Join us as we delve into the surprising announcement of the dramatic reduction of ICE presence in Minnesota. Host Logan Sekulow discusses the reasons behind Tom Holman’s strategy to significantly reduce federal ICE agents from the area. We’ll examine the implications of this decision, including unprecedented cooperation from local law enforcement, which aims to streamline operations and ensure community safety. This episode also highlights various local and national political reactions, drawing on comments from our engaged audience.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’ve got breaking news. Tom Holman announces a major drawdown of ice in Minnesota.
SPEAKER 03 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Sekulow. I’m back. Thank you, Will, for holding down the fort yesterday. Always. Glad to do it. Feeling great. Jordan was on, obviously, for YHDC. Jordan’s going to be joining us, I believe, a little bit later towards the end of the broadcast. And, of course, we want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. The breaking news out of Minnesota today. It feels like every day there’s something new going on with this story. But today it was a pretty big one, which is Tom Holman, who had been sent in there to kind of chill it out, to bring things down, to see if he could actually lower the temperature, if you will, as that was the famous quote. I feel like that everyone kept saying, can we lower the temperature? And of course, we agreed. We thought that there needed to be a time where Minnesota could have some form of peace and could at least move forward a little bit. Tom Homan announced a massive drawdown of the federal presence from ICE that will be there with unprecedented cooperation from local police. We’re talking about 700 federal agents who would be departing the Twin Cities. I think this is an interesting moment. One, I don’t know if all of us know the scale of how many people, how many ICE agents are actually on the ground. If you told me that withdrawing 700 was not withdrawing the mass majority, I would have been pretty surprised. But it’s actually, as Will said, I believe only about 20%. About 20%. There was between 2,800 and 3,000 officers in Minneapolis area in Minnesota.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s a lot. And that is a lot. That is a significant operation. But at the same time, this kind of goes back to what a lot of people had been criticizing the leadership in Minnesota about, is that if they were cooperating, not necessarily needing to go round up, but to report when there is a release of someone from a detainment facility, for criminal charges in whether it be local law enforcement or state law enforcement they were coordinating with the department of homeland security the border patrol and ice and saying hey this person that’s undocumented that is also facing criminal charges or is a criminal themselves is being released how about you come pick them up what happens a lot less drama a lot safer for both the community and the federal law enforcement and also you need a lot less people
SPEAKER 02 :
I see a lot of comments coming in saying he’s surrendering to the left. They’re watering down everything. I want you to hear this comment from Tom Holman. He said, I’ll say it again. This is efficient and it requires only one or two officers to assume custody of a criminal alien target rather than eight or ten officers going into the community and arresting that public safety threat. And again, he said, we currently have an unprecedented number of counties communicating with us now, allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets. Unprecedented cooperation. So essentially saying we don’t need eight to 10 officers going after one person or whatever it may be. We’re going to scale that down. We only need one or two. And that is going to help the visual a lot. It’s going to help the conversation move forward. And look, I think it’s important when you have the chaos surrounding Minnesota to have a moment where it does feel like there’s some bipartisan work and bipartisan effort. And if the intention, and look, you could say surrendering, I doubt it. This is probably coming from the very top. to go in there and to bring the tone down. And what can it be? They sent in Tom Holman, who had been lauded as now like the savior, had come in and at this moment seems like is doing his job, was able to take a couple weeks here, see what he could come up with, and now it seems like it may have been overkill in Minnesota. So we’re going to discuss that coming forward. I’d love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. We’ve got some calls coming in already. 1-800-684-3110. 31 10 give me a call right now if you’d like to be on the air we’re opening up this conversation again jordan’s gonna be joining us a little later and also the aclj is is really hard at work we got a lot of news to cover i’ve only got 30 seconds of this but we have so much to cover i’m looking at what i should have been pitching you and i didn’t do it i’m gonna do it we get back i’m gonna tell you all the news that’s going on in the world of the aclj and why you need to get involved there’s a great way also for you to interact Of course, that’s going to ACLJ.org. There’s a lot of incredible content there. None of it’s behind a paywall. None of this isn’t behind a paywall, whether it’s this show, whether it’s our legal work, all of it’s available to you at no cost. And that’s because people like you support the work of the ACLJ. And many of you are ACLJ champions, those that give on a monthly basis. So do that today at ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back with more on Psych Hilo. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines, like I said, are open at 1-800-684-3110. I want to kick this off, actually, by you hearing from Tom Holman himself. Of course, we are reporting the news here, really the breaking news, that they have decided to withdraw about 700 ICE agents from Minnesota, specifically from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Again, I think that number… should be a bit of an eye-opener of what was happening here, and maybe this is why you have someone like Tom Homan come in, because 700 is only about 20% of the workforce, of the ICE workforce that is there currently on the ground. If you were to ask me how many people, agents, were there, I don’t know if I would have given you 700 for just this one individual market. So then you bring in somebody who maybe knows a bit more about how all this works, like Tom Homan, and he can go in in a very President Trump kind of way and refine the mission, actually get things handled, and do it in a way that’s efficient. We have some calls coming in. We’re going to take some of those at 1-800-684-3110, but I want to start off with you hearing directly from Tom Homan himself.
