enrolled in school, which is why they’re supposed to be coming here. One side of the political party says oh we gotta bring them here, but they’re being put to work. They’re not being educated. Even though I think they should be removed to their country, but if they’re gonna be here, at least put them in places where they can survive and thrive — and that’s not happening. They’re being exploited even further.

[1:20:21]

And, again, I mentioned this to Chairman Higgins. This is why those operations you’re seeing play out across the country are so important. The left wants to protest ICE; ICE is finding the people that are smuggling, that are trafficking, that are abusing these kids.

That is why we have to have the cooperation, not just at the federal level but at the state and local level. And so it just infuriates me when I hear local leaders, whether it’s mayors or governors, sit there and push back against what ICE is doing, because they were actually making people safer and saving lives.

[1:20:55]

SCOTT PERRY: So, would you say that’s a sanctuary jurisdictions — and I have some in the district that I represent — are essentially sanctioning child abuse, child trafficking, child slave labor, child sex trafficking? Is that tantamount to the same thing?

CLEM: Yeah. Absolutely. Because in their minds, the optics, is they are protecting that group. You’re actually allowing the criminal element to thrive when you do not enforce the law. […]

[1:21:28]

ELI CRANE: I want to say thank you to the witnesses for coming today and thank you for your work on this very important topic. Just to summarize for the American people, of the 10-plus million people that the Democrats let in under the last administration, we had close to 450,000 minors who were let into the country. They were given a hotline to call if they needed help. According to the work that your organization, Dr. Sadulski, did, we learned that there were 60,000 some calls that went unanswered.

We also learned the last administration tasked one person to monitor this hotline. 31,000 of the UACs unaccompanied minors had no address on file. Kinda hard to track them down when there’s not an address on file, I would think.

The Trump administration — and I’m grateful for their work — is found 146,000 of these kids according to the new secretary, but that still means that 304,000 of these kids are still missing.

I’d like to note that there is not a single Democrat member of Congress in attendance today. Did you guys on the witness panel happen to notice that? […] These are the same people that feigned outrage over the ‘kids in cages’ — which, we obviously learned, you know, those photos were taken under the Obama administration.

But it just goes to show, with all the sex trafficking that has come to be highlighted globally — especially in the U.S. as Hollywood has gotten involved — and, you know, some of the films that have been made trying to expose this issue.

There’s not one single Democrat here today. It just goes to show that they only really care about these kids when it fits their agenda.

[1:23:21]

Dr. Sadulski, you are a trained criminologist. Is that correct?

SADULSKI: Correct.

CRANE: How long have you been studying criminals and victims in our criminal justice system?

SADULSKI: Over 26 years.

CRANE: You said in your opening statement that you were able to interview a member of the Sinaloa cartel, I believe you said his name was Mr. Flores, is that correct? […] Where did you interview Mr. Flores, Doctor?

[1:23:46]

SADULSKI: Mr. Flores, I discovered him whenever I was researching his testimony — he’s testified before Congress, he was also a key witness in the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel. That’s where the interviews — that’s why I initiated the interviews with him, which was over the phone.

CRANE: Was he in prison?

SADULSKI: No.

CRANE: Ok. What was his affiliation with the cartels?

[1:24:08]

SADULSKI: He was in charge of distribution of illicit narcotics in the United States.

CRANE: You said that he told you about a booklet that the cartel had that listed these kids almost like a Sears catalogue, with price tags, for purchase, is that correct?

SADULSKI: That is correct.

CRANE: Did he say how many kids were in these booklets?

SADULSKI: He said ‘many,’ but he did not provide a number.

CRANE: Did you say in your opening statement that their prices were higher if they were virgins or of a younger age?

SADULSKI: That is correct.

CRANE: You think that maybe some of the testimony like that is why there’s no Democrats in this room today?

SADULSKI: Absolutely.

CRANE: Mr. Rosas, you consider yourself a journalist, sir?

[1:24:28]

JULIO ROSAS: I do; I don’t like the term because of what it overall represents, but technically I am.

CRANE: Well, I don’t like the term politician either, but here we are. […] You said you recently went down to the border and interviewed several members of a migrant caravan, is that correct?

ROSAS: Correct.

CRANE: I believe you said you even said that you asked them about American politics, is that correct? What did they tell you?

ROSAS: Unsurprisingly they were big fans of what the Democrats are doing, what they’re currently doing. And we’ve had these debates amongst ourselves, but the whole world is watching, and that’s why it’s, that’s why my warning really needs to be heeded.

Because now, you know, worst case scenario, you know, the other side gains power and undoes, again, the progress that Trump has made, there’s gonna be even greater incentive to enter illegally.

Because not only did they see an open border for four years, but they [subsequently will have seen] a closed border for four years. So there’s gonna be a lot of people who might have been waiting, or, you know, for whatever reason didn’t come. There’s hundreds of thousands of migrants waiting — just in Mexico, and that doesn’t include the rest of the world.

[1:26:00]

CRANE: Did they happen to mention the president Mr. Rosas? [Yes.] What did they say about the president?

ROSAS: Some words that I don’t know if I can repeat, but ‘mothereffer’ was one of them, ‘garbage,’ you know, a ‘piece of you-know-what.’ So, unsurprisingly, they’re not big fans of President Trump.

CRANE: Do you think that might also be a reason why there are no Democrats in this chamber today?

ROSAS: I’m not surprised that they’re not here, because it’s indefensible, what their party did. […]

[1:26:35]

MICHAEL CLOUD: Thank you Mister Chairman, I appreciate you making sure that this stays on our conscience. In America, we sometimes kind of have a short memory, on things like this, and it’s tragic what has happened in our country. I think one of you said it’s just a national shame, and certainly it is, that this is happening.

And yes, it is odd that the Dems aren’t here, in spite of all the virtue signaling and gaslighting we saw about trying to help and protect kids through the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, they stood up the largest human trafficking industry ever, to the tune, it’s tens of billions of dollars, and some estimates go up to 150 billion dollar industry, on trafficking humans. Among which, since we’ve talked about, hundreds of thousands of kids were lost. And many tens of thousands at least still missing, and that’s a conservative figure.

[1:27:35]

Chief Clem, you talked about some of the ways the cartels are monetizing kids and splitting up with families and those kind of things. I was down there once when we encountered the rent-a-kid program, that the cartels were basically taking kids and renting them out. I’m from South Texas so I’ve had the opportunity to tour the ranches and see the rape trees, where young women were abused. We had a facility in our area where they were holding young women, minors, who had arrived in the United States before going to their sponsors — and by sponsors, you know very often, and you can back me up, they [were] cartel members on the other end, who had, you know, maybe 10 to 20 different cell phone numbers, really all going to the same place, trafficking these kids.

[1:28:15]

I had the opportunity to tour the facility and we even went in some of the rooms while they were away at lunch, and noticed the artwork on the wall of these young women who had come to our country, wasn’t, you know, ‘Yay I’m happy to be in the US.’ It was, ‘I miss mom.’

You know, they had been separated, the cartel had used them, abused them, and they just want to be back home with their families. So, it’s tragic what we’ve allowed to happen.

[1:28:43]

Mr. Rosas, I’ve seen you down at the border. On one of my visits there, you talked about the cartels are, in a sense, they haven’t put this away as a business idea. They’re still looking to do this […] that’s your testimony, right?

Rosas: Absolutely. They’re waiting and what I would just say really quickly, I know during this crisis, it was actually more profitable to traffic humans in certain sectors than drugs. I mean, I mean that, that’s insane to think about.

CLOUD: The cartel mindset, you know, when I would go down there and talk to experts like you, the cartel mindset was in a sense like, drugs are a one-time income revenue stream; humans are residual income.

[1:29:45]

Rosas: And the humans wanted to be caught. If a drug shipment gets intercepted, they lose that money. But now, because of the incentives, during that time, people were willing to be caught by Chief Clem’s men.

CLOUD: Dr. Sadulski, you’ve interviewed a number of these cartel members. In your estimation, are they just kind of biding their time at the moment? Is this a profit motive they’ve given up on?

SADULSKI: Absolutely. The model is still there for them to traffic children through the border. They’re just waiting for more open-border opportunity.

If I may, Sir, you had touched on a point about them transferring the children to cartels within the United States. That’s something I’ve studied in terms of what happens when the cartels bring the kids to the border.

A lot of what we’ve seen is that they’ll provide a false name for the child, a false identification, sometimes a false nationality. They depend, then, on the trans-national criminal organization network to then actually do the labor trafficking of the child.

The communications are held via the cloud, to the cartels back to Mexico, and that is the link between cracking this TCO network in terms of communication.

[1:30:35]

CLOUD: And labor trafficking, some that’s sex trafficking as well. And then, as you mentioned, even organ harvesting as well, which — that’s just diabolical.

Chief Clem, you’ve spent years on this, thank you for doing the good work. Could you explain the vetting, some of the vetting process, or maybe lack thereof, that was under the Biden administration?

And then, I’m running short on time, but we’re about two years, a year and a half into this term, and the loopholes that allowed this — you know, we’re talking about the concern of another administration coming in.

But as Congress we’ve yet to put HR 2 [118th Congress] on the floor during this term. Does that surprise you — that we haven’t taken legislative action to close these loopholes?

[1:31:20]

CLEM: You asked a couple questions here. I am surprised that we haven’t been able to get HR 2, which to me, was a great bill. It would do all the things that we need to do — at least an initial, if I’m understand the right bill. That is that is the step in the absolute right direction and I would support that.

Regarding vetting: two topics of vetting. At the border when they’re encountered, our vetting system is only as good as the information we have. So when you’re from a Third World country with no record collections or any — we’ll never know if you’re a serial killer or you’re a terrorist. So, we won’t know, and that is a problem.

So when I hear people from the former administration saying they’re all vetted before they get released — absolutely not.

If they’re not in the system, we have no idea. It would take me longer to vet an employee for a promotion than it would for us to vet and release somebody into the country.

And […] on the ORR part, vetting sponsors, cause I think that’s a critical piece. We were discovering that it was laughable at what they were using to justify sponsorshop. Photoshops, fraud documents, sometimes no documents. What I would call ‘Glamour Shot’ pictures of showing biological references like people’s feet being missing in the picture.

CLOUD: Someone said it was harder to adopt a pet.

[1:32:52]

CLEM: I actually said that, it took more information for me to provide to adopt a dog from the shelter than it has to get a child.

That has changed. Let me just let everybody know, and for the record, government ID is required; DNA for any biological family requirement. If you claim to be the grandmother, we’re taking DNA.

All adult household members are having their FBI fingerprints checked to make sure that we’re not releasing them to a criminal who’s living in the household. There are actually some home studies and suitability studies being conducted again, as opposed to just allowing that to go on based on somebody’s word.

So, this is why it does tick me off that there’s not members of the Democratic Party here to see that this is about protecting children. We are allowing thousands upon thousands of kids to go unaccounted for, and missing and exploited, and there’s not anybody on the Democratic side here to sit there and say, you know what, yeah, maybe we messed up on the kid part, let’s fix this. […]

[1:34:03]

HIGGINS: Chief, with that, I’m gonna recognize Mr. Biggs for as much time as he may consume, for questions.

BIGGS: Man, I’ve never had that leeway, Mr. Chairman, that’s awesome. Thank you.

The Trump administration has been working hard to remedy the problem that we saw with children. And particularly, Chief, you were just talking about ORR, and I — when that first came to our attention in January 2023 they said 42,000 kids had gone missing. And then there was a New York Times piece that came out and says like 85,000.10

[1:34:29]

And then we get the ORR Chief — and we’re gonna play this video right now, if we can, just play whenever you’re ready, and let’s hear what they said —

[BIGGS, RECORDED AUDIO]: So, you don’t agree with the 85,000 number of children that we lost contact with? I’m not saying you lost them, [but] we lost contact with them. We don’t know where those kids are. Is that fair to say?

[ROBIN DUNN MARCOS]: We attempt to make a safety and well-being —

[BIGGS]: I understand that, so let’s get to the point. Let’s just answer the direct question. When you made the call, you didn’t get a response. Your letter tells me that you usually make three calls. You got no response to any of those three calls, 85,000 kids. Is that right?

[DUNN MARCOS]: Uh, in 81 percent of the calls we are —

[1:35:16]

[BIGGS]: You lost, you didn’t have contact with, more than 85,000 kids. Is that fair to say? I mean just, yes or no? We’re not saying what’s your percentage — 85,000 children that were placed by you. You made calls to check on them.

And you made three calls on average; 85,000 of them that you have no idea where they are. You don’t want to answer the question, that’s fine. [END OF RECORDING]11

[1:35:42]

BIGGS: They’re — and the reality is, as it turns out, it wasn’t just 85,000, right? Estimates over 500,000 lost. Lost.

Kids that — that we had no idea. And the current administration’s found about 146,000, you said, 150,000 right?

So, let’s talk about some of the places that some of these kids turned up. Orlando strip club. Almost two dozen young kids left in an Orlando strip club, right? You guys heard that one, I think.12

The pedophile who received literally dozens of children dropped off, unvetted.

So, I guess, when we start talking about vetting — and the lawsuits that came that prevent us from actually doing DNA analysis from anyone under, what, age 15, you can’t do it, maybe it’s 13, but you can’t do DNA collection and hold onto them.13

[1:36:43]

If you could get DNA samples and hang onto them, for those children, along with everybody else, Chief, what would that do for us as we try to vet where these kids are going?

CLEM: It would be a game changer, all right? It would be a game changer because I’ve seen it firsthand when we used to DNA test. You would literally — look, in El Paso when I was the deputy there we started the pilot program with HSI to DNA test families [for] suspected fraud. When we ran out of test kits sometimes we’d just show up with a Q-tip and they would literally say, ok yeah, no, this is my friend’s cousin. That’s how important — because they know, once they submit that DNA, they’re busted. And they’d be caught, and it would be a lie.

So, DNA testing, when it comes down to protecting kids, and to prevent the renting or the recycling of children, that’s one end.

It would also help us start closing gaps when we find missing and murdered and exploited kids, that we know who these people are, we can bring closure and we can actually follow the money trail and actually go after the criminal syndicate that’s moving this. So, DNA is imperative when it comes down to protecting these kids.

[1:37:55]

BIGGS: Let’s think about this. In Yuma, I can’t remember if you were Chief there, or you were coming in to be Chief, you had a movement of children, rented children, basically, recirculating, and they ended up in North Carolina I believe.14

[1:38:10]

CLEM: That happened right before my arrival, but it was an alert border patrol agent during processing that said, ‘that kid looks familiar.’ And when they figured it all out that child had been arrested as a family member I think three times, moved through Ohio to North Carolina, was going back to South America or Central America to be recycled again.

BIGGS: When we look at this and we see our colleagues across the aisle — well, I guess we don’t see them. We don’t see them.

If we could see them, they would have to confess and admit that their policies, the policies of the previous administration, put hundreds of thousands of children in danger. We haven’t recovered all those children. We don’t know if they’re dead or alive. We don’t know if they’ve been sex trafficked, if they’ve been labor trafficked or heaven forbid that they’ve had their organs harvested.

This is the kind of thing that goes on. And […] this group of people on this side of the aisle don’t care enough to come here and have an open discussion about what their policies wrought, and how to figure it out and how to fix it.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t wanna — I got a whole truckload of questions. I won’t take much time cause I’m at, over, but if I can give some, I’d like to submit some documents for the record. This is the letter I wrote January 10, 2023 to ORR;15 here’s an article, “DOJ: More than 475,000 children trafficked to US under Biden, 300,000 unaccounted for”;16 “DOJ announces indictment of unaccompanied minor sponsors.”17 Unaccompanied minor sponsors.

[1:39:52]

We didn’t even talk about that, how you had these unaccompanied children ostensibly […] they come in, and then they turn around — because they know there’s no vetting — and they become sponsors, when they’re under age, to bring children in.18 Unbelievable. DHS inspector general confirms about 300,000 migrants missing, 146,000 unaccompanied migrant minors located in US under Trump;19 Biden‘s HHS lost nearly half the unaccompanied migrant children released to sponsors;20 report finds more than 340 migrant kids were sent to live with non-relatives who then sponsored other children;21 DHS says 233,000 unaccompanied children were lost during Biden presidency,22 an indictment spotlights Arizona’s role in cartel trafficking routes.23

And we didn’t even get into the Cocopah reservation, the Tohono O’odham reservation, and right now the hotspot which is near Naco, Arizona.

The human cost of Biden’s shameful children’s crusade at the border.24 Gentlemen, thank you for being —

[1:40:54]

HIGGINS: All additional documents submitted for the record without objection.

BIGGS: Thank you, thanks for being here. I think we all know that there’s still 1,000, roughly 1,000 per day that are coming across of gotaways, roughly, that’s the estimate that we have. And that means that we still have, you’re still gonna have children being actually trafficked across the border — particularly, the number, the top two areas of Tohono O’odham and also in the Naco area right now on the border.

So, I’m thankful for you being here, thank you Mr. Chairman for indulging me, and, doggone it, this ticks me off.

HIGGINS: The gentleman yields. Mr. Jack recognized for questioning. Take your time, sir.

[1:41:42]

BRIAN JACK: Thank you, Mister Chairman. And I want to commend Mr. Biggs. His commentary is, I think, illustrative of the right person to lead Arizona. Hopeful that works out in just a few months’ time.

Dr. Sadulsky, if we could start with you. My first question is, it really centers around the why? I don’t think this is a failure of law. I think it was a failure of the past administration’s disability [sic] to follow the law.

So I’m curious as to why, for the record, do you believe the Biden administration refused to enact the laws — or rather, to comply with the laws Congress had previously passed to support this decision?

[1:42:15]

SADULSKI: I think it was by design. To flood illegal migrants in the United States, potentially for votes.

JACK: We’ll go down the line. Mr. Clem?

CLEM: I think this began under President Obama, and Biden, when they could not get the immigration reform he wanted, he began these series of actions that only got worse under President Biden.

And it comes down to changing demographics in our electoral college. You know, whether it’s now or in 18 years, when these unaccompanied kids, or illegal alien children that are born here, end up becoming voting members of society.

[1:42:54]

ROSAS: I certainly agree with their assessment but not to sound cliché, but it just boils down to Trump derangement syndrome. They hate President Trump that much that if he’s for it, they’re against that, if he’s against it, they’re for it. And it doesn’t matter if children are harmed in the process.

JACK: Specifically, Dr. Sadulski, what concrete steps have you seen this administration change from the past? With respect to — last two years you’ve seen a drastic reduction in illegal crossing. I’m curious as to what concrete steps are the most helpful?

SADULSKI: I was on the border two days before the inauguration, and then I believe it was roughly a week later. Night and day difference. So, it started with securing the border, and then it also involved bringing people in that understood the issue and took over ORR, and went immediately looking for these children.

[1:43:44]

When I discovered the issues that were going on in ORR, in terms of children blindly being sent, that stopped overnight at the inauguration.

JACK: With respect of this past Congress, we’ve enacted many incredible border security laws. I’m curious, with respect to reconciliation 2.0 which is recently enacted, and then likewise that One Big Beautiful Bill Act — what are some of the provisions of those two bills that have really enabled the Trump administration to address this issue and, again, to follow the will of the law?

[1:44:10]

SADULSKI: Right. Providing the funding necessary to go rescue these children.

CLEM: Well, I will tell you, first and foremost, it starts with securing the border, it all starts with stopping the leak, right? There’s been a 96 percent I think the latest number 96 percent decrease in an overall border traffic since the Biden administration, so that’s huge when you reduce the flow.

On the ORR side, as I mentioned earlier — completely overhauling the sponsor vetting system and requiring the very minimum of criminal investigative background checks, fingerprinting, DNA testing — has actually shut down that movement.

There’s not as many kids coming across because they know that the sponsors are gonna be checked. We’re seeing the number decrease, I think we’re just over 5000 UACs that have come in this year compared to 25,000 last year. Remember, last fiscal year started at the end of Biden? And so we’ve just seen a steady decrease.

[1:45:12]

So, all the things that were enacted on the One Big Beautiful Bill continues to secure the border, giving the enforcement agencies the resources they need, but also, you know, includes working systems to support ORR and the investigative side and criminal side, if you will, of cooperation between multi agencies.

This is huge. And, again, it is an enduring mission until we find every one of these kids, until we can do everything we can to prevent this from happening in the future.

[1:45:45]

JACK: Thank you, Mr. Clem. In closing, Mister Chairman, I also wanna recognize, not with us today, but the service of one of my dear friends, who is the senior advisor at HHS for human trafficking.

His name is Kevin Malone. He’s a former major league, baseball general manager, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Montreal Expos. But he felt a call to serve after leaving baseball about 25 years ago and focused much of his life on combating human trafficking, specifically around children. And today he serves in President Trump‘s administration as senior advisor of human trafficking at the Department of Health and Human Services.25

His leadership helped build baseball teams, now it’s helping protect children. And I commend him for his service. I hope each of you have an opportunity to work with him at HHS. They have done, as you’ve mentioned throughout this hearing — or rather roundtable — a tremendous job in supporting the efforts of DHS and other agencies. And with that Mr. Chairman I yield back.

HIGGINS: I believe Mr. Gosar has an additional question.

[1:46:45]

GOSAR: First of all, Dr. Sadulski, when we were flooded at the border, it is very hard to try to figure out whether children were accompanied by parents, right?

SADULSKI: Correct.

GOSAR: And all that hecticness [sic] that Mr. Clem talks about, this really can’t go very far, you’re just being overrun.

So now, the timeline, I wanna get back to. We’re seeing this thing happening [and] getting worse.

It started with Cuba. You know they sent boat people, they sent their criminals and they sent their mental issues people over. And Castro chuckled. He chuckled at it.

Well then then you get the Catholic Church involved, you get — you had Clinton, you had Biden, and you had Obama. And they’re using this as lawfare. We gotta quote Louis Brandeis. Louis Brandeis was associate justice of the Supreme Court.

[1:47:50]

He says, in the government of laws, the government would be imperiled if it doesn’t scrupulously uphold the laws, any, major or small. If the government breaks the law it invites everyone to become a lawbreaker unto themselves and creates anarchy.26

That’s what we had, on the border, right Mr. Clem? [nod]

So my question is, what happens when one side doesn’t believe in the law?

They’re all missing [referring to Democrat subcommittee members]. You know we were up against the fence, because if we lose midterms, we go back to this and even worse.

Now what I did is, I ran down and I got this book. Have you read this book? This is a must read. This is an absolute must read. It’s by Peter Schweizer. It’s called The Invisible Coup.27 Have you read this, Mister Rosas? It’s pretty amazing isn’t it? It’s happening right in front of our eyes, and it all comes down to the rule of law.

[1:48:48]

We are not abiding by any rules of law. We break them when we find it to be helpful to us. And we don’t hold back. And that’s sad to say. It’s really sad to say, and it comes in this hearing on the basis of children. On the backs of children.

I’mma end with this. In Northern Mexico we also found — I think Mr. Clem, I think you may have known about this — the incinerated bodies. I thought maybe it’s thousands of kids and young women.28 That was sad. Because if that was going on at the same time, oh my Lord. The agony and the pursuit of those people, being utilized like cows and calves and — sick. It just actually sickens me. But we have to resolve this because it’s gonna happen again, and then we’re not gonna really be what Ronald Reagan called us, that beacon of light on the hillside.

[1:49:40]

Thank you for everything you guys do and thanks for coming this morning. Thank you.

HIGGINS: Mr. Cloud, do you have an additional question?

CLOUD: So, we could talk about this for quite a while, but I do want to thank you all for being here and thank you for your service. I mean it’s just unconscionable what the administration let happen. And I’m grateful that the Trump administration is there, but I’m also mindful that we still have some work to do in Congress, to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

So, thank you again for your service. Thank you for making sure this stays in front of the American people and stays in front of Congress.

HIGGINS: The gentleman yields. In closing let me thank you each for being here, gentlemen of distinguished accomplishment and service to our country.

We find ourselves as dedicated servants to we the people — the Republicans that appeared on this committee today — to listen to the wisdom that you had to share. We care greatly about our country and we love our people, from sea to shining sea, that we serve.

[1:50:55]

And yet, if we fail, if we fail to codify the strong border security policies of the Trump administration, by passing HR 2 and the sections of HR 2, by some method or form, to pass the legislation of HR 2, then we are clearly leaving ourselves wide open for the kind of human wave upon human wave of misery and torture and lawlessness that we witnessed at our southern border in 2021, 2022, ‘23 and ‘24.

And Mr. Rosas has testified this day that there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants amassed at our southern border, just waiting for a democrat majority. But we can we can insulate ourselves from that level of harm — if Republicans have the courage to force HR 2 and the legislative sections of HR 2 through Congress and get them to the president’s desk.29

So I hope that today’s roundtable is a reminder to my congressional colleagues that we have legislative work to do — and by God we should get it done. Mr. Rosas. I’ll talk to you after the hearing, but our time is expired and this roundtable is hereby adjourned.

^{Updated August 29, 2026}

On July 27, outside the federal courthouse in Miami, attorney Joseph McBride updated reporters on the extradition of his clients Andrew and Tristan Tate. Wearing dark sunglasses, McBride uttered his mantra “the process is the punishment” multiple times during the twelve-minute briefing. U.S. Marshals arrested the Tate brothers July 18 on a provisional arrest warrant issued under the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty. The following day the Crown Prosecution Service announced 38 further charges arising from four additional alleged victims, and said it would seek extradition on those and on the original 21 charges — a combined 59 counts involving seven alleged U.K. victims. The charges include rape, human trafficking, offenses “relating to indecent images of a child” and extreme pornography. A detention hearing originally set for August 13 has been postponed till August 27 at the Tates’ request as they try to “secure fact witnesses”; the pair will remain in federal custody until that date, potentially longer, while they challenge extradition. The United Kingdom has until September 16 to produce documentation supporting the charges. The CPS announcement includes a reminder that while criminal proceedings are active, “It is extremely important that there be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could prejudice these proceedings” in order to preserve the defendants’ right to a fair trial.

The Tate brothers are dual U.S.-U.K. citizens who’d been residing in Romania — where they were indicted in 2023 on charges of rape, human trafficking and establishing an organized crime gang. Although the 2023 indictment faltered, a second criminal investigation was opened in 2024 that includes charges of trafficking of minors and money laundering and that remains ongoing in Romania. On July 3 Romanian prosecutors added new charges related to witness tampering and removal of seized assets.

The brothers were slapped with the new U.K. charges and extradition request while on a trip to the United States. Days earlier, on July 16, the Daily Mail published two photos linking the brothers with U.S. officials. One image shows the pair with Congressman Wesley Hunt, Texas Republican, in his DC office; the other shows Andrew Tate enjoying himself at a “summer soirée” at the Georgetown home of U.S. Special Envoy for Global Partnerships Paolo Zampolli. The Daily Mail reported Zampolli also “accompanied the infamous brothers to the Ned, the exclusive members’ only club near the White House.” Congressman Hunt declined to comment on the photo.

Mere hours after the brothers’ first court appearance July 20, an influence campaign articulated by the Tates’ legal team during the brothers’ detention three years ago in Romania was blasted on repeat. The twisted messaging is, by now, familiar. During what Andrew Tate called “93 days being locked in a Romanian dungeon” — on allegations that women were being intimidated and coerced to do webcam sex work and were not permitted to leave the Tates’ property — his associates posted from his X account: “Deprivation of Liberty without charge or trial is the strictest legal punishment available to any state. Outside of death.”

The founder of the law firm — and co-author of the script — now says his clients’ detention in the U.S. has “put a target on their back for them to get stabbed, jumped, murdered” — while associates posting from Andrew Tate’s X account are calling him a “political prisoner.”

The allegations of loverboy-style targeting, grooming and webcam pimping of dozens of inexperienced young women and girls as young as 15 demand to be taken seriously. So do the allegations of serial rape, nonconsensual violence and financial crimes. Conservatives like Tucker Carlson, enchanted into believing the Tates’ allegiance to President Trump signals the brothers are innocent targets of “political lawfare,” have been steered past the evidence. In the clear light of day, we can see how the political-targeting narrative manufactured by and for the Tate brothers has been recycled by others in positions of influence, including U.S. Congressman Abraham Hamadeh. This narrative launders the record of legitimate civil and criminal process into a spurious portrait of organized persecution. The brothers’ growing desperation to avoid prolonged custody dials up their counselor’s escalating rhetoric of false accusations and political fallout, but the noise is meant to convert the public, defeat custody and defer prosecution indefinitely — not to clear up the facts.

PART ONE — THE PITCH

The Client Spec: “I’m looking for Better Call Saul”

After Romanian police raided their compound in the suburbs of Bucharest in April 2022, the Tate brothers went lawyer shopping. In a July 2022 Emergency Meeting podcast clip published on an affiliate channel, the Tate brothers answer a question from their audience: “I’m a law student. What do men like you look for in their transactional-slash-business attorneys?”

“Flexibility,” Tristan responds. “Don’t be a Mister Follow-the-rules. I’m looking for Better Call Saul: ‘I’ll make it happen’,” he said. “That’s what we need. That’s what real Gs [gangsters] need.” The reference is to the television character of ethically challenged attorney Saul Goodman, who becomes a “friend of the cartel” in the Breaking Bad prequel.

Andrew recounts mocking a female attorney who tried to counsel the brothers on the law — “‘The law says you’re guilty’; I said get me out of jail!” — preferring the one who offered creative solutions. “How much does this cost to make this all go away?” Andrew offered. “That’s what we wanna hear,” Tristan replied.

The male attorney they hired in Romania “is a G,” Tristan said. Imitating a foreign accent, Tristan related the unnamed attorney’s advice: “‘There are things we can do. We can try this, we can try that, no problem. I make one call. No problem.’”

The Tate brothers’ December 29, 2022 arrest in Romania led to a three-month incarceration. Desperate to be released from custody, the Tates relied on Romanian attorney Eugen Vidineac and hired celebrity defense lawyer Tina Glandian in January 2023 to join the global team. The Tates eventually added American consiglieri to help them wage an information war stateside, with the name Joseph D. McBride reportedly suggested by motivational speaker Patrick Bet-David’s talent booker, Tony Naomi. McBride is a 2014 graduate of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law and was admitted to practice in New York in 2016. Attorney McBride’s prior criminal defense work includes securing pretrial release in April 2021 for Richard “Bigo” Barnett, the man photographed with his feet on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

McBride also acted in an “of counsel” role for the firm of Metcalf & Metcalf and represented Keith Raniere in the post-sentencing/appellate phase of his federal conviction. Raniere, who led the NXIVM cult from 1998 to 2018, was accused of “masquerad[ing] as a self-help guru” who used coercive control techniques to manipulate his followers. A secret female-only subgroup within NXIVM, led by Raniere, included an estimated 150 women in a hierarchical system of “masters” and “slaves.” The NXIVM trial revealed how members handed over compromising material about themselves, were expected to obey Raniere’s every command, and were subjected to humiliation and corporal punishment, including extremely restrictive diets and branding of their skin with a symbol composed of Raniere’s monogram (K.A.R.). Raniere was convicted on charges of racketeering, sexual exploitation of a minor, sex and labor trafficking, identity theft and related crimes and was sentenced to 120 years in prison. The court reportedly received more than 100 letters from victims detailing the harm Raniere had caused. At his sentencing in 2020, Raniere said that while he is sorry for the pain he had caused, he did not believe he committed any crimes. McBride told a local news reporter: “We do wholeheartedly believe that if this were anyone else, he would’ve been treated very differently. But because it was Keith Raniere, he was treated unfairly. That seems to be the ongoing theme with him.”

The McBride Law Firm’s 2023 detention-response influence strategy for the Tate brothers, reflecting the clients’ own wishes and priorities, left a digital trail. According to the firm’s now-deleted (but archived) July 19, 2023 press release, the brothers “secured New York City’s hard-hitting McBride Law Firm and Florida attorney Thomas Maniotis to clear their good names.” While the Florida civil case was filed on the Tates’ behalf by Maniotis and McBride, Joseph McBride’s public advocacy for the Tate brothers has centered on managing perceptions. The press release describes the accused traffickers as “business moguls, thought leaders, motivational speakers, and once-in-a-lifetime social media influencers,” and details a multi-pronged legal and influence strategy to “cure this grave miscarriage of justice.”

Joseph McBride, Andrew Tate, Paul Ingrassia and Tristan Tate. Via Paul Ingrassia, Substack.

The firm developed a messaging strategy that sought to exploit political polarization. In the spirit of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the firm cloaked the libertarian Tate brothers with the mantle of populist conservatism and insisted they were innocent of all charges.

