{"id":621482,"date":"2026-06-19T12:03:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T12:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=621482"},"modified":"2026-06-19T12:03:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T12:03:05","slug":"congressional-hispanic-caucus-chair-boasts-about-fighting-ice-admits-he-was-once-illegal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=621482","title":{"rendered":"Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair boasts about fighting ICE, admits he was once illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/americanwirenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sg-adriano-espaillat-1200x630.jpg\" class=\"attachment-facebook size-facebook wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Democrats are so committed to defending illegal immigration that they openly boast about fighting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency\u2019s efforts to enforce the nation\u2019s immigration laws.<\/p>\n<p>But that twisted logic takes an even more appalling turn when a former illegal immigrant is preaching from that soapbox.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, boasted during an interview with CBS\u2019s \u201cThe Takeout\u201d that he fights ICE every day, while touting that he was once an illegal alien himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cICE is a very personal issue to me. I came from the Dominican Republic as a young boy on a visitor\u2019s 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\u2019m a member of Congress,\u201d Espaillat said. \u201cWhat an American story. And so, this is very personal to me. I fight ICE every day, not just when it\u2019s popular, not just when they conduct a raid. I\u2019ve been fighting them since they were the Migra.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(The term \u201cla migra\u201d derives from the Spanish word migraci\u00f3n (migration) and is widely used as slang among Latino communities to refer to border patrol and immigration agents.)<\/p>\n\n<p>\u201cAnd so, I know this very well. I took Trump to court and won. Now we\u2019re able to inspect detention centers, exercise our oversight duties as members of Congress,\u201d the Democrat continued. \u201cI sued the IRS, and we won, and they weren\u2019t 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\u2019ve won. I\u2019ve fought the administration and won.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Justice Democrats, the hard-left group responsible for AOC \u2014 U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u00a0 (D-NY) \u2014 being elected to Congress, points out that Espaillat \u201cvoted to give over $8 billion to ICE and has taken over $100,000 from ICE contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Espaillat calls himself a leading voice against ICE\u2026yet he voted to give over $8 billion to ICE and has taken over $100,000 from ICE contractors. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ULHXQVHPc6\">https:\/\/t.co\/ULHXQVHPc6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Justice Democrats (@justicedems) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/justicedems\/status\/2062539472940478921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/americanwirenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sg-adriano-espaillat-1200x630.jpg\" title=\"Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair boasts about fighting ICE, admits he was once illegal\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats are so committed to defending illegal immigration that they openly boast about fighting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency\u2019s efforts to enforce the nation\u2019s 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&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=621482\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair boasts about fighting ICE, admits he was once illegal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":621471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,10,21,12,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancel-culture","category-censorship","category-civil-liberties","category-election-integrity","category-equal-justice","category-free-speech","category-religious-freedom","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/621471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}