SPEAKER 10 :
We want to get these men and women home. They got a job to do at home. I think we’ve come a long ways. I’m actually, yesterday afternoon I was sitting down with my chief of staff. I’m actually amazed at the cooperation and agreements we already talked about and the willingness to work with us. we’re doing better than ever thought we would seriously and i’m excited about getting back to the business of enforcing immigration law without this this without arresting people for 111 for interference and impeding we just want to do what we’ve done for 30 years 40 i’ve done this 40 years we want to get back to doing the job and that’s what we plan on doing and we’re not i want to keep this because i keep hearing it and hearing it and hearing it we’re not surrendering The president’s mission on a mass deportation operation, if you’re in the country legally, if we find you, we’ll deport you. But this is about target enforcement operation, and that’s what we’re going to be doing.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think you’re going to have a lot of people breathe a sigh of relief when you hear someone like Tom Homan in there. And when he says specifically, you know, this is the president’s mission, I think that’s also the signal that if you think that for some reason he’s bucking the system or is changing the way President Trump or the Trump administration wants this handled, President Trump pays attention to what’s going on in the world. He’s reading the room. He’s reading the temperature. Midterm elections are coming up. There’s a lot happening right now. He sees that this has become a splintering moment for a lot of people that specifically the deaths of Americans, whether you believe as a listener or a watcher of this show, if you believe that they were, I guess, quote unquote, justified or not. It did create a moment of tension going. These are American citizens. These are not these people who are just demonstrating that. who both have been shot to death in the streets by ICE agents. That’s a fact. I’m not saying one way or the other, whether you believe that they were justified in the shooting or they were not justified in the shooting. There were still dead Americans because of this situation. So you send in Tom Homan. He looks at everything with his team and decides we don’t need 10 agents for every person that we are trying to get out of Minnesota. Maybe we can do that with one to three. And you see this deduction. You see a room being read. Do I think that there’ll be people who says this is not enough on both sides? Absolutely. And we got plenty of those calls coming in that say that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and I want to hear from people as well that see that. I see it on YouTube. I see it on Rumble saying this is a sign of weakness, that this is capitulating to the left, which I tend to disagree with. Remember, there’s still going to be 2000, according to Tom Holman and agents there this is just the first step in drawing down because in his opinion there should have never had to have been 2700 plus agents there to begin with if there was that cooperation between the state partners and the federal enforcement arm and so when you start to look at this as well When you saw how out of control it got, when you saw even the the raid on the church by the the leftist agitators and that led to the arrest, it got so out of control that, as he even said, a lot of their arrests then were. were them detaining people that were obstructing the law enforcement instead of even the core mission. Tom Homan here is being able to get back to the core mission, making sure that they can focus on getting the illegal criminal aliens detained and out of the country, as he said. And so I think that’s important to show here. But I think also, instead of looking at Tom Holman as someone who’s capitulating by taking 20 to 25 percent agents out that he no longer feels are necessary because of the steps you are seeing from the local leaders. And I want to play bite two from Tom Holman here in a second. But once again. at the same time you could say the same if you were on the left oh this is capitulation from uh from tim walsh from attorney general ellison because they are now allowing him to take criminal aliens at the place where it’s the safest for them to do it we want ice out completely so whenever there is some sort of meeting in the middle when it’s such a charged political moment like we see here I feel like you’re going to have people on both sides are going to make that an issue. Say, oh, how dare you? How dare you capitulate? Instead, I am happy that this could potentially lead to safer immigration enforcement, not just for the officers, for anyone that decides that it’s their cause to get out there and obstruct and impede and try to do all the things that they’ve been doing. I don’t want to see more people hurt, whether it be an American citizen that’s a civilian.
SPEAKER 01 :
Anybody.