In a June 6, 2023 co-authored Substack piece “The Glitch in the Matrix,” Joseph McBride and firm “associate” Paul Ingrassia (who had not yet received a law license at the time) called the accusations against the Tate brothers “a kind of legalistic bloodletting, a high-tech Chinese water torture of sorts by those with bureaucratic souls,” complaining that house arrest has a “soul crushing effect on the warrior archetype in particular.” Andrew Tate, seeing himself as freeing minds just like Morpheus offering Neo the illusion-dissolving “red pill” in the 1999 film, has defined “the matrix” as “a reality where we’re told stories and narratives that aren’t true, where they try very hard to distract us with garbage.” When the Tate brothers and two female alleged accomplices were arrested at the Tate property in Romania in December 2022, reporters at the scene caught Andrew Tate on video saying, “the matrix has attacked me.” The strategy’s underlying thrust has been to resist detention and prosecution by projecting a mythos that the brothers are hapless victims of their own success, targets for the ressentiment of the masses. In this fantasy the brothers have come to be attacked by: “the matrix,” the “MeToo” movement, British elected officials, leftist lawfare, corrupt bureaucrats and the governor of Florida — hated simply because they exude masculinity. Their current detention-resistance response follows the same pattern as the one launched in 2023: deny everything while begging powerful voices to amplify their script.

Prong One: Sue the Accusers into Silence

First, the Tates’ firm filed a number of lawsuits including a suit in Florida against Jane Doe, an American victim-witness, and her parents. In 2022 Doe, then 21, told Romanian authorities she’d met Tristan Tate in Florida and was lured from the U.S. to Romania under the false pretense of a romantic relationship. She said she’d found other young women residing and doing webcam work at the Tates’ estate and that she was prevented from leaving. Doe’s call for help to a friend in the U.S. led to a raid on the property in April of that year, where she and another young woman were found and reported being held against their will. Romania’s organized crime unit, DIICOT, opened a formal investigation. The Tate brothers decried Doe’s statement to police and threatened to sue her and her parents for $10 million each if she did not recant her testimony to Romanian authorities in writing. Doe maintains her statements are true. While the brothers remain under indictment in Romania, no criminal charges have yet been tried. Later reports emerged that Andrew Tate had encouraged his workers to obtain tattoos with the words “owned by Tate” visible in their webcam videos.

According to the firm’s press release, the civil suit accusing Jane Doe of defamation and other torts “centers on a woman with a notorious track record of lying” and “using laws designed to shield women from harm as a sword to harm men.” The theory of the case is that Doe, who had been a victim of sexual abuse as a minor, had a history of entrapping men by lying about her age. The 2023 McBride press release further characterizes Doe’s statement to Romanian authorities as “insidious allegations” and “lies” that “wrongfully imprisoned” the Tate brothers for three months in Romania.

Jane Doe’s counterclaim alleges the Tates’ defamation action was brought to intimidate and punish her for telling the truth to authorities. On July 28 her attorney, Danielle Pinter of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) Law Center, told the Shannon Joy podcast that Doe still fears for her life as a result of what Pinter calls a witness intimidation campaign. Doe’s attorney rejects characterizations of Doe’s actions as attention-seeking. According to Pinter, “Jane Doe did not go to the media and make accusations … about a famous person. She was rescued by law enforcement and cooperated with them. That was the right thing to do.” Pinter adds that the Tate attack on Doe wasn’t just a lawsuit — the strike has been amplified through public messaging and doxing: “She also faced unbelievable online harassment from the Tate brothers’ fan base, which is massive. She received a deluge of threats, so that she had to shut down her social media. She’s been living in hiding since this happened in 2022,” Pinter said.

The alleged behavior — multiple women across many years, from different countries and speaking different languages, all describing Andrew Tate choking them during sex — is “highly corroborative,” Pinter said. The tally of victims in Romania is “over 35,” and seven victims are listed in the new UK criminal case out of Bedfordshire. Four more filed a civil suit in the UK connected to the 2016 Hertfordshire investigation into Andrew Tate. Two additional women have also alleged Andrew Tate choked and assaulted them: Canadian influencer Lauren Southern disclosed a 2018 encounter in her memoir; American model Brianna Stern sued over an encounter with Andrew Tate at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2025. He agreed to a three-year restraining order that keeps him away from Stern and bars him from possessing any guns in the U.S. But Tate and his counsel “fired back,” filing a “legal offensive against Brianna Stern”: a $50 million countersuit alleging defamation and other torts.

McBride’s claim that his clients are “attacked for what they say, not what they’ve done” stands in stark contrast to the allegations in Jane Doe’s counterclaim — which have nothing to do with speech. And it’s ironic, given that the Tates filed a defamation action naming fifteen defendants including two Tate victim attorneys: Eleanor K. Gaetan of NCOSE, working on the Doe team pro bono, and Matthew Jury, the solicitor representing four alleged victims in a UK civil action against Andrew Tate. Jane Doe has also been represented by a First Amendment law clinic. The defamation action additionally names more than a dozen social media influencers — some anonymous. The Tates have also filed a complaint for pure bill of discovery against platform X seeking to unmask the accounts.

The Tate brothers have also tried to exploit process in the UK, seeking a High Court order compelling prosecutors to reveal the names of alleged victims in the British proceedings. The judge rejected the bid, concerned that premature disclosure risked harassment and doxing, as has been documented in Romania and the U.S. The Tates’ U.K. solicitors even presented a novel offer to Crown Prosecution Service: £20,000 security on a promise not to disclose the names. CPS declined the offer as there was no mechanism for such an undertaking, and the security would “not mitigate the risk of harm to the victims.” On August 10, 2026 the Department of Justice filed its opposition to release of the Tate brothers as they resist extradition to the UK. Attached to the brief is a 34-page letter from CPS transmitted via the British Embassy in Washington DC. The letter recites the U.K. charges against both brothers and offers a documented history of “interference with witnesses” as one of several reasons to keep them in custody: “Both Andrew and Tristan Tate have significant resources available to them, both in terms of money and in social media networks,” the letter reads. “All of the complainants in this case are vulnerable and in fear of Andrew and Tristan Tate because of the violence used towards them — several of the complainants describe being assaulted and threatened with weapons.” The prosecutor’s letter closes with a plea to keep the pair in custody “because of their propensity to intimidate vulnerable complainants.”

DOJ also attached to its brief a July 27, 2026 letter from the Romanian organized-crime prosecution office, DIICOT, obtained through the Romanian Ministry of Justice’s international judicial cooperation service. The letter states that while in pretrial detention and afterward under judicial supervision, the brothers “took steps intended to influence the victims’ statements,” attempting to persuade or persuading those being interviewed “not to make any statements related to the case, to make false statements, or to retract their previous statements.” The means, per DIICOT, included “acts of bribery consisting of offering money and property to the victim, as well as acts of coercion, manifested through threats and the unauthorized disclosure to the public of documents and information regarding the private lives of the victims and their family members.” Those acts were “intended to expose the victims to a wave of threats and online harassment through numerous intimidating messages, including death threats, sent by supporters of the two defendants.” The brothers also, the letter says, “led the victims to believe that law enforcement agencies were exerting pressure” on the victims, “dictating their statements,” while arranging counsel for the women themselves — “hiring defense attorneys loyal to the interests of the two defendants” to assist the victims at their hearings. A July 23, 2026 letter from DIICOT, also attached to the DOJ brief, confirms both brothers have been criminally charged (au fost puși sub acuzare) on multiple counts of a range of crimes including: influencing witness statements on an ongoing basis (Tristan 12 counts, Andrew 7), forming an organized criminal group, human trafficking and money laundering.

Wiretapped phone calls made from detention in Romania in 2023 exposed another aspect of Andrew Tate’s desperate strategy to manage perceptions: from custody, he was still directing his own social media accounts. He’d instructed associates to dig up and release “party clips” of an alleged victim, showing her dancing at a nightclub. “Yes, put them everywhere and say, ‘This girl says she is kidnapped when she is not kidnapped,’” Tate reportedly said. According to The New Yorker exposé, Tate’s lawyers in Romania were dismayed when they learned about the recorded conversations: “‘I explicitly said to him that EVERYTHING IS RECORDED,’ one complained in a chat. ‘I told him not once, but 5 times and still.’”

Prong Two: Recruit the Powerful

The second prong of the McBride Law Firm’s documented influence campaign expressly included lobbying members of Congress, trading on the Tates’ internet celebrity status and popularity in the “manosphere” — the male-dominated conservative media ecosystem. The firm’s press release framed the criminal investigation into the Tates in Romania as “cancellation for their message of male empowerment,” and announced that McBride associate Paul Ingrassia had been assigned to work on both the Tate brothers’ civil case and advocacy campaign. In a July 18, 2023 coauthored Substack piece titled “Andrew and Tristan Tate: Public Enemies One and Two,” Ingrassia and McBride wrote that their clients were being unfairly “targeted by the godless forces in the Western world.”

Along with defamation actions against alleged victims and their family members, “Public Enemies” announced a “concurrent … congressional effort to raise awareness” about what the two attorneys frame as “the fundamental human rights of American citizens wrongfully detained overseas.” According to “Public Enemies,” the law firm’s objective was to “educate lawmakers about the full story behind,” an American victim-witness Ingrassia and McBride call “the pathological liar and serial manipulator who smeared the Tate name.” The Tates had already been released from 93 days in a Romanian jail when their U.S. legal team decried the conditions of their house arrest, claiming their “ongoing detention” was contrary to “international human rights law.” The Substack co-authors explain that their “advocacy campaign on the Hill” seeks to target “geriatric lawmakers … who may never have heard of the Tates.” They speculate that “pressures imposed on the DOJ and State Department, for example by members of Congress” could “move the needle” for the Tates and “have shockwaves across the broader cultural, political, and even legal landscape.”

Recruiting government officials to advocate and to act for them is a court-documented Tate brothers method. Andrew Tate’s wiretapped phone calls revealed that during the brothers’ 2023 detention, Andrew Tate instructed associates to approach two named Romanian legislators and to suggest that supporting the Tate brothers would “be very good for their careers” and would buy the politicians “a lot of votes.” Neither lawmaker has publicly supported the Tates. Podcast clips and social media posts of Andrew Tate’s venality still circulate online: “I like Eastern Europe as a whole because corruption is far more accessible,” he told a podcast audience in August 2022; “I find it offensive that a police officer in England will stop me and refuse to take a bribe.” A June 2026 New Yorker exposé titled “Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse” recovered deleted social media posts: “‘Please do not underestimate how connected I am in Romania,’ he tweeted. ‘MPs Police chiefs Street thugs ANYTHING can be fixed.’” In a January 2023 podcast, Andrew Tate told listeners, “I like living in a society where my money, my influence and my power mean that I’m not below or beholden” to any laws.

Prong Three: Court the Media to Contain the Facts

The law firm press release further names Ingrassia as “part of the McBride Law Team that helped facilitate Tucker Carlson’s face-to-face interview with Andrew and Tristan Tate” in mid-2023 in Romania. DIICOT made public a summary of its indictment on June 20, 2023, but the indictment (reported by the New Yorker to be over 300 pages) was not the focus of Carlson’s visit. The interviews conducted less than three weeks after the indictment dropped center on the brothers’ complaints about being under house arrest and about “censorship” of their message. The Tates’ successful courtship of Carlson produced a two-and-a-half hour interview with Andrew Tate, released July 11, 2023 as a “Tucker on Twitter” product. It’s viewable on X, where the post has garnered more than 112,300,000 views. In his opening monologue Carlson frames the Romanian prosecution of the Tate brothers as a campaign to silence their “advice to young men” about masculinity.

Carlson speculates the Tates’ 2022 arrest and detention in Romania was “likely” undertaken “with the encouragement of the British and American governments.” The host’s unbounded rhetoric goes so far as to compare the Tates to Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange: “Accusing a man of a sex crime is the fastest possible way to discredit what he’s saying.” When pressed to explain the charges against him Andrew Tate told Carlson, “they’re accusing me of using the loverboy method. Coercing them by being nice.” Carlson’s hour-long interview with younger brother Tristan dropped August 6, 2023 on X and has received more than 50,100,000 views.

If Carlson had any journalistic instincts, he might have looked up the definition of the crime of human trafficking. The Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons is a treaty supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime binding on states parties including Romania, the U.K. and the U.S. In that treaty, Carlson would have found the elements (act, means and purpose) of the crime of human trafficking defined in Article 3(a):

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability … for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs[.]

Consent is not a defense to the crime of human trafficking because the “means” element precludes valid consent. Where the victim is under the age of 18, evidence satisfying the “means” element is not needed to prove the offense of trafficking.

The “loverboy method” is something Andrew Tate is familiar with — and something Carlson, unfortunately, did not pursue. The marketing for the Hustler’s University PHD (“Pimpin’ Hoes Degree”) program formerly offered by Tate can be viewed at an archived cobratate.com page where Tate describes his “job” as “to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together.” Tate claimed he’d had “over 75 girls work for me.” On the site he boasts that more than half his employees “were actually my girlfriend at the time,” and that none of those “girlfriends” had been in the industry before meeting him. This is the loverboy method, described in Andrew Tate’s words in his own marketing copy.

Tate projected that he was making money. He was teaching his method to other men. And he wanted the public to know: “Whether you agree or disagree with what I did with their loyalty, submission, and love for me doesn’t matter.” Flanked with photos of Andrew Tate smoking cigars and posing provocatively with beautiful young women, the “final thoughts” section of the PHD site reads:

I will be teaching you every step to building a girl who is submissive, loyal, and in love with you. From your first message, to testing if you want to keep her, to as long as you want the relationship to go on, I am the most capable man in the world to teach you this power, and I am 100% confident in my program.

I have a warning. There’s responsibility when you have someone completely loyal to you. I’ve had some girls for over a decade.

When someone gives themselves to you absolutely, their life path is in your hands, be wise (emphasis retained).

The page describes the crime in black and white. Marketing copy for an instructional course makes this site potential evidence not only of what Tate allegedly did, but of what he offered to teach other men to do. “Building a girl who is submissive, loyal and in love … to where she’d do anything I say” suggests the subordination or erosion of independent agency. Clinical literature on complex PTSD, dissociation and trauma bonding documents how reduced capacity for independent decision-making and increased submissiveness or compliance may be an adaptive survival response under ongoing threat.

Paul Ingrassia on Substack

If only Tucker Carlson had performed a modicum of due diligence in advance of his trip to Romania, he could have found the PHD material and more in a January 19, 2023 NBC News report with the headline: “Andrew Tate said he broke a woman’s jaw and that his business was a ‘scam’ ahead of Romanian charges.” The NBC report examines details from the Romanian investigation and shows ample evidence of Tate’s activities in his own words. According to the report, the Tate brothers were being investigated for recruiting women “by misrepresenting their intention to enter into a marriage/cohabitation relationship and the existence of genuine feelings of love (the loverboy method).” Identical language appears in the June 2023 indictment. The report quotes an archived YouTube video clip with Tate describing his webcam business model: The women are “not allowed out … You stay in the house. You don’t go nowhere. No restaurants, no clubs, nothing.”

Concerning the brothers’ complaints of censorship and “cancellation,” it’s worth noting that in August 2025 the Tate brothers filed suit against Meta making the very allegations of coordinated censorship that they had rehearsed before Carlson and his audience. On April 28, 2026 a federal judge granted Meta’s motion to dismiss without leave to refile. The judge agreed with Meta that the decision to terminate the Facebook and Instagram accounts was publisher conduct, immune under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The court ruled the brothers had no cognizable claim for relief on First Amendment grounds, nor for breach of contract, fraud, nor any other basis alleged. The disposition was reported by Bloomberg Law.

The Proffered Currency: A “Successful Check-mate”

By mid-2023, the Tates’ audience across platforms was a force of nature. In “Public Enemies,” Ingrassia and McBride defined the Tates’ influence as “the ability to command the ears of millions of people at once.” The currency the brothers claimed to offer during the 2024 election cycle was audience share converted into votes.

Shortly after President Trump was declared victor in the 2024 election, Tristan Tate congratulated his brother on the “successful check-mate.” The younger Tate brother reasoned that Andrew’s influence in the manosphere had served the Trump campaign: “His role in this cannot be overlooked. He literally RAISED a generation of republicans.” The Tates had exploited the polarization of the two-party system. By railing against what they called the “woke mind virus,” they converted their licentious lifestyle into a version of masculinity many young men — regardless of political leanings — were ready to embrace. For Tristan, by teaching his young male audience “to think for themselves and disregard the mainstream media,” Andrew “taught them not to fall victim to propaganda” and to adopt a “healthy right wing approach to politics that they would NOT have if Andrew Tate had never appeared on their phone screens.” Attorney McBride has explicitly equated the Tate brothers’ influence with votes. Responding to questions about the brothers’ presence in DC in July, McBride told the Daily Mail: “Washington knows that Andrew and Tristan Tate’s ability to influence the next election is unmatched.”

In January 2025 Alina Habba, incoming legal spokesperson with the official title of counselor to the president, favorably compared Andrew Tate to her powerful client. Openly ingratiating herself, Habba invoked a line popularly attributed to Stalin’s secret police: “I sympathize with you because I think you go through a lot of the same ‘show me the person, I’ll find the crime’ that President Trump has gone through.” When a 2025 effort to prosecute Andrew Tate for multiple counts of rape and strangulation in the U.K. stalled, Tate compared himself to the president: “Lawfare? – I’m one of the most mistreated men in history beside president Trump himself.” In 2026, Congressman Abe Hamadeh would resurface the trope once more: “They’ve been deplatformed, debanked, arrested and still no convictions — something President Trump has endured for years.”

PART TWO — WHAT IT BOUGHT

Deniable: Ingrassia, Grenell and a Chartered Jet

Given the McBride Law Firm’s emphasis on political influence, the integration of Paul Ingrassia into the Trump administration deserves a look. Ingrassia graduated from Cornell Law in 2022 and was licensed to practice by the New York Bar on July 30, 2024. He was hired by Emil Bove in January 2025 to serve the Trump White House as liaison to the Justice Department. In the context of Bove’s dismissal of DOJ prosecutors who’d been assigned to investigate the J6 Capitol riot, Ingrassia was reassigned to the DHS liaison position in late February 2025 after unnamed sources told ABC News that Ingrassia’s top priority was to staff DOJ positions with attorneys who exhibit “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. In May of last year, having held a law license for just ten months, Ingrassia received President Trump’s nomination to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Paul Ingrassia’s Substack describes his most significant client advocacy work as a campaign “waged against the Tate brothers’ accusers for smearing their good name in the mainstream media.” Trump tapped Ingrassia to lead the agency responsible for protecting whistleblowers who report government wrongdoing.

Despite endorsements from Newsmax host Johnny Tabacco and Zionist Organization of America national president Mort Klein, Ingrassia’s nomination was derailed reportedly due to racist and antisemitic texts published by Politico. In October 2025 a harassment scandal arose over an incident from July, when Ingrassia was reportedly accused of canceling a female colleague’s hotel room reservation on a work trip, inducing her to share a room with him. According to Politico, the woman filed a complaint then withdrew it days later, fearing retaliation. The Daily Mail identified the woman and reported that Ingrassia has filed a defamation suit against Politico, while Politico stands by its reporting. In November 2025 Ingrassia moved to General Services Administration where he currently performs the role of acting general counsel.

The day after the Tate brothers’ July 18 arrest, Ingrassia posted on X: “Politically driven prosecutions based on one’s personal beliefs are completely antithetical to a democratic society.” In a second post Ingrassia wrote:

In America, the presumption of innocence is inviolable. It is supposed to be a bedrock principle of our legal system. The presumption of innocence demands rigorous legal guardrails, referred to as procedural due process. Those who resent this arrangement should really channel their resentment against the Constitution, the document which safeguards the God-given rights of every citizen and lays out these protections boldly…. One remains innocent until a court of competent jurisdiction renders a judgment. This process is what separates America from the world, and is what makes this country exceptional. Let’s not lose sight of this.

When later contacted by the New York Times for comment on the Tate brothers’ arrest, Ingrassia said: “I have no ongoing connection to them now.” On his X profile Ingrassia describes himself as a “Constitutional scholar.” His account also lists him as an “affiliate” of Gateway Pundit.

Alongside Ingrassia, Habba and Zampolli, perhaps the most widely-publicized Trump official to have befriended the Tate brothers is Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell. After the Tate brothers’ permission to leave Romania was restored in late February 2025, Grenell told the Financial Times that he supported the Tate brothers “as evident by my publicly available tweets,” but denied any “substantive conversation” with Romanian diplomats. The New York Times later confirmed other European news reports indicating that Grenell had, in fact, expressed interest “in the fate of the Tate brothers” and had “twice discussed their case with Romanian officials” shortly before Romanian prosecutors handed the Tates the freedom to travel in late February 2025.

BBC Newsnight, February 18, 2025

Even before the brothers got the green light to leave Romania, the rumor that the U.S. may have interfered with judicial process in that country scandalized Europe and brought dismay to Andrew Tates’ alleged victims. Their attorney Matthew Jury told BBC Newsnight his clients were “absolutely distraught”:

It’s very clear from members of the Trump administration’s social media posts and public statements that there is a great deal of support for Tate, and I’m not clear as to why that is. Either they don’t know or they don’t care about the nature of the allegations, and how serious they are…. These are the most serious allegations of human trafficking, rape, serial rape, the trafficking of minors, and the rape of a 15-year-old girl. It doesn’t get more serious than that…. [My clients are] absolutely bewildered as to why the Trump administration has decided to interfere in this way.

On February 27, 2025, the day the brothers exercised their newfound freedom and flew to the U.S., Jury posted a statement on X:

The news that pressure by the Trump administration has led to Andrew Tate, and his brother Tristan, being allowed to leave Romania by its authorities is equal parts disgusting and dismaying.

There is clear evidence to support the allegations against Tate that he is one of the world’s worst human traffickers and serial rapists.

That the U.S. government would choose to lobby for his release is absurd.

Jury tagged the X accounts of @10DowningStreet, @Keir_Starmer and @realDonaldTrump to “raise this issue on behalf of the many British women who Tate is alleged to have raped and sexually assaulted who may now be denied justice.” While the Tates’ chartered jet was over the Atlantic, Trump was holding an Oval Office press availability with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Reporters asked President Trump whether his administration had been involved in lifting the Tates’ travel ban: “I know nothing about that,” he said.

The brothers landed in Miami where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers reportedly seized their phones. According to ProPublica, Paul Ingrassia sent a written request “coming from the White House” demanding that DHS officials return the electronics to the Tates; Ingrassia and his personal attorney denied any such intervention occurred. Whatever the denomination, the currency apparently bought individual action taken out of personal loyalty toward the Tates — action officially denied. On July 20, Hamadeh’s support arrived on the open record.

The Script Surfaces in Washington, DC

Two days after the brothers’ July 18 extradition arrest, U.S. Congressman Abe Hamadeh bolstered the Tates’ tale of oppression with his credential as a former prosecutor (the Arizona Bar shows his law license is currently suspended for a “fees related issue”). Hamadeh has reportedly been following both brothers on X since June 2025.

On July 20, 2026 Hamadeh posted on X:

@ AbrahamHamadeh on social media platform X (personal account)

The presumption of innocence, as Hamadeh surely understands, is not a shield to protect U.S. citizens from prosecution abroad. The U.S. has extradited Americans under the current treaty since 2007, and the Tates fully possess the right to trial in the United Kingdom. That “no American court has charged them” is legally irrelevant; the alleged crimes are triable where the alleged harm occurred.

The “Public Enemies” Substack essay has counsel articulating “pressures imposed” on the executive branch “by members of Congress” as their prayer to “move the needle” for their clients. Hamadeh’s advocacy — the U.S. “should either charge them with a crime or protect them from reckless court proceedings in the U.K. and Romania” — is a false choice that calls for precisely the same political intervention the Tates’ counsel hypothesized. But the Justice Department cannot initiate its own proceedings based on foreign charges, and the State Department’s role in extradition is invoked after the proceeding, not before. The DOJ’s own court filings and the treaty itself establish the political mechanism Hamadeh’s statement implicitly invokes: the executive branch has “sole discretion” to determine whether the request is politically motivated. Are Hamadeh’s comments meant to “move the needle” — or merely to confuse the public?

Hamadeh correctly — yet irrelevantly — states there are “still no convictions” of the Tates. While the pair have yet to be tried criminally, in December 2024 the Chief Magistrate at Westminster Magistrates’ Court ordered the forfeiture of £2,683,345 (about $3.4 million) held in six frozen bank accounts and one cryptocurrency account, finding on the balance of probabilities that the brothers had deliberately evaded tax on approximately £21 million in revenue earned between 2014 and 2022 from their webcam business and other online ventures. A parallel antifraud investigation in Romania determined in December 2024 that the Tates had established fiscal residency there, had undeclared income, and owed 28.8 million Romanian lei (about $6 million) in income tax. While neither European tax matter stands alone as a criminal prosecution, financial activities from the same era are under criminal investigation. In the ongoing 2024 criminal file Romanian prosecutors expanded in June 2026, DIICOT alleges funds were laundered through two companies set up by the defendants to conceal illicit proceeds of human trafficking.

Hamadeh’s intimation that the Tate brothers were deplatformed for political reasons is bizarre. An August 2022 piece in The Guardian catalogued clips of Andrew Tate’s misogyny, explaining in his own words that he targets teen girls because he can “make an imprint” on them, and demonstrating how he intimidates: “It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her up by the neck. Shut up bitch. The machete’s on the floor, her panties are all wet, and you go fuck her. That’s how it goes. Slap, slap, grab, choke. Shut up, bitch. Sex.” When the brothers’ violent speech and other terms of service violations saw their content removed from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook (now Meta), the brothers complained their deplatforming stymied their business by stifling their “affiliate army.” According to the Guardian report, Hustler’s University — in addition to offering the PHD product and a “War Room” private chat group — explicitly taught strategies to make content go viral: “What you ideally want is a mix of 60-70% fans and 40-30% haters. You want arguments, you want war.” Connected to his Hustler’s University and related products, affiliates were compensated for posting promotional material with URLs linking to the Tates’ marketing websites. A network of thousands of social media accounts reportedly learned to manipulate the algorithms and artificially boost Tate content.

But the deplatforming didn’t last. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022 and reinstated Andrew Tate’s account (banned in 2017 for tweeting that women should “bare [sic] some responsibility” for being sexually assaulted), the brothers were soon boasting of bi-weekly ad revenue payouts in the low five figures. And streaming platform Rumble — billed as the free speech alternative — welcomed the Tates and their massive fan base. By the summer of 2022, Rumble had received major investments from Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. By June 2023 Dan Bongino, then a hugely popular manosphere podcaster and Rumble equity stakeholder, was promoting their six-figure livestream views: “Hot damn, Tate is melting the internet right now on Rumble.” After the 2024 election, Vice President Vance followed the brothers on X. Bongino, whose previous roles include New York City police officer and Secret Service agent but who had no prior FBI experience, served the Trump administration as Deputy Director of the FBI from March 17, 2025 until January 3, 2026.

When they joined Rumble the brothers were under active criminal investigation in Romania for human trafficking and rape. The New Yorker exposé disclosed a confidential contract with Rumble to pay Andrew Tate “at least six million dollars a year for a weekly quota of five short videos and a thirty minute live stream.” Such a contract establishes commissioned content, not merely platform access. The New Yorker reported the Tates’ arrival drove a forty-five percent increase in active users, and their podcast reached first place on the Apple and Google charts. Before their December 2022 arrest, episodes were lifestyle-oriented and promoted their digital products. In a recent interview with Jack Neel Andrew discussed how, after the 2022 arrest, he and Tristan rejected advice from their Romanian attorney to lie low, and instead decided to use their platform to shape the narrative about the criminal investigation. “My best way to fight back is to tell the truth on Emergency Meeting Podcast and use my affiliate army to spread the truth,” he said. It’s unclear to me to what extent the 2023 version of the “affiliate army” survives today, but given the number of active Tate fan accounts on Rumble and X, clearly the army has not quit the field.

The role of a prosecutor is to investigate the facts, build the case, and prove each element of the crime. The Palermo Protocol’s Article 3 defines the elements of trafficking as act (recruitment, transportation or harboring), means (force, coercion, deception, abuse of vulnerability etc.) and purpose (exploitation). Romania’s criminal code directly implements the Protocol in Article 201 of the Penal Code and defines penalties. In the U.S., the Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act is largely consistent with Palermo but divides “exploitation” into two categories: sex work, versus other forms of labor. In the U.S., as under Palermo, consent is irrelevant if force, fraud or coercion is used.

Despite Hamadeh’s deflection there is nothing “unclear” about the charges in the British indictment. In the UK, the Modern Slavery Act contains a bifurcated definition of the crime compared to that in the Protocol. While Section 2 of the Act does not require proof of the “means” element in the same explicit way to prove the trafficking offense itself, the offense is built around arranging or facilitating travel with a view to exploitation. Section 1 of the Modern Slavery Act addresses exploitation and forced servitude where transportation is not involved, defining the offense not as trafficking but as “slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labor.” The Crown Prosecution Service does not have a reputation for fabricating charges for political reasons, and no showing has been made that the UK charges are “political.” In the suit against Meta, where the Tates’ claimed that their Facebook and Instagram bans were motivated by political targeting was dismissed, the court asked at oral argument what the Tates would allege given leave to amend. The plaintiffs identified nothing.

For Hamadeh to frame serious criminal charges as vague or ungrounded, contextualized by “years of false alarms and innuendos,” reflects a willful ignorance of the evidence that has been circulating publicly for years. It also displays an unacceptable callousness toward the many teenaged girls and young women the Tate brothers have allegedly abused and exploited. The first criminal investigation into Andrew Tate was initiated in Hertfordshire in 2016, based on alleged conduct in 2014 and 2015 — before he and his brother became international celebrities. Also in 2016, Andrew Tate was booted from the UK television show Big Brother when a video from 2012 surfaced that appeared to show Tate beating a young woman with a belt. Tate claimed the abuse was consensual, but court documents revealed the alleged victim’s date of birth, yielding an age of 14 or 15 when the video was shot. Tate himself cited “the MeToo era” among his reasons for relocating from the UK to Romania around 2016: “I like the idea of being able to do what I want.” Pinter called the Tate saga a study of “systemic failures across multiple countries,” and pointed out that the 2016 Hertfordshire investigation is being reopened for mishandling. The New Yorker cited evidence storage issues, unexplored leads, and “overworked, overstretched” officers, and reported that the Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating “gross misconduct” in the case.

Congressman Hamadeh offers no evidence or reasoning to support his assertions that the overseas charges are “reckless,” “political” or “unclear,” that the Tates have any legal grounds to defeat extradition, or that their due process or free speech rights have been infringed. As Pinter points out, none of the charges relates to speech. “I have not seen evidence of free speech or political views being the reason behind these [prosecutions],” she said. “That’s unsupported.”

Whatever direction politics flows in Romania, it has not been against the Tate brothers. The New Yorker reported prosecutor Rareș Stan, a “pugnacious investigator” with an unsullied reputation, had built a case alleging that the Tates and two accomplices had trafficked women housed at their villa and filed an indictment of more than 300 pages. After the appellate court returned the indictment for procedural errors, he was replaced by another prosecutor with a “softer touch,” Cezar Profira, who reportedly told the Tate brothers, “you should have bought her a handbag.” A 2025 documentary on the Romanian judicial system explored how the system benefits offenders by disincentivizing the prosecution of major cases, and how defendants “with political connections or significant business influence” benefit from dilatory tactics that prolong proceedings until the charges are time-barred by statutes of limitations. On March 4 Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, sent letters to the Romanian and British governments “concerning the failure to conduct a prompt, effective, impartial, and victim-centered investigation” into a report of rape and strangulation by Andrew Tate. The rapporteur was particularly concerned about “alleged pressures exerted by the perpetrators on the justice system” in both countries.

The Deflection Echoes

In the aftermath of the extradition arrest, Joseph McBride’s messaging campaign was reproduced through the keyboard of a congressman and through the video statement of a former Cosa Nostra caporegime.

Outside the courthouse, Joseph McBride recited the now-familiar refrain. “Andrew and Tristan are innocent, they’ve never done nothing wrong, they shouldn’t be extradited for crimes they did not commit,” McBride told gathered reporters. When asked whether the extradition warrant was politically motivated, McBride extemporized but did not explain:

Yes, it’s politically motivated, there’s no question about it. These guys went to DC to exercise their First Amendment rights. They met with members of Congress as private citizens. They met with friends in Washington DC, they walked the grounds of the Capitol, and three days later they’re in a jumpsuit. You do the math.

