One of the core missions of my WBAL radio show—and my work more broadly—is simple: commentary based on facts. That shouldn’t be controversial. But in today’s debate over immigration enforcement and ICE, facts are either ignored, distorted, or deliberately buried under ideology.
Nowhere is that clearer than in what’s unfolding in Minnesota.
We’re told—by politicians, activists, and too many media outlets—that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is running wild, scooping people off the streets, terrorizing communities, arresting citizens, invading churches and schools. It’s an emotionally charged narrative. It’s also false.
Look at the debunked viral claims that ICE used a 5-year-old boy as ‘bait’. Let’s get the facts straight, because the spin here has been outrageous. ICE did not target a child—full stop. On January 20, agents were carrying out a targeted arrest of Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, an illegal alien from Ecuador who was released into the country by the Biden administration. When officers approached, Conejo Arias took off on foot and abandoned his own child. For the child’s safety, one ICE officer stayed behind while others apprehended the suspect. That’s called responsible law enforcement. However, the outrage machine wants a villain, but the truth is clear: ICE did its job, protected a child, and followed the law.
With reporting on ICE, reality is always at odds with the political narrative—and far more damning to those pushing the hysteria.
ICE is conducting targeted enforcement operations in Minnesota. These are not random sweeps. These are not raids on innocent families. According to the data— and confirmed by former immigration judge and national security expert Andrew Arthur—ICE has arrested roughly 3,000 individuals in the Minneapolis area. These individuals are not ‘neighbors just trying to live their lives.’ They are criminal aliens with serious convictions: child sex offenders, drug traffickers, individuals convicted of homicide, rape, and violent assault. Many are under final orders of removal.
That’s the part you rarely hear.
Instead, we hear governors and mayors comparing ICE to the Gestapo. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has claimed agents are abducting people in unmarked vans and shipping them off to ‘foreign torture dungeons.’ Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey fuels the same inflammatory rhetoric. None of it is supported by evidence. All of it is politically motivated.
Here’s the inconvenient truth: ICE cannot simply grab someone and throw them out of the country. Every non-citizen is entitled to due process. Courts are involved. Lawyers are involved. Judges are involved. That’s not an opinion—that’s the law. And if anyone knows that it’s Andrew Arthur, who spent decades on the immigration bench.
So why does the public believe otherwise?
Because too much of the media has abandoned its role to report the facts—to do journalism. Reporting facts about ICE enforcement is now treated as taking ‘the Trump administration’s side.’ That’s not journalism—that’s journalistic malpractice. When public figures label an ICE-related death as ‘murder’ before investigations are complete, and reporters nod along without challenge, the damage is done. Facts no longer matter. Identity and ideology do.
We’ve reached a point where people openly say, ‘Don’t try to change my mind.’ Translation: don’t confuse me with facts.
And let’s address the most important question of all—our WBAL listeners keep asking: why were these violent criminal aliens on the streets in the first place?
The answer goes back years. Obama-era DHS policies sharply limited ICE’s ability to arrest even convicted criminals. And on his first day in office, President Biden imposed a 100-day moratorium on removals—including for violent offenders. Those handcuffs on enforcement were never meaningfully removed.
That’s why ICE has to conduct large-scale targeted operations now. That’s why Congress passed the Laken Riley Act. And that’s why, under renewed enforcement, these criminals are finally being taken off the streets.
This shouldn’t be controversial. Protecting communities from violent offenders shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But when politics overrides facts—and when the media refuses to tell the whole story—we get chaos, protests, and dangerous confrontations that never needed to happen.
There will be investigations. They should be transparent. Let the facts come out. But until then, let’s stop lying to the public. Let’s stop pretending ICE is the villain for doing the job politicians refused to do for years.
Facts still matter. Or at least, they should.
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