SPEAKER 04 :
or law enforcement but let’s go ahead and play bite two because i think this is really telling that the people that were obstructing the whole time were the leaders and now all of a sudden they’re not doing it anymore by two i want to thank you know the the sheriffs the governor and the ag i think we’re in a lot better place than we’ve ever been in we never had this kind of cooperation
SPEAKER 10 :
uh at this level and i’m not leaving until we get all done but i’m happy to say i’m extremely pleased with the leadership team and their outreach to the sheriffs to the state to the chiefs i’ve talked to i’ve talked to many i didn’t talk to all of them but i plan on talking to everyone before i leave and thanking them for their cooperation
SPEAKER 04 :
And, Logan, I think, once again, people should call in if they think that what Tom Holman is doing is capitulating. Let us know why. 1-800-684-3110. Hopefully when you hear him, you don’t feel that way. But also, at the same time, this is the guy that the former Secretary of Transportation Castro had said has a heart of darkness. This was the ultimate evil for the Democrats, Tom Holman. And now you start to see that whenever they find a new evil, another more evil person, because they demonize every single person on the right and in the Trump administration, that, oh, well, he sounds actually like the rational one. It’s because you never were listening to begin with. When he is wanting to enforce the laws of this country, it’s not because he has a heart of darkness as an evil person. It’s because he wants to enforce the laws of the country. That’s what he’s done his entire career. That’s why he was given commendations under administrations like Barack Obama’s because these are serious people. And when you hear these words, I don’t see them as a capitulation at all. I see it as him knowing how to efficiently run this system and wanting to do it more efficiently. And I think that’s what we’re looking at here. Let’s take a call or two.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s go to Bill in Wyoming. Bill, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, okay, thanks for taking my call. Just to let you know, if things go right, I’ll probably be able to give a few extra bucks this month.
SPEAKER 02 :
Fantastic, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Of course, no pressure. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to apologize, but I’m kind of doubtful about what the left will do, because I kind of think that they may try and actually turn this against the administration and say, hey, look, we’re much more powerful, the administration, Just really doesn’t know what to do. And if they do do it, they’re Nazis or something like that. What’s your opinion?
SPEAKER 02 :
I mean, look, I think that you can’t ever doubt that anyone in politics will use any moment or any what you’d say, quote unquote, sign of weakness, which I see a lot of people saying that in the comments for their own political gain. So, of course, that’s the truth that could be used against them. However, I do see it a little bit differently, which is I don’t see everything as politics, black or white here and go, well, if this is what’s best for the country, best for business, if you will. Great. Let them use it. We’ll see what happens. But I think what you’ll hopefully see is that maybe this could actually be a moment where Americans can remember that we can work together.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and once again, remember, there are still 2000 enforcement agents there. Thousand, which is probably more than many people would have thought were there originally. I still remain. But at the same time. It all depends, Bill, what the goal is. If the goal is to own the left and to say we won, then yeah, maybe this is the wrong move of saying we can work together and just continue doing the same enforcement style, see more people Most likely die because of the temperature that it was in Minnesota, the way that it was getting so heated and aggressive that would continue. You would see more tragic shootings both ways. You would probably see more law enforcement injured or killed as it continued to boil over as it was doing instead here. You’re having someone say, hey, my mission isn’t to win a political argument. It’s to enforce the immigration laws. And I think I can do it better. And now they’re working with me. So we are more efficient. We’re not having to worry about as many protesters that we have to arrest for breaking the law. I feel like that’s a win. They can say whatever they want. Like, look, they pulled out 700, but… Does it matter if the mission is still being accomplished? Doesn’t matter to me.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Next up, we’re going to talk about a major victory in the world of the ACLJ and the world of our fight for life. It’s been a little while since we’ve had some good news coming from the world of the fight for the unborn. You’re going to want to stay tuned for this as we continue to take on Planned Parenthood. And you’ll hear some big things that are afoot. Be a part of the show, too. As Will said, 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I wanted to divert just a little bit. Of course, we’re talking about Tom Holman pulling about 700 ICE agents out of Minnesota, what that looks like, what the ramifications are. What do you think about that? That’s fine. We’re going to discuss that. But I did want to talk about the work of the ACLJ. It’s the most important work of what we do here. Of course, the fight for life continues. A couple of years ago, you had the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Big victory for a lot of us. And for a lot of you, as we’ve done the analytical data, was kind of the end of the story for you you decided that the fight for life wasn’t something that you saw as an urgent threat because you saw it being overturned and returned to the states and of course we know certain states have had much stricter laws put in place state where you like where you are in tennessee then you have a state uh you know obviously the more left-leaning states that have gone maybe to the extreme which will fly you in and will pay for everything and they’ve become uh abortion havens So we continue the fight, the fight keeps happening. But this is a really interesting one, and we have to kind of, take a step and go, okay, well, what’s their plan? What’s the meaning? But I believe we can start with it’s a major victory, at least for now. And that is, of course, you remember during the big, beautiful bill, when that was all being passed, one of the big sticking items was the defunding of Planned Parenthood, at least for a time being. And of course, that’s been something that has been a big ticket item, if you will, in the world of politics. It feels like that’s always something that is dangled in front of the voter. saying the American people will no longer have to pay for Planned Parenthood with their taxpayer dollars. A lot of times it doesn’t happen. And it’s always a sticking point. And look, President Trump As much as he has done a lot for the pro-life movement, this has been one of those issues that he’s even maybe used as a bit of a bargaining chip when debating what should go through and what shouldn’t go through and what’s better for American people. But in a really another unprecedented moment, Planned Parenthood decided that their lawsuit. which the ACLJ was involved in, against the Big Beautiful Bill’s defunding of Planned Parenthood, is no longer worth their time, and they have surrendered and withdrawn their lawsuit. Again, at least for the time being, ACLJ supporters take this as a major victory, at least for now.