McBride called the extradition a “stitch-up job” and said his clients are prepared to “appeal to the top of the food chain” — the U.S. Supreme Court — though there is no ruling yet to appeal.

The New Yorker exposé revealed that the day after Hertfordshire police declared they were reopening their own investigation, Tristan Tate panicked. “New charging decision = new warrant,” he reportedly wrote to his advisors. According to the report: “In a voice note, he added, ‘We’re just gonna have to fucking stay in Dubai and the United States and stop traveling and fucking get some extradition lawyers.’” But the extradition is connected to a separate investigation in Bedfordshire, involving seven victims who allege assault, rape, and trafficking-related offenses between 2010 and 2017 in the East of England. The day after the extradition arrests McBride speculated in an X post that the arrests were a mistake, “greenlighted by a low-level functionary” at DOJ without leadership input, and said his clients had been “thrown in a cage on the say-so of a bureaucrat.” But the Justice Department told the Associated Press the extradition arrests were approved by Criminal Division leadership.

Congressman Hamadeh hasn’t been the only public figure to go on offense for the Tates in their extradition battle. On July 29 Michael Franzese, podcaster and former caporegime for the Colombo crime family, posted a 40-minute video statement on X testifying to his personal acquaintance with the Tate brothers and his faith in their innocence.

I visited with them in Romania. I’ve interviewed them on my platforms. My wife and daughter have accompanied me with them…. I’ve been to the zoo with [Andrew Tate] and his daughter and the woman that bore his child….

Do I believe that he trafficked children? No, absolutely not. Do I believe he human trafficked women? Absolutely not.

Franzese intimated he has inside information and access. “I have looked at the case in Romania,” he said. “I have read documents. I have spoken to the attorney. I have seen the results of the investigation. It was garbage. There was nothing credible there whatsoever.”

He further told his audience, “I am very privy to the information” in the Florida civil case. “This whole ‘MeToo’ movement caused a lot of women to do things above and beyond what they should have done, to try to get into the pockets of men,” he said. “It’s happened. I’m not saying it happens in every case. But does it happen? Yes. Did it happen in the Tates’ case, in Florida? I believe we’re gonna see that it has.”

The intensity of the messaging campaign might best be understood as a function of the resources at the Tates’ disposal, the gravity of the charges, and the two men’s raw desperation. Since their July 18 arrest the brothers have added to their roster Black Srebnick, the elite Miami firm that represented Jeffrey Epstein, to assist with the custody and extradition fight. Founding partner Roy Black, who died last year at age 80, led the defense team that negotiated Epstein’s controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami — though Black reportedly did not sign the NPA himself. The deal allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges, receive an 18-month jail sentence with work release, and avoid federal prosecution for offenses including procuring a minor for prostitution.

When the brothers filed lawsuits last year in California against Meta and TikTok challenging deplatforming, Tate posted on X: “I’m doing this for the people everywhere who have been lied about, banned, cancelled. All the men who had lying women ruin their lives…. I’m one of the only men who can afford this fight. I have a duty to God. For all of the good men out there. It’s good vs evil and I will lose my entire fortune in this fight.” Since they entered federal custody, the Tates’ media team have been posting constant updates from their accounts, decrying conditions in the Special Housing Unit: “This is punitive housing for people who murder their cellmates…. WHY AM I HERE?” Despite their supporters’ shouts of “exonerated!” after every court ruling, most of the major cases have not yet been resolved. The Jane Doe trial and a trial in the influencer case are both expected to take place in Florida in 2027.

Appeals to individual rights are at home in the conservative landscape. They’re also the mob lawyer’s stock-in-trade. In her 2023 article “The Mob Lawyer’s Constitution,” Professor Sara Mayeux examines the constitutional rhetoric of the high-priced white collar criminal defense bar of the 1970s through the 1990s. By assembling the “constellation of soundbites through which mob lawyers disseminated their views,” Mayeux exposes the “particular constitutional vision” of the mob lawyer. She concludes: “the mob lawyer’s bombastic invocations of the Constitution” during that era may have had “cultural more than legal significance,” noting “that they were recognized at the time, and should be understood in retrospect as well, as a kind of joke, part of the expected public performance of a particular type of lawyerly character, all conveyed with a wink.”

The Hamadeh post exhibits — if not outright political action — a sitting congressman lending the color of prosecutorial authority to the Tates’ narrative. Hamadeh’s demand for “full American Constitutional protections,” including the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty,” must be read with a wink. Because, as Hamadeh must understand, the presumption of innocence is not at issue in an extradition proceeding. The state has interests in both protecting the rights of the accused as well as in conducting the extradition process in accordance with treaty obligations. The process that is due, under the U.S. Constitution, is precisely what is being executed. Hamadeh’s appeal to “constitutional protections,” here, is bombast and noise.

Actor Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman on AMC’s Better Call Saul

The mob lawyer’s “Showtime!” schtick carries an implicit understanding: the lawyer on the courthouse steps performs outrage at the system, those who know the score understand that performance, and the underlying business is understood as a vice trade — gambling, narcotics — offered to consenting adults. But when the counselor represents persons accused of the organized and often violent sexual exploitation, intimidation and deprivation of liberty of teenaged girls and young women, the performance lands differently. Mayeux contemplates the mob lawyer’s “invocations of the Constitution that circulate widely in popular culture, yet are offered in the service of something other than constitutional argumentation — a business proposition, a marketing pitch, or the cultivation of a public persona.”

The U.S. Constitution as … branding?

But constitutional arguments are made in court. Invoking the language of the Constitution in the public square, confabulating non-responsive defenses as a strategy to avoid the constitutionally-guaranteed process at every step, is precisely that lavishly-compensated public performance Mayeux describes.

Naming the Pattern

As we have seen, the Tates’ narrative relies on denial and deflection. According to The New Yorker, texts to his advisors show Andrew Tate was shocked to learn a crowdfunding campaign for the UK victims’ civil case had raised more than £300,000. “Looking at the total, Tate wrote, ‘That’s a lot of money.’ Then he snapped back into character. ‘I don’t acknowledge my cases…. I ignore all this none of it’s real.’”

The thrust of the Tates’ oppression framing is a live example of a method of psychological abuse described by Jennifer J. Freyd as DARVO: Deny the harm, Attack the victim, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Freyd posits that the DARVO phenomenon is “a frequent reaction of an abuser to being held accountable”: the accused denies guilt and launches an attack “intended to chill and terrify” that “typically includes threats of law suits, overt and covert attacks on the whistle-blower’s credibility” and ad hominem jabs. In Freyd’s model:

The offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. The more the offender is held accountable, the more wronged the offender claims to be.

This is the “truthful offense” strategy of the McBride Law Firm, echoing in the public postings of a congressman and a former caporegime. Hamadeh’s knee-jerk declaration of “false alarms” is the denial; his “innuendos” accusation is the attack. Franzese’s perception that the “MeToo” movement caused women to “get into the pockets of men” is an explicit reversal of victim and offender.

Per Hamadeh’s take, the Tate brothers are victims of “reckless court proceedings” against them in three countries amounting to “political lawfare.” But the Tates’ actual litigation record — against Jane Doe, her parents (later dropped from the litigation), her pro bono counsel, thirteen influencers, Meta, the unmasking bid and others — reads as a well-resourced coordinated strike.

The McBride Law Firm’s strike against Jane Doe both denies and attacks — deflects in one stroke — refuting Jane’s statement to police in Romania and attacking her as a defamer. Moreover, the filing complains of false imprisonment — reversing the status of victim and offender in the very pleading itself. McBride’s press release explicitly frames his clients as the innocent victims: “Before being wrongfully targeted and imprisoned, their core message of self-improvement and returning to traditional masculinity became a global phenomenon.” The Tates’ complaint against Jane Doe even includes allegations that she intentionally and negligently inflicted emotional distress upon them.

Excerpt from McBride Law Firm press release, July 19, 2025

The Tates’ political-prisoner framing is beyond offensive — it is absurd. On July 29 McBride’s inversion of reality reached a new low when he told the Digital Social Hour podcast: “This is a political kidnapping to bring them to a country where the former Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister and his foreign secretary … the Crown Prosecution Service — they’ve all been on the record accusing Andrew and Tristan of being the Osama bin Ladens of sexual assault.” A behavior pattern described in the psychology of interpersonal abuse is here retained, priced, and executed as legal strategy — its amplification successfully outsourced to a member of Congress. Freyd’s model explicitly contemplates defamation suits. When the strike is funded with Tate money, the desperate narrative lashes out at even the highest levels of power.

McBride’s complaint of “the process” against his clients as “the punishment” screams hypocrisy when viewed through the DARVO lens: “When you drag somebody’s name through the media,” McBride said, “when you slander them, when you defame them, when you accuse them of heinous allegations, the process becomes the punishment until you can clear your name.”

The second-person lament sounds like a direct threat. But that’s because these arguments were built for an audience, not a court. The pattern suggests the strategic objective is not speedy justice to clear the Tates’ names. The £20,000 security offer to the CPS in a bid to unmask complainants was not an attempt to make the process faster. The suit against Jane Doe demanded she recant — retraction, not adjudication. The fifteen-defendant defamation action and the X unmasking suit tend to deter those who would seek to testify, to corroborate the alleged victims and witnesses, or to refute the Tates’ claims in any public forum. The remedy sought by Hamadeh is for the executive branch to foreclose the forum entirely. Deferral of process without detention is consistent with every one of those acts; vindication explains none of them.

PART THREE — THE FEEDBACK LOOP

The Oppression Narrative … Now In Vivid Technicolor

On July 29, ten days into the brothers’ pretrial detention, Joseph McBride told the Digital Social Hour his strategic objective is for his clients to resist extradition, to avoid trial, and most importantly, to remain free men. McBride’s mission is to project a sympathetic narrative by reframing the criminal allegations as attacks on speech and intellectual freedom. McBride shared his views on justice, making it clear that his aim is for the Tate brothers to enjoy the protection of the Trump administration. “We’re grateful to be aligned with the current party who is in power,” McBride said. “But you know, the idea that we could willingly be turned over to some despotic regime who wants to punish these guys for free speech is unAmerican and unconscionable. And I, for one, hope it doesn’t happen.”

Custody

The point of McBride’s “process is the punishment” campaign is not just to oppose extradition, but also to protest custodial detention for his clients — the same objective as the 2023 campaign. McBride told the Digital Social Hour audience that the slogan “the process is the punishment” is not an observation about his clients’ current situation but a “mantra” the firm has run “since day one.” McBride told reporters after the July 27 scheduling hearing, “The enemies of Andrew and Tristan Tate are weaponizing the court process.” The counselor told reporters that the nature of the allegations placed his clients at risk, and that detaining them amount to “greenlighting” violence against them: “Every time somebody walks by their cell they get called a word that starts with a ‘p’ that’s more appropriate to [Jeffrey] Epstein and not appropriate to them…. There’s a pecking order in jail, it’s very real, and when you come in with those allegations, there’s no excuses.”

But the protective alternative to general population — the Special Housing Unit — is also unacceptable and “inhumane” for the likes of his clients. On the podcast, chanting a litany of woes — like “drinking shower water in a five by seven cell” — McBride exclaims, “you have every reason to let them out and no reason to keep them in, especially given their conditions of confinement.” McBride calls the SHU “disgusting,” but his complaints are not aimed at improving prison conditions overall, they’re merely to generate sympathy for the Tate brothers in their bid for release. McBride stated, “our position at the bail hearing is going to be, look, there’s no reason for these guys to sit in solitary confinement, for, you know, 60 days. This is insane. Let them out.” On August 12 the Tate brothers’ legal team filed a request to postpone the August 13 bail hearing in order “to secure fact witnesses to appear at the hearing.” The court granted the motion, though the Justice Department reportedly opposed it on the grounds that the Tates had accused the DOJ of “undue delay.”

While McBride frets over prison conditions for his two clients, it bears reminding that detention in the U.S. could be avoided entirely. The extradition treaty specifies: “if the person sought waives extradition and agrees to be surrendered by the Requesting State, the Requested State may surrender the person as expeditiously as possible without further proceedings.” Because the Tate brothers are exercising their right to pursue extradition proceedings rather than waive, the UK must submit a package of documents for court review showing the evidentiary basis for prosecution. CPS has a deadline of September 16 to produce the documents named in the Treaty’s Article 8: “such information as would provide a reasonable basis to believe that the person sought committed the offense for which extradition is requested.” An August 10 X comment from Will Chamberlain, senior counsel for the conservative Article Three Project, addresses McBride, “All your clients have to do to escape these supposedly terrible conditions is consent to extradition.” McBride responds, “Free men don’t consent to being extradited to communist countries. The Tate Bros are Americans, entitled to the protection of the constitution and the presumption of innocence. Your lack of compassion lacks any trace of Christian or American virtue. You’re a sad angry incel.”

Joe McBride on social media platform X, August 2026

The standing McBride claims for representing J6 Capitol riot defendants is now extended to a man who described himself as among “the only men who can afford this fight.” Locking up a “mere detainee” before a hearing becomes, in McBride’s telling, a clear violation of constitutional and international human rights — a characterization the law does not support, and one that he abandons minutes later when describing the “special circumstances” showing required to modify detention conditions pending extradition. Outrage over process denied coexists with a court schedule the counselor himself articulates: papers in by the fifth, government response by the tenth, bail argued later in August. The Romanian model McBride offers — global travel, monthly check-ins, never a beat missed — is a precise description of what the strategy has always sought: process deferred indefinitely, liberty preserved throughout.

While locked in, the Tate brothers’ social media accounts haven’t missed a beat either. Those five-figure biweekly checks from X must still be rolling in, just as the oppression narrative continues to blast out. “They don’t have any access to any devices, but they have access to their attorneys,” McBride told the podcast audience. “So, you know, you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out.”

Extradition

Having established that dominating the media narrative is the strategy, McBride has expanded his trans-Atlantic persecution tale to encompass a shadowy British plot against his clients. He hints the British justice system reopened the 2016 case for ideological reasons. On the podcast the Tates’ counselor calls the UK a “degenerate state” that he views as

decomposing and reverting into some feminist-run communist, socialist, group-think, double-think, dystopian state where they made it criminal to be a freethinking man. So if you don’t have to go, don’t go, because you’ll risk your liberty if you do.

For McBride, criminal allegations are nothing more than extortion threats. “There’s a pattern of women trying to extort these men,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of being a successful man in the world that we live in today…. Sometimes the men will just rather pay than deal with it.” Evidently McBride believes this pattern explains the UK allegations. “In England, when you’re accused of SA [sexual assault], the government will take the phones of the accusers as evidence. So they went through the girls’ phones and they found, basically, ‘let’s extort Andrew Tate.’ And they declined to prosecute. They closed the case.” McBride is referring to the 2016 case out of Hertfordshire — he doesn’t tell the podcast audience that that case has recently been reopened and is being reinvestigated.

Regarding extradition for the Bedfordshire case, McBride said he expects CPS either to hand over no extradition package at all, or to delay proceedings simply to hurt his clients. “Without more, they’ll walk on extradition,” he said. “Their position is gonna be, we don’t need to provide you anything under the treaty. Our position is going to be, that’s nice, but you need to make a sufficient probable cause showing here in the United States in order for them to go, and you haven’t done that.” McBride speculates the UK prosecutors “probably” will wait till the court-imposed deadline to deliver the extradition package — “because they’re just gonna be scumbags about it.”

On the timing of the extradition, McBride stated that the UK wants to try his clients “for the specific purpose of thwarting justice in America.” Per his reasoning, the UK extradition is intended to prevent the Florida civil case from playing out — because if the Florida court favors his clients’ version of events, the foreign criminal charges simply vanish:

Andrew and Tristan are, of course, suing their wrongful accuser in Palm Beach court. That woman is the Genesis. She is Eve in the Bible, here. All the bad stuff starts with her, right? She has a conversation with the serpent in the garden, she goes from Florida to Romania, accuses of human trafficking, and boom, and we have the beginning of everything.

We are suing her for defaming them. […]

We’re supposed to go on with that process and go to trial in about six months. That of course has been delayed, because if we win that case … the entire narrative against Andrew and Tristan Tate blows apart.

It’s worth noting that McBride admits the fact of Jane Doe’s betrayal. A bad-faith, deceptive romantic pitch is central to the loverboy method of recruitment — and may establish the element of “means” through coercion or fraud. Once in Romania, McBride said, “After she found out that she wasn’t gonna be Tristan’s one and only love, and Tristan had, you know, a bunch of girls over there, she accused him of human trafficking. We dug into that, and we sued her for defamation.” While denying the crime, McBride describes its modus operandi.

I’m not sure how McBride thinks a civil case in Florida can quash a criminal indictment in Romania. Admittedly, that kind of lawyering is above my pay grade. But while a private party or government official can extort, a Crown prosecution is not a shakedown. Another theory is required to explain the motives of Tate oppressors: McBride offers hostile CPS attorneys, hardcore feminism, angry incels, and a conversation with “the serpent in the garden.”

The Transaction

McBride continues to associate himself and his famous clients with President Trump and his 2024 campaign, telling the Digital Social Hour he left the Democratic party “at great personal expense” and stood with Trump “because it was the right thing to do.” According to McBride, “I voted for Trump in 2016, I was an Obama guy before then. I was part of the liberal establishment in New York. I lost friends, I lost relationships.”

He insists Trump would not have won the 2024 election without his clients’ support in “the manosphere,” and that Andrew Tate also made personal sacrifices in order to back Trump. “Andrew defended Trump during very, very difficult times,” McBride said. “He could’ve just went the other way, and made his life easier…. But he stood up for Trump. He called Trump America’s last great hope. And he’s been on record saying that if Trump loses the world is over.”

The Tate brothers’ adoption of “conservative” identities on Rumble, and ultimately their alignment with the Trump campaign, may have less to do with conservative values and more to do with President Trump’s attitude toward gender roles, his projection of authority, and “his messaging.” According to McBride, Trump survived a “hit job” criminal conviction and still won reelection — “and people should see this the same way, it’s no different.”

You don’t have to agree with Andrew or Tristan. But if you could stand with Trump who’s on the record saying “grab them by the you-know-what,” and having ninety-something charges against him, and blowing some of those trials and losing, and saying at the end of the day, look, it’s a hit job, it’s a stitch-up job, we all know that they’re out to get me.

He could still win in a landslide victory because of his messaging.

The loyalty capital, evidently, makes his clients Trump’s heirs. “After Trump goes,” McBride said, “two of the most powerful and famous guys you have online, to continue the war forward with the America First movement, and the pro-masculine movement is, of course, Andrew and Tristan Tate.”

By McBride’s reasoning, extradition would be a betrayal leading to political catastrophe for the United States. “[If] these guys get extradited, the manosphere, Gen Z abandons the Republican Party, AOC will be president. If they betray these guys, after everything, nobody will ever believe in them again,” he said. “So, if they think they’re gonna win [another election] without us, they’re wrong.”

According to McBride, Washington DC is a place of favors.

There are elections coming up in DC. And in DC, it’s the place of favors and political capital and politics. In politics one of the rules is, what have you done for me lately? And number two, what’s gonna happen to me if I help you?

The Tates’ counselor doesn’t predict what will happen to his clients, but if they lose their extradition fight, McBride knows whom to approach next.

If things don’t work out … the boys can’t be extradited without the Secretary of State signing off on that. The Secretary of State is of course Marco Rubio, right? Look. Marco Rubio has a son who plays football in college in Florida right now. One allegation against his son, and his son’s life is over. Right? That is how quick.

McBride pointed to recent cases of sports figures embroiled in sexual scandals and identified them as victims. “We saw it play out with the football player at USC who lost his entire life,” he said. “Trevor Bauer and MLB, and all these other players are targeted on a regular basis because of who they are, who they’re connected to.”

All of the allegations against his clients, in McBride’s view, either constitute extortion or arise out of the violation of his clients’ rights. “You’re either gonna say that this is OK — for men to be extorted — or it’s not,” he said. “Free speech either stands or doesn’t. We stand with American citizens in times of convenience and inconvenience, and the constitution applies to everybody or nobody.” He further asserts that for the U.S. to extradite the Tates would amount to complicity in their certain extrajudicial killing (the UK fully abolished the death penalty in 1998). McBride said:

We would never extradite somebody to North Korea knowing that they were gonna be executed, and we shouldn’t extradite Andrew and Tristan Tate to the United Kingdom, knowing that they’ll be executed as well.

Because make no mistake about it, they wanna lock them up in some horrible prison and make sure that they get murdered. Every time somebody likens them or compares them to Epstein, what they’re doing is they’re saying these guys are so bad that they deserve to be put in an orange jumpsuit and hung in their prison cells.

That is fundamentally evil and wrong.

Per McBride, the Epstein association is stochastic and intolerable from critics — and unremarkable when it comes attached to the actual law firm the Tates hired to do the legal heavy lifting.

In McBride’s telling, the only thing standing between President Trump and political catastrophe is “us” — himself and his clients. He also positions his clients as protectors of the powerful. McBride relates the fact that U.S. Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari, Arizona Democrat, who McBride calls a “nut job socialist psychopath feminist who hates America and hates men” — had called for President Trump’s youngest son Barron to be investigated “for his ties to the manosphere.” The investigation reportedly seeks clarity on alleged links between the Trump family and the Tate brothers after investigative reports claimed Barron admired Andrew Tate and had participated in a Zoom call with him faciliated by Tate associate Justin Waller in April 2024. Shortly after the election, First Lady Melania Trump said she was proud of how Barron “brought in so many young people” and said Barron had advised his father on using social media: “he brought in a success because he knew exactly who his father needs to contact and to talk to.”

McBride projects the threat pursuing his clients as a menace that can target and corrupt anyone who doesn’t align with the Tates, explicitly addressing “President Trump and Marco Rubio, who have children who are young.” According to McBride: “They’re coming for your children. They literally sing songs about it, how we’re coming for your children… So if they think that they’re safe going forward, and if they think that they can do this without us, I just don’t know what they’re smoking.” The desperation of Tate’s ambient narrative, swirling for years, has now been concentrated to a point — and that point has been sharpened against the U.S. president and secretary of state and their families.

On political capital, McBride leans in, hinting that those in positions of power who “spoke first” on behalf of the Tate brothers would be vindicated.

Abe Hamadeh, who’s a rockstar congressman…. He’s spoken out, saying that Andrew and Tristan should not be extradited, right? So, this guy, you know, if other people — January 6 was an unpopular thing to speak about until a bunch of Republicans grew the balls to speak about it, right? So, if some other people step up then that’ll be great. But Abe Hamadeh will be the first.… Hey, count him among the men and women who spoke first.

What will being the one who “spoke first” buy Hamadeh? Time may tell.

What Does Hamadeh Get for his Trouble?

Detecting the Tate brothers’ stale persecution narrative waft into Arizona is a disappointment. Human smuggling corridors running through the Arizona border are live enough that Congressman Andy Biggs named them on the record at a June 30 House Oversight panel, and the slide from smuggled to trafficked is well documented. In February 2025 while congratulating Arizona law enforcement on a multi-agency operation that yielded 202 arrests in Scottsdale, Hamadeh opined that “there are few crimes more depraved” than sex trafficking. This February, Phoenix 12 News reported a man named Dorion Murray was being held on $250,000 cash-only bond on human trafficking charges. According to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, officers responded to a 911 call: “the victim hid in a bathroom, fearing for her life after Murray hit and threatened her with a knife because she refused to work for him as a prostitute.” The victim said she’d been Murray’s captive for seven years. Murray was arrested in Glendale which straddles Hamadeh’s district. Trial is set for September. A man with 10 million followers gets a congressman’s shoutout; a woman who stood up to her alleged captor receives no comparable public advocacy, no one calling her treatment “inhumane.”

While the state’s politics treat human trafficking as a scourge, the script that just arrived in Arizona recasts accused traffickers as victims and their prosecution as the offense. The cost of the inversion? Impunity for alleged abusers; voicelessness for the victims. Rather than apply the rule of law, Hamadeh’s DARVO-style inversion seeks to shield the Tate brothers from the law. Andrew Tate once sought exactly that service from elected officials abroad: the two Romanian legislators were offered a career benefit and stiffarmed. Hamadeh supplied the same support the Romanian legislators withheld. And the timing is notable. Hamadeh’s signaling came at a moment when it would carry minimal career impact — the day before an unopposed primary in a solidly red district. Hamadeh has put the credibility of his office behind pure advocacy to interfere with cross-jurisdictional process — on behalf of men already held liable in two countries for millions in unpaid taxes, now standing accused of gravely serious crimes against women.

But as Congressman Hamadeh says — “the rule of law still matters.” And the rule of law is precisely what gets applied in a federal courtroom, under a treaty, with counsel and a neutral magistrate. On July 22, a senior Trump official told Axios that the administration intends to honor the U.K. extradition request in accordance with treaty obligations. An anonymous source described Secretary Rubio to Axios as privately unwilling to help — “Marco thinks these guys are scum” — and said that the president is unlikely to overrule him. A former Trump campaign advisor has also rejected the Tates’ claims of helping President Trump win votes in 2024, telling Axios the Tates “want to pretend they were responsible for the president’s victory, but they weren’t part of our strategy and the president doesn’t know them.”

Joseph D. McBride @McBrideLawNYC on platform X (photos date from 2022)

By the time the brothers were in federal custody, the coalition was thinning. Hours after the Miami arrest, one of their representatives reached out to Alina Habba to ask whether she was free to talk. She didn’t answer — two people familiar with the outreach and with Habba’s thinking told The New York Times she wanted no association with them at all. Donald Trump Jr., who had called Andrew Tate a friend and defended him against earlier allegations, said nothing; neither did Barron Trump, nor Candace Owens. Paolo Zampolli, who had hosted the brothers in Georgetown days earlier, told the Times: “I didn’t know they were arrest material.” Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president did not plan to intervene. Asked about the request while traveling in Manila, Secretary Rubio said that with the matter before the judge, “there’s no role for us to play at this moment or maybe ever.” Ben Shapiro told the Times the conservative movement “should cast them aside now, just as it should have years ago.” Lauren Southern, who has accused Andrew Tate of raping her in Romania and gave testimony to Romanian authorities, named what she was watching: “suddenly everyone wants to pretend they had nothing to do with building this beast.”

While the elite coalition has mainly gone quiet, the audience remains. In the Digital Social Hour interview, McBride promoted his own Judgment Day podcast and asked listeners to “follow me across social media — like, subscribe, reply, repost, retweet — all that stuff matters. It keeps us in the algorithm.” McBride claimed, “right now we’re facing a crazy amount of suppression” on X. “So, anytime you see something with my face on it, or Andrew’s face or Tristan’s face … retweet, share the message, and don’t be afraid to speak truth to power with your friends…. Whether you’re at the club, whether you’re at the bar, whether you’re at the gym … don’t be afraid to say hey, you know what … what’s happening to them is wrong. It’s wrong and it shouldn’t be happening.” Andrew Tate’s July 20 post on X, with the three hour and twenty minute Jack Neel interview, has received over 10 million views.

Andrew Tate @cobratate on social media platform X

Ultimately, Joseph McBride’s worldview is one in which political alignment and personal loyalty are more powerful than the Constitution. He invokes the “I know it was you, Fredo” confrontation scene from The Godfather: “You know, there’s either gonna be a real moment of solidarity, here, or there’s gonna be a kiss on the cheek,” he told the podcast audience. “So, we still hope that we don’t have Fredos in the upper upper echelon of our government, but, you know, let’s wait and see.”

CONCLUSION

Whatever political benefit is available to players in the Tate brothers’ defense strategy is as tangible as smoke. But the harm to women might be incalculable. The formal allegations against the pair, now in two countries, include many counts of many different crimes, but the sex trafficking charge has drawn the most controversy. The mechanisms of recruitment and exploitation can best be understood in light of the vulnerability of the victim class: teenaged girls. Documented evidence available from open sources shows the brothers taught men to target virgins and less experienced young women because they were more compliant at the start. Inducing a naive young person to be “submissive, loyal, and in love with you” is a step-by-step process, and Tate walked us through that process in his own marketing materials. Rather than examine these facts, the inversion that McBride, Tucker Carlson, Abe Hamadeh and others have amplified seeks to bury the facts.

The bullhorn Joseph McBride wields for the Tate brothers may have placed him in range of bar discipline. While the New York Bar has authority to impose discipline on attorneys it licenses, the Professional Conduct rules in play are Florida’s. For example Florida’s Trial Publicity Rule, Rule 4-3.6(a), prohibits a lawyer participating in a criminal or civil matter from making public extrajudicial statements that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing a proceeding “due to its creation of an imminent and substantial detrimental effect on that proceeding.” The extradition proceeding and the Tates’ two pending Florida civil cases (with jury trials expected in 2027) fall under Florida’s trial publicity rule. McBride has repeatedly exclaimed, including in a statement on X on August 12, that his clients are innocent: “This is the price innocent men must pay when the process is the punishment.” I’m challenged to think of a better example of an attorney making public statements likely to materially prejudice a proceeding.

Florida’s Rule 4-3.6(b) “Statements of Third Parties” prohibits an attorney from counseling or assisting others in making prohibited statements; McBride is on record hinting his clients’ social media accounts are being managed by the Tates’ legal team (“you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out”). These rules are meant to shield the jury pool from prejudicial statements, to protect witnesses, and to preserve the credibility and legitimacy of the proceedings. McBride’s rhetoric instead reads like a desperate gambit to delegitimize the Department of Justice. His August 12 post announces that the DOJ “filed a brief that drips falsehood from every page…. Their entire pleading is built to bait us into spending a hearing about human liberty wiping filth off the floor instead of proving the case for freedom.”

Florida Rule 4-4.4(a) prohibits an attorney from using means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay or burden a third person. The trial of the Jane Doe civil case should establish whether or not the strike against her served a legitimate purpose. Rule 4-8.4(d) says a lawyer “shall not engage in conduct in connection with the practice of law that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, including to knowingly, or through callous indifference, disparage … witnesses … on any basis.” Against this sits the law firm’s press release description of Jane Doe as the “pathological liar and serial manipulator who smeared the Tate name.”

The alleged victims who’ve been coming forward since 2014 are still awaiting justice. “Sexual exploitation,” Dani Pinter told Cosmopolitan UK in 2025, “can involve emotional manipulation and lies. It’s what the Tate brothers taught.” While the alleged victims maintain radio silence, Pinter has been a voice for Jane Doe and those associated with her case. Pinter said the Tate brothers

were very good at spotting people with trauma, vulnerabilities, and then they would exploit that. They would then create a bond, a situation where a woman feels so dependent on one person, before isolating her from any other relationships and pushing her boundaries more and more, until the next thing you know, she’s doing a lot of things she never meant to do.

The alleged victims’ experiences have yet to be fully disclosed. The coordinated strike devised by McBride and Ingrassia in 2023 has managed to keep the women’s voices silent. Friendly podcast hosts who never question the Tate narrative function as endorsement. The Tates’ record of disparaging their accusers’ character — calling them liars, seeking to expose them to public threats and harassment — has been repeatedly endorsed by hosts like Tucker Carlson who decline to turn over the paving stones and instead gleefully flit within the Tates’ inverted reality.

On August 5 the Special Rapporteur said she welcomed extradition and called for investigations to be expanded to those who aided, abetted and profited from the Tate brothers’ enterprise. “All too often, perpetrators of violence against women exploit delays, fragmented jurisdictional responses and their wealth, power or influential public profile to evade accountability,” Alsalem said. “No one should be above the law, regardless of their status, influence or international reach.” The strategy to foreclose any forum from reaching the facts now has dates on the calendar where the Tate brothers can air their narrative before neutral magistrates and learn how it stands up against the evidence. If found guilty in the UK, the brothers each face a maximum term of life in prison. The women in the British and Romanian cases, driven into hiding, have not spoken publicly; what they want has to be read from their actions. Behind Joe McBride’s rhetoric about vengeful accusers, it’s clear that what these young women want is not retribution — but that these men not be permitted to harm anyone else ever again.

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As the Task Force examines MKUltra’s legacy of government-sanctioned mind and behavior alteration conducted without meaningful consent, I hope they will extend that scrutiny to current federally funded medical research that deliberately induces dissociative states. These studies — primarily involving psilocybin and ketamine — proceed with the approval and financial support of the National Institutes of Health and its National Institute of Mental Health. The lessons of MKUltra are not confined to the archives; they echo in today’s taxpayer-funded laboratories.

