Democrats are so committed to defending illegal immigration that they openly boast about fighting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s efforts to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
But that twisted logic takes an even more appalling turn when a former illegal immigrant is preaching from that soapbox.
U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, boasted during an interview with CBS’s “The Takeout” that he fights ICE every day, while touting that he was once an illegal alien himself.
“ICE is a very personal issue to me. I came from the Dominican Republic as a young boy on a visitor’s visa, overstayed a visa, found myself with no papers, had to go back and get my green card, and then come back with a green card, become a U.S. citizen, a voter, and now I’m a member of Congress,” Espaillat said. “What an American story. And so, this is very personal to me. I fight ICE every day, not just when it’s popular, not just when they conduct a raid. I’ve been fighting them since they were the Migra.”
(The term “la migra” derives from the Spanish word migración (migration) and is widely used as slang among Latino communities to refer to border patrol and immigration agents.)
“And so, I know this very well. I took Trump to court and won. Now we’re able to inspect detention centers, exercise our oversight duties as members of Congress,” the Democrat continued. “I sued the IRS, and we won, and they weren’t able to give confidential information of immigrant taxpayers to ICE. And I even pushed the airlines around, and they had to dismantle this structure that they had where they were selling passing your data to ICE. So, I’ve won. I’ve fought the administration and won.”
The victories the Democratic lawmaker refers to are stymying the enforcement of immigration laws in the furtherance of an open-border society. A push that defies the persistent claims on the left that illegal immigrants are not voting in our elections.
At the same time, Justice Democrats, the hard-left group responsible for AOC — U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — being elected to Congress, points out that Espaillat “voted to give over $8 billion to ICE and has taken over $100,000 from ICE contractors.”
Espaillat calls himself a leading voice against ICE…yet he voted to give over $8 billion to ICE and has taken over $100,000 from ICE contractors. https://t.co/ULHXQVHPc6
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) June 4, 2026
In his defense, Espaillat says these votes were part of massive, must-pass omnibus or continuing resolution packages to keep the entire federal government operational.