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. And as you remember, there were several challenges to this funding provision, one from non Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Then we had also there’s a challenge led by California. Surprise, surprise. Although they are fighting it in Massachusetts, where this case stemmed from. So there are a couple other challenges out there. A lot of the early stage challenges where we’ve been successful on appeals had to do with injunctions against this defunding portion of the bill. So as of right now, they are defunded. But this was a shocking moment. This was very surprising because Planned Parenthood filed a voluntary dismissal notice. in federal court in Massachusetts. And you have to sit here, as Logan said, and think, okay, what is their end game? One, big victory. They are no longer fighting. They no longer, at least what you can kind of take from it, think this is a battle worth fighting in federal court. And so that is a big victory. This hard work that ACLJ supporters have rallied around our organization and many others to push for this for a very long time. Take the win. They do not give up easily. Right. But here are the caveats. And here’s kind of where my analysis goes when I start thinking why. Why would they do this? One, remember, one of the things that happened was the time frame of the defunding only became a year from being a permanent defunding. Maybe Planned Parenthood is thinking, instead of wasting money on a lawsuit, which could go all the way to the Supreme Court, and end up giving us precedent we don’t like… If the Supreme Court says, of course you can defund, maybe they think we need to spend more money on midterm elections because we know that that’s very important to them. And we know that Planned Parenthood, through their action arm, spends a lot of money on elections.
SPEAKER 02 :
Look, don’t think that what’s going on in Minnesota isn’t also connected to the midterm elections. Right. The writing is a bit on the wall. I don’t want to be doomsday for you conservatives who are listening. Obviously, that’s probably the vast majority of the people that watch. But the odds are not good right now.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. And I think that if Planned Parenthood is looking and saying, OK, do we do we take the loss of funding for a year and maybe not have this continue on in court through the appeals process, maybe even to the Supreme Court? What if we just refocus where that money’s going and we fight to make sure that we get as liberal of people elected as possible so that next time the funding is up, when that year expires, we can get more funding. We can push back and get retroactive funding and push Congress to get to a point to give us what we want, which they have done for decades. They have used the American taxpayer as a piggy bank for so long. Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars have gone to Planned Parenthood over the decades. And that’s where I think that they probably lean. So take this as a win, but not as a time to quit fighting. This fight has to continue.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a temporary win on the continual journey. And look, you see the ads. If you watch the news, especially if you watch not Fox, you’ll see ads for Planned Parenthood running all the time. They are certainly funded a lot by donors and supporters. And maybe they, as Will said, they can take the temporary loss knowing what they’re going to be heading into. And look, a lot of you have called in, and we’re going to take a lot of those calls coming up. I want to make sure you stay on hold. I’ll even take some in the next segment here because the work of the ACLJ, like I said, continues. There’s also a bit of an update, Will. We’ve only got a couple minutes here. on that California school.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. We are filing this morning a brief actually to the Supreme Court on a school where California is forcing Christian schools to make Christian education optional. So effectively taking away the autonomy of the school, private schools being able to make Christian education at these Christian schools optional. We are fighting back against that.
SPEAKER 02 :
California is getting wild here, folks. I mean, it feels like we are in a lawsuit with Gavin Newsom more than we are not. I mean, this is what I feel like the third or fourth one that we’ve done just in the last 12 months. But these are when they start getting involved, not only in your kids public schooling. Fine. You know, that’s part of what you get public schools. You understand the issues. But when they start regulating really what goes on with the faith practices in your private schools. The ACLJ has got to get involved. I think this should be an easy win. But we’re in California, so unlikely it will be an easy win. If you rational people who watch this show were the people making that decision, I would go, of course. A private school, a private religious education can say whatever they want about faith. And yes, it’s not necessarily optional if you decide to go to Christian education.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and that’s why this is a brief to the Supreme Court, because the Ninth Circuit upheld the state’s position that they can force private schools to say, you must let people come to your school and then opt out of the teaching and the message that’s core to the education philosophy there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Why would you even be sending your kids there? Good schools. Good schools, but they’re faith-based schools. There are plenty of private schools. Not if Gavin Newsom has anything to do with it, Logan. But there’s plenty of private schools that are not. Prep schools, those kind of things. You can find them. Leave the Christian schools alone. We’re going to get involved here at the ACLJ. We’re taking the Supreme Court of the United States. We can’t do that without you. So I want to encourage you right now, when you’re thinking about supporting, where to put your funds, the ACLJ is the perfect place to do it. Go to ACLJ.org right now. Make a donation. And if you can, I really want you to become an ACLJ champion. People walk up to me on the streets. That’s not like a hyperbole. People walk up to me on the streets and say, Logan, I’m a champion. And I love to hear it. I love to see it happen. Become a champion today. That’s someone that gives on a monthly basis. A recurring donor. A member, if you will, to the ACLJ. Helps us create an incredible baseline. Look, we’ve got another half hour coming up. Some of you don’t get us on your local stations, but we are broadcasting live. ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble. However you get your podcasts, we are there. So be a part of the show. Jordan’s going to be joining us in the back half. We’ll be right back. Less than a minute.