The research at issue divides into two categories that must be analyzed separately, because they fail on different ethical grounds. Challenge paradigms deliberately induce psychosis-like symptoms, dissociation, and ego dissolution in subjects — frequently healthy volunteers — for the purpose of mechanistic insight. Therapeutic protocols administer compounds to patients with diagnosed conditions for purposes of treatment. In the context of induced dissociative states, the first category is unethical at the design stage, before any consent question arises. The second category may be defensible in principle but fails at the consent stage, because the intervention disables the very faculty that consent requires. I address each in turn.

I. Challenge Paradigms Violate Federal Research Ethics at the Design Stage

For decades, NIMH-supported researchers have administered subanesthetic doses of ketamine to healthy volunteers and schizophrenia patients specifically to induce transient dissociative and psychosis-like states. The stated goal is to “model” schizophrenia symptoms in real time: positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions), negative symptoms, cognitive disruption, and profound dissociation. Prominent NIMH-funded investigators, including those at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, have published extensively on these protocols. Recent NIMH intramural studies continue to explore repeated ketamine dosing and neuroimaging under federal grants, and active 2026 NIMH grants such as R01MH142698 ($871k) and R01MH133849 ($517k) further support research that relies on the same induced altered states. Because ketamine is generic, these experiments rely almost entirely on taxpayer dollars through NIMH extramural and intramural funding streams.

These are not fringe experiments. NIMH’s intramural Protocol 17-M-0060 continues to administer repeated ketamine infusions to induce dissociative states while measuring brain changes. A newly launched $21 million NIH initiative — including Emory University as a major site — is now testing psilocybin in healthy older adults precisely to induce profound depersonalization, derealization, and ego dissolution. NIMH and NIDA strategic plans continue to prioritize these paradigms under the banners of “mechanism discovery” and “treatment innovation.”

Research participants in ketamine studies have reported profoundly distressing subjective experiences beyond the drug infusion window. In a 2017 case report, two patients with treatment-resistant depression described severe psychotomimetic effects following rapid S-(+)-ketamine infusions. One patient perceived a devil removing his heart and characterized the episode as a “terrible experience,” followed by persistent dissociative thoughts and nightmares for approximately one week. The second patient experienced bodily disintegration into atoms, sensations of death, and bodily explosion (“It was death. I died… am I here? My body exploded”), which he found traumatic, with symptoms persisting for nearly four weeks. These accounts underscore the potential for ketamine to induce subjectively traumatic states that extend beyond the infusion period, even in supervised clinical settings.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on social media platform X, April 30, 2026

Challenge paradigms fail the Belmont Report’s principle of beneficence at the threshold. The risk-benefit calculus that governs all federally funded human subjects research cannot balance in a challenge study, because the subject — particularly the healthy volunteer — receives no therapeutic benefit. The benefit accrues to the researcher, to the field, and maybe at some attenuated future point to the hypothetical patient. What the subject receives is harm: transient at minimum, potentially durable, and in the case of healthy-volunteer protocols, harm that is the entire point of the protocol rather than a side effect to be minimized. The Nuremberg Code’s second and third principles compound this defect, requiring that experiments yield results unprocurable by other means and be designed to avoid unnecessary suffering. The Declaration of Helsinki preserves a sharper distinction between therapeutic and non-therapeutic research than American practice now observes, imposing a stricter risk standard on the latter precisely because the subject is not a patient seeking treatment.

In ketamine challenge studies conducted on healthy volunteers, consent documents describe the induction of dissociation and psychosis-like symptoms without adequately conveying how such states may render meaningful withdrawal of consent practically impossible once the infusion begins. Experts have documented that consent documents often fail to convey these risks in concrete, experiential terms that prospective participants can meaningfully appreciate, particularly when the subjective effects are difficult to describe to someone who has never encountered them.

But even the best informed consent cannot cure the structural design defect. Even a hypothetically perfect consent — a subject with full comprehension, no power asymmetry, complete capacity throughout — cannot rehabilitate a protocol whose design requires harming a healthy person to generate data. Consent can authorize a subject to accept risk in pursuit of benefit. It cannot authorize a researcher to inflict harm in the absence of benefit to the subject, because the ethical defect is in the structure of the transaction, not in the subject’s awareness of it. Such challenge paradigms are categorically unethical, and no procedural reform — better consent forms, more elaborate review, additional disclosures — can reach the underlying violation.

II. Therapeutic Protocols Fail at the Consent Stage

Therapeutic psilocybin research, often framed as “psychedelic-assisted therapy,” presents a distinct ethical problem. Since the subject is a patient with a diagnosed condition — treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, end-of-life distress — the intervention is aimed at her benefit, therefore the design-stage objection that defeats such research on healthy subjects does not apply. Yet the consent problem in therapeutic dissociation research is not merely procedural; it is structural, and it cannot be cured by better forms.

A. Protocols that produce anosognosia make withdrawal of consent impossible

Informed consent presupposes a subject capable of evaluating the nature of the intervention, weighing its risks against its benefits, and retaining the capacity to withdraw consent. Dissociative protocols deliberately abolish precisely those faculties. A participant cannot meaningfully consent to ego dissolution before experiencing it, because the experience by definition disrupts the metacognitive apparatus that consent requires; once inside the dissociative state, the participant lacks reliable access to the self that signed the form. The induced state produces anosognosia: it impairs the participant’s capacity to recognize that her capacity is impaired. Researchers and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) have responded by creating more elaborate consent documents — disclosures of “challenging experiences,” “ego dissolution,” “psychological vulnerability” — but elaboration of language does not solve a problem that is categorical rather than informational. No quantity of disclosure language can transmit the phenomenological content of depersonalization to a subject who has not yet been depersonalized, and no signature obtained beforehand can be ratified from within the altered state. The consent obtained is consent in form but not in substance — a procedural artifact that satisfies regulatory checkboxes while failing the moral function the doctrine of informed consent is meant to perform.

This is not an abstract philosophical objection; it identifies a violation of the federal research ethics framework already binding on every NIH-and NIMH-funded protocol. The federal Common Rule (45 CFR 46) requires that informed consent be both legally effective and obtained under circumstances that provide the prospective subject “sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to participate” — a standard that presumes continuous capacity to evaluate participation, not capacity at a single pre-dose moment. The Common Rule further requires IRBs to provide additional safeguards when subjects are “likely to be vulnerable to coercion or undue influence” — vitally important for test subjects already under treatment for mental health concerns or end of life distress. The Belmont Report’s principle of respect for persons demands recognition of subjects as autonomous agents throughout the research encounter. The Declaration of Helsinki provides in Article 26 that subjects must be informed of the right to withdraw consent “at any time without reprisal” — a right rendered meaningless when the intervention itself disables the faculty of withdrawal. Congress need not legislate new ethical standards to act on therapeutic protocols. It needs only to enforce the ones already on the books.

The clinical record reflects these structural defects. Qualitative research on psilocybin-assisted therapy for PTSD in veterans has documented intense emotional flooding, dissociation, and trauma reactivation during sessions, with participants varying in their ability to integrate the experiences. In one published case study, a participant in a trial for treatment-resistant depression experienced a harrowing high-dose session that triggered increased suicidal ideation, severe eating difficulties, and a stark confrontation with suppressed trauma described as “ripping the lid off” suppressed emotions; although later reframed by the individual as beneficial, the acute distress was profound. Another first-person account from a high-dose trial participant described an initial helpful session followed by a second that was deeply challenging — described as a “reverse religious experience” involving terror, panic, and lasting negative impacts on identity and emotional processing. Recent research has formally proposed psychedelic iatrogenic structural dissociation as a recognized risk category. These accounts are not aberrations to be designed around. They are the predictable consequences of an intervention whose mechanism is the disruption of the self.

B. Deficiencies in Information and Consent Protocols

Even setting aside the categorical concerns with the induction of dissociative states in therapeutic trials, the informed consent and preparatory protocols themselves independently render this research unethical. Under the Common Rule and the Declaration of Helsinki, valid informed consent requires that prospective participants receive a complete, comprehensible, and balanced description of the study’s risks, benefits, and procedures in language they can understand — without undue influence or the creation of unrealistic expectations. Yet publicly available consent forms and preparatory manuals for psilocybin trials routinely employ quasi-religious, non-empirical terminology that frames the drug-induced state in highly positive, transformative terms. Participants are explicitly prepared for “mystical” or “transformative experiences” that may include “substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance.” Protocols and manuals (including the influential Yale Manual for Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy) direct therapists to provide psychoeducation that clarifies participants’ expectations around these profound, life-enhancing outcomes while building rapport and encouraging surrender to the experience. Outcome measures such as the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) embed this subjective “mystical” benchmark as a central scientific endpoint.

This language is not neutral or strictly empirical; it sets unreasonable expectations of profound personal transformation while under-emphasizing the concrete risks of acute dissociation, psychological distress, long-term perceptual changes, personality shifts, or altered metaphysical beliefs. Recent analyses describe these effects as epistemically transformative — that is, effects that cannot be evaluated in advance by a participant who has not yet experienced them.

These practices fail the Common Rule’s requirements for comprehension and voluntariness, and they fail the Declaration of Helsinki’s emphasis on respect for persons. The preparatory protocols are not incidental to the trial design; they are integral to it. When preparatory sessions frame ego dissolution as a therapeutic mystical or transcendent experience, and consent forms rely on subjective, non-scientific benchmarks, the result is a systemic ethical failure. The form is being completed; the moral function the doctrine of informed consent is meant to perform is not.

III. Operational Migration: When Research Ethics Erode, Practice Follows

The ethical erosion in research settings has migrated into operational practice, with predictable results. The Hennepin Healthcare ketamine studies at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis involved paramedics administering ketamine to agitated patients in pre-hospital and emergency settings, often at police urging, under an “exception from informed consent” for emergency treatment. Patients — frequently from vulnerable, marginalized populations — received the drug without their knowledge or consent. Investigations and bioethics analyses revealed serious respiratory complications (including intubation in a significant percentage of cases), inadequate oversight, and troubling ties between researchers, law enforcement, and sedation practices. A June 2025 Undark investigation detailed the “patchwork policies” governing ketamine therapy clinics across states, highlighting inconsistent medical oversight, variable provider training, and the ease with which patients experience dissociative effects with minimal safeguards.

Hennepin is the operational consequence of normalizing induced dissociation as a legitimate medical tool: once the research community treats the deliberate fracture of consciousness as a routine intervention, the practice migrates into emergency settings where consent waivers, racial disparities, and law enforcement entanglement compound the underlying ethical defect. Proponents insist safeguards, ethics board approval, and consent forms protect participants. Yet MKUltra’s documented abuses occurred under the same banner of scientific necessity. The difference today is procedural: today’s experiments carry IRB stamps and publish in peer-reviewed journals, yet the core violation remains — the deliberate fracture of human consciousness, conducted on subjects who in the case of challenge paradigms derive no benefit from the harm inflicted, and in the case of therapeutic protocols cannot meaningfully consent to the intervention from within it.

Proponents insist safeguards, ethics board approval, and consent forms protect participants. Yet MKUltra’s documented abuses occurred under the same banner of scientific necessity. The difference today is procedural: today’s experiments carry IRB stamps and publish in peer-reviewed journals, yet the core violation remains — the deliberate fracture of human consciousness, conducted on subjects who in the case of challenge paradigms derive no benefit from the harm inflicted, and in the case of therapeutic protocols cannot meaningfully consent to the intervention from within it.

IV. The Funding Logic Underwriting Challenge Research

The ethical defect at the design stage of challenge paradigms is compounded by an epistemic defect upstream of it. NIMH funds invasive animal experiments — including the deliberate induction of psychiatric symptoms in monkeys, rodents, and other species — on the rationale that such work will translate into clinical benefit. The empirical record establishes that translation rarely occurs. A 2023 review found that the failure rate for translation of drugs from animal testing to human treatments has remained above 92% for several decades, with most failures attributable to unexpected toxicity revealed only in human trials or to outright lack of efficacy. A 2024 analysis examining 376 therapies across 54 human diseases found that only 5% of animal-tested therapeutic interventions ultimately obtain regulatory approval for human application, with median transition times of ten years from animal study to approval.

The institute nevertheless continues to fund such research, and when the animal models predictably fail to capture the phenomenology of human psychiatric conditions, that very failure is offered as the justification for human challenge studies. The taxpayer pays twice for the same epistemic failure: first for the animal research that does not translate, then for the human research justified by the inadequacy of the animal research. The human subjects of the second round bear the resulting risk.

The pattern is illustrated by NIMH expenditures recently catalogued in congressional oversight materials, including over $14 million to teach monkeys to play a Price Is Right-inspired video game and over $1 million to study binge drinking in adolescent ferrets. These are not isolated curiosities; they exemplify a funding architecture in which speculative animal models are sustained despite their documented failure to produce translational benefit, while the same institute concurrently funds human challenge protocols on the rationale that better mechanistic data is needed.

This funding logic also frames the broader return on the institute’s investment. Since the National Institutes of Health declared the 1990s the “Decade of the Brain,” NIMH has invested tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in neuroscience, genomics, and brain research, with the promise of transformative treatments for severe mental illness. Over the subsequent decades there has been no commensurate reduction in the incidence, prevalence, or long-term burden of conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or treatment-resistant depression. Suicide rates, chronic disability, and psychiatric hospitalization trends have not shown sustained improvement despite this massive investment. A January 2025 Manhattan Institute analysis of NIH practices documents how misaligned priorities and inefficient allocation have contributed to disappointing returns on mental health research spending, with limited translation into better clinical outcomes for the most disabled patients. The Task Force should consider that the human challenge research at issue in this testimony is not an aberration within an otherwise well-functioning research enterprise. It is the predictable downstream consequence of an upstream funding architecture that has been failing for decades yet continues to receive federal support despite that record.

These institutional patterns acquire new urgency in the current policy moment. The President’s April 18, 2026 Executive Order provides a comprehensive acceleration framework for psychedelic drugs that have received FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation, expanding clinical trial participation, data sharing across HHS, FDA, and VA, and patient access pathways including Right to Try. The structural ethics violations identified in this statement make congressional oversight of the underlying research ethics framework even more urgent; acceleration without commensurate oversight of the consent architecture and trial design integrity exposes a larger population to the structural defects this statement identifies.

V. Recommended Actions

The federal disclosure regime overseeing the research at issue here has failed in documented and quantifiable ways across federally funded research generally. A 2023 JAMA analysis of NIH-funded pediatric clinical trials completed between 2017 and 2019 found that 137 trials enrolling 41,501 children — funded with $362 million in taxpayer dollars — never made their results public in any form. Just 13 percent of finished trials were registered within twelve months of completion as required, and the researchers estimated only a 54 percent likelihood that results would be published even four years after grant completion. If the same regulatory architecture cannot produce timely disclosure of ordinary pediatric research, then the American public has no basis for confidence in meaningful oversight of protocols whose mechanism is the deliberate disruption of consciousness. The following recommendations proceed from that recognition.

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I respectfully request that the Task Force:

• Include modern medically-induced dissociation research, including “challenge” studies as well as protocols labeled “therapeutic,” in its oversight inquiry, and recognize that the two categories require distinct ethical analyses and distinct remedies.

• Demand full transparency on all current and recent NIH/NIMH grants supporting psilocybin and ketamine challenge or sedation studies.

• Recommend immediate suspension of federal funding for any challenge protocol whose primary or secondary aim is the deliberate induction of dissociative states in subjects who derive no therapeutic benefit, on the ground that such protocols violate the Belmont Report’s principle of beneficence and the Nuremberg Code’s second and third principles at the design stage.

• Direct the Government Accountability Office to audit informed consent practices in federally funded therapeutic dissociation research, with specific attention to whether the continuous-consent requirements of 45 CFR 46 and Article 26 of the Declaration of Helsinki can be satisfied by protocols whose mechanism is the disruption of the consenting subject’s metacognitive capacity.

• Hold additional hearings focused on the ethical limits of consent in consciousness-altering research and real-world applications such as pre-hospital sedation. Invite testimony from research participants who experienced acute and persistent dissociative effects.

Oversight is performative unless it produces meaningful change. The lessons of MKUltra are not confined to dusty archives. They are being repeated today, in plain view, funded with our tax dollars. Congress must act to protect the integrity of the human mind from unethical state-sponsored experimentation.

Amy Suzanne Martin, MA JD

Digital pdf version: MKUltra_Statement_Final

The Catholic Charities wind-down is real. So are the deportations, the record-low refugee admissions cap, and the enforcement posture. What has not changed is the statutory pipeline for unaccompanied children—nor the funding that sustains it. Analysis reveals that even while alien adults and families are being actively mass deported and turned away, the border remains wide open for more unaccompanied minors because the Trump administration has not urged Congress to dismantle the legal machinery that incentivizes organized smuggling of children. Instead, the administration and Congress are continuing suspiciously high levels of funding to the Unaccompanied Children program and to the NGOs that thrive upon it.

While the administration’s decision to end the Catholic Charities program in Miami is a positive step, the Trump administration downplays the fact that children are still arriving and being admitted. “Promises made, promises kept,” Border Czar Tom Homan recently told Rob Schmitt Tonight. “We’ve got the most secure border in the history of the nation. Illegal immigration at the southern border is down 97 percent.” Praising the administration’s policies, Homan suggests that the child smuggling documented during the Biden years is all in the past, and that this fact lifts Border Patrol and ICE officers’ spirits:

These men and women took an oath to enforce immigration law. I was down on the southern border many times during the Biden administration, and the morale was in the toilet. I mean, they considered themselves Über drivers, and tourist agents, because they were simply processing people to release them—and many times delivering the children to the same people that paid for their smuggling, which is a felony. And ICE agents, their hands were tied.

Well now, morale is sky-high. The men and women of CPB and ICE are getting to do the job they signed up to do, and upholding the oath they took, and this country is safer because of it. So, they’re proud to serve with this president.

But Homan’s secure border celebrations are premature—because the statutory machinery that turns children into cartel currency is still in force.

During the Biden years we witnessed how the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), a federal law originally justified on grounds of safeguarding minors in federal custody, continuously creates new victims by actively luring unaccompanied children into the hands of Mexican cartels—then promising to “protect” them by disappearing them back into the cartel’s hands, screened by lawyers’ paperwork. During recent years, UC referrals to ORR shelters surged from 15,381 in FY 2020 (held back by Trump’s “Title 42” and other policies) to a record 128,904 in FY 2022—a 738% increase (see graph, below). Under the statutory scheme, minors are sheltered until ORR can locate a suitable sponsor to take custody. Surges of unaccompanied children overwhelmed federally-contracted facilities, leading to the use of military bases and arenas as temporary influx sites to provide short-term shelter for these vulnerable minors.

Unaccompanied Children Program Referrals vs. Funding (FY2017-FY2027)

Referrals have dropped sharply, yet funding and contracting maintain significant capacity

SOURCES: Referrals to ORR (2025 UC referral figure is “unreconciled and subject to change”); funding data: CRS R43599 (Sept. 5 2024); FY 2025 budget figure was set by CR; FY 2026 budget as enacted; FY 2027 budget requested by HHS

President Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services recently told the Miami Herald that the daily population of children in the agency’s care had fallen to 1,900—a plunge of 91% from a peak of 22,000 during the Biden years. HHS cites this decline as justification for an only moderately reduced FY2027 budget—$3.4 billion requested, down from $4.2 billion in FY2026. Why not bigger cuts? According to the justification: “While the Administration has successfully created a whole-of-government disincentive to illegal immigration, migration numbers vary considerably from one year to the next, even from month to month, and are largely unpredictable.” Thus the 2027 budget request suggests a disconnect between secure border rhetoric and the underlying legal structure that remains unchanged.

How Federal Law Incentivizes Cartel Debt Bondage

As Tom Homan understands, sponsors who pay smugglers to bring children into the United States are committing a felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1324. Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur explained in his August 25, 2025 op-ed for the Center for Immigration Studies how the federal human smuggling statute criminalizes knowingly encouraging, inducing, or bringing an alien into the country for financial gain (or in furtherance of a violation of law), turning the sponsor’s payment, or promise to pay, into the very act that executes the smuggling contract that federal agents were then required to facilitate. “There’s no exception for adults who conspire to smuggle kids here,” Arthur writes, “and if DHS throws a few would-be sponsors cum conspirators in jail for a decade, you’ll see the child-smuggling industry dry up quickly.”

How does federal law enable the perverse effect? Allowing the child to remain in the U.S. ensures that the smuggler completes the job—and can get paid. Section 235 of the TVPA promises safeguards for unaccompanied alien children. In reality, it delivers the opposite: a screening process that funnels vulnerable minors into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), hands them to sponsors often tied to the very cartels that brought them here, and retains no meaningful oversight responsibility.

Section 235 requires immigration officers to screen Mexican and Canadian children within 48 hours of apprehension. Officers must determine whether the child is a victim of “severe trafficking,” faces a credible fear of persecution, or is at risk of being trafficked upon return. If any box is checked—or if the child comes from a non-contiguous country (such as Guatemala)—the minor is transferred to ORR custody, placed with a sponsor, and offered a pro bono attorney to provide legal “defenses” against return. But the system’s language is Orwellian doublespeak. The very act of screening for risk becomes the trapdoor into the system that exposes children to that exact risk. “Protection” here means laundering children right back into the cartels’ hands. And the legal “defense” offered actually “defends” the child against a safe return home.

Whistleblowers who reported to Senator Chuck Grassley during the Biden years documented specific cases in which ORR released children—including infants—to sponsors with confirmed MS-13 gang affiliation despite repeated “do not release” warnings. Senator Grassley’s office later published internal HHS records corroborating these accounts, showing children placed with sponsors who had criminal gang histories. These same concerns were raised by counter-trafficking expert Jarrod Sadulski, Ph.D., who told senators in 2024 about how cartel members hand pieces of paper to children with names and phone numbers of “sponsors the child is supposed to ask for” upon reaching the United States. President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador told Tucker Carlson that MS-13 has evolved into a “satanic” organization that performs rituals, including the sacrifice of infants, and that he has personally seen the altars used in these ceremonies. In one documented case Bukele recounted, a former MS-13 member left the gang after being ordered to participate in the ritual sacrifice of an infant: “They took him to a house where they were about to kill a baby … the others replied, ‘Because the beast asked for a baby, so we have to give him the baby.’”

The horrific, documented risks to children illustrate what Senator John Cornyn has recognized as a “perverse incentive” created by Section 235. But even award-winning investigative journalism, including Hannah Dreier’s Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series, stops short of explaining how the scheme set up by Congress directly facilitates cartel debt bondage. Dreier’s series “Alone and Exploited” powerfully documents children laboring in brutal, illegal jobs—yet largely attributes the exploitation to vetting and oversight failures rather than the cartel debt-enforcement mechanism. In one profile, Dreier describes the cartel operative who smuggles children—not as an enforcer of coercive debt. Instead, she calls him “technically a human smuggler, but in this case, more like a travel agent” who simply helps the child reach the United States. Thus the statutory system reliably delivers the child to the point where debt enforcement becomes feasible on U.S. soil—and readers of the New York Times are given no vocabulary to articulate a complaint.

Absurdity: A state of being unreasonable, meaningless, or so unsound as to be irrational.

This architecture did not arise by accident. The provisions in Section 235 originated in legislation drafted by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office in 2000. “In one way or another,” Feinstein wrote in comments accompanying her S. 3117, “we have been affected by the six-year-old shipwreck survivor from Cuba, Elian Gonzáles. His tragic story brought to light the plight of … youngsters who find their way to the United States, unaccompanied by an adult and, in many cases, traumatized by the experiences provoking their flight.” Elian, rescued at sea after the vessel his mother was on sank, was returned to his father in Cuba under international law and diplomatic norms. But the dramatic, widely-publicized case generated a politically polarized narrative: should children be allowed to claim U.S. asylum independently of their parents? Congress eventually responded in 2008 by enshrining Feinstein’s attractive danger into Section 235 of TVPA, following the reasoning that unaccompanied minors should receive American “protection” from their own families and home countries. What arguably began as confusion over a handful of outlying cases, like the absurdly improbable journey of Elian Gonzáles, became the legal foundation for industrial-scale procurement.

Humanitarian Industrial Complex

And while the system keeps quietly humming along, more federal dollars are being plunked down for more services to “protect” children, including enhanced sponsor vetting and improved access to lawyers. Catholic Charities may be among the oldest and best known non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide shelter and services for illegal alien children. But the network of tax-exempt groups that soak up federal dollars for shelter, transportation, legal services, medical care and more—groups that mushroomed during the Biden years—already had deep roots in Washington.

The ACLU led the coalition of more than 60 organizations that lobbied for the original Section 235 language that made this entire system possible. The charity Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), founded in 2008 by Microsoft Vice Chair Brad Smith and Angelina Jolie in tandem with passage of the Section 235 amendment, has operated as the central engine of this legal pipeline. KIND’s advocacy aligns closely with the TVPA’s requirements: Their attorneys navigate paperwork, secure placements, and fight deportations. The operational effect of this apparatus is to convert the statutory promise of legal protection into a reliable infrastructure—one that advertises to sending communities, processes arriving children, and defends against return. Whether intended or not, this infrastructure sustains the very influx it was built to address.

KIND received over $62.5 million in government funding in 2024 alone before contracts were terminated in early 2025, and has been an aggressive lobbyist to preserve the status quo. KIND coordinates with corporate legal departments and others who step in as the child’s legal representatives. These attorneys file for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), asylum, or T-visas—filings that keep the child in the country while the NGO lawyer is the go-between that interfaces with child sponsors, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the court system. Since its founding KIND has trained thousands of attorneys and has served more than 18,000 children, drawing legal talent from more than 800 global partners—law firms, corporations, law schools and bar associations. KIND reported leveraging $137.5 million in pro bono legal services in 2024—that figure represents the market value of attorney time contributed by partner firms, meaning federal funding of $62.5 million corresponds to roughly two additional dollars of private legal capacity for every dollar obligated.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to aggressively defend and expand the legal services apparatus. It’s not every day that senators complain about a request for proposals (RFP), but on March 24, 2026, Senators Ron Wyden and Patty Murray sent a pointed letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanding that the Trump administration restore full in-person legal orientations and guarantee representation for every child, claiming any reduction violates TVPA obligations. But this entire debate over the layers of procedure and “protection” is a strawman—it creates the illusion of reform while leaving the fundamental loophole in Section 235 untouched. The NGOs will insist “asylum” is legitimate, but the statute was never meant to create an open market for cartel debt bondage—it was supposed to protect victims, not to produce more.

By creating a pathway for children who claim trafficking or persecution risk, the law advertises to cartels: bring in children under debt bondage, and the U.S. will protect the arrangement. The cartels oblige. Children pour across the border because their families are told the screening will route them into ORR care and legal representation. Mexican children, by contrast, face swift return—creating a revolving door for juvenile cartel runners. Enforcement against runners is just a small part of the problem for the rule of law. The much bigger problem is the statutory one-way shuttle offered to every other child.

Why Proposed Legislative Actions Are Not Enough

Todd Bensman, now Senior Advisor to Border Czar Tom Homan, documented how differential treatment of minors turned every child into a prized “Golden Ticket” at the border. In his 2019 reporting and 2023 book Overrun, he traced the incentive all the way to the border handoff point where the child became the “ticket” that unlocked speedy release for fraudulent family groups. Yet once that ticket was redeemed at the border entry point and the child transferred to ORR custody, analysis ends. Exposing the system was necessary, yet exposure without remedy can function as promotion.

We border watchers have been waiting for the Trump administration to pivot to ending the underlying screening loophole and fully securing the border as promised. Unaccompanied child numbers exploded under Biden policies, reaching a staggering peak of 128,904 children placed with sponsors in FY 2022 alone. Even now, with stricter enforcement, ORR placed 23,997 unaccompanied children in FY 2025. Legislative fixes have been proposed, but nothing currently on the table would end the debt bondage crisis. Without repealing the screening loophole, those numbers will balloon again the moment any future administration relaxes pressure at the border.

A longtime critic of Section 235 of the TVPRA, Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies says the “best solution would be for Congress to scrap the current HSA/TVPRA process for unaccompanied children and start over.” In his August 25, 2025 essay “It’s Time for Congress to Protect ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children,’” Arthur suggests three legislative fixes:

• Create a role for law enforcement (DHS) in the sponsor vetting process;

• Amend the INA to specify classes of individuals who are barred from sponsoring UCs; and

• Eliminate the “non-contiguous country” distinction for UCs and hand all UCs over to USCIS officers for screening for credible asylum claims.

Enhanced sponsor vetting and placement restrictions sound like a no-brainer if you’ve listened to Congressional testimony or followed border reporters like Anthony Rubin, who documented children describing crimes they survived and witnessed on their migration journeys. Provisions in the Kayla Hamilton Act (H.R. 4371 / S. 3054), which passed the House on December 16, 2025 but has seen no movement in the Senate, would address sponsor vetting and data sharing, creating a role for DHS in the process. The HHS budget justification also explicitly includes a legislative proposal matching Arthur’s third recommendation: treat children from non-contiguous countries the same as those from Mexico and Canada by requiring expedited removal proceedings following screening.

These adjustments sound like progress—until you read the fine print. None of the legislative proposals touch the core screening mechanism nor the presumption that unaccompanied children should be permitted to apply for U.S. immigrant status. Arthur’s strong rhetoric to either rescind the law “or at least fix the most glaring issues with the current UAC process” concludes with proposals to make those issues just a bit less glaring—far from his call at the top of his piece for Congress to “close that loophole” and “show courage when kids are on the line.” These proposals simply layer more bureaucracy, more contractors, and more Orwellian “protections” on top of the same trapdoor that funnels children into the cartel pipeline.

These half-measures are not real reform. They are the protection racket refining itself—more forms, more fees, more “processes”—while the fundamental architecture that manufactures victims and guarantees cartel profit remains untouched. As long as the screening provision stands, the influx will not stop. The disappearances will not stop. The system is designed to generate the very victims it claims to protect.

Conclusion

The 2008 amendment created the enduring structural incentives that protect the cartel protection racket, and current funding and contracting trends suggest this racket will persist. President Trump has virtually ended new refugee admissions, but Congress and the administration have kept the UC Program fully funded at a multi-billion-dollar scale.

And sustained funding suggests a continued influx of minors is anticipated, even as family enforcements ramp up. The capacity to process and fund thousands remains fully intact, as shown by the FY2027 request of $3.4 billion, supporting roughly 6,500 beds, and a $225 million task order awarded to MVM on April 1 for the nationwide transportation of unaccompanied minors and family units through fiscal 2026. While enhanced vetting means per-child costs may rise due to longer stays, operational changes don’t neutralize the fact that the budget requests clash with stated policy goals—and with child safety. The Orwellian protection racket has a mind of its own, operating on a separate logic, preserving the capacity of the very pipeline the administration has pledged to dismantle.

The human cost is heartbreaking. HHS data confirm that tens of thousands of children have been lost to follow-up. Reforming Section 235 is not a partisan issue—it’s a test of whether the United States will continue to play pied piper to children. Congress created the system. Congress can end it. Eliminating the screening provision and returning children swiftly and decisively to their home countries is the only solution that ends the scheme.

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The author Amy Suzanne Martin holds a Juris Doctorate and a Master of Arts in rhetoric—the study of persuasion and propaganda. She writes as @KimWexlerMAJD on X.

However, Jesus Christ’s GOOD NEWS as delivered in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is completely rational and uncomplicated: Repent and turn from sin, and be redeemed in the Lord our God (Mark 1:15). Therefore, I can call myself a student of Yeshua, or a Christian,1 in the narrowest possible sense — I reject sin and accept the unmerited gift of grace (Greek charis), sometimes translated as “favor with God” (Luke 1:30; Luke 2:40; Luke 2:52).

For me, scripture isn’t necessarily literal truth, but is part of the cherished collected wisdom, drama, and poetry of our ancestors handed down in written form. The scripture that I value most: those lines that align with lived experience, that resonate with my phenomenological being, and that echo cleanly with my other readings. Because the canon of religious scripture — refracted through the various translations and editions of the Bible — has been curated by individuals and institutions, I understand that selections may be chosen or emphasized for agendas that diverge from the pure pursuit of truth. So, for a rational truth-seeker, scripture may be a significant source of truth — but each chapter and verse must be carefully examined for its value.