SPEAKER 03 :
Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever. This is Seculo.
SPEAKER 02 :
And now your host, Logan Secular. Phone lines are completely jammed as we are breaking down the news that Tom Holman went into Minnesota. We weren’t sure what he was going to do and he decided we’re going to pull about 700 agents that it’s overkill in Minnesota. I think that this is a moment when you listen to what he has to say and when you read his statements and if you approve of honestly what’s going on, I think you should be looking at this through clear eyes and go, okay. If one of the leaders, one of the most trusted names here is saying we were going too far, that you don’t need 10 agents per person that you’re going after. Maybe we could do it one or two. Maybe we can work better and closer and in a friendly relationship with local level police forces. I think you brought in someone, and I’m very pleased with that, that maybe could, as I said earlier, which is what Tim Wall said he wanted, which is what President Trump said he wanted, which was to lower the temperature. I said even before the deaths of both of the protesters, that if you kept amping it up, eventually we’re going to lead to blood in the streets. And again, whether you’re one of those people that thinks that it was justified or not, it’s still a fact that American citizens were killed on the streets by ICE agents. That happened. You don’t want to see that. We don’t want to see protests turn violent ever. And I would say that on the other side as well. You didn’t want to see that in any of the protests that have been happening over the last decade, two decades. Really, in the history of modern American world, you don’t want to see protests escalate to death. Tom Holman went in. Seems like he’s doing a pretty good job. There are a lot of different points of view on this. A lot of you have called in. We are going to get to you. And I want to go ahead and take a couple of you. Let’s start with something you’ve been a hold for a little bit longer than not. I want to go to Joe in Tennessee. Joe, line two. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. Yeah, good thing in Tennessee we don’t have to worry about that. I am a blind individual, and there’s one thing that the left, they don’t care about disabled people. They don’t spend money on education. job programs to get us gainfully employed, the only thing the left wants to do is give you a check and leave you sit. And to all the illegal immigrants, the left doesn’t care about you. You’re another vote. You’re another vote. They don’t even care about the unborn. So why would they care about the living?
SPEAKER 02 :
Joe, I feel that way in the world of politics. Look, I think there’s a lot of people who do care. I think there are a lot of protesters. I think it’s a mixed bag. I think you have the sort of paid actors. You have the professional protesters and agitators. Then I do think you have people who are genuinely concerned about what’s happening to their local, their friends and family that are here illegally. And I get the concern there. But what you are correct in is, and it feels this way, and I hate to be that person that over-politicizes something, but it feels like you can see it in the way they treat certain laws, whether it’s the pushes for voter ID or the push for, that it’s always thinly veiled racism. It feels like coming from the partisan hard left positioned as this you know peacemaking love everybody version but really when you look at it joe’s right it feels like it’s for a vote and it’s pandering
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and once again, you saw that when the president was reelected and you started seeing them even talking about the immigration push. And what were people on CNN saying? Like, well, I can’t wait for these white ladies to see how much their smoothie is going to cost now because who’s going to go and work on the farms? It’s always seeing people not as people, but as a voter block, a special interest group that will continue to get them reelected.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. We saw a big change in that. Where? In the state of Florida. The state of Florida, you had a lot of people who said, I’m not voting based on the color of my skin. I am not voting because who you think I should vote for. I’m voting for the person I think will do best for me, whether on the state level, whether on the federal level. We got a couple lines open now, 1-800-684-3110. I’m going to take as many calls as we can in this next segment because Jordan’s going to be joining us in the final. So stay on hold if you’re on hold. See a couple ACLJ champions in there. 1-800-684-3110. Call me right now to get on the air. We’ll be right back with more on Sekula, but make sure you’re always staying in tune at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. A really interesting comment that we actually just had during the break. If you’re watching on our social media platforms, you’ll see clips and things. And we just started from Tom Holman just talking about how this is not bringing down the amount of people. It’s actually refining it, making it safer for the people of the Twin Cities. I think it was very smart. the way that he has positioned this, which I have to be honest, in the way that we have presented this, the way the news has presented this, the way a lot of people presented this, it does feel a little bit like America versus Minnesota, or you could even say the conservatives versus Minnesota. And I don’t believe that’s how we should be treating states. It’s easy to do it. I’m not saying we’re not guilty of it. Somehow, it’s sometimes how we talk about California. One of my favorite, as I always say, New York, California, two of my favorite places on this planet. I want them to thrive. I want them to succeed. It becomes a little hard when they say, California says, hey, Christian schools, you’re able to, we want to make sure that if you are a Christian school and you’re a student there, you can opt out of Christian studies at your private Christian school and they start interfering this way. It starts feeling that way when they say, hey, we’re still a million dollars in fines we’d like to collect from COVID for you church that we feel like violated the law while you know what we were doing ourselves. Those things make it harder for it not to feel like America versus California, America versus Minnesota. But the way that Tom Holman worded that, I actually felt a bit of relief. I think that that’s good, a bit of relief and a bit of unity because Minnesota is not its own country, it is not its own land, it is part of the United States of America, a place that I’ve enjoyed visiting over the years. So it’s nice to not hear this sort of us versus them version. I want to take some more phone calls. I will.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And I wanted to kind of to go along with that as well, because what you’re seeing play out in the way that the narratives are put out there is, OK, well, let’s let’s get back to those numbers of drawing down 700 still having 2000. Why were 27, 2800 agents needed? And it goes back to that cooperation. If the Operation Metro Surge entire point was to go after criminal illegal aliens, so criminal in the aspect that they have been convicted of another crime in the United States, not just the crime of being in the United States illegally. So I want to differentiate that because I know people will tell me, well, it’s a crime to come to the America illegally. This is in addition to them being here illegally. They have more than This is as of yesterday. They still have more than 1,360 active detainers for criminal illegal aliens that are in Minnesota jails. If Minnesota continued the path of letting these people out, if it was a small crime or a probation violation or something that they’ve been convicted of or their term in jail is coming up, then that is why they’re having to then do investigations, find where these people go and go on these raids to detain them and get them out of the country. This was just Monday. Some of the individuals that were arrested by immigration enforcement on Monday. One day. Someone from Uzbekistan who is a known suspected terrorist. Someone from the Ukraine who has been convicted of terroristic threats, domestic assault and DWI. Someone from Ecuador arrested for malicious punishment of a child, child abuse. A criminal alien from Mexico convicted of child abuse. A criminal alien from Mexico convicted of domestic violence, someone convicted of larceny, convicted of drug trafficking, someone from Cuba who is here illegally. And finally someone convicted of assault from Mexico. Now, once again, these are not individuals that are accused of those crimes. and are not getting due process for the allegation of those crimes. They are convicted in a U.S. court of law for those crimes after being here when they weren’t supposed to be. They are making those communities less safe. And as Tom Homan is saying, if we can do this efficiently, of getting these individuals with the cooperation of the government, which they had not been doing, you don’t need 2,800 people to get the 1,300 that remain. What you need is a very small fraction of that. He said his goal is to get back to the original footprint of ICE there. You know what that is? 150. Which feels about right. Because it’s a large metropolitan area that has large immigrant communities. That’s about right. That’s his goal. Because if they can continue this unprecedented cooperation, then they don’t need the ICE army there to try and get rid of what they know of, 1,360 active detainers remaining after the months of already being there with Operation Metro Service.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I think we can play a clip here. A lot of the agents, like you said, are not local to the area. Right. So you’re also talking about a lot of ICE agents. Of course, they’re doing their jobs. They’re doing their jobs away from home. They’re spending months away from their families. You know, this is where it becomes a little harder for them to even balance what’s going on. And I think we should hear from that. It’s Tom Holman, Byte 6.
SPEAKER 10 :
look we want to get back to the original footprint the Minnesota footprint of what ice office looked like before this operation plus the the additional hires for the big beautiful bill a lot of these people they got agency from LA in New York and Portland there’s problems there too so we want to get people back to their home stations and force immigration laws in those areas but the The vast majority of sheriffs, there’s only a few that we’re still in consultation with. But this is unprecedented cooperation. So again, I want to thank the sheriffs, the governor, and the AG. I think we’re in a lot better place than we’ve ever been in. We never had this kind of cooperation at this level. And I’m not leaving until we get all done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so you sit in sort of the adults in the room and stuff can get done and this can happen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Once again, the governor who he’s thinking there was the one going out on television saying we’re at war with the federal government calling ICE agents Trump’s Gestapo The rhetoric that was coming from… Yes, and that’s what’s so disgusting to me is that it’s a tired phrase, but playing political chess, using your people as pawns, it’s what they were doing. Even the people that weren’t necessarily paid activists, people that maybe genuinely are concerned about whether they’re correct because they have good facts or not, but there are people that genuinely do not like what ice is doing because of imagery they’ve been shown and they feel a conviction about that and that they are being played by their governor because this is what actually could have been happening and there’d be no unrest in the street yeah i want to go to a call let’s go to ann in pennsylvania on line three and thanks for holding hey guys uh you know once again the aclj is being uh you know
SPEAKER 09 :
uh, some bringing a semblance of calm. Okay.