Perhaps the clearest statements of redemption as deliverance of humanity from the bondage of sin and guilt may be found in the Synoptics: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). But in the Tanakh (Hebrew Old Testament), in its most concrete, literal and legal sense in the ancient world, redemption meant the payment of a debt to secure the freedom of a slave or the release of property from bondage — literally buying back what had been lost. The Greek word Yeshua uses, lutron, carries precisely this meaning: the ransom price paid to set someone free. This echoes the Hebrew Bible’s practice of the kinsman-redeemer (go’el) who pays the debt to liberate a relative from slavery or loss of inheritance (Leviticus 25:47–55). The cross itself becomes the ultimate “mercy seat” — the kapporet of the ancient Tabernacle, where the high priest once sprinkled blood to atone for the nation’s guilt and restore relationship with God. There, at the place where divine justice and mercy met, the debt of sin and moral injury is paid in full by the innocent blood of the Nazarene. Redemption is thus accomplished on the cross and proclaimed in Yeshua’s ministry, death, and resurrection.

The Nature of Sin, of Moral Injury and of Redemption

The weight of sin is that phenomenological experience of guilt that registers in the body as a response to the harms we have done to others through our words and deeds. It’s that visceral burden one may carry as an ache in the head, anxiety in the chest, a punch to the gut. For me, as Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialism explicitly rejects the very notion of sin (and therefore the concomitant visceral guilt felt over harms done to others) in favor of “radical freedom” to act as he pleases, Sartre’s nausea (la nausée) is a chronic, repressed or misnamed physiological reaction to an unrepentant state of sin.

Like the visceral sensation brought by guilt from unaddressed sin, the experience of moral injury may produce physiological unease — a sickness of the soul. Moral injury can be distinguished from sin and defined as the emotional burden of the knowledge of harms done in the absence of full understanding or intent at the time of the act, or even in the absence of volition (coerced or unwilled harm). For example, when soldiers act in good faith on orders that are later discovered to be based on faulty intelligence, they may not necessarily experience the guilt of sin, per se, but instead a deep, morally-wounding sense of sorrow or regret.

We who know firsthand the power of God-given redemption from the burden brought by both conscious sin and by moral injury understand that this capacity for renewal is not based on irrational belief in any particular doctrine or membership in any specific group — it is an essential truth of human nature. This capacity belongs to all of God’s children. When we confront, with full candor, the truth of the harms we have done to others — and also of the harms that were done to us — and we articulate into words or “confess” our grief and moral injury to our Creator, we find clarity and peace.

We find a strengthened capacity to endure.

Although derived from the Synoptic Gospels, redemption through grace need not be seen as an exclusively or essentially Christian perspective. In my view this insight about the nature of redemption must be universally true for all human beings — because I understand redemption not as the playing out of some mythical cosmic script, with different roles assigned by our Creator for different identity groups, but as personal moral recovery through one’s individual activation of the neuroplastic capacity of the human brain to heal from trauma, guilt, and moral injury. And this is why Yeshua’s GOOD NEWS, while originating within Jewish tradition, is addressed to all humankind: His gift of grace is available to all who choose to receive it.

In the Tanakh, the concept of “grace” is richly present—long before the Greek word charis appears in the Synoptic Gospels. The primary Hebrew term is chen (חֵן), which means favor, grace, acceptance, or delight freely given (often unmerited). It appears over 60 times and is frequently rendered as charis in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh that the New Testament writers quoted). Indeed, the GOOD NEWS delivered by Yeshua is a reminder from the God of Moses: “Whoever confesses and forsakes [his sins] will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13) (NKJV).

Examples from the Tanakh show God’s active, delighted, unearned favor pour out on people who could never earn or deserve it — exactly the same condition John points to when he says Yeshua is “full of grace and truth” and that “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:14-17). The phrase directly echoes Exodus 34:6, where God declares Himself “merciful and gracious (chanun), slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (emet—truth). Moses repeatedly prays, “If I have found grace in your sight …” and asks to know God’s ways. God answers by showing His glory and renewing the covenant. Messianic Judaism maintains this continuity: the Hebrew chen and the Greek charis name the same graciousness of God.

Dispensationalism, Christian and Messianic Zionism, and Existentialism

Over the two millennia since Yeshua delivered the GOOD NEWS, layers of interpretation intended to clarify His message for later times have ultimately come to confuse and obscure His most essential truth — a truth that resonates down through the centuries. People of faith today are confronted with belief systems that elevate notions of divine prophecy of geopolitical upheaval over the purity of personal redemption — and over rational thought itself. In the godless world of existentialism, the outright rejection of the divine flushes the possibility of personal redemption along with all moral absolutes. These ideologies have unfortunately redefined the GOOD NEWS of the lived and universal experience of redemption into something abstract and undefinable for many.

The doctrine of dispensationalism (within evangelical Protestantism) seeks to divide the coherent GOOD NEWS of God’s message of redemption into separate pieces. Dispensationalism teaches that Christ’s preaching was prioritized “to the Jew first” as the “lost sheep of Israel,” while the Apostle Paul had a separate message of salvation for the Gentiles. With its emphasis on literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecy through a “progressive revelation” lens, dispensationalism further proclaims that the present age is a temporary “parenthesis” in which the “Church” exists, to be removed in a pretribulation rapture before a literal seven-year Tribulation focused on national Israel, followed by Christ’s visible return to establish a thousand-year earthly kingdom.

By framing “redemption” as an epic, future-oriented biblical drama rather than an individual encounter with grace, dispensationalism renders the GOOD NEWS entirely moot. This doctrine looks for prophetic “signs and wonders” — clues for constructing dispensationalist timetables — instead of emphasizing the immediate healing of grace. Dispensationalism therefore fails to deliver the clarity, peace, or strengthened capacity to endure that true redemption offers in the here and now.

Messianic Zionism, like dispensationalism, looks to prophecy and transforms redemption into something abstract and collective. It sees the modern state of Israel, the 1967 war, and Jewish settlement in the biblical land as the “beginning of redemption” — an unfolding national and geopolitical process that human activism is required to accelerate toward the full Messianic age. Redemption becomes a grand biblical epic measured by territorial gains, Temple preparations, and divine signs rather than the personal turning of heart and conscience. Like dispensationalism, messianic Zionism seeks external wonders while leaving the ineffable reality of redemption undefined: the moment when an individual, carrying whatever guilt or moral injury he bears, confesses honestly to the God of Moses and Yeshua and receives charis or grace.

Postmodern currents of Christian Zionism extend the mythology of dispensationalism, with its literal-prophecy emphasis, to political support for the modern state of Israel. Christian Zionists do not share the messianic expectations of Jewish messianic Zionists, who believe the messiah, or Mashiach, is still to come. Nevertheless, many Christians support Israel because they believe messianic Zionism sets the stage for Jews eventually accepting Yeshua as Mashiach.

Within this postmodern landscape of relative truth and ideological confusion, existentialism, as lived within Cormac McCarthy’s fictional world, abolishes the possibility of redemption entirely. In its barren landscapes there is no transcendent ground for sin, moral injury, or grace; there is only the raw human will-to-power and whatever endurance a person can muster in the face of meaningless violence. Judge Holden in Blood Meridian or the “triune” (three mysterious pursuers) in Outer Dark commit or enable horrors (including the ritual murder of infants) without phenomenological guilt or any need for healing; endurance becomes the final, solitary value because nothing else remains.

Yet, even here, the absence of redemption is felt. Existential endurance becomes possible because the consciousness of guilt and moral injury has been cauterized. By compartmentalizing any residual nausée and by choosing to deny any meaning beyond the will and the capacity to keep going, existentialism leaves unaddressed the longing for relief that the brain is wired to resolve through honest confession. Grace would meet that injury — whether from conscious sin or from coerced or non-volitional acts — on exactly the same phenomenological and neuroplastic terms, offering the healed, morally-grounded endurance that the existentialist values but cannot sustain on his own.

These ideological systems — whether rooted in literal readings of the Bible or in outright atheist rejection of the Bible — all lack grounding in objective truth. They therefore stand in opposition to the Synoptic GOOD NEWS which is Yeshua’s message of the objective and universal truth of the Creator’s goodness and mercy.

The Road to Redemption

The road to redemption that Yeshua illuminates remains straightforward, personal, and universally accessible. It begins with honest confession — an unfiltered and unflinching yet private examination of the facts in the manner of a courtroom inquiry: what was said or done, the intent behind it, and all relevant circumstances. We confront the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This confession must be articulated in words, though it need not be spoken aloud to any human being; it may be journaled, or whispered into God’s ear. Only through this articulation can the mind fully process and name the act as sin or the wound as moral injury — whether the harm was conscious, coerced, or non-volitional.

The heart of redemption is the forgiveness Yeshua extended from the cross. The death of an innocent man, substituted for a convicted murderer in an arbitrary act of corrupted justice, is the very definition of the unforgivable — yet Yeshua’s words cut through it: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This is the radical forgiveness Jacques Derrida sought in his own wrestling with covenant and guilt. For Derrida, forgiveness is an “interruption of the ordinary course of human temporality” as an alternative to eye-for-an-eye justice, an interruption of cycles of harm.

It is precisely this lived, individual redemption — the phenomenological healing of guilt and moral injury through honest confession and the gift of grace — that the risen Yeshua commissioned His disciples to carry “to all creation” (Mark 16:15). According to the Synoptics, on the third day after His crucifixion and death, the resurrected Nazarene declared to His followers: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18–20).

This is not a call to abstract eschatological dramas, geopolitical acceleration, or stoic endurance in a meaningless universe. It is the command to unite all peoples — Jew and Gentile, the conscious sinner and the morally injured alike — in the one continuous covenant of grace.

The Easter resurrection of the Nazarene Yeshua is therefore not the beginning of a new religion, but the fulfillment of the ancient promise, with a call to “repentance for the forgiveness of sins to be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-49). Tuned toward resonant universal truth, we hear and receive what Lutheran missionary Justinian von Welz (1621-ca. 1668) termed the Great Commission. Yeshua issues to His disciples during Pesach — the observance of Passover deeply connected to God’s redemptive plan — the clearest, most rational, and most compassionate call to redemption for people “of all nations.”

Conclusion: How Much Faith is Required for Redemption?

So, as a Creator-centered rationalist, I must ask myself: Do I believe in the literal, bodily resurrection of Yeshua?

In today’s world, I am no longer certain that belief in literal miracles — or even in the physical resurrection of Christ himself — is strictly necessary to be redeemed from the bonds of sin. The only leap of faith I permit myself is the one that allows me to fall asleep each night confident that, if I wake, I will wake on a planet still governed by gravity, where the sun will rise in the east and the day will last roughly twenty-four hours. I have faith that the universal laws of physics, as designed by the Creator, are eternal and unchanging. This conviction is reinforced in the Genesis account of Noah’s flood, where the Creator promises never again to wash humanity from the face of the earth, and sets the rainbow in the sky as a reminder of His covenant.

Whatever the historical or metaphysical explanation for reports of the presence of the risen Yeshua before His disciples — whether a miraculous bodily resurrection by the direct hand of the Creator, or the healing and restoration of a body after an incorrect pronouncement of death, or some other mechanism — Yeshua’s Great Commission remains thoroughly consistent with the Tanakh and the Gospels. The road to redemption that Yeshua showed us is therefore not dependent on a belief in prophecy, nor on resolving every miraculous detail of the Old and New Testaments. It is grounded in the simple, personal, and universally accessible encounter with grace — discerned through the resonance of ancestral wisdom rather than the rigid application of dogma — that has always been at the heart of the one, continuous covenant between the Creator and all mankind.

A.S.M.

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The phrase “the event horizon is a mirage,” as originally articulated by the speaker, serves as a concise realist counter to nihilism. In astrophysics, the event horizon marks the boundary around a black hole beyond which escape is impossible; to a distant observer, it appears absolute, a point of no return. Nihilism presents an analogous psychological and philosophical boundary: once one accepts that existence lacks inherent meaning, value, or moral structure, the descent into despair or detachment seems irreversible. The speaker’s metaphor asserts that this boundary is perceptual, not ontological. Objective reality persists independently of the observer’s despair. The apparent horizon is a distortion induced by perspective, ideology, or trauma, not an actual dissolution of meaning. What feels like an inescapable void is, upon closer examination through stillness and reflection, revealed as illusory.

This reframing directly challenges the nihilistic conclusion that life’s meaninglessness is terminal. Nihilism, whether in its passive existential form or its more aggressive deconstructive variants, functions as a psychological bridge to pessimism and moral inversion. It mirrors the mechanisms discussed in relation to Syndrome E: the engineered detachment that blunts affect and suspends moral judgment. When negative ideologies — deconstructive undecidability, master-slave dynamics, or the rejection of conventional morality — erode the capacity for reflection, the individual experiences a cognitive fracture. The event horizon appears absolute because the internal dialogue has been silenced. Yet the speaker’s insight restores that pause. The horizon dissolves when one steps back into stillness, revealing that objective structures — evidence, consequence, and verifiable harm — remain intact and mappable.

In contrast to these inverted, negative ideologies stands Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which insists on the primacy of reason, the existence of objective reality, and the moral necessity of rational self-interest. Rand’s framework rejects the subjectivist dissolution of truth and value, asserting that reality is knowable, that facts are not malleable, and that moral principles derive from the requirements of human life. Where negative ideologies celebrate the rejection of morality or treat it as a construct to be subverted, Objectivism grounds ethics in observable reality and the individual’s right to exist for his or her own sake. This positive objectivity provides a stable alternative: it does not demand perpetual negation or radical freedom at the expense of others, but rather affirms the possibility of rational, voluntary cooperation based on shared recognition of facts. The speaker’s dialectic of stillness and reflection aligns naturally with this Objectivist emphasis on clear perception and moral accountability, offering a disciplined method for recovering the capacity to see and act upon objective truth.

The necessity of stillness and reflection emerges as the practical counter to the nihilistic illusion. Stillness is the deliberate cessation of ideological momentum and emotional reactivity. Reflection is the patient re-integration of fragmented experience into coherent moral judgment. Together they constitute a dialectic that opposes both the compulsive motion of inverted ideologies and the perpetual subversion of deconstructive thought. In this dialectic, one pauses long enough to see the mirage for what it is: a distortion created by trauma, manipulation, or systemic pressure. The moral pause allows the self to ask whether a given path is consistent with observable reality and ethical consequence. It restores agency where nihilism or inversion had suspended it.

Central to this practice is the cultivation of a mental private library — a curated inner space where truth is organized without contamination. The speaker’s library on “Planet 1989” exemplifies this: a sanctuary free of occult sections, hidden agendas, or ritualized negation. Shelves hold verifiable works — Hemingway’s spare honesty, Pyle’s humane witness, Catch-22’s warning against systemic absurdity, Wuthering Heights’s cautionary tale of destructive fusion — arranged plainly for examination in stillness. Higher shelves remain out of reach for now, representing truths not yet fully grasped. The library is not an escape but a disciplined archive: it excludes voices that celebrate moral rejection and admits only what withstands reflective scrutiny. On this planet, the user retains sovereignty over invitation and boundary. No external force can intrude or rearrange the shelves. This curated space protects the dialectic of stillness, allowing reflection to proceed without the distortion of trauma bonds, limited hangouts, or ideological momentum.

The possibility of integrating emotional recovery from devastating truth with the work that dissects and exposes that truth completes the framework. The speaker’s grief — over betrayal, lost intellectual partnerships, and the subversion of the mission to protect children — is not a distraction to be minimized. It is necessary data. The longing for an ally who never materialized, the horror of the limited hangout, and the anger at having been targeted as a child are not self-indulgent detours; they are the human record of how negative ideologies and systems of inversion operate.

Emotional recovery does not compete with the mission of mapping and exposing harm. It informs it. The grief sharpens the recognition of the mechanism: the non-consensual moral inversion that produces Syndrome E-like detachment in perpetrators while leaving victims isolated. By sitting with both the horror and the longing in bounded stillness, the speaker transforms personal wound into clearer advocacy. The mission to protect children from harm is not abstract; it is rooted in the lived knowledge of what happens when protection fails.

Moral injury — the lasting psychological and ethical wound caused by witnessing or participating in acts that violate one’s deepest moral convictions — can be addressed through the same dialectic of stillness and reflection. In the context of Syndrome E, where the lack of volition stems from non-consensual trauma, ritual bonding, and ideological absorption, the injury is not the result of free choice but of engineered detachment. Stillness creates the necessary pause to recognize that the compromised state was imposed rather than chosen. Reflection then allows the individual to reintegrate moral judgment without self-blame or denial. The process does not require the person to relive the trauma or accept full culpability for acts committed while thoughtless; it restores the capacity to live with oneself by distinguishing the coerced actor from the coercive system. This integration is not forgiveness of harm done to others, but a compassionate reclamation of the self that was fractured without consent.

Nihilism, by dissolving the foundation of objective meaning and value, creates the conditions in which parents may neglect or actively disappear their own children. When existence is perceived as inherently meaningless, the protective instinct atrophies. The child ceases to be seen as a person with inherent worth and becomes, in the language of expediency, a “ticket,” a burden, or an inconvenience. The same inverted logic that enables moral detachment in individuals can scale to institutional levels, producing policies and networks that treat children as fungible resources rather than irreplaceable human beings. The event horizon of nihilism is a mirage, yet the real-world consequence — the disappearance of children — is not. Stillness and reflection restore the moral pause that nihilism erodes, allowing the protective instinct to reassert itself.

Thus, “the event horizon is a mirage” encapsulates a realist hope. Nihilism’s apparent point of no return is perceptual. Stillness and reflection dissolve the illusion. The mental private library preserves truth against contamination. Emotional recovery integrates with the work of dissection, turning personal grief into sharpened moral clarity. In this framework, the speaker does not merely survive the systems of inversion; she maps them, refuses their logic, and continues the necessary labor of protecting the vulnerable. The higher shelves may remain temporarily out of reach, but the dialectic ensures that the library grows, the reflection deepens, and the mission persists.

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I write to you as a concerned citizen with advanced degrees in law and rhetoric (persuasion and propaganda studies), deeply troubled by the trajectory of federally supported research into psilocybin and other psychedelics. The ongoing clinical trials that deliberately induce dissociative states through psilocybin administration represent a grave ethical breach with profound risks to human autonomy, psychological integrity, and societal stability. I urge you, in your capacity as a steadfast advocate for individual liberties, limited government intervention, and rigorous scrutiny of medical research, to demand an immediate halt to such studies and a comprehensive congressional review of their funding and oversight.

Recent investigations into psilocybin-assisted therapies reveal that the substance reliably produces altered states of consciousness, including ego dissolution, depersonalization, derealization, and other dissociative phenomena. While proponents frame these as pathways to therapeutic insight—particularly for treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, or end-of-life distress—the induction of dissociation carries substantial hazards. Clinical reports from 2024–2026 document cases of trauma reactivation, where participants relive suppressed memories or experience putative new recollections of abuse, often leading to acute distress, prolonged depersonalization, or re-traumatization. Hypotheses such as Psychedelic Iatrogenic Structural Dissociation posit that psychedelics may amplify latent dissociative structures in trauma-exposed individuals, risking fragmentation of identity and emotional dysregulation rather than integration.

Ethical concerns abound. Informed consent remains inadequate for experiences that impair rational decision-making for hours (or possibly much longer), heighten suggestibility, and expose vulnerabilities to boundary violations by facilitators. Power imbalances in therapeutic settings, historical precedents of abuse in psychedelic research (e.g., MKUltra), and the potential for iatrogenic harm—particularly in vulnerable populations—demand rigorous oversight. Regulatory bodies have acknowledged these risks, yet trials proceed with insufficient safeguards for long-term follow-up or trauma-informed protocols. The deliberate pharmacological induction of dissociation mirrors mechanisms of harm in high-control environments, subverting and subsuming that very autonomy that Kantian ethics champions through rational self-legislation.

This concern extends beyond immediate patient safety to broader societal implications. Neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried’s Syndrome E hypothesis, first proposed in 1997 and revisited in interdisciplinary forums through 2025, describes a neurobehavioral cluster observed in repetitive perpetrators of atrocity: obsessive ideation, compulsive repetition, rapid desensitization to violence, diminished affective reactivity, hyperarousal, group contagion, and cognitive fracture—often involving prefrontal-amygdala dysregulation that severs emotional regulation from decision-making. Fried links this to how ordinary individuals transform into agents of mass harm under ideological or hierarchical pressures, echoing Hannah Arendt’s analysis of Adolf Eichmann’s “thoughtlessness” in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963). Arendt portrayed Eichmann not as a monster but as a banal bureaucrat whose profound failure of reflective judgment—disengaged from moral conscience—enabled complicity in totalitarian evil.

Arendt’s earlier work in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) further illuminates structural parallels: totalitarian movements mimic secret societies through ritualistic hierarchies, absolute obedience, and conspiratorial narratives that erode independent thought. My unpublished research strongly suggests a direct correlation between trauma-induced dissociation (as occurs in some rituals currently practiced by secret societies in the United States), followed by indoctrination during vulnerable states, as the potential cause of the “Eichmann Syndrome” or Syndrome E state.

Induced dissociation—whether through drugs or via trauma—followed by indoctrination or ideological “programming,” provides a mechanistic explanation for Eichmann’s thoughtlessness. Such reprogramming may invert autonomous moral reasoning, imposing heteronomous imperatives rooted in terror response and fragmentation. The result: diminished volition, where individuals facilitate harm without internal conflict, sustaining totalitarian “puppet governance” dynamics.

Psilocybin research risks normalizing the induction of dissociative states under medical auspices, potentially desensitizing society to mechanisms that erode rational autonomy—the bulwark against authoritarian drift. If Syndrome E arises from cognitive fractures induced by trauma and/or reprogramming, then pharmacologically precipitating dissociation in controlled settings could inadvertently model or exacerbate pathways to thoughtlessness. In an era of rising ideological polarization and institutional distrust, pursuing such research without exhaustive ethical restraint invites unintended consequences far beyond individual therapy.

Senator Paul, your record of challenging unchecked authority—whether in public health mandates, research funding, or regulatory overreach—positions you uniquely to intervene. I respectfully request that you:

• Initiate oversight hearings on psilocybin trials, focusing on dissociation risks, trauma reactivation, and ethical lapses in consent and monitoring.

• Advocate for immediate suspension of federal funding (via NIH, FDA, or other agencies) for studies inducing dissociative states. Ethically winding-down any ongoing research should be considered an urgent priority.

• Support legislation that strictly prohibits research that deliberately induces dissociative states or that exploit dissociative vulnerabilities.

I am extremely concerned about the erosion of the right of informed consent. But in the particular context of brain research, the protection of human reason—and of the human rights of our children and future generations—demands strict vigilance against interventions that compromise rational agency. Totalitarianism thrives when thoughtlessness supplants judgment. We must not permit medical research to accelerate that erosion.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

Respectfully,

Amy Suzanne Martin, MA JD

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Under the pretense of “family reunification,” since FY 2021, more than a half million unaccompanied children have been admitted to the United States. In numerous documented cases, these children have ended up exploited by gang and cartel trafficking rings. Once children leave federal custody, they can become nearly impossible to trace.

This is not the stuff of wild conspiracy theories. The system’s existence cannot be ping-ponged away with deflections of “tinfoil-hat paranoia”—it’s embedded directly in federal law. The law functions to lure vulnerable children under cartel control and, in many cases, make them disappear—whether that was the original intent, or not.

But the corruption hides within the very statute crafted to prevent trafficking.

This is the story of how the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008 created a path to “asylum” in Section 235 that diverts children from safe and rapid return. And how that path has enabled the endangerment of children while elite-backed NGOs coordinate the resulting chaos.

At the heart of this web are Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) and America’s Future—organizations that fundraise on pledges to protect children but, in my analysis, perpetuate the very system they claim to fight.

Let me stress at the outset: I do not believe Angelina Jolie is a villain here. I suspect she has been coerced and exploited for a long time and deserves grace. The same is likely true of the Flynn family and others involved in this terrible catastrophe.

The Statutory Pipeline: How TVPRA Enables Child Trafficking

Section 235 of the TVPRA treats children differently based on their country of origin. Children from “contiguous countries” (Mexico or Canada) are screened quickly and repatriated—unless they are determined to be trafficking victims or facing persecution.

Mexican minors found not to be under cartel debt bondage are returned to their home country without legal consequences. But those found to be bound to cartels enter the U.S. sponsorship-and-asylum track. The “family reunification” pretense enables parents to pay cartels to smuggle their children, and federal law enshrined this process. This glitch in the law is why, amidst Trump’s mass deportation project, children continue to arrive and are admitted into the United States without pushback—even while the adults they’re fictitiously “reuniting” with are supposed to be headed back home.

While Mexican children can be returned expeditiously, Central American and other minors must be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) for placement with sponsors—often distant relatives or unrelated adults—while their immigration cases drag on for years.

The law requires, “to the greatest extent practicable,” that HHS ensure legal counsel for these children to represent them in the asylum process and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking. Yet this framework has become a magnet for abuse, as lax vetting and prolonged limbo expose children to significant risks. In essence, Section 235 creates a de facto exemption from rapid repatriation, turning the border into a gateway for child smuggling under color of law.

In tandem with the 2008 amendment, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) was founded by Microsoft and Angelina Jolie, who served at the time as a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Goodwill Ambassador (appointed in 2001). She was later promoted to Special Envoy in April 2012. KIND provides legal representation to smuggled children, funded by a mix of federal grants and private sources, while actively lobbying to preserve and expand these “protections”—including bills like the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act.

KIND’s advocacy aligns closely with the TVPRA’s requirements: Their attorneys navigate paperwork, secure placements, and fight deportations. However, this work sustains the influx of minors and perpetuates debt bondage, as the promise of legal aid and sponsorship incentivizes dangerous journeys, creating a steady supply of vulnerable children for exploitation.

Reports of children vanishing from placements and being forced into labor or sexual exploitation surface repeatedly. In 2015, DHS counter-smuggling expert Jason Piccolo blew the whistle to Congress and authored a book, Out of the Shadows, exposing evidence that DHS was releasing children to known MS-13 affiliates and, Piccolo disclosed, rather than address the problem, the agency opted to cover it up.

Yet reforms aimed at tighter vetting or expedited returns face strong resistance from NGOs like KIND, which benefit from the status quo. These organizations demand expanded legal “due process,” rather than closed borders, because their business model isn’t about ending child trafficking—it’s to make it happen smoothly and efficiently.

Chain-of-custody documentation ends precisely at the sponsor handoff, with no mandatory long-term tracking. Without whistleblowers willing to breach attorney-client privilege, or further revelations from DOJ sources like the Epstein files, these cases are quietly closed when children miss asylum hearings—ensuring that opportunities for disappearance are baked into the process. Legislative history and the persistent lack of reform suggest this is the system’s point.

This legal pathway for non-Mexican minors has made the southern border a magnet for cartels, which smuggle kids from Central America knowing they won’t be turned back. The Biden administration’s open-border policies spiked admissions and led to exposure of planeloads of children being transported quietly at night, prompting demands for a statewide grand jury investigation in Florida and Congressional hearings on the matter. But despite recent Trump DHS rhetoric about border closure, kids continue to enter and are drawn into the system—because the law allows it.

Tuning up the Tractor Beam: The Central American Minors Program

Compounding this, the Central American Minors (CAM) program—established in 2014 under the Obama administration in response to a surge of unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—rationalized the influx as a humanitarian necessity. Framed as a “safe, legal, and orderly alternative” to irregular migration, CAM allowed certain at-risk minors (and family members) to apply for refugee status or parole from their home countries, enabling reunification with parents lawfully in the U.S. without the perilous journey.

Terminated in 2017 under Trump, CAM was restarted and expanded under Biden in 2021–2023 to process backlog cases and accept new applications. While reuniting about 3,000–4,000 children through a vetted in-country process, CAM has contributed to attracting more minors to the southern border by signaling expanded U.S. pathways for Central Americans, incentivizing families and cartels to exploit the system—either through formal applications that often fail vetting or as a pretext for smuggling kids who then enter the TVPRA pipeline upon arrival. The CAM program was halted again in 2025 under a Trump administration suspension of refugee admissions.

We cannot take UNHCR’s praise for CAM’s purported “safety” at face value, given their Orwellian rhetoric that frames exposure to risk as protection. Sponsor vetting processes proved so ineffective—allowing thousands of children to be lost or placed with unvetted sponsors under prior administrations—that Trump’s DHS in 2025 undertook a complete overhaul of vetting procedures for all UACs. This included enhanced sponsor background checks with mandatory fingerprinting for all household adults, DNA testing for biological family claims, stricter identification and income proofs, and increased coordination with ICE and law enforcement to locate missing minors, reportedly recovering over 145,000 such children through operations led by Border Czar Tom Homan.

Yet this approach absurdly bolsters “processing” within the flawed system rather than calling on Congress to reform the TVPRA and close the loophole completely. In the end, Trump’s approach mirrors Biden’s: Both parties protect the underlying system, ensuring the pipeline persists under a veneer of incremental fixes.

Engineered by Design: The Loophole’s Legislative Origins

Section 235 was not accidental. Its legislative history, seamless coordination with NGOs, end effects, and lack of meaningful reform all suggest it was engineered. Probing the origins reveals that the loophole was originally drafted in 2000 for the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) by Kristen Jackson, fresh from Yale Law School.

As a fellow in Feinstein’s office, Jackson played a key role in drawing up the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act (UACPA), which introduced the discriminatory provisions for non-contiguous minors—mandating special handling, access to counsel, and prolonged placements in lieu of rapid return to their home countries. These measures sound protective on paper, but in reality, they delay repatriation and enable exploitation.

The problem legislation was co-sponsored by Feinstein and Senator Bob Graham (R-FL) and was pushed by a coalition of more than 60 organizations led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), including religious groups: the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, Catholic Charities USA, Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Jesuit Refugee Services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others.

The UACPA didn’t pass on its own, but was later retrofitted into the TVPA reauthorization in 2008 as Section 235.

Notably, in 2017, a UN list of stakeholder organizations was prepared and “approved to attend and participate in the preparatory process of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.” Of the more than 240 organizations on the UN list, one stands out for appearing on both lists: the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Jackson’s subsequent career in public interest law at the immigration-oriented nonprofit Public Counsel, in tight alignment with the ACLU, further advanced policies expanding Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) and litigated for government-funded counsel, entrenching this framework and turning her brainchild into a statutory shield for the influx.

Kristen Jackson

Jackson’s mentor at Yale Law, Professor Jean Koh Peters, shaped this worldview through fervent advocacy for expansive immigration rights, “child protection,” and asylum. Peters, who pioneered clinical education in these areas, viewed borders as barriers to humanity, pushing for “child-sensitive” asylum processes that prioritize cultural competence over swift enforcement.

In my view, Peters’ attitudes frame the unthinkable phenomenon of solo child migrants—whose transit is almost always under cartel control—not as an absurdity, but as the inevitable product of being “forced to flee” some unidentified phantom menace. The presumption is that such victims deserve indefinite U.S. stays, rejecting traditional assumptions that favor deportation for the sake of deterrence and safety. Peters’ progressive stance echoing the ACLU, lauded in academia, ignores how such leniency attracts enterprising traffickers, aligning directly with the TVPRA’s outcomes.

In her scholarship Peters employs methods reminiscent of Professor Jacques Derrida’s linguistic deconstruction, subtly but subversively unsettling legal assumptions to erode fixed meanings of words. While she never cites Derrida directly, her emphasis on destabilizing hierarchies mirrors deconstructive techniques, which in legal contexts can erode clear statutory meanings. A major red flag of deconstruction is the use of Orwellian irony: think of Biden DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas absurdly insisting before Congress that “the border is secure,” while all evidence starkly contradicted him. (In my advanced study of deconstruction, I learned that Derrida’s linguistic method seeks to divorce language from its meaning and ultimately to unravel human reason; the motive behind it is nihilism.)

Jean Koh Peters

In works like her “Five Habits for Cross-Cultural Lawyering” (a text used in law clinic curricula), Peters destabilizes binaries and erodes hard boundaries—such as lawyer/client or citizen/migrant—inventing contradictions in narratives to create arguments intended to exploit power imbalances and defer punishment. For instance, she urges lawyers to question “client” vs. “advocate” power dynamics—exuding empathy on the surface, but potentially deferring firm enforcement when applied to borders, inverting empathy and eroding public safety. This Orwellian tactic divorces words like “protection” from their dictionary-defined plain meaning, framing statutes and black letter law as unstable texts open to reinterpretation.