SPEAKER 08 :
I just, yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. I love you guys. Listen, I have to say this because this is so important to me. I’m very, very stressed out. It’s sort of like 2020 and 24 all over again. Someone, the writer claiming that, you know, Holman and Trump are caving, standing down, capitulating is absolutely not the case. They are merely being, uh, Is everybody sitting down? Everybody, are you okay? Strategic. Because what has to happen is as a result of these two deaths, okay, there needs to be made a time to sit back, take a breath, OK, because it’s the agents who are also being they’re being they’re the ones being abused on a daily basis. They’re getting their fingers bit off. They’re getting screamed at. They’re getting pushed around and told not to be in their neighborhoods and they’re being abused. But I have to say this one last thing, and I’m so sorry, guys, but I have to say this. For those in the mega media, the ice is not melting, okay? Trump is not going back on his word. He will be deporting all illegals. Now, what took four years in bringing millions of illegals into the country, they expect to get this done overnight. And I’m so sick and tired of the mega media, and I’m not going to mention who, okay? Going after Trump and Holman, second guessing his leadership, second guessing who he has appointed. And they don’t even have to agree with all the decisions that Trump makes. But guess what? They decided that they’re the commander in chief. Last I checked, they didn’t go and campaign for years. They didn’t go and and, you know, basically, you know, sacrifice so much money. to get elected. Trump was even shot at twice. They impeached him twice. They brought up false charges against him. Now they’re the ones, oh, yeah, well, Trump, you know, he’s caving. You know, the ice is melting. What are we going to do? We’re going to lose our country. We’re going to lose the midterms. Bull Dinky, thank you for ACLJ for letting me call and rant every now and then. You guys are awesome.
SPEAKER 04 :
You are too, Anne.
SPEAKER 02 :
We like your rants, Anne. We appreciate it. Look, I think a lot of people understand that that’s what makes this show a little bit different is we are not just here for your clicks. We are not just going to tell you what you want to hear or rile you up or hopefully bring some form of anger that gets you to comment more. Of course, we want engagement. We want people talking. We want to have conversations with you. But we’re going to tell you the truth. We’re going to be honest with you. When we think things are going well and we think they’re not going well, you have people like Ann who call in who understand that these are nuanced situations. That these are not just loud mouth headline grabbers. We’re going to take your calls coming up. Let you know where Jordan is. Jordan’s actually not joining us, but there’s a good reason. We’ll let you know when we get back. Welcome back to Seculo. Sorry, we were in a very important conversation doing some scientific experiments during the break. You can take that for whatever you want it to be. We’re going to take some calls now. We’ve got a lot of you calling in. We’re going to try to just go in the order they came in because a lot of you have called in half an hour plus ago. We appreciate it. Ronald, South Carolina, you’re up.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, thanks for taking my call. One thing, I thought there was a rule in the book that said something about… The interference of a law enforcement officer and the performance of their duties and you’re subject to being arrested and things of that nature. So when the citizens of Minnesota who were probably riled up to go and to interfere with the ICE officers said, put themselves from private citizens to lawbreakers and therefore subject to the penalties of being lawbreakers. It’s just like those right to life who were literally brutalized and some senior citizens who were brutalized for just wanting to protest. for saving the lives of unborn children.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, Ronald, I think you kind of made your own point there, which is there are times where law enforcement gets involved incorrectly. When you deal with protesters, that they maybe aren’t always familiar with what the rules and the laws are. Now, of course, every protester knows going in, there’s a chance they end up in handcuffs. We have dealt with those people, like you said, in the pro-life world for decades who have been arrested 100 plus times for this. It’s when it escalates beyond that. But a lot of times those law enforcement agents, as much as I love the law enforcement, got great people who work here. A lot of times they don’t know the rules and regulations. I think that’s one of the concerns that you always have with any of this. We’ve had law enforcement injure pro-life protesters. just because they didn’t fully understand the laws, or again, it gets heated.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and also to Ronald’s point, I think this is actually a very good thing that the Secretary Noem has put out there, as well as Tom Homan, that they are going to be making sure that all of these agents are wearing body cams. Who does that traditionally help? The agent, the police officer, having the body cam on to be able to give full context of the entire incident. Because instead of you getting a short snippet of what someone decided to share on social media and going viral, there’s the whole engagement because it’s running the whole time. And I think this is part of the problem. Yes, there actually are. And there have been instances, it seems, where maybe ICE went too far with someone that was filming them. or was following them. That may not violate a law, but it could be obnoxious to the law enforcement. But then the people that are actually obstructing, there is a difference there. These also aren’t the laws that ICE is trained to be enforcing. They are trained to be enforcing immigration laws. So then it does start to get complicated, confusing, and then trying to make sure that they are doing the correct thing. I would prefer to have as many protections for the federal law enforcement before, preemptively, before having to then make a case for them after the fact that When it’s also based off of a short snippet on social media. So I think that to that point, there could be people that are protesting that then get into a situation with ICE that may go too far, but vice versa as well. So I think it’s a good thing to start to have more transparency and more protections for those federal law enforcement agencies.
SPEAKER 02 :
I want to jump over to a call. ACLJ champion called in today and yesterday. I wanted to make sure before we took your call, Cora, that we had an answer to your question because I know this is off topic, but this has been a topic that we have been working on for years. Cora, go ahead in Massachusetts.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, good afternoon, you guys. Thank you so much. I live in Massachusetts, obviously, and I’m a Christian. I’m a conservative, and last spring we began to see these terrible ads against pro-life pregnancy centers on youtube and things like that and it just disgusted me that my state was involved in sponsoring that i think it was so serendipitous that you vacationed in massachusetts and you saw that it was logan right that thought right that’s right i did i was on the streets and saw it and you you went right back and you confronted it you’re with aclj And anyway, I would just like to have an update. We’re part of Intercessions for America, a group that prays for Massachusetts every Monday morning, and I’d like to have enough information to pray intelligently and specifically.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely, and we appreciate you calling in. Yeah, and now is actually an incredible time that you called in because we need prayer on this case right now. The motion to dismiss hearing was last Thursday. So at this point, that is the group, the nonprofit, the NGO group, that was working with the state, both the state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that group filed motions to dismiss, wanting the judge to throw this out of court. We survived it the first time, but we had to start back kind of at the beginning, and we had a second motion to dismiss hearing last Thursday, January 29th. And so now it’s in the judge’s hands. Olivia was in Massachusetts last Thursday before that judge taking questions, arguing the case of the ACLJ. And now that’s over. We have to wait to see what the judge does. There are different angles that could come out. It’s not over over. If the judge decides to toss the case, we can then immediately go to the Court of Appeals. There could be a hybrid where, you know, the non-government group gets their case dismissed but we stay in court with the with the state or it could be the judge denies the motion to dismiss and we move on to another phase but it’s so important that you and your group be praying for that judge and for this case that we will be able to move forward and continue to seek
SPEAKER 02 :
justice and to get what is is the censorship of the government using that your taxpayer dollars Cora to fund this evil campaign so right now is the time to pray Cora please we appreciate it look I’m returning to Massachusetts this summer we love it there I love all the people there same in Minnesota you know these are great people there’s great people in every state we got to make sure we don’t demonize one area of the country let’s go ahead we got two minutes two calls let’s see if we can get real quick just in California go ahead
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. Um, yeah, basically my common touch question is this. So I think everyone can agree, like, yes, we should lock down the border. And we did, uh, you know, everyone agrees that we should deport criminal illegal aliens that are committing crimes while they’re in the U S of course, crossing the borders of crime itself, but you know, violent criminals or people convicted of crimes in the U S we all get that. I know everyone agrees. I think there might be a missed opportunity here. to provide a expedited pathway to citizenship for immigrants or illegal immigrants who are here, but they’re not committing crimes. They’re not violating the law. They’re contributing to the economy. They have hardworking jobs. They’re good people, generally, and they’re just here trying to make a living.
SPEAKER 02 :
Only cut me off for time, Justin. A lot of people have felt that way. I’d say pre-President Trump, that was maybe the Republican platform. Not specifically, but there’s a lot of people calling. We called for it a lot. Immigration reform, which created also a pathway to citizenship. I think that changed a little bit when you had such an open border issue over the last handful of years. When you had the chaos that was happening at the border, a lot of people started going, whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on here? This is very different than it was, say, 10, 20 years ago. Candy, unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to get to you today. I really appreciate your comment. If you want to call back first thing tomorrow, I will get to you. But unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to get to you. I always like to take a Georgia caller, too. That’s unfortunate. But I appreciate everyone who called in today. Look, a lot of very valid points. I tell that to my friends on both sides of the aisle that I talk to that listen and watch this show. I listen to everything you have to say. I like to have these discussions with you. I like to be honest with you and also tell you about the incredible work of the ACLJ because that’s what’s most important when it comes to this broadcast is the work that we’re doing for you in the courts and in the media. If you want to be a part of that, if you ever need help, you go to ACLJ.org slash help. You get a lawyer immediately, by the way, and you get that at no cost because people like you support the work of the ACLJ. So I encourage you to do it right now. Go to ACLJ.org. Spend some time on there. Become a champion if you can. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