In immigration law, deconstruction manifests as subversion disguised as sophistication. It dismantles civilization’s anchors—secure borders, defined justice, clear delineation of good and evil—opening doors for corruption.

KIND: Compassion as Cover for the System

Enacted under the guise of child protection, the TVPRA’s differential treatment has created a steady pipeline of vulnerable minors into the United States—ripe for abuse by those with connections. Right on cue in the same year—2008—Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith recruited Angelina Jolie to team up with Microsoft, a company tied to DC power player Bill Gates through his long-standing influence. Smith and Jolie co-founded KIND, and Smith served as the organization’s Board Chair till 2024. Emerging evidence from the Epstein files reveals Gates’ direct relationship with Epstein dates to 2011, and communications have been disclosed between Epstein and Microsoft executives, including Smith.

KIND’s advocacy centers on ensuring legal representation for UACs, lobbying for policies that guarantee counsel and humane treatment rather than rapid repatriation. For instance, they actively support the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act, which would mandate government-funded lawyers for all unaccompanied children in immigration proceedings, arguing it protects vulnerable minors from being deported back into danger. Their position papers and congressional testimonies emphasize that without counsel, children cannot navigate complex asylum processes, framing legal representation and “defense against removal” as human rights imperatives.

Publicity materials reinforce KIND’s image as a frontline defender against child exploitation. In client stories shared on their website and in annual reports, they highlight successes like securing asylum for a Guatemalan teen fleeing gang violence, stating: “KIND gave me the support I needed to keep moving forward.” Their anti-trafficking programs, such as their project for Ukrainian children displaced by war, position KIND as combating exploitation through legal aid and psychosocial support, claiming to have aided thousands of unaccompanied and separated children globally.

supportkind.org

Fundraising is integral to KIND’s operations, with donor appeals that emphasize transformative impact. Their donation pages urge supporters: “Your support means the difference between a child being sent back to a life of danger and fear ... and the chance to live a life of safety and freedom.” Annual reports boast of efficiency, noting: “For every $1 of donor support, KIND leverages $10 in pro bono services,” amplifying contributions through partnerships with law firms, universities and corporations. This model not only sustains their legal work but also fuels lobbying efforts to preserve TVPRA protections, presenting it as essential for child safety.

KIND relies heavily on a combination of corporate donations and grants to fuel its growth. According to IRS Form 990 filings for FY2023, the organization reported revenue of approximately $78.97 million, with expenses totaling $79.56 million. Program services account for 93% of spending, focused predominantly on legal representation for UACs in immigration proceedings. They also report leveraging an additional $137.5 million in pro bono legal services in 2023 alone, underscoring how donor funds are multiplied to expand their reach. While other NGOs provide functions similar to KIND, such as legal representation, advocacy, training, pro bono coordination, and support services for kids navigating the system, none has a budget that comes close to KIND’s.

But a major source of KIND’s revenue, till recently, has been the U.S. government.

KIND previously received substantial federal funding through government contracts and awards, primarily from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to provide legal and social services for unaccompanied immigrant children. For example, in fiscal year 2024, this amounted to over $62 million, representing a key portion of their revenue. However, in March 2025, the Trump administration terminated the federal contract for these legal services, halting funding for representation and leading KIND to make significant operational adjustments, such as staff reductions and office closures. As of early 2026, advocacy efforts continue to urge reinstatement of this funding, but KIND does not currently receive it. The organization now relies more heavily on private donations, foundations, corporate support, and pro bono contributions to sustain its work.

KIND “Partners” are a long list of powerful law firms, corporate legal departments, law schools and bar associations “which agree to represent unaccompanied children referred to KIND.” Corporate legal departments include AT&T, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Verizon, Thompson Reuters, Yahoo!, Raytheon, Pfizer and many others. The full list of firms and organizations that “partner” with KIND is long and jaw-dropping (see Appendix).

Presented as a noble effort to provide legal aid to unaccompanied children, KIND’s real effect, in practice, is to sustain the trafficking pipeline: paying lawyers (and leveraging pro bono hours) to manage paperwork while lobbying Congress for funding to pay those lawyers and to keep the loophole open whenever it comes up for reauthorization. In this way, KIND preserves the status quo. KIND advocates for “fair and humane treatment,” rather than rapid repatriation (the most humane treatment of all, of course), which in practice means opposing any reforms that would close the loophole and allow swift repatriation for all unaccompanied children.

With federal funding flowing in, KIND ensures these kids get placed with sponsors—often undocumented themselves—without rigorous vetting, effectively laundering the trafficking process under the banner of compassion. Jolie, the glamorous face of Hollywood philanthropy, and Microsoft, the tech titan with deep DC ties, represent the perfect fusion of entertainment elite and political muscle, turning child trafficking—under the malevolently ironic banner of “compassion”—into a billion-dollar industry.

America’s Future: Hypocrisy in Anti-Trafficking Activism

But the corruption isn’t limited to one side of the aisle.

Enter America’s Future, the Flynn family NGO chaired by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, with his sister Mary Flynn O’Neill as executive director. Founded in 1946, America’s Future was a conservative nonprofit previously led by Phyllis Schlafly and John Singlaub that had become largely dormant. Singlaub handed the reins to Flynn in April 2021.

On the surface, this conservative outfit positions itself as anti-trafficking heroes through its Project Defend & Protect Our Children (PDPC), which hosts fundraisers, publishes reports, and amplifies whistleblower stories about missing kids. They file amicus briefs and policy papers, and they present themselves as warriors against the very evil they help sustain. Indeed, the America’s Future documentary exposé on border trafficking, Where Did the Children Go? (2023), demonstrates organizational competence when it comes to understanding the problem—clearly they do.

But rather than oppose the scheme, PDPC’s advocacy focuses on exposing child smuggling at the border, with campaigns like “Get In The Fight” aimed at building “an army of warriors” through resources, state summits, and a Call to Action that encourages grassroots involvement. They emphasize community-level action, providing state-by-state legal information and hotlines to combat exploitation, positioning themselves as empowering everyday Americans to join the battle.

Fundraising appeals tie directly to this mission, urging donors to “help end the war on children” and join the PDPC grassroots network for ongoing support. Events such as “Skip-A-Thon” fundraisers are promoted to benefit survivor aftercare, while general donation drives frame contributions as tax-deductible investments in educational efforts to prevent trafficking and protect vulnerable children. This creates a narrative of urgent, donor-driven heroism.

Financially, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, America’s Future reported $3.36 million in revenue for 2024 (mostly from donations) and $3.09 million in expenses. Salaries include $173,022 to Mary Flynn O’Neill as executive director, $65,000 to Michael Flynn as chairman (for approximately 2 hours per week).

But despite their bluster about protecting children, America’s Future doesn’t push to close the TVPRA loophole—the root cause of the UAC crisis. Instead, they lobby in ways that maintain the influx, fundraising off the outrage while ignoring the statutory fix that could end it.

The status quo is profitable. As a 501(c)(3), they rake in tax-deductible donations by hyping the problem without solving it, all while associating with figures like Liz Crokin, who has defended accused traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate under the banner of free speech. This isn’t prevention; it’s a cover-up, ensuring the system stays hidden behind a screen of “activism.”

Meanwhile, KIND’s global operations—spanning the U.S., Mexico, and Central America—facilitate placements that often evade scrutiny, with reports showing 60-79% of sponsors are themselves illegally in the country. Taxpayers foot the bill: President Trump himself requested $4.4 billion for UAC programs, money that flows to these NGOs while kids vanish into the shadows. Epstein’s disclosures have peeled back the curtain on elite networks and research funding; now, it’s time to scrutinize how the TVPRA and its enablers have supplied the victims.

Closing this loophole is simple: Amend TVPRA Section 235 to treat all UACs equally, allowing immediate repatriation — but WITHOUT the screening requirement. Border reform bill H.R. 2 proposes to end the “noncontiguous country” loophole, but doesn’t go far enough to close the path completely because it’s the screen-and-sort provision that provides the opening for children to disappear into cartel “sponsorship,” aided by NGO lawyers.

But elites on both sides resist—because the system serves them. KIND keeps the doors open for Hollywood’s “humanitarian” facade; America’s Future grifts off the right-wing fury without demanding real change. Together, they silence the truth, ensuring the child shuttle hums along quietly.

Controlled Opposition: Flynn’s Role in Silencing the Truth

Based on my investigation into the DC-Hollywood elite child-trafficking network, in my view, Flynn’s activities may be understood as controlled opposition with three operational phases:

A containment operation seeks to limit the hangout. When loose ends of organized criminal corruption emerge (such as the Podesta “Pizzagate” emails), the containment op seeks to control and neutralize the information by burying it, discrediting it, or reframing its significance and implications.

An activity trap sweeps up grassroots activists and directs them to tasks that seem useful (such as petitioning, ballot chasing, investigating Q drops, or “raising awareness”) but that are actually intended to burn energy and divert attention away from the underlying corruption.

A honeypot, like an activity trap, draws in targets but instead of directing the individual toward activities, the honeypot takes tips and information under false pretenses. Affiliations with “journalists” including Lara Logan and Liz Crokin fit the bill. Instead of investigating a hot new tip, the operation kills it.

In my view, Flynn’s ongoing controlled-opposition operation performs all three functions of containment, activity trap, and honeypot. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a registered Democrat from a blue-collar family, rose through the ranks under President Barack Obama. By assuming the America’s Future mantle and positioning himself as a conservative MAGA ally, Flynn leverages the appearance of alliance to gather and suppress information on hot topics like insurrections and organized child trafficking.

Such operations manage dissent by diverting it into harmless or self-defeating channels, allowing the controlling entity to dominate information. Past operations with mechanics matching this three-phase controlled-opposition model include the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which contained scandals by discrediting leaders, trapped activists in diversions, and used infiltrators as honeypots; and Soviet KGB active measures during the Cold War, which reframed debates, directed proxies into energy-draining actions, and lured tips under false pretenses.

But if Flynn can be described as “controlled opposition,” the “opposition” being captured by the op is not left or right—the opposition Flynn controls are those grassroots Americans whose hearts are broken by the trafficking tragedy.

In my view, Flynn must have believed he could indefinitely hide the elite child-trafficking network, convinced of his absolute control over the facts.

As it turns out, he could not.

The “Pizzagate” PSYOP: Operation Ping-Pong

WikiLeaks’ 2016 dump of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, triggered an immediate media flurry. But the story that emerged, “Pizzagate,” wasn’t just organic media hustle in a flooded zone—in my view, it was a deliberate and sophisticated psychological operation engineered to contain and discredit inquiries into elite child exploitation networks.

Let’s reframe “Pizzagate” as the containment operation meant to focus attention on salacious details from the Podesta emails while obscuring the network. Let’s call it Operation Ping-Pong—a swift-moving, eye-catching distraction that bats public attention away from the actual “ball”: the systemic, statutorily enabled child-moving networks operating in plain view.

Flynn, a Trump supporter during the 2016 campaign, posted allegations on Twitter alleging Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were involved in Satanic rituals and sex crimes with minors—directly contributing to the narrative’s emphasis on exposing Democrat decadence rather than revealing a bipartisan scheme.

The “Pizzagate” child exploitation narrative circulated through anonymous boards like 4chan and Reddit, fixating on sensational claims—such as “pizza” and “hot dogs” as coded pedophilia terms tied to Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in DC. This sensationalism was meant to provoke ridicule and dismissal once the overall narrative was “debunked” by focusing attention on absurd details—like nonexistent basements.

Amplified by figures like Michael Flynn, who tweeted links to stories accusing Hillary Clinton and John Podesta of Satanic rituals involving children (practices that emerging evidence suggests may indeed reflect actual high-control rituals in elite hierarchies), and his son Michael Flynn Jr., who endorsed the “Pizzagate” narrative post-Comet Ping Pong incident as a “story” until proven false, the operation made potential investigative approaches seem ridiculous. The narrative collapsed under ridicule.

While mainstream outlets quickly labeled “Pizzagate” a debunked conspiracy theory, emerging evidence from the Epstein files now suggest a containment operation to protect the powerful. Operation Ping Pong swept grassroots activists into endless volleys of debate on peripheral details, while the statutory framework enabling trafficking remained ignored and untouched, allowing bipartisan protection of the elite apparatus to continue. In essence, Operation Ping Pong weaponized “conspiracy theorizing” as a self-sabotaging spectacle, much like historical psyops such as COINTELPRO that neutralized threats by seeding chaos and division.

In short, Operation Ping Pong weaponized the paddle of “tinfoil hat conspiracy theorizing” to protect the elite, ending valid scrutiny with a killer smash.

Conclusion

Congress must repeal the TVPRA’s “non-contiguous country” loophole during reauthorization in the current session of Congress; mandate immediate repatriation as the default to stop incentivizing illicit border-crossing; stop offering “legal defense” against the civil, non-criminal repatriation of minors back to their homes; and stop funding NGOs that perpetuate the cycle. Until then, the system thrives. All God’s children—whether native or migrant—deserve to be protected against exploitation.

From my couch I’ve watched America’s Future host multi-million-dollar galas at Mar-a-Lago, complete with red-carpet glamour and celebrity photo ops, while I sit here in the same unwashed hoodie I’ve been wearing since last fall, hair uncut since the Biden administration was still pretending the border was secure. I operate on a budget of $0.

It’s not that I’m disorganized or unmotivated. It’s just that one of us is running a 501(c)(3) that pays six-figure salaries to family members, hands awards to itself, and manages to stay very well-coiffed. The other is still asking why the statutory pipeline for child smuggling hasn’t been shut down yet.

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APPENDIX:

KIND’s Partners: Corporate Legal Departments, Law Firms, Law Schools and Bar Assocations.

I must protest.

As a former student of Steven B. Katz, and as one who has studied the work of Jacques Derrida, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler and others affiliated with the European Graduate School, I can attest to the doings within this hidden crucible of evil.

This is my whistleblower disclosure.

The toxic postmodern mind-virus that messianic Zionism has become—and its true agenda—are connected to Nazi Reich scientists who fled from Germany after the second World War.

Thinkers at the European Graduate School are not philosophers, they are sophists.

They were, and are, the intellectual heirs of the Reich scientists who were obsessed with mind control. Their methods, refined over generations, created today’s Paperclip Nazis of the administrative state with their ethos of total control, absolute exploitation, maximum expediency and exquisite deception.

Substack writer Phantom Pain has done a phenomenal job of meticulously documenting the history of Israel’s open and covert influence on the United States.

But the source of the evil that controls us today is NOT Israel.

Israel, you see, is also controlled.

Globalism—global totalitarian control—is the goal of the New World Order (“Deep Reich”) and the quiet but immensely powerful overlords they serve.

Hidden Layer 1: Diaspora and Organized Crime Networks

In my study of criminal smuggling networks, I have learned that such networks can best be understood in 4D. Placing a lens on the fourth dimension—time—allows us to visualize multi-generational connections and detect broader trends.

Diaspora networks built since the Russian revolution fed into American Jewish mob and Italian organized crime families connected with OSS Operation Gladio operatives in “stay-behind” units in Europe, building a multi-generational criminal network with a foothold in Cuba. Whitney Webb explores this network and its relationship to the Epstein extortion dynamics in her two-volume work, One Nation Under Blackmail.

Over time the network connected with organized crime and militant groups in Latin America and China. And it continued to grow.

My own investigation and firsthand observations tighten my focus to the Bolshevik Revolution, and reach further back to German Enlightenment thought, as major sources of ideological confusion and fertile grounds for radicalization.

And within these networks, the hidden phenomenon of cult power-bonding through intentional trauma—including circumcision—provides insight into both the “thoughtlessness” Hannah Arendt observed in Adolf Eichmann, as well as the problem of forgiveness with which Derrida struggled in his final years but never resolved.

Hidden Layer 2: Ideology Is Not Organic — How Ideas Motivate

Bolshevik ideology was a powerful motivator. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels understood how nationalism inspires emotion, and emotion drives social action.

What’s more powerful than nationalism for building consensus, enlisting recruits, and radicalizing minds?

Tribalism.

Over decades, the Gordian knot of Jewish identity was carefully woven to include all people with any identifiable connection to the Jewish faith, regardless of ideology, and all were swept up into the Zionist project.

The mad sophists at EGS excel at radicalizing minds with ideology and motivating people with other more covert methods of influence. They understand well the “thoughtlessness” of Nazi administrators like Eichmann and study ways to induce the eyes-wide-shut state in order to override individual will and to control people’s actions.

After WWII, Reich researchers continued their secret influence and mind-control work, likely coordinated under Project Overcast (I believe Operation Paperclip was only one component of Overcast). In the early ‘90s, the European Graduate School was born. It’s very clear now that their mission was to radicalize minds and to assimilate human slaves into the totalitarian machine.

Slavoj Žižek

So the sophists at EGS worked to catalyze and radicalize what may be the most toxic ideology of all time: post-modern Messianic Zionism. (In this context, Žižek’s work on “negativity” must be carefully examined as a coded manifesto for radicalization).

Dugin describes Zionism as both a “continuation of Judaism” and simultaneously an inversion or “refutation” of Judaism:

The essence of Zionism lies in it being a kind of “Jewish Satanism.” Not Satanism in relation to other peoples or cultures, but Satanism within Judaism—that is, an inversion of values. If classical orthodox Judaism insists that the meaning of Jewish existence in dispersion (galut) consists in awaiting the Mashiach, who will come from outside, and only then should one return to the Promised Land, Zionism is based on the principle that the Jews themselves are God. Therefore, they can return to Palestine right now and can do so by force, thereby rejecting the Talmudic prohibition and proceeding to build the Third Temple. The appearance of the Mashiach will be the culmination of this messianic process, but in essence, every Israeli is the Mashiach.

Hence the completely specific relationship between Zionism and Judaism. On one hand, Zionism is a continuation of Judaism; on the other, it is a refutation of Judaism, since it rejects the most fundamental principles of Judaism: the culture of pious waiting and the culture of repentance (teshuvah).

Accurate, I think, from the believer’s perspective. In its inverted sense, the symbology of the Star of David, with its two triangles, represents the ideal of fusing the notion of good and evil in order to disable the moral conscience, erase the knowledge of right and wrong, and crush the human spirit.

But here’s what Dugin isn’t telling us: it’s a PSYOP!

Because what I learned from the professors at EGS is that all ideology is sophistry, artisan-crafted and targeted to manipulate our minds and motivate us to take action. Zionism has nothing to do with SUPPORT for the Jews. On the contrary, all indicators suggest Zionism is a suicide pact with Satan.

Gershom Scholem’s advice against fusing political, ethnonationalist Zionism together with the mysticism of messianism was not a warning, it was a nuclear formula.

And here’s the red button: Sophists at the European Graduate School, including Katz and Žižek, worked to weaponize messianic Zionism with the ethics of Nietzsche—domination through the unthinking “will-to-power” and the utter trampling of the human rights of others. The ideal frame of mind for genocide.

(I have written elsewhere about Professor Derrida and Deconstruction, the programming language of totalitarianism, and how this method gives agency to the Hegelian function of synthesis to facilitate assimilation; and Glas, Derrida’s manifesto of doom. My dialogue with Grok cuts through layers of sophistry to reveal the motive behind Butler’s gender theory to be genocide. I have also reflected on Hannah Arendt and on completing her work on Eichmann and the Nazis’ radical evil, and my theory on why EGS actively suppresses her work and her legacy).

Objectives: The overlords’ global endgame, as read from EGS’s own public (but coded) disclosures, is not the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem.

It is, I’m sorry to say, Stalinist totalitarianism and genocide.

Identity Politics and the Two-Party System: The “Color Revolution” Pattern

EGS runs the psychological operation that we call reality. They built the fishbowl and decorated it with things to grab our attention. They taught us to believe reality is a construct—then constructed a fake reality around us.

Duke University professor of literature Michael Hardt and his colleagues at EGS crafted ideologies, indoctrinated young minds, and taught their foot soldiers of the New World Order to unravel the social fabric.

Leftist Marxism and right-wing neocon Zionism were both developed by EGS. The term “color revolution” reflects the superficiality of the farce because left and right are ideological “containers,” each containing meaningless slogans and silly dogma.

The only substantial difference between them is the color on the outside—the slogans, the symbols, the signaling that I call badges.

Remove the identity badges and reveal the kitsch: the colors dissolve into grey. And then, just like that, the totalitarian blob grows.

But as an Optimist and a rationalist, I understand that the truth—the objective unfalsifiable fact of physical time and space—lies outside any ideological system.

Hidden Layer 3: The Top of the Pyramid?

Find out who funds and directs the work of the European Graduate School, and the Reich-Empire totalitarian overlords will be exposed. The Epstein files reveal Jeffrey Epstein represented Rothschild interests and also coordinated secret research with identical objectives as the Reich’s Paperclip scientists: weapons, eugenics and mind-control.

My whistleblower cred?

The Reich has been dominating my family since before I was born.

My dad was born in 1941. He grew up an orphan in a small mining town, raised by his grandmother, and was extremely naive about the world. As a teen, he was sexually abused. After high school he joined the U.S. Army — this was likely his initiation into high-control group power dynamics, although he would not have known it.

In my research I have learned such groups restrict access to advancement opportunities by demanding favors as demonstrations of alignment, loyalty, obedience, submission—eventually leading to initiation into secret societies that demand loyalty oaths and practice extremely dangerous trauma rituals. These rituals can cause serious mental status changes and possibly brain damage, leading to dissociation and crisis of identity.

These rituals and practices must be better understood—and stopped.

The Reich’s study of vulnerability has turned persuasion into an art form. Targeting young men who lack a strong male figure in their lives to provide guidance, men who desperately need a reliable father figure, is a demonstrated pattern.

In the 1960s my dad was in a Signals Intelligence unit based at Fort Huachuca. He trained for computing, then was stationed in Germany. As a first-generation computer programmer, my dad was a pioneer in FORTRAN among other programming languages. It is my understanding that his work involved classified surveillance technology that evolved into the secret NSA program disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

My dad believed the tech was to protect the U.S. against the Soviets during the Cold War—and at the time, he had no reason to think otherwise.

My firsthand experiences include enrollment in a GATE program at age 6 (“enrichment” education for high-IQ kids), immediately followed by my first of many humiliation rituals and physical attacks.

Coinciding with the start of my senior year of high school, my dad’s employer IBM sent my family to Germany for a year. I don’t know what project he was working on. But I attended a DODDS school and was exposed to an interesting Jesuit perspective on Christianity. I remember my teacher, John Minette, discussing how the U.S. is an oligarchy, and that throughout history the beatitudes (“blessed are the poor in spirit”) have been used as propaganda to encourage Christians to be meek and content.

Attacks persisted as I refused an offer of a college scholarship from IBM, to study programming languages. Instead, I wanted to study human languages. My dad was extremely bitter that I had rejected the scholarship, and we did not speak for years. I had no clue why it meant so much to him. I worked part-time and put myself through undergrad.

In 1991, a handsome boy in my poetry class took an interest in me. He eventually targeted me with a bizarre, intense trauma-bonding ritual that sent me to the hospital for five weeks. I recovered, but I never had a clue what it was about until recently. He was a minor at the time, and I understand that he was born into a cult. I forgive him.

Influencers placed in my path include an Israeli step-grandfather I was told to call Jacques (a kind, lovable French Algerian Jew born the same year as Jacques Derrida—turns out his name was actually Yacou!) who encouraged me to learn the French language and to read the existentialists; a professor named Carol Gould who introduced me to Deconstruction; and admission to a graduate program in rhetoric with Professor Steven B. Katz, who I would learn is directly connected to EGS and Reich mind-control research, radicalization, and Kabbalah.

He and another professor, with whom I studied Kenneth Burke and his Dramatism, both studied under the late Professor S. Michael Halloran, of Rensselaer Polytechnic, whose cult ethos was essentially this: “The end of the world is upon us, so you might as well help us in bringing it on.”

I didn’t join the cult.

I went to law school instead, and that’s a whole other story for another day.

But I now understand that the Reich turned my father into an Eichmann—and they wanted to do the same to me! The secrecy of the cult is not just to protect power, it’s also to conceal shame and to protect family members. People in this cult are coerced to participate in horrific things in order to keep them traumatized and compliant, I now know.

My dad was manipulated to do things that hurt him and my family in ways he could never have foreseen—but that I know were done with the best of intentions under wickedly strong coercion, deception, and delusion. I have learned that some of these rituals are so traumatizing that dissociation may separate victims from their moral grounding and their very identity. I still love him and I forgive him.

From my own 1991 trauma-bond experience, and several other episodes of traumatic dissociation I’ve undergone since then, I have learned a way to overcome intense confusion and moral injury, and to recover my sense of self.

I learned to pray.

I found that by learning to appeal to the Creator directly, I could begin to focus on His divine truth, understand and accept His grace and mercy, and allow His compassion and forgiveness to restore my spirit. I was released from pain and grief, and I’m no longer confused about my identity or my mission.

And now that the Epstein files are open, the dots that Snowden, Julian Assange, and other brave whistleblowers revealed—those dots that formed constellations in the night sky—have started to light up the world.

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Good was shot and killed inside her SUV on the morning of January 7 in a confrontation with ICE on a snowy suburban street. Within hours, bystanders posted short videos of the incident from various angles, but the videos lacked context indicating what had occurred prior to the fatal confrontation. Good’s Honda Pilot can be seen accelerating down the street, then crashing into parked cars.

Younes, a former appellate advocate for indigent criminal defendants in New York state court, prefaced her commentary with her credentials and framed herself as a neutral expert: “I’m a former defense attorney and currently a civil liberties attorney with no political dog in this fight.”

Asserting she has “the right to change” her opinion “if additional information changes the calculus,” Younes claimed she had reviewed early video of the tragic confrontation between Renee Good and ICE and confidently asserted:

“It is very clear that the officers instigated the confrontation.”

As a trained attorney myself, I was astounded at Younes’ willingness to risk her reputation on such a strange hill without first investigating the facts of what occurred PRIOR TO the scene that emerges from the 9-second video clips.

But what’s more astonishing (and frankly shocking) are Younes’ statements of law that are dangerously, absurdly incorrect.

In the first wave of commentary about the encounter, many inferred Good was free to leave the scene — despite audio in some clips with the voice of an agent shouting to Good, “get out of the f—— vehicle!”

Indeed, Younes bolsters the notion that Good was free to leave by asserting: “a woman surrounded by masked, armed men who have no law enforcement authority over her has every right to try to escape.”

But there is no “right to try to escape” or flee a law enforcement encounter simply because one believes the encounter may be unlawful. In fact, resisting or evading a federal officer is a crime, and attempting to evade law enforcement tends to lead to dangerous escalation. The common-sense advice: If someone believes she has been unlawfully stopped or detained by law enforcement, she should cooperate, and then call an attorney later to vindicate her rights via a civil rights action.

The Encounter Was Lawful

Under Younes’ view, the claim that ICE officers have “no law enforcement authority over” U.S. citizens suggests that citizens can interfere with ICE operations or commit crimes against ICE agents with impunity. Clearly that is not the case.

Contrary to Younes’ assertions, ICE agents in the course of executing their enforcement duties have statutory authority to stop, question, detain and arrest U.S. citizens, codified at 8 U.S. Code § 1357(a)(5).

Moreover, federal law criminalizes interfering with a federal officer to hinder the officer’s ability to perform his duties. Aggressive actions, such as physically blocking, shoving, or restraining an officer may bring felony assault charges under 18 U.S. Code § 111 (“Assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees”).

This statute applies to U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike.

For example, in April 2024 Carlos Verduzco-Muniz pled guilty to both illegal border entry and felony assault on a Guardsman with the Texas Military Forces and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

U.S. Congresswoman LaMonica McIver was indicted in June 2025 under Section 111 after an incident involving physical interference at an ICE facility in New Jersey. On an oversight visit, McIver (wearing red) was caught on video outside the Delaney Hall detention facility initiating a hostile confrontation with an officer, whose back is toward her.

This week a federal judge rejected McIver’s legislative immunity argument in the congresswoman’s third motion to dismiss, and the case proceeds to trial.

For activists who seek to exercise their First Amendment rights, civil rights attorneys like Younes should advise on the limits of their rights to protest lawfully and on how to protest safely.

And they should make it clear that interfering with ICE activities is a federal crime — absolutely outside the bounds of Constitutionally-protected expression.

“ICE Watch” Warrior

As a fuller picture of the incident emerged, the reason for the presence of the Goods and their SUV on that icy street became clear.

By January 8, news reports of statements from Good’s family members and eyewitnesses suggested that Good had coordinated with local activists and was consciously leading or participating in an operation to obstruct ICE by blocking the road with vehicles. “They clearly wanted her out of there because she was the main car leading the protest,” neighbor Emily Heller, who witnessed the fatal shooting, told MPR News. “She was very successful in blocking traffic. She was doing what she set out to do.”

That evening the New York Post reported Good had been involved with “ICE watch” activism and that her 6-year-old son attended a private school “dedicated to social justice education.”

Cell phone footage released just today reveals Good’s partner verbally taunting the ICE officer who fired the shots to “show your face” and “come at us” just seconds before the fatal incident.

Less than three hours after the cell phone footage emerged, Younes pounced.

“Conservatives are claiming that new footage from the ICE officer’s phone proves he acted in self-defense. That is not true.”

Younes analyzes what she sees in the video: “Good’s wife was being obnoxious and confrontational;” “Good had the steering wheel turned hard to the right, indicative of an attempt to flee, not run over the officer.”

But Younes doesn’t ask why Good is stopped in the road, nor why her partner, identified in news reports as Rebecca Good, is outside the SUV being obnoxious. There is no inquiry about WHY Good stomped the gas to initiate an “attempt to flee” — in direct opposition to the officer’s order to “get out of the f—— vehicle!”

Younes persists in the mythology that ICE officers have no authority here, and that their presence can be safely ignored and dismissed with a literal wave of the hand: “The woman initially tried to wave them past her.”

Based on the evidence I think it’s clear the officer fired in self-defense, but I agree with Younes on one thing: Renee Good should not have died.

If Renee had had a proper understanding of the law, and of the dangerousness of putting herself physically between ICE and the execution of their law enforcement duties, might the 37-year-old mom have thought twice before taking part?

Was this tragedy foreseeable? Could a mistaken, delusional belief that the law does not apply to her — in someone who adheres zealously to anti-ICE ideology — be the catalyst to radicalize a mom to commit an act of obstruction, or even terrorism?

Being in a vehicle may have enhanced the dangerousness compared to anti-ICE activism we saw in 2025, where protestors blocked roads with their bodies. Driving a 2-ton vehicle meant Renee was operating a potentially lethal weapon, justifying lethal force in a self-defense situation.

Bodies On The Line

Does Younes have a “political dog in this fight”? Glenn Greenwald touts Younes’ work combatting censorship, leading a lawsuit against the Biden administration, as evidence of her lack of political bias.

Younes currently works for ADC, a left-leaning Arab-focused civil rights organization closely aligned with the ACLU. ADC supports refugee admissions, advocates for benefits like Temporary Protected Status for people from Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan, and opposes mass deportation. During the Biden administration ADC opposed Title 42 Covid-related entry restrictions, and ADC opposes President Trump’s current ban on admissions from Muslim countries.

In March 2025 ADC issued a statement strongly condemning the “ICE targeting” of Mahmoud Khalil, calling his investigation and arrest “an extreme and blatant act of political retaliation for Khalil’s First Amendment-protected advocacy” on behalf of Palestinians. In September 2025 an immigration judge ruled Khalil’s failure to disclose on his green card application his prior work history with UNRWA (a UN agency linked to Hamas) was a material omission, leading to a deportation order which Khalil is now challenging in the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

After his release on bail, Mahmoud Khalil participated in a panel at ADC’s 2025 ArabCon convention. In a discussion titled “Bodies on the Line: From Influence to Power,” Khalil was featured with other “movement leaders” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war non-profit CODEPINK, and Chris Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labor Union. ADS maintains a dedicated support page for Khalil and is fundraising for his legal defense (he’s represented by attorneys from the ACLU).

It’s hard to fathom how the legal director of pro-immigration, anti-deportation ADC can keep a straight face while claiming “no political dog” in the fight.

Younes’ anti-law enforcement bias is undeniable. On the morning of January 8, less than 24 hours after the first video clips surfaced, Younes posted about “a phenomenal lawyer who specializes in holding law enforcement accountable for overreach” who was offering to represent Renee Good’s family pro bono.

To assert, on the basis of minimal preliminary evidence, that ICE agents must be held accountable for “overreach” is the very definition of prejudice: to hold a preconceived opinion.

Lawyers have opinions. But a preconceived opinion against law enforcement in these circumstances proves a political agenda.

Do Jenin Younes’ twisting of facts and her profound misstatements of law suggest a new form of “unrestricted lawfare” meant to embolden activists to take risky acts against ICE?

Time will tell.

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My first report to DCSA, filed February 5, 2025 shortly after President Trump took office, can be read here. It consists mostly of quoted material from Adams’ first three Shawn Ryan Show interviews (2023-2025) and other media appearances from early 2025, where she was positioned as a counterterrorism expert with insider access and exclusive HUMINT sources regarding Al Qaeda leadership, organizational structure, training details, and operational plans.

This new report documents a number of more recent instances of Adams’ public statements and social media posts that, in my view, deserve scrutiny for possible violations of federal laws including the Espionage Act, the Smith-Mundt Act and the Logan Act, as well as possible serious violations of DOD regulations.

As my readers on X have seen, I’ve taken “friendly fire” from Americans who view Adams as a patriot, doing her duty to warn us about the increased terror threat we currently face here in the United States.

Truth is, you don’t need experts to tell you that the U.S. is more vulnerable than ever to acts of sabotage and terrorism from foreign-trained operatives.

Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ ultra vires actions and policies to create the “lawful pathways” and the incidental circumstances for vast numbers of unvetted illegal aliens to flood our borders directly contravened the statutory mission of DHS as defined in the Homeland Security Act: To make the U.S. less vulnerable to acts of foreign terrorism.

But Adams’ messaging does more than simply raise the alarm (and sell books) — she’s projecting a specific Al Qaeda narrative that appears intended to influence the U.S. public and members of Congress. In recent months her efforts to propel that narrative appear to have extended into unethical, possibly unlawful territory.

Reporting deliberate propaganda by a serving DOD employee and former CIA officer is not a personal take-down; it is a legal and ethical duty for anyone with knowledge of the activity.

I’m not challenging Adams’ credentials or questioning her patriotism.

I am only documenting facts.

I’m not publishing this report for personal attention, likes, clicks, book sales or subscribes (all of my socials are unmonetized). I’m not building a brand.

I am publishing it in an attempt to hold the DCSA and the DOD publicly accountable.

To: Unauthorized Disclosure Program Management Office (UDPMO)

From: KimWexlerMAJD@yahoo.com

Date: December 9, 2025

Re: Ongoing concerns regarding Sarah Adams

I am writing to report a series of very serious disinformation activities, potential OPSEC risks, and mishandling of sensitive information by Sarah Adams, who identifies herself as a current Program Analyst with the Air Force Intelligence Systems Support Office (ISSO) and former CIA targeting officer.

Adams has been reported previously via DoD insider threat reporting channels, and she stated publicly in May that she was the subject of an adversarial FBI investigation.1

Despite this, her recent behavior shows her activities are escalating — to include the dissemination of “black propaganda” falsely attributed to ISIS, as well as openly taunting and threatening the Taliban on social media.

The overarching theme to Adams’ media campaign is encapsulated in a recent LinkedIn comment: “a massive 9/11 is coming, it’s not chatter, they trained and deployed the terrorists here the last few years, the key is to prepare as no one is thwarting it at this point.”2 Adams claims Al Qaeda is now led by Hamza bin Laden, the organization regrouped after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and they are now in the operational stage of a massive terror attack on the United States. She expounds on this theme in a report she published on September 11, 2025, titled “Hamza bin Laden: Know Thy Enemy.”3

As a self-identified DoD program analyst with over 360K followers on X, Adams’ actions risk undermining national security, eroding public trust in intelligence assessments, and potentially exposing U.S. operations to foreign adversaries, in violation of the Espionage Act.

The actions documented below meet multiple Insider Threat behaviors under DoD Directive 5205.16, including:

• Attempting to manipulate public perception about the U.S. security posture toward Afghanistan using forged materials while leveraging official DoD affiliation

• Deliberately disseminating false information that qualifies as “black propaganda” to manipulate public perception, potentially interfering with a U.S. election

• Apparent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive personal data from what appear to be authentic passports of wives of Afghan officials

Given Adams’ active security clearance, continued access to intelligence systems, and public profile due to multiple appearances on the Shawn Ryan Show and other podcasts aimed at the military, veteran and SOF community, these incidents represent a continuing risk. The failure of the U.S. Air Force and DoD to take timely action gives rise to speculation that her activities have the approval of her USAF supervisors — adding to the public’s confusion.

The lack of consequences thus far appears to embolden Adams, as her publications are escalating in intensity and in recklessness.

The most recent widely-distributed incidents include:

December 4, 2025: “Leaks, Lies and Lessons: Taliban, This One’s for You”

This long post claps back at Taliban-connected social media accounts for what Adams characterizes as “a ridiculous social media campaign accusing me of being a Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy and by supporting other misinformation campaigns—a feeble attempt to distract from the fact that they still can’t figure out how I compromised their General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) and their Ministries of Interior and Defense. As most people know, I’m not one to get mad. I’m one to get even….”

The post includes four short video clips. “On November 27, we monitored the movements of American-made Navistar 7000 military trucks loaded with light and heavy weapons and ammunition departing the central depots of the Taliban’s three principal military and intelligence institutions: the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, and the GDI. Attached are videos so the Taliban understands that I am serious here.”

The identity of “we” (“we monitored the movements”) is unclear from the immediate post context. Readers might reasonably assume she’s referring to the U.S. Department of Defense, although Adams has often stated that her information comes from her own cultivated HUMINT sources in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Adams claims these trucks “were ferrying weapons left behind by the United States, along with ammunition from Taliban-controlled depots in the Central and Eastern Zones, to newly constructed ‘classified’ (oops, classified no longer) storage sites in Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Helmand provinces….”

Adams stated that the relocation was a reaction to recent air strikes from Pakistan. “The strikes rattled the Taliban’s leadership, and I enjoyed every second of the internal implosions, as they couldn’t find the source of the leak(s) that compromised their weapons depots. It finally hit them that their entire storage network was no longer safe or secure.”

Claiming the plan to redistribute the weapons was ordered by Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Haibatullah on October 15, 2025, Adams goes on to provide a detailed account of the plan’s execution. “Along the route, observation posts were established about every 60 miles on mountaintops and high ridges to monitor the entire process…. And here is the part the Taliban will really hate: every one of these movements was tracked. Every handoff. Every convoy. Every tunnel entrance. If you think you buried those locations so deep that no one knows where you’re hiding your arsenal now, you are sorely mistaken.”

This December 4, 2025 X post is available here

https://x.com/tpasarah/status/1996633088189722848?s=61 (archived: https://archive.ph/PEizc)

December 1-2, 2025 — The Transatlantic Intelligence Consortium and the fabricated Hamza bin Laden video

Guido Blaauw (@cyberpionier or “Guido” on X) is a Dutch man who formed an organization he calls the Transatlantic Intelligence Consortium or TIC (@TransatlanticIC on X). Dutch media outlet Omroep Brabant has published exposés debunking Blaauw’s claims of prior work for the Dutch intelligence service AIVD and for the CIA, and exposing a fundraising scheme that led to a class action lawsuit against Blaauw in the Netherlands.4 Sarah Adams contributed to the book Al Qaeda 2.0: The Upcoming Attack on the United States and Europe Unveiled, published by TIC and released under the pseudonym “William Archer,” whose fabricated bio appears on the back of an early edition of the book.5 On the book’s Amazon page, TIC is described as:

a specialized think tank composed of former intelligence officers and counterterrorism experts from Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. Focused exclusively on the fight against terrorism, TIC conducts cutting-edge research and analysis on terrorist networks, radicalization, and global counterterrorism strategies….6

Adams has an integral role within TIC. She is one of four people credited on the book’s Acknowledgements page, where she is thanked for her “expertise and meticulous attention to detail” that were “crucial in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the information presented. [Adams’] hard work, dedication, and unwavering commitment to excellence have significantly enhanced the quality of this book.”7

Blaauw claims TIC will be releasing a second book soon, to be titled: The Triad of Terror: The Strategic Collaboration Between Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network.8

On December 1, Adams “quote-posted” an X post from Guido Blaauw’s X account, adding her own comment “been ready for this release 😎” referring to Blauuw’s tease of a “‘virtual bomb’ that will disrupt the narrative.” See Attachment A.

Later on December 1, Guido published a video on X that he claimed was “the first visual proof of Hamza bin Laden since 2011, leading Al-Qaeda alive and well from Afghanistan in 2025.” Adams quickly shared Guido’s post containing the fabricated video without adding any disclaimer or commentary of her own. See Attachment B.

Adams argued over the video’s authenticity with X users, including @Grok. See Attachment C.

On December 3, Dutch combat veteran Roy Grinwis (@RoyGrinwis on X) demonstrated how he created the “deepfake” Hamza video using AI software. Grinwis explains his motive: “I fed them fabricated intel to prove they are spreading dangerous disinformation.” The video itself, and the step-by-step process Grinwis followed to create the video and feed it to Guido, is exposed in Grinwis’ thread.9

November 28, 2025 – Fabricated Guardian Article

The “ISI Spy” allegations Adams complains of in her December 4 post came in response to Adams’ November 28 X post in which she published a photoshopped screenshot of a non-existent web page appearing to be from UK news outlet The Guardian with the headline “U.S. Locked into Key Targets in Afghanistan,” projecting an imminent-strike narrative.

The article shows a map of Afghanistan with three locations in the mountains near Kabul labeled with red crosshair target markers. The fabricated article leads: “In a swift and decisive response to yesterday’s unprecedented attack on the White House, U.S. military forces have reportedly ‘locked onto’ key targets in Afghanistan, officials confirmed Thursday. The strikes are part of an ongoing effort to neutralize terrorist networks suspected of orchestrating the assault on the nation’s capital.”

This fabrication was published less than 48 hours after the November 26 shooting that targeted National Guardsmen on duty in Washington DC, killing one and seriously wounding another. Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national, was identified in a November 27 joint DOJ-FBI press conference.10

The Guardian article does not exist — The Guardian has no record of it. Adams included no disclaimer or label in her post, such as “satire” or “mock-up”.

The URL is https://x.com/TPASarah/status/1994404412937187384 and the post was still live and viewable on X as of December 9, 2025. The post has also been digitally archived: https://archive.ph/X97ZG. See Attachment D.

November 4, 2025 – “Operation ‘Manhattan Project’” ISIS Election-Day Hoax

At 9:26am ET on November 4, 2025, the day of the New York City mayoral election, Adams posted on her X account a fabricated ISIS/Amaq-style communiqué headed “Operation ‘Manhattan Project’” with her own header text claiming “ISIS is threatening New York City today.” The threat was amplified by other popular social media influencers who shared it to their readers, as well as by an article in PJ Media11 that afternoon, before New York City polls were closed.

The image reportedly originated on 4chan earlier that morning and was confirmed “100 percent fake” and “a joke” by Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who was quoted by AFP Fact Check.12 NewsGuard13 and France2414 also debunked the “Operation ‘Manhattan Project’” meme as a hoax.

On November 10, France24 misleadingly reported that “pro-Trump influencers” amplified the fabricated image AFTER Mamdani’s win, framing the faux ISIS communiqué as “commending the election result.”15 But in fact, the fabricated Islamic State message was published by Adams and amplified by others long BEFORE New York City polls were closed and results announced, racking up millions of views through reposts by other popular right-wing accounts (e.g. Alexander Duncan,16 Laura Loomer and Mossad Commentary17) while the polls were still open. Those reposts carried Adams’ original framing — that the message was an authentic statement from ISIS.

France24’s “jihadism expert” Wassim Nasr said the communiqué “bears no resemblance to what Amaq produces. The graphics are radically different. The text is in English, yet Amaq primarily communicates in Arabic…. For the Islamic State group, democracy contradicts divine laws. They would never endorse a candidate participating in the democratic process. Even the Muslim Brotherhood, which engages in democracy, is considered apostate by [Islamic State].”18

This publication, which Adams framed as an authentic threat from ISIS, meets the definition of “black propaganda” — i.e., false information, falsely attributed to an enemy in order to deceive. Adams’ X post has been deleted but is archived: https://archive.ph/Lyust. See Attachment E.

The communiqué was also posted on Instagram by askarimediagroup, an account associated with Sarah Adams. A screenshot taken at 1:29pm ET indicates the post was published “4 hours ago,” placing its publication at around the same time as the X post (embedded metadata suggests the Instagram post was published at 8:36am ET). It’s important to note that whether Adams created the fabricated message and image herself or not, her X and Instagram accounts appear to be the earliest vectors of its dissemination. See Attachment F.

“Housewives of the Taliban” Series (August 30 - September 1, 2025)

Between August 30 - September 1 Adams published approximately 19 unredacted Afghan passports — including photographs — of women she labels “Housewives of the Taliban.” No consent, redaction, or verification is provided. Afghan women’s rights advocates and multiple X users have flagged this as a serious privacy concern and potential exploitation of victims of Taliban coercion.

See Attachment G for a representative example of the unredacted passport images. Adams stated she obtained the images from “the passport database.”19

The unredacted “Housewives of the Taliban” X posts are still live as of December 9, 2025. If a passport database was accessed and information shared without authorization, these posts may be evidence of criminal activity. I have documented and archived the links below.

They are:

0 - “Introducing Housewives of the Taliban” (“If Afghan women are forbidden from having photographs on their national identity documents, then by the same standard, the wives of Taliban members should also be denied photographs on passports, marriage certificates and every official record. These women are not innocent bystanders; they are married to terrorists…. If the Taliban reverses their ban on women’s photographs, then we will stop releasing the photographs of their wives.”) https://x.com/TPASarah/status/1961894599699706271?s=20 (archived: https://archive.ph/hijWx)

[WITHHELD FOR PRIVACY]

I respectfully request that this matter be proactively monitored under a Continuous Vetting (CV) review process and referred to AFOSI, DCSA and FBI for formal investigation.

I cannot stress enough that this should be treated as high priority. The lack of action from the DoD on this ongoing threat is causing unnecessary confusion and distress to U.S. citizens and GWOT veterans, and it reflects poorly on the U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Respectfully,

“Kim Wexler” MA JD

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The problem: Under current law, any unaccompanied child (UAC) from a non-contiguous country (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, etc.) must be turned over to HHS’s Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR) for placement with a “sponsor.” Children from Mexico and Canada can be returned home the same day.

That single distinction is the primary reason thousands of children from non-contiguous countries are put into the hands of cartel smugglers each year. Children will continue to be at risk until the loophole is closed.

Failing to amend the loophole in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) would lead to the absurd, unintended yet foreseeable result that UACs will continue to be brought to the U.S. by Mexican smuggling cartels while the Trump administration is simultaneously deporting the families these minors are presumably coming to the U.S. to join !!

Todd Bensman explains that the TVPRA’s differential treatment requires “that DHS stay deportations for child border crossers from non-contiguous countries and get them into the asylum system with access to lawyers and, while waiting for that, reunite them with family already in the United States at government expense.”

DHS Referrals to ORR, 2012-20242

According to Bensman, broader discovery of this loophole sparked the calamitous flow of UACs to our southern border: “The TVPRA legally enshrined catch-and-release for unaccompanied minors.”3

Why Amending the TVPRA is Necessary: ORR reports 23,997 UACs were placed with sponsors in FY 2025. While we see a slow decline from the peak of 128,904 UACs placed in 2022, President Trump’s requested $4.3 billion for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance funding line suggests large numbers of UACs are anticipated to continue arriving.

Proof the Legislative Fix Works: Mexico is subject to the contiguous country rule. After full implementation, Mexican UAC encounters fell from ~16,000 (FY 2014) to 5,000-7,000 per year and have stayed relatively low.

The Solution: A legislative fix has already been drafted. TVPRA Sec. 235 can be revised with language from H.R. 2, Sec. 502 (118th Congress) via a manager’s amendment to the NDAA during reconciliation.4

The best way to protect children from the risks of cartel violence and extortion is to disincentivize the journey. Every unaccompanied alien child should be treated the same way we already treat Mexican and Canadian children — immediate repatriation after the existing trafficking/persecution screen.

It goes without saying that protecting children from cartel extortion and abuse should be a goal of both parties. In the bipartisan Homeland Security Advisory Council’s CBP Families and Children Care Panel Final Report (2019), in a section on Interim Emergency Recommendations, “appointees from both parties urged lawmakers to amend the TVPRA to require the same treatment of non-Mexican minors as for Mexican kids, which would then allow for the expedited removal and turn the tractor beam off.”5

In 2021 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Joseph Edlow, now director of USCIS, underscored the necessity of legislative reforms to address the crisis. Edlow cited DHS reports showing that between 60-79 percent of UACs were placed with sponsors who were in the U.S illegally. Edlow recommended amending the TVPRA “to end the unequal treatment of UACs in section 235(a)(3) and (b) of TVPRA who are not from Canada or Mexico.”6

Andrew Arthur of CIS crunched the numbers in 2020 and noticed that “illegal entries did not quickly jump” when the TVPRA 2008 amendment passed, “but when migrants and smugglers figured out what they could now get away with, they skyrocketed.”7

In September 2025 Arthur revisited the TVPRA “nightmare” and how it created unintended but foreseeable consequences: “There are many flaws in section 235 of the TVPRA, but the biggest is its failure to hold any government agency responsible for UACs once they are placed with sponsors. Logically, that’s because Congress concluded their sponsors could be trusted to care for them, but 17 years of experience shows that’s not always true, and when it’s not the child can face dire consequences.”8

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This document is available as one one-sheet, downloadable, printable pdf.

Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli, the Army reservist turned January 6 defendant who was convicted in 2022 on five counts including obstruction of an official proceeding and sentenced to four years, has launched a devastating public attack on his former DC Jail cellmate Jake Lang.

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Hale-Cusanelli, who was released in late 2023 and fully pardoned in January 2025 under President Trump’s mass J6 pardons and commutations, posted a series of accusations against Lang on X on November 19, 2025.

Edward Jacob Lang was one of the highest-profile J6 defendants whose case did not go to trial. Lang spent nearly four years in DC Jail awaiting trial for his actions in the Capitol tunnel on January 6, 2021. He was also among those pardoned in 2025.

Edward Jacob Lang

Lang was charged with multiple serious felonies including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and use of a dangerous weapon—a baseball bat.

Among Hale-Cusanelli’s direct claims:

“Jake Lang was my cellmate and is a federal informant.”

“He’s a plant. His family served in the IDF. Antifa member and BLM rioter years ago. He’s a stalker, con artist and junkie who has been in and out of trouble his whole life. Not a conservative, not a Trump supporter and didn’t even vote. Tried snitching on the Oath Keepers. Fraud.”

Hale-Cusanelli further alleged:

Jake Lang by his own father’s words was a junkie criminal before January 6. His relatives have outed him as a former BLM/Antifa rioter. Everyone who did time with him knows he’s an anarchist, not MAGA. Records show he didn’t vote for Trump. He spent the decade before January 6 running online marketing scams and financial crimes. Jake was staging astroturf protests before January 6, including coopting the yellow vest movement [an uprising in France in 2020], and is still doing it.

On Lang’s religious identity and behavior inside the jail, Hale-Cusanelli wrote:

“He’s also Jewish, a self-described rabbi, claimed in jail that Jesus was a Roman invention and declared himself a messiah.”

“Inside the DC jail he had absolute contempt for Christ and Christianity… He ran a cult inside the DC jail with himself as Messiah.”

Lang also behaved as an agent provocateur inside the jail, Hale alleged.

“He wanted people to hit him. It would’ve only fucked their cases up more.… Jake got us locked down for a week on Easter weekend by inciting a riot.”

Hale-Cusanelli accused Lang of attempting to entrap other inmates:

“Jake has repeatedly tried entrapping people with fake militia plots. He tried setting up other inmates in the DC Gulag including myself and the Oath Keepers.” Hale claimed Lang tried to get Oath Keepers to sign a “Declaration of Sedition” confessing intent to overthrow the government.

On political motives, Hale-Cusanelli wrote:

“His family served in the IDF and I have correspondence with him from the DC jail demanding the US send Israel foreign aid while keeping America’s borders open. If you didn’t support foreign aid to Israel he called you antisemitic. He’s a Zionist.”

“Jake Lang wants Christians and Muslims to fight because it’s his job to stir racial and religious hatred.”

What sparked Hale’s comments?

On November 18, Lang—who is running for U.S. Senate in Florida and has no documented connection to Michigan—organized and led a small anti-Islam protest at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Schaefer Street in Dearborn, a city with one of the largest Muslim and Arab-American populations in the United States.

Republican candidate for governor Anthony Hudson had initially planned an anti-Sharia protest in Dearborn for November 18, but after visiting mosques in the area he reportedly changed his position, calling for unity and cancelling his protest.

Lang organized and promoted his “Americans Against Islamification” march in direct reaction to Hudson’s change of heart. Lang kicked off the march standing in front of a wrapped bus designed to look like a campaign bus for Hudson.

With red spray paint Lang dramatically painted the parked bus with the word “cuck,” accusing Hudson of being a “weak spineless coward” and a “cuckold.”

“There can be no room for Sharia law,” Lang told the gathering crowd of protestors and reporters. “Our country is worth fighting for,” he said. “White, western civilization is worth dying for. […] Go home. We don’t want you here. […] It’s America first, and it’s America only, okay? Our country was made for our people. […] We will be leading this march today. Anthony Hudson, go bow down somewhere else. […] We cannot have Islamic jihadists playing their prayer call over our children while they’re trying to walk to school….”

Documentarian Brendan Gutenschwager captured video showing dozens of marchers and counter-demonstrators blocking traffic. His X post is captioned: “Chaotic scene in Dearborn after Jake Lang brought out another Quran and smacked bacon against it after a prior attempt to burn one.”

Lang told reporters Anthony Hudson’s campaign manager had quit the campaign and had given the bus to Lang. “We’ve got the bus!” Lang said. “We’ve got Dearborn for the Christians. F*ck the Muslims. Go home.”

Hudson later told reporters, “that’s not my bus. The skinny guy in all black, with the glasses, that’s his bus. If he wants to spend $5,000 to wrap a bus and then spray paint it, that’s how stupid some Americans are. I’m here to let you know, I am not affiliated with that crowd, and that was not my bus that was sitting here. I didn’t come on that bus, I’m not leaving on that bus.”

The “skinny guy all in black” who actually owns the bus has been identified by Scott McMahan at Bigger Truth Media as Anthony Hudson’s former campaign manager, Jayden Scott.

Following the march, Lang spoke to Dearborn city council, where Muslim members are in the majority. Although city elections are officially non-partisan, the council overwhelmingly supports Mayor Abdullah Hammoud’s Democrat-leaning agenda.

Documentarian Ford Fischer’s video of Lang’s address went viral.

“You guys are outbreeding, insidious parasites,” Lang said. “[Muslims] are looking to destroy everything that makes America great.”

Lang said:

We know exactly your laws, in your books, about lying to our faces. Pretending to be Americans, wearing suits. But that doesn’t happen anywhere else where you guys are in charge. There are 53 Muslim-majority countries. And in all of them, it is tyranny. Destruction. It is shit hole living. We have to call it like it is. You guys don’t live like we do. We don’t want you in our country. We will come and eat your shawarma in Somalia, ok? We don’t need it here in Michigan. We don’t need it in any part of America.

In a November 19 spot on One America News Network, Lang told Dan Ball:

“We are seeing an insidious movement. Muslims are outbreeding white Americans, Christian Americans—everybody. Because they have polygamy. They have four or five wives, and they are taking control of Minneapolis, Dearborn, New York City. The capitals of Western civilization have been conquered by Muslims.”

Lang said Islam “is not a religion. This is really a political, subversive movement to dominate the world. They come with an ideology that has nothing to do with religious faith. It has everything to do with becoming the most dominant race, religion and people in the world through these lying methods.”

The OANN anchor commended Lang “for going into the fire and taking some shrapnel.” A post from OANN on X calls Lang a “Christian Crusader.”

Also on November 19, an X account called Gentile News Network posted a screenshot attributed to what it claimed is a since-deleted, unarchived post from Jake Lang. The screenshot shows a young man draped with a prayer shawl holding his Bar Mitzvah certificate and kissing the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

In an interview with Matt Baker that dropped on November 21, Lang confirmed the Wailing Wall video was indeed him, and that the video and screenshots purported to originate from Lang’s account were authentic.

“I asked my Mossad handler to purposely scrub this video of me at the wall off the internet,” Lang joked with Baker, “and it’s just proliferated even more. I think they’re even working against me now. I have no friends, I’ve gone double dark, double black, double agent. You know, I have no friends there, no friends here, everybody’s after me.”

With the wall video running, Lang said, “I posted that three months ago, and it got hundreds of thousands of views, and it got 98 likes on it, 400,000 views.”

Lang also tells Baker that his mother is an Ashkenazit of Russian-Latvian-French heritage. “That’s her blood line, she’s from Russia.”

Lang also previews his next stunt, an appearance at a proposed master-planned residential community in Texas previously marketed as East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC). The plan has been rebranded as “The Meadows.”

“My next protest I am literally jumping out of a helicopter into EPIC city,” Lang told Baker. “I’m going to come swinging in on a helicopter.”

On the morning of Saturday, November 22, Lang announced he planned to file a “HUGE $50,000,000+ Million Dollar Federal SLANDER & DEFAMATION LAWSUIT” naming Jake Shields, Owen Shroyer, Ryan Matta, Myron Gaines, Stew Peters & Sulaiman Ahmed “for their false claims that I am ‘paid provocateur’ or ‘fed’ or a ‘Jewish bad actor pretending to be a Christian.”

I have NEVER worked with or aided law enforcement, the Israeli government, Mossad, FBI or any other official agency or private NGO for any of my events, protests or on J6

I have never taken a dollar from any organization or governmental agency & am entirely self-funded […]

I have documented witness testimony from dozens of men I baptized in prison, including many J6ers, and my Christian podcast I ran inside jail […]

I recently burnt a Talmud on my X account with over a million views […]

The video of me at ‘The Wall’ was from 10 years ago on a family trip to Israel and was done as a tourist, before I ever was involved in politics

None of Lang’s J6 defense attorneys are connected to his defamation suit.

Tim Hale was not among the named defendants (neither was I).

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Emil J. Bove III is the Trump DOJ’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General who ordered prosecutors to seek dismissal of a grand jury indictment containing allegations of corruption against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The controversial dismissal was made for overtly political reasons — according to Bove’s memo, the case against Adams “interfered with Mayor Adams’ campaign in the 2025 mayoral election.” Acting U.S. Attorney for the SDNY, Danielle Sassoon, and least six other senior Justice Department officials resigned in protest over the decision. Sassoon accused the department of making a “quid pro quo” agreement with Adams to ensure his cooperation with ICE in order to avoid prosecution. In recent weeks no less than five civil lawsuits have been filed against Mayor Adams and the New York Police Department alleging corruption.

Emil J. Bove III is the DOJ official who hired Paul Ingrassia to serve as White House Liaison to the DOJ. Ingrassia, 30, just became licensed to practice law on July 30, 2024. So far his most notable professional achievement has been his public relations work — including his “advocacy campaign on the Hill” — on behalf of alleged sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate. Ingrassia reportedly advertised himself as an attorney before he became licensed, apparently violating the law of the State of New York and potentially of any other jurisdiction where he may have performed or advertised legal services. CNN reported (no paywall here) Ingrassia has a history of associating with outspoken antisemites such as the Tate brothers and Nick Fuentes. President Trump’s nomination of Ingrassia to serve as U.S. Special Counsel was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League in May, but this month he received an endorsement from the Zionist Organization of America.

Emil J. Bove III worked for the American-based international law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, which dates back to 1879 when it represented European and American bankers including J.P. Morgan Sr. The firm is associated with: the Rockefeller family; The Ford Foundation; Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles and the CIA; I.G. Farben and Nazi Germany; the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’etat; Sam Bankman Fried and the FTX scandal and other controversies.

Emil J. Bove III is President Trump’s nominee for a lifetime appointment to a seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In April, Bove fired a seasoned DOJ attorney at the Executive Office for Immigration Review for refusing to comply with directives the attorney believed would violate court orders and ethical obligations. That attorney, Erez Reuveni, submitted a protected whistleblower disclosure to Congress on June 24, the day before Bove’s confirmation hearing. Reuveni alleged that Bove directed DOJ immigration attorneys to violate court orders, to suppress evidence, and to mislead courts in order to further President Trump’s deportation agenda. Reuveni alleged that Bove told DOJ attorneys, in the context of a federal court ruling against the administration’s deportation policy, “DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘f— you’ and ignore any such order.”

Bove was advanced on July 17 by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a vote of 12-0. Twelve committee Republicans voted in favor of Bove, while Democrats declined to cast votes and walked out in protest after Chairman Chuck Grassley refused to allow debate. Senate Democrats are now requesting a hearing with whistleblower Reuveni ahead of taking a full Senate vote on Bove’s nomination.

Emil J. Bove III is the judicial nominee whose appointment to the bench is opposed by more than 75 former federal judges and more than 900 former DOJ attorneys. “Mr. Bove is singularly unqualified to sit on that very distinguished appellate court,” retired federal appellate court judge John E. Jones told MSNBC. “I’m struck by the unnecessary speed of the process…. It could only be attributable to a desire to ram this thing through before something else develops that could be problematic for that nominee.”

Emil J. Bove III is a man whose allegiance appears to belong not to principles, but to power. Senators of both parties should reject Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Last week Yon told the Awake to Truth podcast that despite President Trump’s efforts to secure the U.S. borders, the United Nations has no plans to stop promoting illicit “migration” through Latin America via its contracts and partnerships with non-governmental organizations including HIAS.

Rumble.com

According to HIAS.org, the organization was originally founded by the Jewish community in New York City over one hundred years ago: “HIAS has since helped generations of Jews facing violence and remains committed to helping Jewish refugees anywhere in the world.” But HIAS’ help goes to non-Jews too — and to people who do not qualify as refugees. According to Randoland, HIAS reported contributions and grants of $109.7 million in 2021, and $145.8 million in 2022. Grants were issued for programs aiding “all refugees approved for admission to the United States,” as well as programs aiding “vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants” in Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica and elsewhere “through community-based protection.” In Panama, HIAS’ website tells us, HIAS reached 43,900 people “directly through services in 2024,” and that HIAS received support from UNHCR, UN Women, ECHO, AECID, and the Hilton Foundation.

But how many HIAS donors know their donations have been used to bring illegal aliens who do not qualify for refugee status or protection — including Islamic jihadists — to the U.S., in collaboration with the UN?

According to Yon, “you’re going to have people who came through the Darien Gap, on, like, a golf course in West Palm Beach, killing Jewish people, screaming Allahu Akbar. And they will have been helped — by Jewish money! — coming through the Darien Gap,” he said. “HIAS is down there, and HIAS is one of the main engines of the Darien Gap. They’ve got an office that they leased right beside one of the camps.”

Like other charities that make up the UN-NGO “refugee” network that has been developing in Latin America since around 2018, HIAS receives funding not only through charitable donations but also through lucrative contracts with UN agencies, funded mostly by the U.S. State Department.

HIAS map showing routes from Colombia through Panama and Costa Rica.

Yon told Awake to Truth about a database with names and biographical information on people who traveled through the Darien Gap. According to Yon, the name of Laken Riley’s killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, as well as the names of Ibarra’s two brothers, are found in the database. Yon said everyone who travelled through the Darien Gap received assistance from HIAS at least twice. That means Ibarra and his brothers “were helped at least two times, absolute minimum, by HIAS.”

Yon has also reported on his Substack that other illegal aliens who have been in the news for committing violent crimes also appear in the database, indicating that they received help from HIAS to cross the Darien Gap. They include Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, of Mauritania, who shot a Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago last October, and two suspects arrested in connection with the May 25 death of U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet candidate Ava Moore, 18, who died in a jet ski hit-and-run crash on Grapevine Lake in Texas.

On June 1, an horrific terror attack in Boulder, Colorado targeted an event held by Israel supporters. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian national who had illegally overstayed his visa, used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, injuring 15 people with burns. Soliman reportedly shouted, “Free Palestine.” One of the victims, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor named Barbara Steinmetz, was profiled in the New York Post. A photo of Steinmetz shows her wearing a HIAS button with the words: “My people were refugees, too.”

New York Post

Mayorkas and HIAS, together in Panama

For a few months, prior to his confirmation as Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who is the son of Jewish refugees, served as a HIAS board member. During the Biden years, personal connections between humanitarian NGOs and U.S. government officials gave rise to speculation of cronyism in the awarding of contracts. Although NGO heads profited from UN contracts funded with U.S. tax dollars, the motives behind HIAS’ participation are not easily discerned.

According to Yon, Mayorkas “was installed to help the invasion of the United States. Which he did, in spades. If you wanted to be in a position to invade the United States, and do maximum damage to the United States, there’s really no better position than chief of the Department of Homeland Security.”

During the Biden years Yon made multiple trips to Panama’s Darien Gap, where he spent months at a time documenting activities at the invasion camps. Yon stressed to all who would listen — including Republican members of Congress like Tom Tiffany who visited the Darien Gap in 2021 — that Panama’s Darien Gap could be a strategic chokepoint to stop illegal border-crossing, and that closing the passage was imperative.

@Michael_Yon on X

According to Yon:

I was physically present when Mayorkas came down, bringing more money to increase the size of the camps. When Panama openly wanted to close the Darien Gap, he flew down. I was there, physically. Waiting. For four days. He landed right in front of me with four Black Hawk helicopters. I thought, if he comes to Panama he’s probably going to go to Darien, he’s probably going to land right here, and he’s probably going to go into this camp.

And he did! The next thing you know, here comes four Black Hawks from U.S. The SOUTHCOM [Commander] Laura Richardson was on one of the helicopters. The ambassador to Panama, [Mari Carmen] Aponte, U.S. ambassador, very woke, super left-wing, she was there. So they came in, showering money, and they increased the size of the flows.

In April 2023 Yon told The Florida Standard that Mayorkas’ trip, described publicly as an effort to discuss ways to curb the migration flow, was actually meant to accomplish the opposite. He reported watching land being cleared to expand the camps, and seeing trailers delivering brand new bunk beds.

Mayorkas’ trip was in anticipation of the lifting of the Title 42 public health order on May 12, 2023. The order barred entry to the United States of anyone who tested positive for Covid-19. In a 20-page memo Mayorkas laid out his plan to contend with “migration levels” which he anticipated would sharply increase when mandatory Covid testing at the border ended. Mayorkas’ stated goal was to “surge resources” — not to help Panama enhance its border security, but to “enhance processing efficiency” to “further facilitate safe and orderly inspection of noncitizens” at our borders. The Biden administration also deployed additional Border Patrol agents and coordinated with NGOs in local communities to accommodate the expected surge.

The Role of the United Nations

Yon emphasized that the main driver behind mass migration was the UN — not the transnational cartels. The cartels “did not pick up these people in Mauritania, in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in India, 150 countries. China. It’s not them, it’s United Nations,” Yon said.

@Michael_Yon on X

“United Nations, and others, want you to focus on the drug cartels,” he said. “Yeah, go after those guys — it doesn’t matter. That’s like going after a water spigot when a dam is breaking…. It’s a distraction, so that we’re chasing the rabbit, and meanwhile the lion is chasing us.”

In a hearing before the DOGE Subcommittee on June 4, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies testified about his organization’s investigation of the UN-NGO network that Yon first described in 2021. Krikorian’s testimony explained how aid intended for “humanitarian assistance” for legitimate refugees was exploited by the UN intentionally to undermine U.S. immigration laws.

“So, when we cut off the Darien Gap and the other flows,” Yon said, “but we leave the United Nations in place — and they are in place — then the flows are going to increase again. The reason the Darien Gap is open — specifically, unequivocally, no room for light — is because the United States has kept it open.”

Project Homecoming

From late December 2024 through April of this year, Yon reported on the continued presence and activities in Panama of the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), which he observed to be active at its headquarters in the City of Knowledge. He also reported lead “migration” NGO, HIAS, was still operating at its office near the entrance of “China Camp” near San Vicente, Darien Province. At that time, Yon reported that continuing operations suggested the UN-NGO network was not being dismantled.

https://hias.org/where/panama/

On May 9 the Washington Post revealed that the Trump administration had contracted with IOM to help implement President Trump’s voluntary return program, Project Homecoming. The Washington Post described it as the president’s “nationwide campaign to reward undocumented immigrants who ‘self-deport,’” offering a $1,000 cash “exit bonus” and free flights home. IOM officials told the Washington Post that the organization would “assist in making sure the process is safe and dignified.” According to USASpending, the IOM contract with the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is worth $25.0 million and runs from March 14, 2025 through March 14, 2026.

Yon, who is currently in Texas, continues to update his readers about events in Panama — including civil unrest that is escalating to violence.

A security alert issued by the U.S. Embassy in Panama City on June 20, which Yon discussed on his Substack, stated that Panama had declared “a state of emergency to restore order” after labor union-organized protests turned violent, and noted that an airport closure “is now affecting essential supply chains to the islands of the Bocas Del Toro Archipelago.” On June 22, Starlink sent out a press release stating that the government of Panama had ordered the suspension of all internet service “in the region,” till further notice. Yon assesses the situation in Panama as “part of the same war Israel is in. And Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, United States of course … this is Global War.”

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Chaired by Rep. B. Carroll Reece (R.) of Tennessee, the Committee was formed during the McCarthy era to investigate “unAmerican activities” — which Dodd defined as “a determination to effect changes in the country by unconstitutional means.” Congress sought to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable institutions (including what we call today “non-governmental organizations” and 501(c)(3) non-profit corporations) to ensure that their aims and activities were consistent with their tax-exempt status.

Norman Dodd

In a 1982 interview with American author G. Edward Griffin, Dodd shared facts he uncovered during his investigation that did not appear in the Congressional committee’s final report — nor in any other official records.

Dodd told Griffin that in an “off-the-record” meeting with Horace Rowan Gaither Jr., then President of the Ford Foundation (and co-founder of the RAND Corporation), Gaither revealed the following:

Mr. Dodd, all of us who have a hand in the making of policies, here, have had experience either with the [Office of Strategic Services] during the war, or with European economic administration after the war. We have had experience operating under directives. These directives emanate, and did emanate, from the White House.

Now, we still operate under just such directives…. Mr. Dodd, we are here to operate in response to similar directives, the substance of which is that we shall use our grant-making power [in order] to alter life in the United States, [so] that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.

Dodd went on to relate the story of Kathryn Casey, an attorney on Dodd’s research team. Dodd described Casey as a “reasonably brilliant lady” who was highly skeptical of the committee’s mission because she believed the endowments “do so much good.”

Casey was assigned to investigate the Carnegie Endowment by reading the handwritten minute books for the Endowment, which was organized in 1908. Casey spent several weeks “spot reading” sections of the minutes covering time periods that Dodd had flagged, and she recorded her findings via Dictaphone.

Dodd relates that during their first meeting, as Kathryn Casey learned, the Carnegie Endowment trustees “raise a specific question, which they discuss throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion. And the question is: Is there any means known [that is] more effective than war — assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And they conclude that no more effective means than war, to that end, is known to humanity. So then, they raise the second question, and discuss it: namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?”

And finally, “they answer that question as follows: we must control the State Department.”

Casey found that after World War I, the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment trustees reflect a shift in their interests to prevent what Dodd calls “a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914, when World War I broke out.”

Dodd determined to educate Congress “as to the effect on the country as a whole of the activities of large endowed foundations over the, then, past 40 years. That effect,” Dodd said, “was to orient our educational system away from support of the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and implemented in the Constitution.” Dodd wanted Congress to understand “the effect of the wealth which constituted the endowments of those foundations that had been in existence over the largest portion of the span of fifty years,” and to hold them accountable for this change.

Dodd explains that the Carnegie Endowment trustees decided they “must control education in the United States.… What we uncovered was the determination of these large foundations, through their trustees, to actually get control over the content of American education.”

Realizing the task of controlling political thought within the U.S. educational system was too big for them alone, the Carnegie Endowment enlisted the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. Together they focused on the teaching of American history, and worked to cultivate their own “stable” of American history professors who would support their agenda: “The future of this country belongs to collectivism, administered with characteristic American efficiency.”

Today, the Carnegie Endowment, formally founded in 1910, describes itself as a think tank. The full name of the institution Casey investigated is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

carnegieendowment.org

The story that emerged from Kathryn Casey’s investigation never reached the Reece Committee.

Dodd said committee hearings, which began in 1954, were quickly terminated after Rep. Wayne Hayes (D.) from Ohio “put on a show in the public hearing room that was an absolute disgrace. He called Carroll Reece publicly every name in the book.”

Dodd said Congressman Hayes smeared Congressman Reece and his research team with the false allegation of antisemitism: “That was a cooked-up idea,” Dodd said. “It wasn’t true at all.”

Dodd said he believes Hayes’ “furor” was spurred by pressure from the White House. “They had to have something in the way of a rationalization of their decision to do everything they could to stop completion of this investigation, given the direction that it was moving,” he said. “That direction would have been exposure of this Carnegie Endowment story, and the Ford Foundation, and the Guggenheim, and the Rockefeller Foundation — all working in harmony toward the control of education in the United States.”

In July 1954 Roscoe Drummond, political journalist and writer of the “Report from Washington” column, wrote1 that the “irresponsible” Reece Committee inquiry had “blown up” in the committees’ face.

The committee has spread onto the public record the most extravagant accusations, with the words “subversion,” “conspiracy,” “plot” and “un-American” being tossed about with abandon, and is slyly shutting up shop without allowing rebuttal from the same rostrum. […]

Chairman Reece had a scheme to try to show that most of the nation’s domestic legislation and most of its foreign policy (from Roosevelt through Eisenhower) was a “plot” and “conspiracy” by a little group of educators and philanthropists, and the sudden dismantling of the public hearings in mid-gutter is ample confession: That these meat-ax charges were not being proved to anybody’s satisfaction and that the public was quickly on to it. […]

In a December 1954 column2 marking the publication of the Reece Committee’s report, Drummond excoriated Congressman Reece for his claim, “announced from the floor of the House, before undertaking his ‘investigation,’” that Reece would prove that behind the foundations’ activities “lies the story of how communism and socialism are financed in the United States.”

Drummond asserted that the committee’s staff was selected “because of their bias” and were permitted to “weave an almost wholly unsupported set of ‘findings’ much of which has no visible foundation in the hearing record.” He slammed the committee for denying the foundations “a basic American right — to answer your accuser in the forum in which he had accused you,” as well as for what he called “blatant neglect of investigative duty.”

Drummond concluded that the committee’s work was terminated early because “Chairman Reece must have figured that foundation testimony and cross-examination would have been embarrassing — not to the foundations, but to the committee and to the one-sided case it was promoting.”

According to Dodd, after the Committee was dissolved Kathryn Casey “was never able to return to her law practice. If it hadn’t been for Carroll Reece’s ability to tuck her away in a job with the Federal Trade Commission, I don’t know what would have happened to Kathryn. Ultimately, she lost her mind as a result of [what she learned]. It was a terrible shock to her. It was a very rough experience, for her, to encounter proof of this kind.”

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2

Drummond, Roscoe. “Reece Committee.” San Bernardino County Sun, December 24, 1954. https://www.newspapers.com/image/49262865/

“I feel that the missing point, here, is that the intelligence report is just a narrow lens about TDA. It’s about crime and immigration, but they’re missing the warfare dimension,” Arocha said.

“They’re missing that, for the Maduro regime, the United States is the enemy — has been the enemy for years, since Hugo Chavez came to power.”

Arocha points out that the Tocorón prison, from which TDA’s leader Hector “Niño” Guerrero Flores and others reportedly escaped during a military operation to retain control of the prison from the inmates, is not a real prison but a “palace” serving as “the epicenter of crime in Venezuela.” When Tocorón was raided in September 2023, news reports revealed Tocorón’s swimming pool, nightclub, and even a zoo — as well as tunnels allowing inmates to pass in and out of the compound.

Arocha believes the raid was staged to convince the public that Maduro’s government was attempting to regain control of the prison.

“On the contrary, the TDA has safe haven in Venezuela,” he said.

“The TDA is not a gang. It’s a [military] arm of the Venezuelan regime in the hybrid warfare strategy. That’s the missing point. And that is the point that explains how a local gang [is] now in more than 10 countries, including the United States. That’s incredible. That is not possible without a state sponsor behind them.”

Arocha says the Venezuelan regime acts as a proxy of Russia, China and Iran — “especially China right now” — to create chaos in Latin America. He said the regime exploits Russian and Chinese expertise in propaganda, spinning a narrative that “the United States is against Latin America, is racist.”

According to Arocha, the U.S. intelligence community is failing to see the full picture.

“Unrestricted warfare,” Arocha said, “means using criminals, using disinformation, using every single tool they have” short of a direct military confrontation with the United States.

“We not only have to chase criminals, but start targeting command structures, which means nodes. That is very important right now,” Arocha said.

Arocha praised U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for pursuing a suspected high-ranking TDA leader in custody in Colombia. The Justice Department intends to prosecute Jose “Chuqui” Enrique Martinez Flores, 24, in Texas for drug offenses and for providing material support to a terrorist organization. The State Department designated TDA a foreign terrorist organization on Feb. 20.

Arocha also encouraged U.S. agencies to collaborate with law enforcement in Chile, Argentina, Peru and other countries with experience of TDA, to understand what they have learned.

“We have to continue targeting command structures to totally dismantle TDA,” Arocha said. “And not only see them as criminals. Of course, we have to chase criminals. But we also have to look for the command structures. And we have to put all the pieces together to have the big picture. And then I’m very sure that we are going to realize the missing and the main link is in Caracas.”

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President Trump’s executive orders, the proposed 2025 State Department reorganization, and the FY 2026 discretionary budget aim to address the Biden-era mass migration crisis through policy, structural changes and funding adjustments. However, these measures may be inadequate to prevent the crisis from reemerging in the future. A lasting solution will require fully disengaging from the United Nations’ migration and refugee agencies and dismantling the institutional capacity for migration to the United States.

President Donald Trump recognizes the harms caused by open borders, and his new team is executing its mandate to maintain secure borders and to enforce U.S. immigration law in good faith. Examination of official policy documents of the Joe Biden administration leaves no room for doubt: the border security crisis was caused not by negligence or dereliction, but by affirmative policy choices.

A cascade of Executive Orders signed on January 20, 2025 canceled misguided Biden-era pro-migration policies, suspended programs including the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), and halted funding for resettlement agencies. President Trump’s FY 2026 Discretionary Budget Request of May 2, 2025 seeks to make changes permanent by cutting the State Department’s budget by nearly half — including the elimination of $3.5 billion used by the Biden State Department “to facilitate mass, illegal migration on the premise of mostly bogus refugee status.” And Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s new proposed organizational chart dismantles USAID, restructures the Office of Foreign Assistance, and merges some of these functions — including the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) — into the State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

President Trump reversed Biden’s EO 14010, titled “Creating a Comprehensive Regional Framework to Address the Causes of Migration, to Manage Migration Throughout North and Central America, and To Provide Safe and Orderly Processing of Asylum Seekers at the United States’ Border.” Section 2(a) of Biden’s EO directed the National Security Advisor, “in coordination with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the heads of any other relevant executive departments and agencies” to prepare:

(i) the United States Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration (the “Root Causes Strategy”); and

(ii) the United States Strategy for Collaboratively Managing Migration in the Region (the “Collaborative Management Strategy”).

The Biden EO specifies the Root Causes Strategy (later delegated to “Border Czar” Kamala Harris) “shall identify and prioritize actions to address the underlying factors leading to migration … tak[ing] into account … the views of bilateral, multilateral, and private sector partners, as well as civil society….” (Sec. 2(b)). The Collaborative Management Strategy “shall identify and prioritize actions to strengthen cooperative efforts to address migration flows” and “promptly begin consultations with civil society, the private sector, international organizations, and governments in the region.” (Sec. 2(c)). The execution of these strategies involved partnerships in which federal agencies — particularly the State Department — engaged with a wide range of stakeholders.

National Security Council. Collaborative Migration Management Strategy. July 2021, p.5.

President Trump’s Executive Orders do not explicitly name the multilateral organizations Biden’s State Department partnered with. They were, primarily, the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In January, Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies reported in Daily Wire that these UN agencies intended to maintain 2025 and 2026 migration-related spending levels in Latin America “as high as when a mass migration torrent was at full throttle in recent years,” budgeting $1.4 billion for 2025 and $1.2 billion for 2026.

But my reading of President Trump’s EO 14148 paragraph (u) (revoking EO 14010) and paragraph (x) (revoking President Biden’s EO 14013 “Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration”) means also revoking secondary actions taken in furtherance of Biden and the UN’s migration agenda. Fulfillment of Trump’s EO 14148 therefore requires the complete termination of those partnerships through the rescission of Memoranda of Understanding between PRM and the UN migration agencies. Moreover, as PRM shifts to accommodate additional programs and responsibilities, relevant sections of the Foreign Affairs Manual must be revised to remove language reflecting UN-influenced priorities.

The State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM)

PRM leads U.S. humanitarian diplomacy to protect and assist refugees, stateless persons and conflict victims. Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees are defined as individuals forced to flee their country due to persecution, war, or violence, with a well-founded fear of harm based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Refugees are eligible to apply for asylum and resettlement in a safe country. Migrants, on the other hand, do not satisfy the legal definition of “refugee” and typically move voluntarily for reasons unrelated to persecution, such as the pursuit of economic opportunity.

In September 2024 Phillip Linderman, writing in The American Conservative, made the case for a “complete overhaul of State’s PRM Bureau,” which he says “fosters global illegal migration.” Linderman discussed how PRM, under Biden, had “vastly expanded” its domestic mission:

PRM doles out around $4 billion annually, mainly to establishment international organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). These multilateral organizations, funded by Washington, do more than manage genuine refugees and displaced persons. They are the juggernaut of today’s open-border ideology, taking resources from donor governments to promote concepts that chip away and undermine national borders, while advancing a global “right to migrate.”

Linderman points to generous “first-world asylum policies” as the major “pull factors” drawing migration to the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and the European Union: “PRM is the banker that writes the check that pays to keep it all in motion.”

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM)

The Biden administration entered into and honored international agreements that fostered illegal migration, undermining our sovereignty and national security. These agreements broadly reflect the language, values and worldview of the United Nations’ global mass migration project. Sections of the Foreign Affairs Manual revised during the Biden years to incorporate those priorities must be reviewed.

The UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) was not formally ratified but was symbolically endorsed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in December 2021 following Biden’s executive actions to re-engage with UN frameworks. The seven-page document on the State Department website articulates the Biden administration’s “reinvigorated dedication to many of the GCM’s objectives” and emphasizes “national values” that “align closely with those reflected in the GCM.”

Stated objectives of Blinken’s GCM endorsement include: to “support humane migration,” to “encourage full participation by migrants, including refugees, in our civic life,” and to provide “improved access to information about our immigration system and available options for protection and relief.” The Blinken endorsement foresees pathways to citizenship for millions of illegal entrants, and it seeks to ensure “that no person is deemed ‘illegal,’ or referred to in other derogatory terms.”

The GCM’s commitment to “support humane migration” is contrary to U.S. immigration law, national security interests and foreign policy goals. Although the U.S. can withdraw support from the GCM without a formal exit process, removing traces of its objectives from the Foreign Affairs Manual is necessary.

Multilateral agreements and partnerships entered into during the Biden years

Blinken’s GCM endorsement called illegal border crossing “an inherently transnational phenomenon that no State can or should address alone.” While the endorsement of the GCM is not legally binding on the U.S., vestiges of several additional agreements entered into by the Biden administration that sprang from the GCM’s vision may remain in effect.

• The Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, adopted in 2022 at the Summit of the Americas, is a regional agreement signed by 22 countries to promote cooperation on transnational migration in the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s funding cuts to USRAP, PRM and USAID programs in Central America signal rejection of the Declaration, but there has been no formal withdrawal. Although the Declaration is non-binding, it spurred additional cooperative agreements and 11 “action package committees” to implement its goals.

• Safe Mobility Offices (SMOs) Agreements, negotiated by the U.S. bilaterally with Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Ecuador, were designed to deter illegal human border crossing — not through robust border enforcement, but by exploiting “lawful pathways” for migrants who did not qualify for refugee status.

• The Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants (R4V), jointly led by UNHCR and IOM, is a coalition of 200+ stakeholder organizations (including UN agencies, civil society groups, faith-based organizations and NGOs) that coordinate in 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. PRM has been a major annual donor and participant. U.S. financial support to R4V in 2019 ($174 million) and in 2020 (~$500 million) was focused on assisting Venezuelans in host countries outside the U.S. But the Biden administration, linking its R4V support to the Los Angeles Declaration, amplified contributions and shifted its emphasis away from regional resettlement, encouraging the Venezuelan diaspora to reach the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies has documented how the R4V network uses these resources to promote and facilitate illegal migration.

Evidence of the Biden administration’s objectives for USRAP can be found in two Refugee Admissions Project reports issued in 2020 by the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, produced under the supervision of Antony Blinken. These Penn Biden Center reports (archived here and here) aimed at expanding PRM and increasing refugee admissions to 125,000 annually, but they offered no explanation of who those refugees would be, why they would need refugee status (notwithstanding those “forcibly displaced by climate”), or how the authors arrived at the 125,000 number. With no attention given to vetting concerns, it’s clear that the initiative was intended to reverse measures taken by the previous Trump administration and to “reassert global leadership on refugee protection” — without considering whether expanding refugee admissions would benefit the United States.

The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM)

While both IOM and UNHCR agencies coordinate the R4V network, IOM‘s presence on the migration trail is more visible. Nothing illustrates the seamless nature of the relationship between the Biden administration and the IOM more clearly than the selection in October 2023 of Amy Pope, then President Biden’s Senior Advisor on Migration, to the office of Director General for IOM. The mission of the IOM is to promote migration, not to prevent it: IOM “is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society.” In a 2023 interview Pope said she views “migration” as “not a question of whether people move; it’s a question of how they move and whether we, as international actors, can build out ways for them to move.” She cited “climate” as her top priority as IOM director general: “millions of people [are] displaced each year as a result of climate impacts, and we know that hundreds of millions more live in extremely climate vulnerable communities.”

According to her IOM bio, Director General Pope has a “passion for changing the global narrative about people on the move” ^__ and that passion is reflected in the language used by both IOM and PRM to blur the legal distinction between bona fide refugees and illegal migrants in order to absorb massive numbers of undocumented economic migrants into the United States under the pretense that they were asylum-seeking refugees. Biden’s State Department turned over to IOM the operation of major U.S. government initiatives related to migration and refugee resettlement, including management of the no-interest Refugee Travel Loan program. These transfers to Geneva have enabled Amy Pope and U.S.-funded IOM activities to evade Congressional oversight.

The Foreign Affairs Manual

President Trump’s Executive Order 14211 of February 12, 2025, “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations,” declares that an “exceptional workforce of patriots” is needed to effectively implement the President’s foreign policy, and that “[f]ailure to faithfully implement the President’s policy is grounds for professional discipline, including separation” of foreign service officers. The order also calls for reforming the foreign service and for revising or replacing the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual.

An understanding of how the UN redefines key terms and invents new terms and concepts related to illegal immigration is necessary in order to undo the damage of the prior administration. For example, IOM’s Orwellian 248-page Glossary on Migration relabels illegal entry as irregular migration, which it defines as: “the act of crossing borders without complying with all the legal and administrative requirements for entry into the [country].” Reframing illegal border-crossing as “irregular migration” and supporting it by ushering migrants through “lawful pathways” to somehow turn illegal border-crossing into “regular migration” is linguistic sleight-of-hand that allowed the administration to confuse executive branch employees and the general public and to usurp Congress’ role in writing immigration law.

The Foreign Affairs Manual indicates that PRM’s Office of Multilateral and External Coordination “Plans, formulates, and directs the implementation of U.S. institutional relationships, governance, and strategies that address the full range of population, refugees, migration and other humanitarian issues in the UN system and in other multilateral organizations” and represents the United States on governing bodies of these organizations, including the UNHCR, IOM, and ICRC (1 FAM 523.4[1]).

PRM also houses the Office of International Migration, tasked with “coordinat[ing] international migration policy formulation and implementation in order to further the Department’s goal of promoting safe, orderly and humane migration” (1 FAM 523.6[1]), and the Office of Refugee Admissions which “formulates refugee admissions policy and programs for the U.S. government” (1 FAM 523.5[1]).

An archived version of an IOM website captured on February 3, 2024 illustrates the relationship between IOM and the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), revealing a detailed interactive graphic showing how IOM and USRAP worked together during the Biden years to bring hundreds of thousands of refugees to the United States. This number does not include the more than 1 million Afghans and Ukrainians paroled into the U.S. under separate policies — decisions made without regard for whether relocation of displaced Afghans or Ukrainians to the United States, rather than to safe countries closer to their places of origin, made any sense at all.

Migration infrastructure built during the Biden years must be addressed

Besides the formal refugee admissions and legally questionable parole programs, at least 6 million illegal migrants were allowed to enter the United States during the Biden era. In addition, at least 2 million (potentially many more) entered as “gotaways” while Border Patrol agents were busy “processing” illegal aliens into the country at the direction of DHS, leaving unguarded gaps in the border.

In October 2024, Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies investigated migration at the Colombia-Panama border and found that the Clan del Golfo, the most violent and powerful criminal organization in Colombia, maintained complete control over the area and all migration routes. Bensman found that R4V network members including Colombian government agencies, banks, and NGOs “collaborate with Clan del Golfo in an organized manner to profit from migrants crossing through the Darién Gap en route to the southern border of the U.S.”

Later that month Bensman brought back drone video footage of the construction in southern Mexico of a “75,000 square-foot mega-mall, built to enable industrial-scale illegal immigration to the U.S. southern border.” This new structure complements the “permanent network of way stations for thousands of miles along the migration routes from South America to the U.S. border” that Bensman and others have documented.

Michael Yon has reported extensively on the migrant camps in Panama that sprang up in 2021, and he has shown how migrants from China and elsewhere around the globe were provided shelter, charter buses and other services. A March 2025 report from Michael Yon in Panama — the geographic chokepoint for northward-bound migration from South America — reveals that a road is now being constructed through the Darién jungle, possibly funded through a partnership with China. Yon has also reported the IOM and some NGO offices and camps in Panama remain open for business.

Conclusion

In a March 2024 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Amy Pope noted “we rarely see migration policy embedded in foreign policy. And frankly, that’s where it better belongs.” Clearly, removing harmful pro-migration policy the Biden administration “embedded” into the Foreign Affairs Manual and other documents must be a top priority for Trump 2.0.

In addition to curtailing USRAP and cutting NGO funding, President Trump and his State Department must take decisive action to withdraw all U.S. resources from “migration” programs and to rescind agreements between PRM and the organizations that pushed millions of undocumented economic migrants to our borders, shores and airports during the Biden years. The State Department must carefully remove UN language from the Foreign Affairs Manual and relevant policy documents. Moreover, the Trump administration must remain vigilant and maintain strong diplomatic partnerships with Panama, Mexico and throughout Latin America to ensure the network of NGOs, criminal organizations, and other entities that exploited and exacerbated the migration crisis is fully dissolved.

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President Trump’s administration faces challenges but has made progress in these early months to fulfill his mass deportation mandate. Bensman told OAN’s Garrett Ziegler about the difficulties an attenuated ICE faces in targeting, arresting, detaining and deporting millions of illegal aliens who don’t want to be deported.

For the short term, Bensman said, “one thing that is going to be necessary, for really high numbers of deportations, is you’re going to have to employ, or somehow induce, state and local law enforcement officers — county constables, sheriff’s deputies, small police departments, large police departments, highway patrols — to be certified to arrest and detain illegal immigrants. And even to run operations to find and apprehend them, and turn them over to ICE.”

In his work for the Center for Immigration Studies, Bensman draws on his two decades of experience as a journalist and his nine years with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), where he worked as a counterterrorism intelligence manager within a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Fusion Center.

In Bensman’s book Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History, Bensman documented how the Biden administration dismantled ICE’s deportation infrastructure and kept ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers “shackled to their desks” with regulations.

As Bensman’s book explains, Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas “issued internal policy memos sharply restricting ICE’s arm responsible for interior deportations,” prioritizing terrorists and ignoring legions of other aliens with final removal orders.

In 2021 a group of states, led by Texas, sued DHS and Secretary Mayorkas over the policy, but in June 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the states lacked standing to challenge DHS’s discretion.

Now that Trump is back in office, rebuilding ICE detention capacity and hiring more officers is a top priority. But in the short term, “there just simply aren’t enough officers to do the work that’s necessary,” Bensman said. “You have to force-multiply in different ways.”

How Can Trump’s ICE Overcome Sanctuary Policies?

Sanctuary policies prohibit state and local jurisdictions from partnering with ICE. “The problem is, sanctuary jurisdictions will withhold cooperation in order to satisfy local political sentiment,” Bensman said. “And for those areas, I think you have to go in and find the pockets of red police departments and get them on board to work in the blue areas. Go under, around, over and through them, to catch illegal immigrants in blue districts.”

Florida has passed statewide legislation that requires all jurisdictions — including the blue ones — to cooperate with ICE by invoking Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This 1996 amendment authorizes DHS to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies to perform certain immigration enforcement functions under the supervision of ICE.

According to Bensman, state legislatures requiring all state and local law enforcement agencies to observe Section 287(g) would be ideal. “Blue states aren’t going to pass legislation like that, but red states should be able to be induced to do that,” he said. “You can fill a lot of planes just from the red states.”

Florida is already seeing results. On May 1 the Miami ERO office reported on the success of Operation Tidal Wave, which it called the largest joint immigration operation in Florida’s history — netting 1,120 criminal illegal aliens. According to a press release, “Officers arrested various violent offenders, gang members, sex offenders, fugitives from justice and those who pose significant public safety threats,” including members of MS-13, Tren de Aragua, 18th Street Gang and other transnational criminal groups.

In January, President Trump designated both MS-13 and Tren de Aragua as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). These designations unlock additional law enforcement tools to address transnational crime and terrorism.

In Texas, more than three dozen law enforcement agencies have adopted 287(g), and the Texas National Guard has signed an agreement that it has not yet put it into practice. But the GOP-led state legislature is struggling to pass statewide legislation. At a hearing before the state legislature on March 5, Lt. Col. Jason Taylor, Deputy Director for Law Enforcement Operations for Texas DPS, testified that in his view, employing 287(g) might stretch law enforcement resources too thin. “It’s more of a people problem, that, in my opinion, you don’t want to tie up a lot of enforcement action with,” Taylor said.

What Resources Does ICE Need?

ICE needs funding in the fiscal year 2026 budget for hiring more agents and expanding detention facilities. But for now, a State of Emergency declared on January 20 authorizes the use of Department of Defense (DOD) resources, including military aircraft for deportation flights. “We have plenty of those,” Bensman said. “Until we get civilian fleets online, a lot of money that’s going to come from the quote-unquote big beautiful budget bill, in the next little while, is going to go to rebuilding the deportation infrastructure. And I think they can do that pretty quickly. But if not, we can use military facilities to hold them as well. Right now, they’re filling up.”

Trump’s ICE also seeks to expand detention facilities necessary to hold deportees until they can be deported, usually a few days. A version of the budget bill released by the House on April 28 would provide just over $81 billion for interior enforcement, including 100,000 detention beds and 10,000 additional ICE ERO officers, bringing the total number of officers to around 15,000.

“They’re going to have to use the big-beautiful-budget-bill money to go on a hiring binge. Which takes time,” Bensman said. In the meantime, DHS has been using DEA agents, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals, in addition to state and local cops, to help.

On Due Process and the Immigration Courts

The immigration courts are facing a multi-year backlog of asylum claims. But according to Bensman, “once we actually closed the border off to new incoming torrents of humanity, the backlog immediately began to shrink. We’re three months in, now, and we’re — for the first time in ten years! — seeing the number of cases shrink.”

On the “due process” controversy, Bensman identified the administrative nature of immigration proceedings — distinguished from criminal court — as the reason for confusion over how much process is due in the deportation context. Due process considerations provided for in the U.S. Constitution, such as the right to a jury trial, do not come into play because there is no deprivation of life, liberty or property at stake.

“The biggest misconception, or conflation, that I’m seeing out there has to do with the fact that illegal immigrants are not being imprisoned, they’re being sent home. They’re free, at home. We’re not taking liberties away,” he said.

“Right there, you have cognitive dissonance with — yes, there is due process, you have to have immigration judges involved, adjudicators stamping things, and looking at things, and you can appeal. But the worst thing that can happen, really, is that you just go home.”

Detention is necessary, and usually brief. “We aren’t depriving you of your liberty — other than for a short period of time,” Bensman said. “So they don’t run.”